The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-02-08

in weaving their children the first food which was
substituted for the mothers milk was the flesh OF
an enemy" Those of these indians who dwet oil
wandered IN the lands bordering the Parana anC
Uruguay rivers were governed by the instincts OF
animals and the passions of demons. They were
human blood drinkers and human flesh eaters, cen
taurs, half beast and half idiot. Yet in two hun
dred years the Jesuit fathers Chrstianized and
civilized four millions of them, practically the whole
savage population of Brazil and Paraguay. Glenn
ent Markham in his introduction to his "EXpedi-
tions Into the Valley of the Amazon" tells "The
Roman Catholic missionaries found these Indians
an ignorant people more savage and cruel than wild
beasts, and made them ciilized race, established IN
villages and converted to Christianity"
In his second volume of the History of Bra
z Mr.. Southey, the poet laureate. writes, i'll 1917:
Had the priests not been interrupted in their eX-
emplary career, by measures equally impOhtic and
iniquitous, they would, in time, have to Chris
tianity and civilization all South America, from
Bogota to the Straits of Magellan"
THE FILIPINOS.
Try to explain the fact as we may. there is now
only nation of Indians in the whole world that
has been preserved, outside of Mexico and Central
America, until today; only one Indian country pre-
served and civilized by Catholic Spain. We know
the appalling degradation in which Admiral Ma
gellan found them. Well now, listen to Mr.. Taft,
our secretary of and ex-governor of the Phil
ippines. Addressing, in the month of June, 1904,
the presbyterian SOCIAL Union OF 1nllauelpnla,
Mr.. Taft said: "These valiant of God (the
priests made parishes, taught the caechism taught
useful things. Thus it is that we found ready to
hand more than 100000 of Malays who are
Christians and are receptive to civilization No
one will charge with partially to the friars Still
| must testify to the work and the usefulness of
these men of God"
When General Leonard Wood in the United
States in 1905, returning from the Philippines, he
said: ",The work done by the Roman Catholic
priests in the three centuries Spain held the islands
wonderful, and cannot fail to excite our adj
mration. Spain and the Church gave them religion,
language and civilization"
And now let me conclude this rather lengthy
article by glance at California, before It's cesson
to the United States. At meeting of the Anthro
biological Society held in San Francisco January.
1906, DR.. Merriam, chief of the National Biological
Survey telling of the fate of the California Indians
under American rule and that of Catholic Spain,
said: "There were in California when we came in
to possession of the country two hundred thousand
Indians. In fifteen years, under rule, the num-
Der was reduced one-half. In 1859 California had
one hundred thousand Indians; in 1900 only fifteen
thousand remained Four thousand of that fifteen
thousand are survivors of the franciscan converts
In 1884 the Catholic missions counted fifteen
thousand civilized Indians
And now, tell your Park City reader that there
is no race so degraded that the Catholic church, if
left untrammeled by the state, cannot lift out of
its abyss of misery, win to Christianity and carry
to the heights of true civilization.