, to teach them not to fire away their ramrods as the real
missiles of destruction. There is a certain effeminacy inherent in all
rice-eating nations, and yet what did not the former people of this
island achieve in the building of great cities, grand palaces, and
temples of stone? It would almost seem as though the Singhalese of the
present day could not belong to the same race as the people who built
Anuradhapura before Christ was born.

Many of the prominent Christian sects have churches and missionary
establishments in the island. It has long been a popular missionary
field with several denominations, more particularly in the northern
part. The most numerous is that of the Roman Catholic Church, whose
leaders began their system of proselyting the natives as far back as
the first establishment of the Portuguese in Ceylon. The faith which
they presented addressed itself with all its theatrical effect to the
fancy of the ignorant Singhalese, especially as the cunning priests
took good care to mingle certain local Buddhistical ceremonies with
those which they introduced. There are shrines and temples in Ceylon,
in what are called Roman Catholic districts, where the images of
Buddha and the Virgin Mary both hold honored places. Is the worship of
one any more idolatrous than of the other? It has been well said that
the idol is the measure of the worshiper. People who never thought for
themselves were thus attracted. They formed a class whose very
ignorance made them easy converts. Had they been able or inclined to
reason upon the subject, it would not have been permitted. They had to
swallow the creed as a whole, at a single gulp, being approached with
the sword in one hand and the cross in the other.

Absolutism in faith is synonymous with ignorance. The right of inquiry
is the privilege of every human being, though it is denounced as
heretical by the Romish Church. Only falsehood fears investigation;
only chicanery dreads the light. The hateful Inquisition tried to
carry on its bloodthirsty practices here under Portuguese rule, but
was summarily driven out of Ceylon by the Dutch, with its vile
nunneries and its instruments of torture. So the French, during their
brief possession of the island of Malta, expelled a similar Jesuitical
crew from Valetta, not, however, before they had recorded their
diabolical deeds in letters of blood, now burning a "heretic," and now
mangling an intractable convert.

CHAPTER V.