-What was it possible for them to believe of Christianity, than that it was some devilish compact, which at once invested men with a terrible power, and with the will to wield it, for the accomplishment of the widest ruin and the profoundest misery?

Through all this, under all changes, whoever were masters, or whoever were contending-the Indians experienced but one lot, slavery and ruin. Laws indeed were repeatedly enacted in Portugal on their behalf-they were repeatedly declared free-but as everywhere else, they were laughed at by the colonists, or resisted with rebellious fury.

Amid this long career of violence, the only thing which the mind can repose on with any degree of pleasure, is the conduct of the Jesuits, the steady friends of justice and the Indians; and towards the latter part of this period there arrived in Maranham one of the most extraordinary men, which not only that remarkable order, but which the world has produced. This was Antonio Vieyra, a young Jesuit, who had left the favour of the king and court, and the most brilliant prospects, for the single purpose of devoting himself to the cause of the Indians. His boldness, his honesty of speech and purpose, his resolute resistance to the system of base oppression, operating through the whole mass of society around him—were perhaps equalled by his fellows; but the greatness of his talents, and the vehement splendour of his eloquence, have few equals in any age. Mr. Southey has given the substance of a sermon preached by him before the governor at St. Lewis, which so startled and moved the whole people, by the novel and fearful view in which he exhibited to them their treatment of the

Indians, that with one accord they resolved to set them free.

It is worth while here to give a slight specimen or two of this extraordinary discourse. His text was, the offer of Satan:-" All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” "Things," said he, "are estimated at what they

cost. What then did the world cost our Saviour, and what did a soul cost him? The world cost him a word-He spoke, and it was made. A soul cost Him his life, and his blood. But if the world cost only a word of God, and a soul cost the blood of God, a soul is worth more than all the world. This Christ thought, and this the devil confessed. Yet you know how cheaply we value our souls? you know at what rate we sell them? We wonder that Judas should have sold his Master and his soul for thirty pieces of silver; but how many are there who offer their own to the devil for less than fifteen! Christians! I am not now telling you that you ought not to sell your souls, for I know that you must sell them ;-I only entreat that you will sell them by weight. Weigh well what a soul is worth, and what it cost, and then sell it and welcome! But in what scales is it to be weighed? You think I shall say, In those of St. Michael the archangel, in which souls are weighed. I do not require so much. Weigh them in the devil's own balance, and I shall be satisfied! Take the devil's balance in one hand, put the whole world in one scale and a soul in the other, and you will find that your soul weighs more than the world. All this will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.'

But at what a different price now does

the devil purchase souls from that which he formerly offered for them? I mean in this country. The devil has not a fair in the world where they go cheaper! In the Gospel he offers all the kingdoms of the world to purchase a single soul;-he does not require so large a price to purchase all that are in Maranham. It is not necessary to offer worlds; it is not necessary to offer kingdoms, nor cities, nor towns, nor villages;—it is enough for the devil to point at a plantation, and a couple of Tapuyas, and down goes the man upon his knees to worship him! Oh what a market! A negro for a soul, and the soul the blacker of the two! The negro shall be your slave for the few days you have to live, and your soul shall be my slave through all eternity-as long as God is God! This is the bargain which the devil makes with you."

Amazing as was the effect of this celebrated sermon, of course it did not last long. But Vieyra did not rest here. He hastened to Portugal, and stated the treatment of the Indians to the king. He obtained an order, that all the Indian settlements in the state of Maranham should be under the direction of the Jesuits; that Vieyra should direct all expeditions into the interior, and settle the reduced Indians where he pleased; and that all ransomed Indians should be slaves for five years and no longer, their labour in that time being an ample compensation for their original cost. Here was a sort of apprenticeship system more favourable than the modern British one, but destined to be just as little observed.

CHAPTER XII.

THE PORTUGUESE IN BRAZIL,- -CONTINUED.

I regret that my limits will not permit me to follow further the labours and enterprises of Vieyra and his brethren in behalf of the Indians, whom they sought far and wide in that immense region, and brought in thousands upon thousands into settlements, only to arouse afresh the furious opposition, and bring down upon themselves the vengeance of the colonists. But the history of this great strife between Christianity and Injustice, in Brazil, fills three massy quarto volumes, and runs through three centuries. It is full of details of the deepest interest; but there is no chapter, either in that history or any other, more heart-rending, than that of the transfer of the seven Reductions of the Jesuits lying east of the Uruguay. These were ceded by Spain to Portugal in 1750, in a treaty of demarcation.

"They contained," to use the words of Mr. Southey," thirty thousand Guaranies, not fresh from the woods or half reclaimed, and therefore willing to revert to a savage state, and capable of enduring its exposure, hardships, and privations; but born as their

fathers and grandfathers had been, in easy servitude, and bred up in the comforts of regular domestic life. These persons, with their wives and their children, their sick and their aged, their horses, and their sheep and their oxen, were to turn out, like the children of Israel from Egypt, into the wilderness; not to escape from bondage, but in obedience to one of the most tyranical commands that ever were issued in the recklessness of unfeeling power." Mr. Southey adds, "Yet Ferdinand must be acquitted of intentional injustice. His disposition was such, that he would have rather suffered martyrdom than have issued so wicked an edict, had he been sensible of its inhumanity and wickedness."

This might more readily be credited, if, when the abominable enormity of the measure was made manifest to him, any disposition was shewn to stop the proceedings, or make reparation for the misery inflicted. But nothing of the kind took place. The Jesuits made immediate and earnest representations; the Indians cried out vehemently against their expatriation; the colonists of both countries were averse to the measure; the very governors and officers proceeded tardily with it, in the hope that the moment the evil was discovered it would be countermanded; but no such countermand was ever issued. And what was there to hinder it? The King of Spain and the Queen of Portugal, were man and wife, dwelling in one palace, and of the greatest accord in life and sentiment; it had only to be willed by one of them, and it might, and would have been, speedily done. If ever there was a cold-blooded transaction, in which the lives and happiness of thirty thousand innocent