# Catholic Magazine and Review/Volume 3/Account of Foreign Missions (3)

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FOREIGN MISSIONS.
BY NARRATOR.
3. Mission of Su-tchuen. (Continued.)
In the persecution of 1814, the seminary belonging to this mission was burnt to the ground. The students had only just time to make their escape, and the bishop of Zela, coadjutor to the prelate whose martyrdom has already been recorded, and also president of the seminary, had scarcely quitted the house when a troop of soldiers, headed by several mandarins, made their entrance. A beautiful mausoleum, erected to the memory of a deceased president, M. Hamel, was destroyed: the premises were ransacked and pillaged from one end to the other, and the soldiers, after having given themselves up to every excess in eating and drinking, concluded by setting fire to the house, which, in an instant, was reduced to ashes.
Whether or not the bishop of Zela succeeded Dr. Dufresse in the Apostolic Vicariat, does not appear; the annals of the association contain no record of his death; but a respectable French Missionary, M. Escodeca, is spoken of as being entrusted with the government of the mission, during the interval between the martyrdom of the bishop and the appointment of his successor by the Holy See.
​In September of the year 1820, the emperor; Kia-King, who had so long and cruelly persecuted the christians, died suddenly in Tartary, and was succeeded by his eldest son, who assumed the name of Tao-Konang. The new emperor manifested towards the christians dispositions but little less unfavourable than his father had done. In the meantime, the Almighty did not forget his afflicted children. The constancy of the faithful, under the most trying hardships and vexations, was a source of mutual encouragement to each other; the devoted missionaries fearlessly faced every danger in order to administer to them the consolations of religion; their faith was wonderfully confirmed by the discovery of the body of M. Hamel, entire and incorrupt, seven years after his decease; and it was not the least esteemed blessing of Providence that the succession of bishops was maintained without interruption. In due course, M. James Fontana was nominated by the Holy See, Bishop of Sinite, and V. A. of Su-tcheun, and a coadjutor to him was appointed in the person of M. Perocheau.
It must be fresh in the recollection of many British Catholics that the Rev. Leonard Perocheau, (of whom a memoir and: portrait was inserted in the Laity's Directory for the year 1819,) was consecrated in Paris towards the commencement of the foregoing year, Bishop of Maxula in partibus and set out for China as a missionary and coadjutor to Dr. Fontana. Having embarked at Havre in April, he reached Cochin-China in the same month of the succeeding year.—From thence he proceeded to Ton-King, where he was under the necessity of remaining the rest of that year, waiting the arrival of conductors, whom Dr. Fontana Was to send to meet him. On their arrival, he immediately resumed his journey, and, after encountering many dangers on the way, reached Su-tchen in safety on Easter Eve. It is rather a remarkable occurrence, that it fell to the lot of this prelate to consecrate his own superior, Dr. Fontana, who, although nominated bishop, had not hitherto had an opportunity of receiving episcopal consecration. The ceremony was performed on Whit-Sunday.
In this place, yet fresh with the blood of their predecessor, these two zealous prelates, without delay, set about the work ​of rallying the few Christians who had escaped the persecution. Unfortunately, the persecution had abridged the number of their fellow labourers by, at least, one third; although the deficiency had been partly supplied by the ordination of several native priests, with an early prospect of further reinforcement from the seminary of Pula-Pinang. The number of missionaries, however, after all, was insufficient to ensure the visitation of all the stations once a year, whilst the necessities of the faithful required even a much more frequent attendance.
In 1821, Dr. Perocheau had the happiness of performing the visitation of several stations, without meeting with any interruption: after which, in obedience to the orders of his bishop, who thought it not prudent that both of them should be, at the same time, exposed to danger, he went into a place of concealment, and spent his time in the education of some youths for the ministry.
A slight relaxation in the execution of the laws in 1822, gave the missionaries an opportunity of visiting distant parts of the province, into which it had, for some time previously, been impossible for them to penetrate. Their labours were rewarded with much consolation from the faith of the christians, and the eagerness manifested by them to approach to the sacraments of which they had so long been deprived. Numbers, who had had the weakness to apostatize, returned to the bosom of the church, and many fresh converts were made from Paganism. In two months the number of adults baptized amounted to 254 and 259 were admitted to instructions. Much charity had always been exercised by the missionaries in enquiring for and baptizing the children of pagans in danger of death, the permission to do which they were, in most cases, compelled to purchase with money. During this year they baptized 8,076 infants, of whom 5,808 passed from this life into the kingdom of heaven. This success was principally owing, under Province to a considerable legacy bequeathed for that purpose by a priest at Macao.
The vice-roy and many of the mandarins now began to shew less hostility to the christians than in former years; ​but the same cannot be said of the idolatrous and hardened people. Emboldened by the edicts formerly published and still unrevoked against the christian religion, they continually had recourse to the most vexatious steps to compel the faithful to take part in their superstitions, and in many instances accused them before the judges. On these occasions the christians were treated with rigor or mildness, according to the disposition of the judges under whose cognizance they happened to fall. In Holy Week a catechist was apprehended in the act of carrying a parcel which contained a missal, a chalice and vestments. Being brought before a judge, he was subjected to several interrogatories and tormented in many ways, but could not be induced either to renounce the faith or to discover the priest to whom the effects belonged. As an instance of judicial clemency, a respectable family, which, during the persecution had been deprived of their house by the mandarins, had their property restored to them, and the pagan occupant was compelled to pay rent for the house for the time it had been in his possession. In like manner the vice-roy refused to receive the charge of christianity preferred by a pagan against a christian, with whom he was engaged in a law suit.
Trivial and few as were such acts of relenting rigor, they were hailed by the missionaries as tokens of returning peace. But it was not long ere their joy was forced to give place to fresh alarm. In the course of the summer of 1823, the vice-roy was recalled, and his office was entrusted to a man of very different disposition. Scarcely had he arrived in the province, when he published an edict prohibiting the exercise of the christian religion, threatening the christians with the old pains and penalties, and ordering the mandarins to make diligent search for them, and especially for the priests, and upon discovering, to visit them with the utmost severity of the existing laws. Happily, however, for the faithful, the mandarins, wearied perhaps with their former unsuccessful attempts to extirpate the christian religion, and sickened with the effusion of so much innocent blood, were but little inclined to rouse themselves from repose in order to carry into effect the deadly projects of the new vice-roy. ​The actual extent of the persecution was confined to an occasional extortion of money from the christians by the underlings of office; and at length the viceroy, despairing of success in the attempt to prevail upon the governors of the cities to renew the persecution, ceased to urge them further on that head.
Whilst the christians were going on in the public exercise of their religion and the missionaries in the discharge of their ministerial functions, an unexpected trouble befel them from a conspiracy against the life of the Emperor by a sect of pagans known by the appellation of Tao-yen, which fortunately was discovered in time and stifled by the arrest of the conspirators. But, as the governors of cities had taken occasion from the conspiracy to publish ordinances requiring rigorous search to be made for the guilty, and proscribing afresh every form of religious worship prohibited by law, in some parts of the province extortions of money were made from the christians to a much greater extent than before. In other parts, the greatest cruelties were resorted to in order to induce them to renounce the faith. In the towns of Lo-tche-hien and Tchoung-kiang-hien the christians particularly distinguished themselves by their heroic constancy. Men, women and children, almost without exception, boldly came forward and declared their willingness to die rather than forsake their religion; for which they were subjected to insults, injuries, stripes and the confiscation of their property. At Lo-tche-hien the emissaries of government, unable to shake their perseverance, left the women and children, and took before the governor the men who bad been most active in encouraging the faithful by their exhortations. Here, neither caresses nor torments were omitted to induce them to abjure their religion. But seeing that all efforts were vain, and especially that their constancy under torture only tended to add a greater lustre to religion, he determined to send them to the metropolis in the hope of procuring their condemnation, either to death or banishment. That nothing might be omitted to ensure the attainment of his object, he even made a point of appearing against them in person. As, however, no express orders had been issued ​against the christians, he had the mortification of meeting with a reception from that viceroy different from what the first acts of his administration had given cause to anticipate. That functionary manifested an unwillingness to enter upon the prosecution; and it cost the governor considerable trouble as well as expense to procure the enforcement of former edicts against the prisoners. Being at length brought before the judges, every art was tried to induce them to apostatize, and the viceroy joined his entreaties that they would abandon a religion proscribed by the Emperor and the ancient laws of the Empire. They assured him in reply of their conviction that the christian religion came from God, that it was necessary for salvation, and that they were determined to obey God rather than man. The viceroy then told them with great mildness, that, unless they made up their minds to comply with the laws, he should be compelled to sentence them to death; upon which they fell prostrate on the ground at his feet, and said "We are all willing to die for our religion." Overcome by their intrepidity the viceroy arose from his seat, and, addressing the mandarins around him, said "These men are christians indeed, and really profess the religion of the God of heaven:" and then, turning to the mandarin who had been the cause of their prosecution, he continued "Why did you bring these people before me, whose sole crime is their willingness to die for their faith?" Finally, addressing himself to the holy confessors, he said "I shall not condemn you to death; but you must be sent into perpetual banishment in Tartary." The rescript of the Emperor confirming this sentence arrived in due course, and in May 1824 they set out for Tartary accompanied by their families as voluntary sharers of their exile.
The christians of the other town were inhumanly treated by the mandarin to whom they were subject; but, in consequence of the cool reception given by the viceroy to the mandarin in the case just recorded, instead of sending them to take their trial in the metropolis, he condemned them to wear the canga until they should consent to renounce their religion. They were unanimous in their refusal to comply; but soon after were secretly set at liberty one after another ​by their keepers under an engagement instantly to appear should they be again summoned by the governor.
In the spiring of 1824, Mr. Escodéca (already mentioned as having the superintendance of the mission after the martyrdom of Dr. Dufresse) was arrested on his return from visiting a sick person by an apostate Christian attached to the pretorian guard. He acknowledged himself to be a priest and a minister of the Christian Religion; but the guards, who preferred money to his person, made a proposal to the Christians to release him for a certain ransom. The sum of 100 taels (about 30£) was demanded; and, on its being paid, he was suffered to depart. A similar trial about the same time befel the good Bishop and three lay companions, with whom he was secreted. Being apprehended he made an open avowal of his character, but refused to purchase his freedom, and demanded to be conducted before the governor of the city. In the mean time the christians, without his knowledge, bargained for his freedom, and that Of his companions, for eighty taels. He had no sooner been liberated than perceiving that the guards had retained his books, and fearing lest these should be made a pretext for a second arrest, he followed them to a tavern whither they had repaired for the night, and insisted that his books should be restored, or himself taken before the governor. On the following morning the books were delivered up.
From a statement made by Dr. Fontana to the superior of the establishment of foreign missions in Paris, it appears that in the year ending September 1824, there were twenty-six Chinese priests in the Province of Su-tchuen. There bad been received within the same period 29,342 annual confessions, 335 adults baptized, and 1547 under instruction. Baptism had also been administered to 1837 children of Christian parents, and to 6,280 pagan infants in danger of death, of which number 4,405 had passed to a better life. About the time of the martyrdom of Dr. Dufresse the total number of Christians in Su-tchuen amounted to upwards of 60,000: in this year the exact amount was 46,287. In 1767, they were under 7,000.