A Vanished Arcadia | Page 4

of all the deserted Jesuit Missions, half buried by the vigorous
vegetation, and peopled but by a few white-clad Indians, rise up so
clearly that, without the smallest faculty for dealing with that which I
have undertaken, I am forced to write. Flowers, scents, the herds of
horses, the ostriches, and the whole charm of that New World which
those who saw it even a quarter of a century ago saw little altered from
the remotest times, have remained clear and sharp, and will remain so
with me to the end. So to the readers (if I chance to have them) of this
short attempt to give some faint idea of the great Christian
Commonwealth of the Jesuit Missions between the Parana and
Uruguay, I now address myself. He who attacks a subject quite fallen
out of date, and still not old enough to give a man authority to speak
upon it without the fear of contradiction, runs grave risk.
Gentle, indulgent reader, if so be that you exist in these the days of
universal knowledge and self-sufficient criticism, I do not ask for your
indulgence for the many errors which no doubt have slipped into this
work. These, if you care to take the trouble, you can verify, and hold
me up to shame. What I do crave is that you will approach the subject
with an open mind. Your Jesuit is, as we know, the most tremendous
wild-fowl that the world has known. `La guardia nera' of the Pope, the
order which has wrought so much destruction, the inventors of `Ciencia
media',* cradle from which has issued forth Molina, Suarez, and all
those villains who, in the days in which the doctrine was unfashionable,
decried mere faith, and took their stand on works -- who in this land of
preconceived opinion can spare it a good word? But, notwithstanding,
even a Jansenist, if such be left, must yet admit the claim of Francis
Xavier as a true, humble saint, and if the sour-faced sectary of Port

Royale should refuse, all men of letters must perforce revere the writer
of the hymn.
-- * The doctrine of the `Ciencia Media' occurs in the celebrated
`Concordia gratiae et liberi arbitrii', by Luis de Molina (1588). The
concilium de Auxiliis was held to determine whether or not `concordia'
was possible between freewill and grace. As the Jesuits stuck by
Molina and his doctrines in despite of councils and of popes, the
common saying arose in Spain: `Pasteles en la pasteleria y ciencia
media en la Compan~ia.' --
But into the whole question of the Jesuits I cannot enter, as it entails
command of far more foot and half-foot words than I can muster up.
Still, in America, and most of all in Paraguay, I hope to show the Order
did much good, and worked amongst the Indians like apostles,
receiving an apostle's true reward of calumny, of stripes, of blows, and
journeying hungry, athirst, on foot, in perils oft, from the great cataract
of the Parana to the recesses of the Tarumensian woods. Little enough I
personally care for the political aspect of their commonwealth, or how
it acted on the Spanish settlements; of whether or not it turned out
profitable to the Court of Spain, or if the crimes and charges of
ambition laid to the Jesuits' account were false or true. My only interest
in the matter is how the Jesuits' rule acted upon the Indians themselves,
and if it made them happy -- more happy or less happy than those
Indians who were directly ruled from Spain, or through the Spanish
Governors of the viceroyalties. For theories of advancement, and as to
whether certain arbitrary ideas of the rights of man, evolved in general
by those who in their persons and their lives are the negation of all
rights, I give a fico -- yes, your fig of Spain -- caring as little as did
ancient Pistol for `palabras', and holding that the best right that a man
can have is to be happy after the way that pleases him the most. And
that the Jesuits rendered the Indians happy is certain, though to those
men who fudge a theory of mankind, thinking that everyone is forged
upon their anvil, or run out of their own mould, after the fashion of a
tallow dip (a theory which, indeed, the sameness of mankind renders at
times not quite untenable), it seems absurd because the progress of the
world has gone on other lines -- lines which prolonged indefinitely
would never meet those which the Jesuits drew. All that I know is I
myself, in the deserted missions, five-and-twenty years ago often have

met old men who spoke regretfully of Jesuit times, who cherished all
the customs left by the company, and