ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONS IN CONGO.
But what has become of this church, with all its resources and power? Where are the results of this spiritual conquest that cost so much, and of which Rome had boasted in such unmeasured terms of exultation? To answer these questions impartially, the friends of Rome must acknowledge that they constructed a spiritual edifice in the heart of this pagan empire that could not stand in its own strength; the moment the hand which reared and for a time upheld it, was taken away, it fell to pieces. Nay, more, to acknowledge the whole truth, not only has this great spiritual edifice crumbled to the dust, but it has left the unfortunate inhabitants of that country in as deep ignorance and superstition, and perhaps in greater poverty and degradation, than they would have been if Roman Catholicism had never been proclaimed among them. One thing at least may be affirmed without the fear of contradiction, that in point of industry, intelligence, and outward comfort, the people of Congo, at the present day, cannot compare with thousands and millions of other natives along the coast of Africa, whose forefathers never heard even the name of the Christian religion. But how is all this to be accounted for? Has Romanism too little spirituality to bear transplanting to a pagan soil? Or is the African race incapable of being Christianized or raised to any considerable degree of civilization? These are questions in which others besides Roman Catholics are interested. The friends of Protestant missions may well despair of the evangelization of the world, if their labors are to be as protracted and to be attended with as few permanent good results. Whatever blame may be attached to the unhealthiness of climate, there is one fact of an opposite character, which cannot be thrown aside by those who bring the argument forward. It is, that the number of foreigners who have continued to reside on the borders of Congo, notwithstanding the withdrawal of the missionaries, even up to the present day, is much greater than the number of missionaries that were employed there at any one time. And it may be said in relation to this, if the church of Congo could not live after having been nursed for two hundred years there was no probability that it ever would.186One of the real causes, as we believe which contributed to the extinction of the Roman Catholic religion in Congo, was the countenance which it always extended to the foreign slave-trade. In the earlier stages of this traffic, its victims were procured in wholesale numbers by war and violence; villages were surprised and the entire population seized and sold into slavery by their more powerful neighbors. But this system, in the very nature of the case, could not last long; and it soon gave place to another, which, though not attended with the same outward violence and bloodshed, has nevertheless proved more injurious to the country, in the course of time, than the one it supplanted. The writer has more than once known a company of men, on the mere suspicion of witchcraft, to seize upon one of their own number, sell him to a slave-dealer, and divide the proceeds among themselves, when it was not only obvious to others, but acknowledged by themselves, that there was a strong probability that they would all within a short period be disposed of in the same way. And yet such is the insensibility engendered by this cruel traffic, that men can acknowledge and think of such a liability without emotion. He has known two friends (professedly so at least) to come to a slave factory, on a mere pleasure excursion, and while one was secretly negotiating for the sale of his companion, the intended victim has had the adroitness to escape with the money and leave the other to atone for his duplicity by a life of foreign servitude. It must be seen at once, that where such deeds of injustice are perpetrated with impunity, there can be no order, no morality, and no sound religion whatever. And yet these or similar deeds of villainy must have passed under the notice of the missionaries of Congo almost every day of their lives; and as the whole nation was included in the pale of the Catholic Church, these deeds were perpetrated by those over whom they claimed to exercise spiritual jurisdiction; and we have often wondered what kind of morality they must have inculcated, or what system of church discipline they must have enforced, to allow such enormities. But the missionaries are chargeable with more than the mere toleration of these things. They participated in this traffic themselves; and if not from the same motives of avarice which influenced the mass of the people around them, they at least gave the full force of their example to countenance all the enormities which are inseparably connected with it. By an arrangement with the civil authorities, all persons convicted of celebrating the rites of the ancient religion, were delivered up to the missionaries, and by them sold to the first slave vessel which entered the river, and the proceeds were distributed to the poor. The number of individuals thus convicted was very considerable; so that vessels engaged in transporting slaves to Brazil, could always depend upon the missionaries to give them material aid in making up their complement of slaves. The missionaries, too, seemed to have no scruples in occasionally presenting a few of their domestic slaves to such captains or supercargoes as had done them favors. Father Merolla mentions that he had once given a slave to a Portuguese captain in consideration of a flask of wine that he had given him to celebrate the sacrament. Indeed, the missionaries seem to have felt that there was no serious harm in consigning any number of the inhabitants of the country to foreign servitude, provided only that they were baptized and were not permitted to fall into the hands of heretics. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, Cardinal Cibo, on the part of the sacred college, wrote to the missionaries, complaining that the "pernicious and abominable abuse of selling slaves was still continued," and exhorted them to use their influence to put it down. The missionaries assembled to consider this letter, but concluded that the advice was impracticable, inasmuch as the people of Congo had little or no trade, except in slaves and ivory. They resolved, however, to do all they could to prevent them from selling slaves to the heretics, by whom were meant the Dutch and English, but more particularly the latter. This one-sided morality did more harm than good. The people had too little discernment to see any essential difference in the case; and as the English always gave better prices, and furnished them with guns and ammunition, which the Portuguese from motives of policy would not, they always preferred the English trade. The attempt on the part of the missionaries to enforce this resolution, brought them on several occasions in conflict with the authority of the count of Sogno, and more than once they had nearly secured their own expulsion from the country. They ultimately succeeded, however, in securing to the Portuguese traders a sort of monopoly of the trade, and much the greatest proportion of slaves shipped from Congo were taken to Brazil; so that if any praise is due for keeping them out of the hands of heretics, the missionaries are entitled to the whole; but in the same proportion are they responsible for the ruin of that country, to whose welfare they had consecrated their lives.—Bibliotheca Sacra.