This was in the sixteenth century; but it is
only a few years ago that seven thousand native Catholics were
banished from this region. To-day all is changed. These fugitives
have been permitted to return, and there is entire freedom of
religious worship. Last month a return was made of professing
Christians (Catholics) in this district, and thirty-five thousand
were reported. Protestants are very few indeed.
As far as I saw in the East, here is the only real and
considerable advance made toward christianizing a people. At other
stations throughout my journey I saw only a few ignorant natives
who professed Christianity--sometimes a dozen or two, rarely
more. European residents invariably told me that these were the
dependants or servants of foreigners who held their places mainly
because of their conversion to the new faith. If dismissed, they
relapsed. One can readily see that the lowest and most
unscrupulous would be the first to fall before the almost
irresistible temptation, for a means of comfortable livelihood
seems the one serious concern of life in all the East to a degree
difficult for us in America, at least, to imagine.
I remember the dear, kind Catholic Bishop of Canton telling me
with such delicious simplicity that every workman engaged in
building the Cathedral--a work of many years and yet
unfinished--had by the grace of God been converted to Holy Mother
Church.
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