Christianity in Ceylon : its introduction and progress under the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, and American missions; with an historical sketch of the Brahmanical and Buddhist superstitions

Front matter

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Chapter I. The Middle Ages And The Portuguese Period

Nestorian Christians in Ceylon in the Sixth Century — Disappearance of Christianity between the Sixth and the Sixteenth Centuries — Accounts of early Travellers — Portuguese Conquest, a.d. 1505 — Their singular Expedients for converting the Singhalese— St. Francis Xavier, " the Apostle of India " — Conversion of the Hindoos — Conversion of the Buddhists — State of Christianity on the Arrival of the Dutch, A.P. 1638 page 1

Chapter II. The Dutch Period

Breach of taith with the King of Kandy — Dutch Persecution of the Roman Catholics — Present Condition of the Portuguese Descendants in Ceylon — Estal>]ishment of the Reformed Religion — Extraordinary Conformity of the Natives — Expedients to convert the Buddhists — Educational System of the Dutch — their Ecclesiastical System in Ceylon — Active Measures against Buddhism — Decline of Christianity — Increasing Influence of the Roman Catholics — Failure of the Dutch to extend the Reformed Religion in Cevloii ; and its Causes .37

a 3

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTEK 111.

THE BRITISH PERIOD.

Early Neglect of the Natives — General Relapse into Heathenism — Degraded Character of the " Govemment Christians " — The Church of England — The Roman Catholic Church and its Progress — The Dutch Reformed Church and its Decline — The Re-establishment of the Protestant Religion amongst the Singhalese — First Arrival of the Missionaries — London Mission, 1804 — Baptists, 1812 — Wesleyan Methodists, 1814 — Church of England Mission, 1818 — The Tamils — The American Missionaries . page 77

Chapter IV. The P.rahmanical System

Its Vastness, Mystery, and Power — Its Sacred Books — Its Grand Supports, Caste and Science — Hindoo Mythology — Hopeless Ritual — Worship of Shiva — False Physical Philosophy — Effects of Education by the Missionaries — Boarding Schools and Colleges — Female Seminaries ■ — and their Singular Success — Social Elevation of the Tamils — General Results . ... 119

Chapter V. Buddhism And Demon Worship

National Character of the Singhale.'fe — Iiidift(?rence to all Religions — Buddhism and its Origin — Its Antiquity and Extended Influence — Story of the Life of Clotama Buddhu — His Incarnation — His Religion — Transmigration of Souls — Physical Science of Buddhism — Its Ideas of a Future State — Its Doctrine of Fate — Necessity — Its Priesthood — Their Privileges — Various Sects of Buddhists — Demon Worshif) — Its Origin — Practices — Prie,st3 IHl

CONTENTS. xi

Chapter VI. Moral And Social Character Of The Singhalese

Traced to the Influence of their ReUgion — Progress of Christianity — The Missions of the Baptists — The Wesleyan Mission — The Mission of the Church of England — Results — And future Prospects page 249

BUDDHU.

From tlie Gal Wihare, Ruins of Pollanarua.^ — (p-34.)

Introduction

For some years past I have been engaged in the preparation of a work on Ceylon, its history, its topography, its capabilities, its productions, its government, its present condition, and its future prospects as a colony of the Crown.

It will account for much that might otherwise seem abrupt or obscure in the following chapters, to state that they were originally commenced as portions

XIV INTRODUCTION.

of the plan which I had thus sketched for myself, and in which the religion of the people and the progress of Christianity necessarily occupied a prominent place. But as the inquiry proceeded, I found it so far exceeded in interest what I had at first anticipated, that the materials I had collected became at once too important to be omitted, and too extended to form a subsidiary portion of a more comprehensive work. Hence their appearance in the present form.

The sketch of the Buddhist superstition will be found to differ in many essential particulars from its aspect as described in other countries of the East, but my object has been to present the features of Buddhism as it exists in Ceylon ; and for this purpose I have availed myself largely of the observation and experience of those Christian missionaries who have made the religion of the natives, and the sacred books in which it is embodied, an object of patient and profound investigation. I believe that the account which I have given will be found to be not only more copious, but more correct, than any similar notice which has hitherto been published of the popular superstitions of the Singhalese.

The same observations apply to the chapter which treats of the Brahmanical system as cultivated by the Tamils of Ceylon ; though in its details it presents but few variations from the tenets and practice of Hindooism generally on the continent of India.

The narrative which I have compiled from

INTRODUCTION. XV

authentic sources as to the state and prospects of Christianity will, I trust, be read with interest by all who look on missionary labour not merely in its loftier capacity as the disseminator of immortal truth, but who regard it in its incidental influence as the great pioneer of civilization and the most powerful agent for the diftlision of intellectual and moral enlightenment.

Nor can I lay down my pen without an humble yet confident hope that this exposition of facts which have fallen under my own immediate notice as to the success of missionary toil, and the inroad which has been made, through its instrumentality, upon the ancestral and national idolatries of Ceylon, will operate as an encouragement to those by whom these exertions have been supported, as an assurance that their labours hitherto have not been in vain, and a demonstration of the fallacy which falsely proclaims that the religions of India are inaccessible to Gospel truth, and unassailable by its influences.

CHRISTIANITY IN CEYLON.

Chapter I. The Middle Ages And The Portuguese Period

The earliest notice of the existence of Christianity in Ceylon is that of Cosmas Indopleustes, an Egyptian merchant, and afterwards a monk, who published his * Christian Topography ' in the reign of Justinian, in order to vindicate the cosmography of the Old Testament from what he believed to be the heresies of " the Ptolemaic system." ^ Cosmas, who was

' The XpitTTiaviKi) ToTToypafia of Cosmas Indopleustes, or Indicopleustes, has been edited by Montfaucon, and will be found in his Collectio Nova Patrum, vol. ii., Par. 1706. The portion relative to Ceylon and the plants and animals of India was printed by Thevenot, with a French translation, in h\s Helations de divers Voyages ciirieux, vol. i. There are some legends to the effect that Christianity had been preached in Ceylon by St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew ; but there is no reasonable ground for believing that India was ever visited by an apostle, although the tradition is supported by St. Jerome and Ciirysostora, by Athanasius and Eusebius, and it was so firmly believed in the early ages of the Church that Alfred the Great sent Swithelm or Sighelm, the Bishop of Sherburn, on an embassy to India to visit the shrine of St. Thomas. (Palgrave's Anglo- Saxons, p. 185 ; Siiaron Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons,

B

2 COSMAS INDOPLEUSTES. Chap. I.

himself a Nestoriau, tells that in Taprobane ' there existed a community of believers, with an episcopal form of discipline, priests, deacons, and a liturgy. This slender statement has afforded material for enlarged speculation as to the doctrines, the extent, and duration of an early Church in Ceylon. It has been assumed as proof of the conversion of the Singhalese prior to the fifth and sixth centuries ; and the author of the ' History of Christianity in India ' propounds it as more than probable that the Church so implanted survived till the arrival of the Portuguese in 1505, when "their buildings no doubt shared the fate of the temples of Buddhu, which they (the Portuguese) pulled down, and with the materials erected churches of their own religion on all parts of

the coast." ^

But a reference to the original authority disposes at once of these eager conjectures.' Cosmas ex-

vol. ii. p. 148.) There is a still more curious tradition to the effect that Ceylon had been visited, and the Christian faith introduced, by the Eunuch of Candace, whose conversion by Philip is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. (Hough's History of Christianity in India, vol. i. pp. 30, 32, 42 ; Baldseus, p. 280.)

' The ancient Greek name of Ceylon.

^ Hough's History of Christianity in India, vol. iii. b. vii., ch. 2, p. 74^ The assertion is given on the authority of Cordiner (Description of Ceylon, vol. i. p. 154), but it is entirely conjectural, and at variance with the testimony of every traveller in Ceylon during the middle ages. ^ ^ ^

Chap. I. ERROR AS TO HIS STATEMENTS. S

pressly declares that the members of the church in Ceylon were Persians^ and merely sojourners — a portion, no doubt, of that concourse of merchants and travellers who then resorted to the northern parts of the island as the great depot and emporium of Eastern trade ' — but that the natives and their kings were of a different religion. As to doctrine, the probability is that they were of the same faith and form of ecclesiastical government as the Syrian churches in the southern promontory of India, which were founded in the third or fourth century by Christians from the Persian Gulf, whose successors to the present time have preserved a form of Christianity, however corrupted, and maintained an uninterrupted connexion with the original Church ; first through the See of Seleucia, and since through the Patriarch of Antioch. But with the decline of Oriental commerce, and the diminished resort of merchants from Arabia and Persia, the travellers and adventurers who formed the members of the first Christian body in Ceylon ceased to frequent the shores of Manaar ; and Christianity,

B 2

4 TRAVELS OF "TWO MAHOMEDANS." Chap. I.

never firmly rooted, gradually decayed and disappeared.

Between the sixth century and the arrival of the Portuguese in the sixteenth, we have but few accounts of the internal condition of the island, and no mention whatsoever of a Christian community.

The " two Mahomedans," Ibn Vahab and Abou Zeyd, whose narratives have been translated by Eenaudot,^ and more recently and completely by Reinaud, describe Ceylon in the ninth century,^ and record the division of the island between two kings, as mentioned by Cosmas, one of whom was, of course, the Rajah of Jaffna. The authors are altogether silent as to the existence of any form of Christianity, although Abou Zeyd states that " the king who then reigned permitted the free exercise of every religion ; and the island contained a multitude of Jews as well as of many other sects, even Tanouis or Manichees." As to the faith of the sovereign and the mass of the people, they say that " the king makes laws which are the fundamentals of the religion and government of the country ; and here are doctors and assemblies of learned men, like those of the Hadithis of Arabia, The Indians repair to these assemblies, and write

' See note A, at the end of the chapter.

* See Pinkerton's Collection of Voyages, vol. vii. : The Travels of Two Mahomedans through India and China in the Ninth Century. Translated from the Arabic by the Abbe Renaudot: p. 183, 217.

Chap. I. MARCO POLO. 5

down what they hear of the lives of their prophets and the various expositions of their laws." ^

Four centuries later, Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller, made his way to Ceylon about the year 1290 A.D. ; he declares that " the inhabitants were idolaters ; " ^ and it is scarcely credible, had a

' " Le royaume de Serendyb a une loi et des docteurs, qui s'assemblent de temps en temps, comme se reunissent chez nous les personnes qui recueillent les traditions du Prophete. Les Indiens se rendent aupres des docteurs, et ecrivent, sous leur dictee, la vie de leurs prophetes et les preceptes de leur lol. . . , . On trouve dans I'ile de Serendyb une communaute de Juifs qui est nombreuse. II y a egalement des personnes des autres religions, notamment des Dualistes (les Manicheens). Le roi de Serendyb laisse chaque communaute professer son culte." — Transl. par Eeinaud, vol, i. p. 128. (See Note B, end of this chapter.)

^ Travels of Marco Polo, a Venetian, in the Thirteenth Century. Translated by W. Marsden. 4to. Loiidon, 1818. Like other travellers of that period, Marco Polo dwells on the wealth and fertility of Ceylon, its rice and sesamum ; its milk, flesh, and wine from the trees (toddy). " There is here the best sappan wood that can anywhere be met with. The island produces rubies more beautiful and valuable than are found in any other part of the world ; and likewise sapphires, topazes, amethysts, garnets, and many other precious and costly stones. The Kingis reputed to have the grandest ruby that was ever seen, a sj)an in length, the thickness of a man's arm, brilliant beyond description, and without a single flaw. It has the appearance of a glowing fire, and its worth cannot be estimated in money. The Grand Khan Kublai sent ambassadors to this monarch to offer for it the value of a city, but he would not part with it for all the treasures of the world, as it was a jewel handed down by his ancestors on the throne." The people of Ceylon, he adds, " are by no means of a military habit, but abject and timid, and when there is occasion to employ soldiers they procure them

6 IBN BATUTA. Chap. I.

Christian Church — however small — been then in existence, that he, a Christian himself, would have omitted all mention of so interesting a fact.

Ibn Batuta, the adventurous Moor who traversed almost all the countries of Asia in the fourteenth century, and visited Ceylon about 1324 A.D.,^ is equally silent in relation to Christianity ; although he is particular in describing the Emperor as an infidel, and records the proceedings of the Brahmans and Buddhists, and the pilgrimage to the sacred footmark on the summit of Adam's Peak.

Thus, notwithstanding the remarkable preservation of Christianity in India throughout this gloomy period amongst the Syrian churches on the Coromandel coast, and its permanent adoption by the Tamils and other tribes of the peninsula, its light appears to have been but transiently kindled and to have speedily become extinguished on the opposite coast of Ceylon. If it ever included in its communion any of the native inhabitants of the islands, they must have relapsed into idolatry shortly after the departure of its original founders. The Tamil sovereigns of Ceylon, however tolerant the dynasty may have been in the fifth and ninth centuries, ex-

from other countries in the vicinity of the Mahomedans." The stone referred to by Marco, if it existed at all, was most probably a carbuncle.

' The Travels of Ibn Batuta. Translated by Professor Lee. Published by the Oriental Translation Conamittee. Lond. 1829.

Chap. I. DISAPPEARANCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 7

hibited themselves at a later period as persecutors of Christianity ; but the more immediate cause of its disappearance from Ceylon was in all probability the rising influence of Mahometanism, and the arrival of its followers from Persia and Arabia,^ whose descendants to the present day abound on the sea-bord of the island, and are known by the popular designation of " Moors." ^ On the arrival of the Portuguese, A.D. 1505, and their conquest of the maritime provinces, the doctrines of Brahma and Buddhu were the prevailing religions respectively of the Tamils to the north and of the Singhalese throughout the rest of the island.

Information is scanty as to the nature of the means adopted by the Portuguese for the introduction and establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in Ceylon.^ There is no proof that compul-

' According to Hamza of Ispahan, the Persians under Cosroes Nouschirevan, one of the Sassanide dynasty, made the conquest of Ceylon in the early part of the sixth century : " inter maximas victorias a Kesra Anuschirvano reportatas sunt expugnationes urbium Serandib, Constantinopoleos et provinciarum Arabiae felicis." {^Hamz<B Ispahan. An?ialium, lib. i. chap. iv. vol. ii. p. 43, Leipzic, 1848.) And Reinaud has published in the 'Journal Asiatique' for February, 1845, p. 156, a passage from Beladori, in which he alludes to the establishment of a Mussulman colony in Ceylon towards the end of the seventh century.

^ For an account of the Moormen of Ceylon, see note C, end of the chapter.

^ The records of their government have entirely disappeared ; tliey were taken to Goa on the conquest of the island by the

8 POLICY OF THE PORTUGUESE FOR CONVERSION. Chap. I.

sion was resorted to by them for the extension of their own faith, or violence employed for the extinction of the national superstitions ; and the probability is that the priests and missionaries of the Portuguese were contented to pursue in Ceylon the same line of policy and adopt the same expedients for conversion which had already been found successful by their fellow-labourers on the opposite continent of India.

Their possessions in either place were detached, their tenure uncertain, and in danger at all times, from the jealousy or hostilities of the neighbouring princes ; and from the analogy of the two cases, the presumption is warranted that the Portuguese in Ceylon, under the pressure of similar circumstances, followed the example and instructions of the Viceroy and Archbishop of Goa, and that the amount of assistance from the civil power, on which the Roman Catholic clergy could rely, did not ordinarily extend beyond the personal influence of the Captains-General at Colombo and the favours and partiality exhibited by successive governors to all who were willing to conform to their religion.^

Dutch, whence they were removed to Lisbon, and afterwards transferred to Brazil. In their absence there is little or no historical evidence of the system of proselytism pursued by their clergy, or the amount of its success, beyond the imperfect notices of the Dutch historians, and the still existing traditions of the Singhalese themselves.

' Plough's History of Christianity in India, vol. ii. b. 3, c. 2, p. 349. See Letter of John III. to the Viceroy of Goa in

Chap. I. NOT COERCIVE. 9

Those acquainted with the national character of the Singhalese, with their obsequiousness to power, and the pliancy with which they can accommodate themselves to the wishes and opinions of those whom it may be their interest to conciliate, will have no difficulty in comprehending the ease with which the Roman Catholic clergy, under such auspices and with such facilities, succeeded in an incredibly short space of time in effecting multitudinous conversions ; and although the peculiar religion of the Hindoos in the northern province necessarily presented obstacles more formidable than those opposed by the genius of Buddhism in the south, the missionaries engaged in the task were not devoid of expedients by which to overcome both. In the instance of the Singhalese the miracle was accomplished with ease ; the mountain submissively came over to Mahomet ; and in the other and more obstinate one of the Tamils, Mahomet was equally prepared to succeed by making his own approach to the mountain.

In point of time the conversion of the Singhalese

1546, A.D. ; Baldaeus, c. xxii. p. 646. His Majesty lays down the principle that " Pagans may be brought over to our religion not only by the hopes of eternal salvation, but also by temporal interest and preferment " — and he therefore directs that on professing Christianity they were to be provided with places in the Customs, to be exempted from impressment for the navy, and sustained by the distribution of rice out of the public revenue. Baldaeus, Descrip. Malabar, Coromandel, and Ceylon ; Churchill's Collection of Voyages, vol. iii.

10 ST. FRANCIS XAVIER, THE APOSTLE OF INDIA. Chap. I.

Buddhists to Christianity preceded by several years the earliest attempt to reclaim the Tamils in Ceylon from the superstition of Brahma. The Portuguese got possession of Colombo in 1505, but it was not till 1548 that they obtained such a footing in the northern province as to enable their missionaries to commence their labours with security amongst the natives of Jaffna. Immediately after constructing the fort of Colombo the adjoining districts were erected into a bishopric/ and under the directions of the new prelate Christianity was speedily proclaimed throughout the Singhalese districts, but it was not till a.d. 1544 that it was first preached to the Tamils of the north by "the Apostle of India," St. Francis Xavier. He was invited from Madura by the Parawas or Fisher caste, who had established themselves around the pearl fishery of Manaar, of whom he baptized from six to seven hundred ; ^ but almost immediately after

' The tomb of Don Juan de Monterio, the first Christian prelate in Ceylon, was discovered in 1836, in effecting the repairs of the Battenburg Bastion.

* Hough's History of Christianity in India, b. ii. c. 3, p. 188. Letters of the Abbe Du Bois, p. 3. There is something remarkable in the circuuLstance of the Fisher caste being everywhere the earliest and most eager converts to Christianity in India ; so much so as to render it questionable whether it be only an accidental coincidence, or the result of some permanent and predisposing cause. The Parawas or fishermen of Cape Comorin were the earliest proselytes of St. Francis Xavier, and they have still a pride in alluding to the fact that they were the first, as they have since been the most faithful and abiding of his

Chap. I. ST. FRANCIS XAVIER, THE APOSTLE OF INDIA. 11

they were cut to pieces by the Rajah of Jaftna, who was incensed at their apostacy. His efforts to extirpate Christianity from his dominions were, however, utterly futile : the influence of the Portuguese and their priests was too powerful to be long resisted, his own sons and relations became converts, and flying from Ceylon they placed themselves under the protection of the Viceroy of Goa.

converts. It was by the fishermen of Manaar that he was invited to Ceylon in 1544, and notwithstanding the martyrdom inflicted by the Eajah of Jaffna, and the persecution with which they were visited by the Dutch, that district and the adjacent boundary of the Wanny has to the present day been one of the strongholds of the Roman Catholics in Ceylon. Again, it is amongst the Paraioas or Fisher caste of the Singhalese that the Roman Catholics have at all times been most successful in their efforts to christianize. Their chapels and churches occur at all points along the sea-coast, on the Avestern side of Ceylon ; and the fishermen as far south as Barberyn are, to a great extent, Roman Catholics. When the British Government in 1840 abandoned the tax upon fish, by which the fishermen contributed annually about 6000/. to the revenue, so strong was the influence of the Roman Catholic priests, that this apparently onerous impost was at once transferred by the fishers to the Roman Catholic church, by whom it has ever since been collected, or farmed for collection, m the same manner as when it was paid to the Government. Is it that there is an habitual tendency to devotion and veneration for the Supreme Power amongst those who go down to sea in ships and see the power of God in the great deep ? Is it that, being a low caste themselves, the fishermen of India and Ceylon acquire a higher status by espousing Christianity? Or is there any sympathy with a religion whose first apostles and teachers were the fishermen of Galilee ?

12 EXPULSION OF THE RAJ All OF JAFFNA. Chap. I.

John III., King of Portugal, in commenting on this auspicious event, directed De Castro, the Viceroy of India, as " the conversion of this royal youth was of great moment," to be careful of his person, and to provide for his education and maintenance ; but above all to take "a slow and secure but a severe revenge on the tyrant of Ceylon."^ The opportunity of gratifying this desire for retribution was not long delayed. The power of the Portuguese in Ceylon was gradually but irresistibly extended in the direction of Jaffna, and within three years the Kajah, alarmed for his own security, made overtures to Xavier, avowed his readiness to embrace Christianity, and through St. Francis' intervention he was admitted to alliance with Portugal and received a subsidy of 100 soldiers to garrison his capital. The first employment of this friendly force was the erection of a fortress at Jaffnapatam, and eventually his dangerous allies relieved the Rajah altogether of the cares of royalty, expelled him from the island, and incorporated his kingdom with the dominion of Portugal.

Thus masters of the whole sea coast of Ceylon, the Portuguese felt more at liberty to pursue their schemes of ecclesiastical supremacy ; but still a striking difference was observable in the nature of the several localities, and consequently in the character of their operations in the south as compared with those in the northern provinces of the island. In • Baldseus, p. 647.

Chap. I. CONVERSION OF THE TAMILS. 13

the former, amongst the Singhalese and Buddhists, they were still compelled to proceed with a becoming degree of cautious circumspection from their vicinity to the native princes of Cotta, whose dominions extended from Chilaw to Colombo ; and still more from apprehension of their more hostile neighbour the King of Kandy, whose frontier was less than forty miles from their outposts. In Jaffna, on the contrary, remote from any Hindoo potentate, and separated from the Singhalese by vast forests and inhospitable deserts of sand, the physical and almost insular position of their new conquest gave it the compactness and security of a fortified district, within which, with the complete command of the sea, they were effectually protected from intrusion or control. The whole extent of the peninsula was thus brought by them under the authority of the Church ; it was divided into parishes, each of which was provided with a chapel and schoolhouse, and, where required, a glebe for the residence of the Franciscan priest who was to officiate ; and the ruins of these ecclesiastical edifices even at the present day attest the care and expenditure which must have been applied to their construction. In Jaffna itself they had a church and a College of Jesuits at the west end of the town, a church and convent of St. Dominic on the east, besides a convent of St. Francis ; and when the Dutch made themselves masters of the fortress in 1658, there marched out, according to Baldaeus, from

14 EXPEDIENTS FOR CONVERTING THE HEATHEN. Chap. I.

forty to fifty ecclesiastics, Jesuits, Franciscans, and Dominicans.^ In short, there is sufiicient evidence extant connected with this province of Ceylon to justify the assertion that within a very few years from its occupation by the Portuguese, almost the entire population of the Jaffna peninsula, including even the Brahmans themselves, had abjured their idolatry and submitted to the ceremony of baptism.^ Here the question naturally arises, by what agency and expedients were these multitudinous conversions accomplished in defiance of the notorious antagonism of the Brahmanical system ? and the inquiry becomes the more interesting, from the fact that the success of the Roman Catholic clergy at this period appears to have been more extended and complete amongst the apparently impracticable Hindoos of the North than it afterwards proved amongst the pliant and apathetic adherents of Buddhu in the Southern and purely Singhalese portions of the island. Amongst the latter a commencement was effected, in the first instance, by the influence of authority and the prospect of gain ; and however unsound and discreditable may have been their earlier incentives to nominal conversion, there is palpable evidence to establish the fact, that once enrolled as Boman Catholics, the imagination

' Baldaeus, c. xlv. p. 798.

* A tract privately printed at Colombo, in 1848, by a native gentleman, on ' the Rise and Progress of the Catholic Church in Ceylon.' By S. Casie Chitty, district judge of Chilaw.

Chap. I. EXPEDIENTS FOR CONVERTING THE HEATHEN. 15

of the Singhalese became excited, and their tastes permanently captivated, by the same striking ceremonial and pompous pageantry by which the Roman Catholic religion recommended itself at a later period to the Tamils and Hindoos.

When Christianity was first preached to the natives of India by Xavier, it was proclaimed by him with much of the simplicity and apostolical zeal which have since characterised the ministrations of his Protestant successors. But notwithstanding the multitude of his converts, St. Francis has recorded in his letters to St. Ignatius Loyola his own disappointment at discovering the inward unsoundness of all he had outwardly achieved ; ^ and the open apostacy which afterwards manifested itself among his converts, suggested to those who succeeded him in his task the necessity of adopting a more effectual machinery for arousing the attention of the Hindoos, and overcoming their repugnance to the reception of Christianity. The Jesuits, who resorted in prodigious numbers to Hindostan during the period which followed the death of Xavier, persuaded themselves, by the partial failure of his system, that no access was to be gained, and no footing established in the confidence of the natives, without an external conformity to their customs and habits, and a careful avoidance of any shock

' Letters on the State of Christianity in India, in which the conversion of the Hindoos is considered as impracticable. By the Abbe Dubois, Missionary in Mysore. London, 1823. P. 3.

16 SINGULAR PRACTICES OF THE JESUITS. Chap. I.

to their prejudices, religious and social. Under the cover of such a policy, it was conceived that a silent approach might be effected, and the edifice of their ancient superstition undermined, almost before its defenders could discover that its assailants were opponents. In pursuance of this plan of assault, Christianity in the hands of those by whom it was next offered to the heathen assumed an aspect so extraordinary, that the detail would exceed belief, were it not attested by the evidence of those actually engaged in the execution of the scheme. The Jesuits who now addressed themselves to the conversion of Hindostan, adopted the determination to become all things to all men for the accomplishment of their object; withholding till some more favourable time the inculcation of Christian simplicity, and adopting in the interim, almost without qualification, the practices of heathenism. To such an extent did they carry this policy, that in the charges which were eventually lodged against them before the Holy See by the other religious orders in India, it was alleged to be doubtful whether the Jesuits, by affecting idolatry and tolerating it amongst their proselytes, had not themselves become converts to Hindooism rather than made the Hindoos converts to the Christian religion.^