Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

in consequence of speaking a strange language, has continued to lean on the parent country, imbibing quite too much of the apathy and inertia which has so long governed its destiny.

Since the revolution of 1822 she has, however, made much progress towards casting off her dependence; and her present condition in regard to religion, shows the effect produced on her population by the new position which she has assumed. Having taken an honorable post among the nations, she cherishes a praiseworthy ambition to be their equal; she desires improvement; she directs an inquiring eye towards other nations; she compares their state with her own, and is willing to profit as far as possible by their knowledge and experience.

She has already discovered that a religion ingrafted on the state is exceedingly defective, and that the lives of its chief apostles and teachers but poorly correspond with the sacredness of their profession. In consequence of this state of public feeling, religion is gradually yielding to infidelity; churches are falling into ruin; parishes are deserted by their spiritual guides; ecclesiastics are turning into politicians, and monasticism is wearing out, while there is nothing better to take its place.

In Para nearly all the churches are going to ruin ;-out of 96 parishes only 37 are supplied with priests. In Maranham 25 churches had been advertised as open for applications, without securing a single candidate. In the diocese of Cayaba not a single church is provided with a settled curate; and in the rich bishoprick of Rio, embracing four provinces, only five or six priests are ordained annually. President Caelho declares that the clergy are ignorant, depraved in their habits, corrupt in their morals, involved in the concerns of the world, and totally forgetful of their heavenly mission. A distinguished ecclesiastic assured Mr. Kidder that Brazil was in darkness, and altogether behind the age. Feijo, Regent during a portion of the Emperor's minority, himself a priest, asserted that there was scarcely a priest in the province of San Paulo who did his duty as the Church prescribed it.

The constitution of Brazil provides that the Roman Catholic religion shall be the religion of the state, while it allows all modes of worship to be prac

tised, save in "buildings having the exterior form of a temple." This is the more remarkable when it is remembered, that for three centuries the Roman Catholic form of worship has held undisputed sway, and that no̟ other faith has sought admittance to the Brazilian mind; "and yet," says Mr. Kidder, "it is my firm conviction that there is not a Roman Catholic country on the globe where there prevails a greater degree of toleration, or a greater liberality of feeling towards Protestants."

The truth of this proposition was abundantly established by Mr. Kidder's experience. He travelled openly in the character of a Protestant missionary; distributed tracts, Testaments and Bibles in the Portuguese language; made known his errand to statesmen, Church dignitaries and the lower grades of priests; and yet, though he thus openly visited every province, except the three mining provinces of the interior, he is not sure that a majority of the priesthood did not manifest towards him and his work both favor and friendship.

Some of the Bibles which he distributed from the mission-house at Rio he afterwards met with at San Paulo, 300 miles distant; and during his visit to that province, he, a Protestant missionary in a Catholic country, was entertained by one of its most distinguished ecclesiastics with marked hospitality, and invited to leave with his host copies of books for distribution, with the view of counteracting the manifest tendency of the people towards infidelity.

Another evidence, equally striking, that the Brazilian mind is becoming loosened from the shackles of that superstition which has so long bound it, may be found in the fact that a proposition to annul the order prohibiting the marriage of the clergy was discussed and received with marked favor in the House of Deputies at Rio.

This last movement was headed by no less a personage than Feijo, at one time Regent of the Empire, and one of the most remarkable men of his time. He was educated to the priesthood, but laid aside his "holy garments" for the more exciting theatre of political life. He had been a member of the Cortez of Lisbon, from which body he withdrew in disgust at the indignities cast on the Brazilian members; and having published a solemn protest

against the conduct of Portugal, returned to America. After the establishment of the independent government he became a prominent member of the House of Deputies, where he made his masterly report in favor of clerical marriages. Such a report, coming from an ecclesiastic of high standing, excited a great deal of attention. But that it was not prejudicial to his standing or popularity is evident from the fact, that he was afterwards appointed Minister of State, Regent of the Empire, and Senator for life. He was, moreover, elected by the imperial government Bishop of Moriana, à dignity which he saw fit to decline. He died in 1843.

The government of Brazil is a monarchy, limited in its powers by the provisions of a written constitution. The empire is divided into eighteen provinces, each of which has a separate local government. The governor or president of each province is appointed by the Emperor, and holds his office at his pleasure. Each province has a legislative assembly consisting of one house only, the members of which are elected by the people, and which is authorized to pass such internal local laws and regulations as the wants of the province may require.

The legislative power of the empire is vested in a Senate and House of Deputies, which hold their sessions at Rio de Janeiro. The deputies are the representatives of the several provinces, and their number is graduated by the population. They hold their seats for four years unless dissolved by imperial authority. It is not, however, necessary for a deputy to be a resident of the province which he represents, but he may be chosen from his own or any other province. The House of Deputies, as at present constituted, consists of one hundred and three members. Its presiding officer is elected from its own body.

The Senate is a more aristocratic body, the members holding their appointment during life. It consists, as at present organized, of forty-nine members, distributed according to population as follows:-Rio Grand do Sul sends one; Santa Catharina one; San Paulo four; Rio de Janeiro four; Espirito Santo one; Bahia six; Seregipe one; Alagoas two; Pernambuco six; Parahiba two; Rio Grande do Norte

one; Ceará four; Piauhy one; Maranham two; Para one; Minas Geraes ten; Goyaz one, and Matto Grosso

one.

These senators are representatives of provinces, but it is not required that they should be residents of the provinces so represented. When a senator is to be made, the people choose a certain number of persons who are styled electors. These electors present to the Emperor three free-holders, either of whom they are willing to accept as their senator, and the Emperor selects one of them, who being regularly installed, holds his office for life. Every citizen having a revenue of $250 is qualified to vote for senatorial electors, deputies and members of the provincial assemblies, and is also qualified to be a senatorial elector.

It is a gratifying circumstance in the recent history of Brazil, that every change which has been made in the government has tended towards a more enlarged liberty. Since the commencement of the present century Brazil has passed from a state of abject colonial dependence to be the centre of Portuguese power and the residence of the royal court. Then, abandoned by her sovereign, she assumed her position as an independent empire, and adopted a constitution which secured to her citizens a liberal share in the conduct of their government. But this constitution, since its first adoption, has also undergone several changes, all of which have been in favor of popular liberty. Formerly the deputies were elected for an indefinite period, and the house continued, as in England, till it was dissolved by the Emperor; but by a recent change the term has been fixed to four years, by which means the representative is made responsible to the people, rather than to the sovereign, and is bound by his position to advocate the rights and liberties of his constituents.

We may, perhaps, safely say, that for the last twenty-five years Brazil has made as rapid advances as any nation on the globe. Much, however, still remains to be done; and we trust that she may continue to go on, acquiring additional strength, and light, and vigor, and that her statesmen may seek the glory of the Empire"-not in givingall possible splendor" to the ceremonies of religion, or the insignia of

[blocks in formation]

CORRESPONDENCE OF MR. RALPH IZARD.*

We do not recollect to have seen any notice of this work, which has now been before the public some eighteen months. There may be reasons for this inattention, which have no reference to the merits of the letters. Such a form of literature is not popular. Letters present no story: they have no connected narrative; they certainly have no pretensions of that kind, any more than a conversational remark has to be a set speech. Both have their appropriate place and value. These letters do not profess to give a history of anything; they are merely commentaries on the Revolution. As such, they have much value. We do not speak of their literary execution that has no part in the estimate we put upon them. Letters of this kind, to be truly valuable, must have all the marks of unpremeditated expression. There must be an assurance on the face of them that they were off-hand, written currente calamo. Such characteristics belong to these letters.

We are apt to think that history is all we want of our Revolution. This is a mistaken thought. We want history, as it is generally understood, but not that alone. The histories we have thus far had of our Revolution have been large outlines, which have left much to be filled up. They compass sea and land, and necessarily limit themselves to prominent political and military events; otherwise their bulk would be enormous. Then, if history has her province, we must look beyond her, or outside of her, for other information connected with her main incidents which that province excludes. It is considered that Scott's historical novels fill up many a hiatus in the British histories. His details as much belong to the scene as their more prominent events. And yet, they could not have been introduced into those histories. Historians confine themselves mostly to cabinets and fields. The court and the camp give them sufficient occupa

tion. They step from year to year, as if there were no foot-prints but those which they leave behind. They write, as it were, from balloons, whence they discern only the largest objects. All the rest is dim or lost to view.

What history does not perform, is attempted by other ways. We have alluded to historical novels. They do much, especially in such hands as Walter Scott's. In other hands they have done more harm than good. There are doubtless many minds, even at this late day, which have never corrected the misapprehensions left on them by Miss Porter's Wallace and Thaddeus of Warsaw. But the best of historical novels have too much imagination about them. They lack reality. The fiction spreads a varnish over the whole work, and we know not whether it be an imitation or the true mahogany which wears such a glaze. Letters, actually written during the times they refer to, are without these objections. They bring up the arrearages of history more satisfactorily than any other form of literature. There is no invention about them. We have no doubt concerning them, provided we are assured that they are genuine. Once satisfied of this fact, we read them as we would listen to a conversation. There is no question of ve racity as to statements. The statements they contain may be wrong, but, if they are given as the impressions of the moment, nothing more is required.

History is read with a constant distrust of its accuracy. What is unquestioned to-day, may be questioned to-morrow. A fact settled this year, becomes unsettled the next. Even the determinations of one century are often reversed the next. This is unavoidable: no one complains of it, any more than one complains of the imperfection of man's senses, and the limits of his powers. Doubts hang over the details of every battle, until a generation arises that cares not which way they are settled. And weli may this be. A street-fight be

* CORRESPONDENCE OF MR. RALPH IZARD, of South Carolina, from the year 1774 to 1804, with a short Memoir. Vol. 1. New-York: Chas. S. Francis & Co., 252 Broadway. 1844. pp. 390.

tween two persons, with half a dozen spectators, has never yet been described by two of those spectators alike. They did not see alike, they did not feel alike, and therefore they do not describe alike. How much less may a battle be described by two persons alike. The eye that pretends to have seen distinctly even that which passed within the sphere of its vision, will hardly be believed; and when it pretends to have seen that which smoke, distance, and interposing obstacles necessarily obscured, or shut out of sight, it will not, of course, be believed at all. Letters of the kind before us profess no more than to relate events, and sketch characters as they appeared at the moment of writing. There will be indistinctness, there may be error. This we expect, and therefore find no fault with it. When Mr. Izard gives the first rumors of the battle of Bunkerhill, as they were heard in London, we are pleased somewhat in proportion to the blunders into which those rumors lead him. The slowness with which tidings reached Great Britain in those days, when there was no steam,-when there were no packets,-when the Atlantic had been abridged by none of the modern facilities which have reduced it to a broad ferry, shows itself throughout this correspondence. We are not surprised that the first impression should have been, that Quebec had been taken by Montgomery. All these evidences of the state of the times give the letters a peculiar zest. We seem to be taken back to those times. History brings the past down to the days of the historian. Such letters as these take the reader back to the days of the writer. Besides, there is the assurance that they were not written for the public. We do not mean the assurance of the writer: we might not believe that; the letters themselves prove that they were written for no public use. This diminishes the responsibility under which they were written, while it gives them a freedom of expression which no other compositions can have. We would not undervalue the labors of those who visit the archives of Europe. They doubtless all return, bringing their sheaves with them. There is now collected in this country, in the appropriate state societies, a vast deal of raw material, which, after much

hatcheling and carding, will be usefully worked up into the web of history. The collections, of course, embrace much surplus matter. The selectors at the foreign archives are something like the mineralogist at the quarry, who carries home to his laboratory a great deal of refuse stone in connexion with his specimens. He has not the time there to make the separation, nor is he certain that he can make it judiciously. The question is not, whether these collections are valuable, but whether they be, as is too often thought, the only collections that are so. If a portion of the means and time which have been applied to this archive-hunting had been applied to searches after private correspondence, carried on contemporaneously with prominent events—after private letters which were written in the heat of the moment, in the presence of those who were buckling on the armor, or putting it off-the search had not probably been without much fruit. We have the official accounts of the fall of the few men at Lexington, whose blood, shed just at the dawn of the day, so appropriately bedewed the dawn of the Revolution; and of the running fight from Concord which ensued, and in which, as it were by intuition, was shown how an unorganized and hastily raised force, a sudden gathering from the farm-houses, the anvil, the work-bench, &c.,-could be best and efficiently used. These accounts are gratifying, and belong to the page of history, and can never be effaced from it. But there may be other accounts of the same day, which, though not properly belonging to that page, may well be placed on other pages. The gleanings of Ruth have even a higher interest than the reapings of Boaz. There may have been members of families within the whirl of that day's vortex, who wrote letters while their heads were yet giddy with the scene. Many a warm record of this kind may have been made of the vicissitudes of the morning, the mid-day, and the evening, of this memorable first day of the Revolution. Such records, even if they were hastily made, and having nothing of an historical character, would be highly valued. We well know how the militia assembled, and blocked up the high-way where the

« AnteriorContinuar »