The Indian Who Is Chosen To Make A Feast Either Has To Use
Up In It His Little Savings, Leaving His Family Submerged In Misery,
Or He Has To Rob In Order To Invest The Products Of His Crime In
Paying The Fees To The Priest And For Church Ceremonies.
These are
simply brutal orgies that last many days, with a numerous attendance,
and in which all manner of crimes and vices have free license."
"For the idols of the aborigines were substituted the images of the
Virgin Mary and the Roman saints. The Indians gave up their old
idols, but they went on with their image-worship. Image-worship is
idolatry, whether in India, Africa, or anywhere else, and the worship
of Roman images is essentially idolatry as much as the worship of any
other kind of images. Romanism substituted for one set of idols
another set. So the Indians who were idolaters continued to be
idolaters, only the new idols had other names and, possibly, were a
little better-looking." [Footnote: Neely, "South America."]
What has Romanism done for the Indians of Bolivia in its four hundred
years of rule? Compare the people of that peaceful, law-keeping
dynasty which the Spaniards found with the Bolivian Indian of to-day!
Now the traveller can report: "The Indians are killing the whites
wherever they find them, and practising great cruelties, having bored
holes in the heads of their victims and sucked the brains out while
they were yet alive. Sixteen whites are said to have been killed in
this way! These same Indians are those who have been Christianized by
the Roman priests for the past three centuries, but such cruelties as
they have been practising show that as yet not a ray of Christ's love
has entered their darkened minds." How can the priest teach what he
is himself ignorant of?
Where the Indian has been civilized, as well as Romanized, Mr. Milne,
of the American Bible Society, could write:
"Since the Spanish conquest the progress of the Indians has been in
the line of deterioration and moral degradation. They are oppressed
by the Romish clergy, who can never drain contributions enough out of
them, and who make the children render service to pay for masses for
deceased parents and relatives. Tears came to our eyes as Mr.
Penzotti and I watched them practising their heathen rites in the
streets of La Paz, the chief city of Bolivia. They differ from the
other Indians in that they are domesticated, but they know no more
of the Gospel than they did under the rule of the Incas."
What is to be the future of these natives? Shall they disappear from
the stage of the world's history like so many other aborigines,
victims of civilization, or will a hand yet be stretched out to help
them? Civilization, after all, is not entirely made up of greed and
lust, but in it there is righteousness and truth. May the day soon
dawn when some of the latter may be extended to them ere they take
the long, dark trail after their fathers, and have hurled the last
malediction at their cursed white oppressors!
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 47 of 161
Words from 23732 to 24263
of 83353
