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Life of Father G. Magaillans.
Nov.
the employment, which was granted him as soon. Thereupon he departed with the mandarin, and arrived at the city of Hangchow, the metropolis of the province of Chekeäng, where the vice-provincial then resided. At the same time also there came intelligence from the province of Szechuen, that father Lewis Buglio, who was gone to lay the foundations of a missiou there, was fallen sick and wanted a companion. Thereupon father Magaillans offered himself and obtain- ed leave to go and assist him; and though it were a journey of above four months from Hangchow to the capital city of Szechuen, nevertheless he fortunately arrived there, and became a great help to father Buglio; and then it was that he applied himself with great industry to the study of the Chinese language and letters, which he learned with an extraordinary ease.
Two years after, there happened a violent persecution against the preachers of the gospel, raised by the bonzes of that province, who assembling together in great numbers from the neighboring cities, accused the fathers of rebellion in all the Tribunals of that metro- polis. The chief mandarin therefore of the Tribunal of Crimes fearing a revolt, at a time when the kingdom was turmoiled with several insurrections, ordered that the fathers should be well drubbed, and then expelled out of the limits of the province. But they putting their confidence in God's assistance, and the protection of the man- darins, of which the greatest part were their friends, would not for- sake their station. Thereupon the bonzes every day hung up libels against the fathers, in the principal quarters of the city; as also against the mandarins. But one of the military mandarins, who was a Christian, took care to have them pulled down by the soldiers. On the other side, the fathers writ feveral books, wherein they explained and asserted the truth of their faith, and refelled the impostures of their adversaries. This persecution lasted three months; but then the bonzes, whether it were that they were afraid of the mandarins who protected the fathers, or whether they wanted money to maintain them any longer in the capital city, retired home one after another; and then the governor of the city, who favored the fathers, dis- charged the superior of the bonzes from his employment; which put all the rest to silence, and absolutely stifled that uproar.
In a short time after, they were exposed to a persecution much more formidable than the former. For the rebel Chang Heënchung, followed by a numerous army, and filling all places where he came with fire and slaughter, advanced toward the capital to make himself master of the place, and there take upon him the title of emperor of
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