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Chapter IX. Jesuit Influence in India.

The reader who shall intelligently trace the history of the Jesuit through their conspiracies against the peace of Europe, and especially their tireless efforts to eradicate everything that tended to freedom of conscience and the public enlightenment, will not wonder that, during the last century, it became necessary to the interests of society and the Church that one of the foremost of the popes should suppress and entirely abolish the order. And as that event was brought about, not alone on account of the odium they incurred by intermeddling with the temporal affairs of States, but because they pursued practices which shocked the whole Christian world, their society can not be thoroughly understood without becoming familiar with the history of their missionary enterprises. As they prosecuted these among ignorant and illiterate multitudes of peoples, where no watchful eye could observe them, they have mainly become their own historians; yet there is enough to be discovered to show that, at every stage of their development, they have been true to the injunction of their founder, to be “all things to all men.”

Loyola considered his society superior to the ancient monastic orders. We have seen that he looked upon the latter as corrupted, and no longer worthy to be intrusted with the work of Christian missions, on which account he claimed for his society superior jurisdiction in the missionary field. There, among populations unable to detect imposture, his followers had their own way, made their own history, and executed their own purposes, without intelligent popular inspection. Consequently, when he realized the odium his society had encountered among European peoples, he considered it necessary to remove this by setting up for it exaggerated claims of merit in the missionary work. By this means he evidently hoped to be able to appeal successfully to the pope and the Church to protect the Jesuits from the rising indignation of such Christians as had resisted their introduction into France. Hence it became a fixed Jesuit habit, and yet is, to shield the society under pretense that it is a necessary part of the Church machinery, and that the Church can not exist without it. And out of that same necessity must have grown that multitude of miracles, said to have been performed in remote and unfrequented parts of the world, and in the manufacture of which the Jesuits have acquired the reputation of being thorough adepts. It was not a difficult matter in those days to impose upon superstitious people by the claim of miraculous powers. None understood this better than the Jesuits.

The first important mission of the Jesuits was to the East Indies, in charge of Francis Xavier, one of the most impressible of Loyola’s converts, This mission is of chief importance, inasmuch as it was initiatory, and conspicuously displays the operations of the society whilst under the immediate personal charge of its founder. It indicates the methods of the Jesuit missionary system, and how they were made to conform to the main purpose of acquiring dominion, with but little regard to the means employed. There are very few of the present age who do not regard many of the recorded events as apocryphal—notwithstanding, the overcredulous have accepted them as true for many centuries. They are only important now because we learn from them the prominent characteristics of the Jesuits, and the real foundation of the reputation to which they so boastingly lay claim.

The Portuguese had, some years before, acquired the occupancy of territory in India, with a commercial capital and an episcopal see at Goa. By means of these influences a number of the natives had professed Christianity, and, along with all the Portuguese Christians, paid spiritual allegiance to the pope. But the condition of society was by no means favorable to the practice of the Christian virtues. On the contrary, it had become greatly demoralized, rivaling Rome and the principal cities of Europe in that respect. In “The Lives of the Saints”—a work of standard ecclesiastical authority in the Roman Church—the author represents “revenge, ambition, avarice, usury, and debauchery,” as extensively prevailing at Goa. According to him, the Indians who had professed conversion were so influenced by the example of the Portuguese that they had “relapsed into their ancient manners and superstitions.” Even those who professed to be Christians “lived in direct opposition to the gospel which they professed, and by their manners alienated the infidels from the faith.¹

¹Lives of the Saints. By the Rev. Alban Butler. Vol. XII, article “St. Francis Xavier,” December 3, p. 608.

Those familiar with the condition of ecclesiastical affairs in Europe at that time, and especially with the immorality prevailing at Rome, will not be surprised at this description of things at so remote a place as the Portuguese possessions in India. Of course, such tendency to demoralization could not long exist anywhere without producing absolute social degradation. To prevent this, the king of Portugal made an attempt to reform these abuses, influenced probably by the twofold purpose of desiring to spread Christianity and to improve the commercial interests of his subjects. Xavier, therefore, was sent to India under his auspices, and was better fitted for that purpose than Loyola himself would have been, because he was less ambitious, less selfish, and more conscientious. Whilst he possessed some commendable traits of character and wonderful energy, much that has been written about him by papal and Jesuit authors can only be considered as imaginary, and as deserving no permanent place in history. The character assigned to him is perfectly angelic, with scarcely any mixture of humanity; and, like Loyola, he is represented as having performed a vast number of miracles, even to the extent of restoring the dead to life! With regard to these, he is said to have resembled Loyola in another respect—in that he, too, performed more miracles than Christ! It is not difficult to perceive the object of all this, when it is considered that the pretenses were set up at a time when an unenlightened public were easily misled by them. They, like the innumerable myths of the Middle Ages, answered the ends of their inventors, and are no further useful now than as they serve to show, not only the character of the society which required them to be accepted as absolutely true, but that of those who invented and employed them to mislead the credulous and unsuspecting multitude. The entire account of Xavier’s mission is so mixed up with these idle tales that the time spent in their perusal would be wasted, but for the reason that they bring prominently before us some of the distinguishing characteristics of the Jesuits, under the tuition and during the lives of the founder of their society and his most confidential colleague.

When he reached Goa, Xavier found the Portuguese Christians in the demoralized condition already mentioned. The order of Franciscans had there an established monastery, which, as we may suppose, needed to be reformed, inasmuch as they do mot seem to have been excepted from other professing Christians in the general charge of immorality. We do not learn from Jesuit authors how far this ” order was in fact reformed, since the eulogists of Xavier consider it to have been his greatest glory that he brought vast multitudes of the natives into the Christian fold, and thereby established Jesuit authority and dominion in India in place of that which the Church, under the patronage of the pope and by means of the long established religious orders, had already acquired there. This was manifestly the view which Xavier himself took of his mission, as is plainly shown by his conduct. Instead of cooperating with the established Church authorities and with the monks at Goa, 156 FOOTPRINTS OF THE JESUITS.

he entered upon an independent course of his own, whereby he evidently intended to indicate the superiority of his Jesuit methods. He roamed the streets with a bell in his hand, and when the ringing attracted a crowd of curious lookers-on, he invited them “to send their children and slaves to catechism,” so as to learn the truths of Christianity from him. When the children gathered around him, prompted alone by curiosity, he taught them “the Creed and practices of devotion,” which, of course, could have been nothing more than the simplest form. After following this method for some time, he engaged in public preaching, and it is gravely said that “in half a year” he accomplished the “reformation of the whole city of Goa,” which must have included the native along with the Portuguese population. The whole story is told after the manner of the romance-writers.

Reflecting people, who read of the immense multitudes converted to Christianity under his eloquent preaching, not only at Goa, but in other parts of India, will naturally wonder how all this could have occurred when the natives did not understand his language, nor he theirs! But the Jesuits have no difficulty on that score—nor, indeed, on any other— when the simple invention of a miracle will serve their purpose. Xavier became as famous as Loyola in this respect. Butler represents him as having “baptized ten thousand Indians with his own hand in one month,” and “sometimes a whole village” in a single day; and as “having preached to five or six thousand persons together,” but without stating in what language he preached. Seeming, however, to anticipate that there might be some to inquire how much of real Christianity there was in these professed conversions, and how he could have preached with so much effect to those whose language he could not speak and who could not understand his, he endeavors to remove the difficulty—evidently following the Jesuit story—by declaring that, while in India, “God first communicated to him the gift of tongues,” so that “he spoke very well the language of those barbarians without having learned it, and had no need of an interpreter when he instructed them!”₂ It is impossible now to decide how this statement originated. Xavier reported only to Loyola—not to the pope or the Church—and whatsoever was circulated in Europe to aid the cause of the Jesuits, and to gain them popularity on account of the success of their missions, was derived from him. But whether it originated with Xavier or Loyola, or was invented after the death of both, neither the repetition of it now, nor its recent appearance in an authoritative ecclesiastical volume, published and extensively circulated in the United States, can relieve it from the suspicion of a fabulous origin.

₂ History of the Saints. By the Rev. Alban Butler, Vol. XII, article “St. Francis Xavier,’’? December 3, p. 610,

During the brief stay of Xavier at Goa, he availed himself of the opportunity of setting an example which the Jesuits of every subsequent period have been prompt to imitate—an example which gives practical interpretation to the Jesuit vow of “extreme poverty.” The Franciscan monks had erected a seminary, where they taught the native youths at least the rudiments of a Christian education. But Xavier was not satisfied with this, having manifestly conceived the idea, still maintained by the Jesuits, that the cause of education should be intrusted solely to them, on account of their superiority over all others, including every religious order. Influenced presumably by this consideration alone, he conceived a plan of having the Franciscan seminary turned over to him, with the view of converting it into a Jesuit college. Claiming that he was a more immediate and responsible representative of the Church than any of the monastic orders, inasmuch as the brief of the pope conferred special missionary prerogatives upon him, he succeeded in effecting his purpose by inducing the Franciscans to transfer the building to him. Whereupon the Franciscans were left to engage in such other methods as they could to minister to the Portuguese Christians and convert the natives, whilst Xavier was permitted to establish his Jesuit college, so that whatsoever renown should follow the Indian missions might inure to the benefit of the Jesuits, and not to that of the monastic orders. The Jesuits have never since then lost sight of this idea or failed to profit by it, always taking care in making up the history of these missions to place their society in the front and the monastic orders in the back- ground, notwithstanding the latter preceded them in India. They seem disinclined to allow the least credit to any of the missionary agencies which the Church had been accustomed to employ.

Having obtained possession of the Franciscan seminary at Goa, Xavier decided that the building should be improved, so as to impress the simple natives with the superiority of the Jesuits over the monks. To an ordinary mind this would appear to be a difficult thing to accomplish, inasmuch as it is not probable that voluntary contributions could have been procured in such a community. But to Xavier it was easy to overcome so trivial a difficulty as this, as it always has been to the Jesuits, without finding the least impediment in the vow of “extreme poverty.” All he had to do was to employ the Portuguese troops stationed at Goa “in pulling down the heathen temples in the neighborhood of Goa, and appropriating their very considerable property. for the use and benefit of the new college.”³ Admirable strategy! The poor natives were powerless to resist the Portuguese troops with arms in their hands, and were compelled to stand by in silence and see their property despoiled without compensation, all under the pretense that “the greater glory of God” required it, when, in fact, it was prompted by Jesuit ambition. Xavier must have felt gratified at his inexpensive mode of improving his new college, and Loyola undoubtedly rejoiced when the fact was reported to him. The former, therefore, having so successfully occupied the missionary field at Goa by this display of Jesuit power to the natives, and by reducing the Franciscan monks to inferiority, hastened to other parts of India, to carry on the work he had begun under such flattering auspices.

³Griesinger, pp. 88-89.

He proceeded to the coast of Malabar, where the missionaries previously sent from Goa, under the authority and within the jurisdiction of that episcopal see, had baptized a large number of the natives, whom they claimed to have been converted to Christianity under the methods employed by them. But in order to make it appear that these missionaries were inefficient and incompetent, the Jesuits pretend that these professed converts still “retained their superstitions and vices,”⁴ and that it was absolutely necessary they should be brought under the influence of Xavier. The purpose of this, at that time, was to prove to the Christian world that the Church and the papacy had failed to accomplish any good missionary results through the agency of the monks, and that the Jesuits were absolutely indispensable. In this way it was hoped, doubtless, to overcome the prejudice existing against the society in Europe. Therefore, Xavier is represented as having saved the Malabar converts from relapsing into heathenism, and increased the number of natives who submitted to baptism. Whilst all this is spoken in his praise, it is quite certain, from the most favorable accounts, that they entertain but little, if any, just conception of the ceremony of baptism, or, indeed, of any of the fundamental principles of Christianity.

⁴Butler, pp. 608, 609.

The first effort of Xavier upon the Malabar Coast was at Cape Comorin, in a village “full of idolaters,” to whom he preached; but as they were unable to understand what he said, they remained unmoved, having been probably attracted, like the people of Goa, by his bell-ringing in the streets. Why the “ gift of tongues” was then withheld from him is not easy to determine, unless it was that he might be furnished an opportunity of impressing the ignorant natives with sentiments of awe by performing a miracle. At all events, Butler records what happened in these words: “A woman who had been three days in the pains of childbirth, without being eased by any remedies or prayers of the Brahmins, was immediately delivered, and recovered upon being instructed in the faith, and baptized by St. Francis [Xavier], as he himself relates in a letter to St. Ignatius [Loyola].” How she was instructed in the faith is, of course, not explained, it being left to the imagination of the reader to conceive by what extraordinary process this ignorant woman was instructed in the Christian faith, so that she could be rightfully baptized into the Church, when she did not understand the language in which she was addressed. If she even realized that her safe delivery and instantaneous restoration were occasioned by his intervention, there was no possible mode of conveying to her mind the idea that it was God’s work and not’ Xavier’s, for there was no word in any of the languages of India signifying the Deity in the Christian sense. The whvle story is not only preposterous, but puerile. But it bears the unmistakable stamp of Jesuitism, like others of the same general character. For example, it is seriously recorded by the same author, that after the happening of this event, “the chief persons of the country listened to his doctrine, and heartily embraced the faith.” He preached to those who had never before heard of Christ, “and so great were the multitude which he baptized, that sometimes, by the bare fatigue of administering that sacrament, he was scarcely able to move his arm, according to the account which he gave to his brethren in Europe.” He healed the sick by baptism, and where his presence was impracticable, he sent a neophyte to touch them with a cross, when, if they signified a desire to be baptized, they were restored to health. In addition, it is also said that he brought back to life four persons who were dead, during the fifteen months he remained upon the Malabar Coast.⁵

⁵ Butler, p. 609.

He had preached at Travancore, near Comorin, where he was more favored by having the “gift of tongues” given to him, so that he could speak in one language as well as another. Thus endowed, as the Jesuits insist, with divine . power, he dispersed and drove out of the country “a tribe of savages and public robbers,” who were in search of plunder, by approaching them with a crucifix in his hand, although they had never heard of a crucifix before, and had no means of knowing what it signified. When the people of a village near Travancore remained uninfluenced by his preaching— an event not at all wonderful considering their utter ignorance of Christianity—he is represented as having again resorted to a miracle, which was the never- failing Jesuit resource. He had a grave opened, which contained a body interred the day before, and, after putrefaction had commenced, restored it to life and “perfect health.” Near the same place he also brought back to life a young man whose corpse he met on the way to the grave. “These miracles,” says Butler, “made so great an impression upon the people that the whole kingdom of Travancore was subjected to Christ in a few months, except the king and some of his courtiers.”⁶

⁶ Butler, p. 611.

Every enlightened mind will reject such tales as pure fictions—as absolutely incredible. They trifle with serious things, and their inventors act in imitation of those who make merchandise of human souls. It directly impeaches the wisdom of Providence to pretend that he permitted miracles to be performed in his name—even the dead to be raised to life—to influence the destiny of an ignorant heathen population utterly unable to appreciate the character and teach- ings of Christ, whilst, at the same time, he permitted almost every variety of vice and corruption to prevail among the intelligent populations of Europe, and to fester about the very heart of the papacy itself.

The accounts of what was done by Xavier in the various parts of India are of the same general character as the foregoing, the chief variations being in the kind of miracles performed by him. To minds capable of subjecting them to the test of reason and common sense, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that they were either invented by Xavier himself, and sent to Europe to aid Loyola in giving popularity to the Jesuits, or were made up by them after his death for the same purpose. In point of fact, his whole claim to be considered as the “Apostle of the Indies” rests upon a flimsy and unsubstantial foundation. This is especially so, in view of the fact that the multitudes he pretended to convert were turned into professing Christians by the simple ceremony of baptism. Some of them may possibly have been able to repeat the invocations “Our Father” and “Hail Mary,” but without any intelligent conception of the difference between the one Omnipotent God of the Christians and the many gods they had been accustomed to worship, or of the meaning of the words uttered to them by Xavier, or of the sacraments he administered, or of any of the attributes of the Deity, or of a single essential principle in the Christian Creed. Nevertheless, other accounts are added, whereby he is represented as having visited other places upon the Indian coast, where like results are said to have been produced, until, atter having remained about seven years in the East Indies, he went to Japan to bring that idolatrous nation under the same influences, leaving the bulk of his Indian converts to succumb to the dominion of the Brahmins, and sink back into heathenism. He did not seem to realize that true couversion to the Christian faith involves the sympathetic emotions of the heart, the intelligent action of the mind, and that without these, no signs, or genuflexions, or empty words spoken merely from the lips, can give substantial value to the profession of it. A knowledge of the manual of arms does not impart to a coward the bravery of a true soldier, nur does the repetition of a few familiar words convert a parrot into an intelligent being. And not a whit more can a heathen, who never heard of Christ, be converted into a Christian by any form of words, or by any botily gestures, unless his mind has been touched and his heart stirred by some knowledge of what and who God is, and of the wisdom of his providences displayed in the creation and government of the universe. One would suppose that the “gift of tongues,” when once conferred upon Xavier, remained with him, inasmuch as he could not convey his thoughts to the multitudes of people in any other way. But, strange to say, it was otherwise. This miraculous gift was a mere “transient favor,”⁷ conferred only for a season, during his intercourse with some of the heathen populations of India, and withdrawn as miraculously as it had been given. What strange infatuation it must be to accept it as true that, after he had been divinely endowed with the faculty of preaching to the people of India in their own languages, he should have entered upon his mission to Japan without any knowledge whatsoever of the Japanese language! Although that language is one of the most difficult in the world, and wholly unlike any spoken then or now in Europe, yet that fact was of trifling consequence to such a man as the Jesuits represent Xavier to have been. He undertook this mission as if nothing were in the way, relying, as may be inferred from the Jesuit accounts, upon his miraculous powers to convert to Christianity an idolatrous people he had never seen, and of whom the world at that time knew but little. It is solemnly averred that in forty days (!) he acquired a sufficient knowledge of the Japanese language to translate into it the Apostles’ Creed, and an exposition of its meaning by himself. With this he began to preach, and “converted a great number.” Still the intensity of his zeal made him impatient, and, being unwilling to await the slow process of appealing to the intelligence of the Japanese people, he resorted again to the familiar expedient of miracles, which had accomplished so much in India. Accordingly, we are told that, “by his blessing, a child’s body, which was swelled and deformed, was made straight and beautiful; and, by his prayers, a leper was healed, and a pagan young maid of quality, that had been dead a whole day, was raised to life.”⁸ The Jesuits have never hesitated to assign to Xavier, as they did to Loyola, the performance of some miracle, when anything had to be done that could be accomplished in no other way. The aggregate number of miracles attributed to them exceed all that are recorded in the Gospels. And neither Xavier nor Loyola ever hesitated to avow their authority to perform them, in verification of the Jesuit doctrine that God had transferred his divine attributes to each of them.

⁷ Butler, p. 614,
⁸ Butler, p. 615.

Such recitals are calculated to tax the patience of enlightened readers of this day; but without them it is not possible to obtain accurate knowledge of the record the Jesuits have made up to inform the world of the glorious achievements of their society, and to keep out of view the enormities for which they have been, in the course of their history, condemned by every Christian nation and people of Europe. They are necessary also to a proper understanding why Xavier was beatified and canonized; for these and other kindred fables were held to be sufficiently attested to cause his name to be enrolled among the saints.

The difficulty of conveying to the minds of the Japanese people any proper idea of God, when their language contained no word to express it, has already been suggested with regard to India. He told them, says Butler, that “Deos” meant God. But it is impossible that this or any other single word can so signify the Deity as to convey to an ignorant, idolatrous people any just conception of the Creator of the world, or of his Divine attributes, or of their own responsibilities to him either in life or death. But the wonderful exploits of Xavier were not balked at this or any other point. The “ gift of tongues” had once been given to him, whereby he was enabled to preach to any people without any previous knowledge of their language. This gift, however, as we have seen, was only a “transient favor,” granted for a season, or some special occasion, and taken away. And, notwithstanding, in consequence of this, it had become necessary that he should learn the Japanese language in forty days, so as to be able to speak and write it, it still became necessary also that he should again have the power conferred upon him to understand and speak all languages. Consequently, we learn from Butler that “at Amanguchi God restored to St. Francis the gift of tongues; for he preached often to the Chinese merchants who traded there, in their mother tongue, which he had never learned.”⁹ To appreciate the character of this statement, it should be borne in mind that, at that time, he had never visited China. And it is proper to observe that, notwithstanding this providential preparation for missionary labors in that country, he never did visit there.

⁹ Butler, p. 616.

It converts serious things into mockery to pretend that God conferred this gift upon Xavier in order to fit him specially for the conversion of the Chinese, and yet that he so disposed his providences with reference to him that he was never able to enter that empire, or to hold direct intercourse with its people. If it had been the Divine decree that he should be set apart for this great work by this miraculous preparation, no earthly impediment would have been likely to arrest him, or keep him out of China; for God’s fixed purposes are not subject to fluctuation to suit the exigencies of human affairs. But, notwithstanding he made several earnest efforts to get there, he signally failed in all of them. He returned from Japan to India, and, after remaining a short time at Goa, resorted to the expedient of attempting an entrance into China by indirection, because the authorities there were inimical to the Portuguese. He conceived the idea of procuring the organization of a diplomatic mission, and having himself attached to it, so that, by this means, he could enter the country. This plan having failed, he endeavored to accomplish his object ” secretly,” says Butler, making the effort to be landed somewhere upon the Chinese coast, “where no houses were in view.” Every step he took, however, proved abortive, and he died before reaching China, thus leaving wholly unaccomplished what the Jesuits allege was the foreordained purpose of Providence.

The death of Xavier occurred in 1552, and his remains were taken to Goa about three months after, when, according to the Jesuit account, his flesh “was found ruddy and fresh-colored, like a man who is in sweet repose!” When it was cut, the blood ran! And so necessary is it deemed by the Jesuits that his body shall appear to have been absolutely incorruptible—as an argument to prove that their society is under the special protection and guardianship of God—it is seriously affirmed that “the holy corpse exhaled an odor so fragrant and delightful that the most exquisite perfume came nothing near it.” When the body reached Malacca, a pestilence then wasting the city, suddenly ceased, the effect alone of its mere presence! It was transported to Goa—”entire, fresh, and still exhaling a sweet odor”—and deposited in the church of the Jesuit college he had dexterously obtained from the Franciscan monks. Upon this occasion we are told that “several blind persons recovered their sight, and others, sick of palsies and other diseases, their health and the use of their limbs!” His relies, by order of the King of Portugal, were visited in 1774—one hundred and ninety-two years after his death—when “the body was found without the least bad smell, and seemed environed with a kind of shining brightness, and the face, hands, breast, and feet had not suffered the least alteration or symptom of corruption!” ¹⁰

¹⁰ Butler, pp. 620-622,

In view of the universal experience of mankind and the enlightenment of the present age, it is difficult to treat the foregoing statements seriously, they are so palpably the product of Jesuit imposture. And yet they are published in this country, and recommended as positive truths, by the highest ecclesiastical authority, as if some intelligent providential object would be accomplished by believing them. Notwithstanding, however, that every man of common sense will reject them, they are indispensable to a proper understanding of the methods employed by the Jesuits in setting forth the claims of their society to providential favor. And although the vagaries of the wildest enthusiasts are more credible, because they do not sport with sacred things, their recital puts us in possession of some of the means of unraveling the nets this wonderful society has cunningly woven.