The Chosen People: A Compendium of Sacred and Church History for School-Children Part 9

COLONIZATION.

"Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes."--_Isaiah_, liv. 2.

Just as the Reformation was beginning, fresh lands were being found beyond the Atlantic Ocean, where the knowledge of the Gospel might reach. Christopher Columbus, a gallant Genoese mariner, and deeply religious man, was full of the notion that by sailing westwards he might come round to India, and thence make a way for winning back the Holy Land. After much weary waiting, and many entreaties, he obtained three little s.h.i.+ps from Queen Isabel of Spain; and with them, in the year 1492, came to the islands which he named the West Indies, lovely places, full of gentle natives with skins of a dark ruddy colour, wearing, for their misfortune, golden ornaments. To get gold was the great longing of the Spaniards, and they did not care what cruelties they used so that they could obtain it. The Pope, finding in the prophecies that the isles of the sea should belong to the Church, considered that this gave him a right to give them away to whomsoever he pleased; so he made a grant of all to the west to the Spaniards, all to the east to the Portuguese.

Thereupon great numbers of the Spaniards went over to America; they conquered the two great empires of Mexico and Peru, and settled in the West-Indian Islands, robbing the poor natives of their gold and silver, making slaves of them, and hunting them with blood-hounds when they tried to run away. Many good priests who went out as missionaries did all they could to hinder these horrors, but in vain; and when at last the poor delicate Indians began to dwindle away and die off, the plan was resorted to of bringing negroes from Africa to work in their stead.

Though it was a good man who thought of it, in the hope of saving the Indians and making the negroes Christians, it came to most horrible cruelty, and was a disgrace to Christian Europe.

However, these faithful priests worked hard in teaching and converting the Indians all over South America. One brotherhood, called the Jesuits, had great establishments, where they trained up large villages of Indiana in Christian habits, and taught them to be very faithful and industrious. But at home, in Europe, these Jesuits did harm by stepping out of their work as ministers, interfering with governments more than was right, and trying to keep up the authority of the Pope more than real Catholic truth. They taught so many false stories as articles of faith, that at last clever people, wise in their own conceit, began to believe nothing, and became like the fool who said in his heart, "There is no G.o.d." So there came to be a bad feeling against all the clergy, and the Jesuits, who had made themselves very meddling and troublesome, were put down at the entreaty of several kings. When they were taken away from their converts in South America, it turned out that the poor Indians had not steadfastness enough to take care of themselves; so all their well-ordered establishments were broken up, and the people ran wild again. All the Spanish settlers, of whom there were many, still held fast to their Church, and all the coast of the Continent of South America is Roman Catholic.

The English and Dutch had not been slow to find their way to the West, but they went to the colder North instead of to the South, and sought good land more than gold. Some of the English had, during Queen Mary's reign, made friends with some of the Dutch and German Calvinists, who fancied that whatever Roman Catholics had done must be wrong, instead of only a part, and who cared nothing for the ways of the Apostolic Primitive Church. So when the true Catholic faith was upheld by Queen Elizabeth; by James I., who caused our translation of the Bible to be made by forty-eight learned Hebrew and Greek scholars; and by Charles I., who gave Bishops and a Prayer-Book to Scotland, there were many persons who grew impatient and angry that more changes were not made.

These broke away from the Church, calling themselves Puritans and Independants, and living in a state of schism. Some, too, thought the king had too much power; and in Charles's time a great many went away and settled in North America, that they might have freedom, and wors.h.i.+p in their own way. Those who stayed at home went on to that rebellion against Church and King, which ended in the Scottish Calvinists betraying King Charles, and the English Independants putting him to death for upholding the Bishops, after Archbishop Laud had been beheaded. For nearly eleven years the Bishops were put down, the clergy persecuted, and the use of the Prayer-Book forbidden in England, while all sorts of sects rose up and explained the Bible as they pleased.

When, at length, Charles II. came back, and the Church was re-established in England, many more went to the colonies; and though there was a Church settlement in Virginia, the great ma.s.s of the North American colonists were Calvinists or Presbyterians, as they are called, because presbyters are their highest order of their ministry, though they cannot be really commissioned priests, never having been ordained by Bishops come down from the Apostles.

The English began to spread fast on every side, as their nation grew stronger and more numerous. They conquered several of the West-Indian Isles, and the Church was there established; but, to their disgrace, they carried on the slave-trade, to supply the settlers with workmen. In the East-Indies, too, they began to acquire large tracts by conquest and by treaty, and a few churches were built there; but they had not tried to convert the great number of heathens who became subject to them, fearing that, should they take offence, they would shake off their dominion. Such clergy as did go out were ordained in England. There was as yet no Bishop to overlook the colonial Churches, so that they could not take deep root.

Still the English Church was living as a witness of the truth at home, with many a great and holy man within her, such as Bishop Taylor, whose beautiful writings are loved by all; Bishop Ken, whose loyalty to Church and King witnessed a good confession, and whose hymns are like part of the Prayer-Book; Bishop Wilson, whose devotions for home and at the Holy Eucharist are our great guide, with more good and humble men and women than the world will ever know of; and this, under G.o.d's mercy, saved the nation from falling into the unbelieving state of France, where people thought it fine to laugh at all religion. There, in the end of the eighteenth century, a terrible outbreak took place against all authority, human or Divine; the King and Queen perished by the hands of their subjects; quant.i.ties of blood was shed, and for a time it seemed as if the country was given up to demons; the faithful clergy fled or remained hidden; and though at last people began to return to their senses, the shock to loyalty and religion has never been entirely recovered in that country.

LESSON x.x.xIV.

THE SPREAD OF THE GOSPEL.

The fearful effects of infidelity in France roused good men everywhere; and the Church began to show that power of reviving and purifying herself, which proves that the Lord abideth with her for ever.

Some time before things had come to this pa.s.s, an English clergyman, named John Wesley, had been striving to awaken people to a more religious life; but he did not sufficiently heed the authority of the Church; and his followers, after his death, quite separated themselves from her, and became absolute schismatics, with meeting-houses and ministers of their own, calling themselves Methodists. Still his fervour and earnestness stirred up many within the Church; and from that time there was much more desire to fulfil the mission of Christians by bringing others to the knowledge of the truth. Sunday-schools began to be set up to a.s.sist the catechizing in Church enjoined in the Prayer-Book, and often instead of it; and there was a growing eagerness to convert the heathen abroad. The great possessions and wide trade of England seemed to mark her as especially intended for this work. Some persons went about it by giving their money to any Missionary Society that made fair promises, without heeding whether it were schismatic or not; others had more patience, and trusted their alms to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which was managed by the English Bishops.

The American colonies had, by this time, grown impatient of the English Government, and had shaken it off, calling themselves the United States.

The Church people among them obtained some Bishops from the Scottish branch of the Church, which the Calvinists had never been able to put down; and every one of the many United States has now a Bishop of its own.

Calcutta was the first English colony to receive a Bishop, in the year 1814. The second Bishop was Reginald Heber, whose beautiful hymns seem the birthright of our Church, like those of Bishop Ken, one hundred and fifty years before. Still very little was done with the natives of India; they were attached to their foul old religion, and Government forbade any open measures against it, though here and there was a conversion; and there have at length come to be three Bishops' Sees, and in the south of the peninsula, in the See of Madras, there are a hopeful number of Christians. The work would everywhere proceed better if there were no schism, so that all Christians could work together. Ceylon also has a Bishop, and many are there gathered in. On the borders of China likewise there is an English Bishopric; and within that empire the French Roman Catholics have been working steadily for many years to win a few of those obstinate heathen to the faith, but with little success, and often receiving the crown of martyrdom.

The French are very ardent missionaries, bearing joyously all kinds of privations, and forming their stations wherever they see any hope of gaining converts. The Sisters of Charity--good women under a vow to spend their lives in nursing and teaching--do much to show what the real fruit of Christianity is; and they are to be found wherever there is trouble or distress. There is a great college at Rome, called the _Propaganda_, where every language under the sun is taught, in order to fit persons for missionary work,

Our own St. Augustine's College at Canterbury is intended to prepare young men to become English missionaries; and north, south, east, and west, are the good tidings spreading, now that the days are come of which Daniel said: "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."

The English West Indies were first forbidden to import slaves; next, all the slaves were set free; and there are now four Bishoprics for their black and white population. All negroes seized in the s.h.i.+ps of other nations, on their way to be made slaves, are brought back to Sierra Leone, on the coast of Africa, there set free, and taught to be Christians under a Bishop of our Church; and the Christian blacks are beginning to carry the message of salvation into the other parts of Africa, where the climate is so hurtful to Englishmen, that only the negro race could there do the work.

South Africa has three Bishops to rule their English settlers, win the Dutch farmers to the Church, and convert the Hottentots and Zulus. And from them a Missionary Bishop has been sent out to the heathen tribes in the interior of the continent.

North America contains nine great Bishops' Sees, and the huge Island of Australia six. New Zealand, scarcely discovered till within the last fifty years, has three Bishops of her own, ruling over a population of English, and of Christian natives, men whose fathers were cannibals, but who are now hearty Christians; and it is the centre whence a Mission Bishop is seeking to gain to the Church the inhabitants of the beautiful islands that thickly dot the Pacific Ocean. Many of these islanders have become Christian, under the teaching of missionaries from the other Societies; and though great numbers still remain savage heathens, yet the light of the Gospel is in the course of s.h.i.+ning upon all the islands far away. Everywhere the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, in the vulgar tongue, are being taught, and each convert is gathered in by baptism and fed by the Holy Eucharist, as when the apostles first went forth; and no one can mark the great spread of the Church within the last fifty years, without feeling that the blessing of G.o.d is with her. The Greek Church has done less; but though still enslaved in Turkey, in Greece she is free, and the yoke of the Mahometan is there shaken off, after her long patience and constancy.

There are dark spots in all this brightness, for Rome still teaches the same errors mixed up with the truth, and the spirit of unbelief is to be found far and wide, questioning and explaining away all the mysteries it cannot understand.

We know that it must be so, for it was to fight with sin that Christ came into the world, and left His Church there; and St. Paul prophesied that evil men and seducers should wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. Daniel too, foresaw that the little horn should spring up, and do very wickedly; and all the tenor of prophecy in the Epistles declares that times of trouble and temptation must try the Church.

It seems that there has been, even from the Apostles' times, an evil spirit opposing himself to our Lord, and therefore called by St. John the Anti-Christ. His manifestations have broken out in many ways--in Arianism, in Mahometanism, perhaps in the great errors of Rome, and more lately, in Infidelity, and in Mormonism; and it would seem that there is to be some much more dreadful development of "that wicked one" exalting himself against Christ, and severely trying the elect. But we have a certain promise, that come what may, Christ will never forsake His chosen flock; and those who try to hold fast the faith once delivered to the Saints, and to keep the law of love, clinging to their own true branch of the Church, may be sure that He Who has redeemed them, will guard them from all evil, and that they will share in His glory when He shall come with all His holy angels to put all enemies under His feet.

Then He shall sit on His great white Throne, and gather His elect from the four winds to dwell in the eternal Jerusalem, which needs neither sun nor moon, for the Lamb is the light thereof.

QUESTIONS.

LESSON I.

1. In what state was the Earth when first created?

2. To what trial was man subjected?

3. What punishment did the Fall bring on man?

4. How alone could his guilt be atoned for? A. By his punishment being borne by one who was innocent.

5. What was the first promise that there should be such an atonement?--_Gen._ iii. 15.

6. What were the sacrifices to foreshow?

7. Why was Abel's offering the more acceptable?

8. From which son of Adam was the Seed of the woman to spring?

9. How did Seth's children fall away?

10. What was Enoch's prophecy?--_Jude_, 14, 15.

11. Who was chosen to be saved out of the descendants of Seth?

12. How was the world punished?

13. In what year was the Flood?

14. Where did the ark first rest?

15. What were the terms of the covenant with Noah?

16. Which of Noah's sons was chosen?

17. What was the prophecy of Noah?--_Gen_. ix. 25, 26, 27.

18. What lands were peopled by Ham's children?

19. What became of Shem's children?

20. What became of j.a.phet's children?