Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 142

1850.

Paul Si's Apology in behalf of the Jesuits.

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perial presence; and thus also your servant is among those who have "discoursed about astronomy." If, therefore, your majesty's courtiers are to be found guilty, how can your servant hope to be so fortunate as to escape uncondemned by the ministers of the Board?

As your servant for years past has been thus accustomed to engage in discussions and investigations with these courtiers, he has become well acquainted with them, and knows that they are not only in de- portment and in heart wholly free from aught which can excite sus- picion, but that they are indeed worthies and sages; that their doc. trines are most correct; their regimen most strict; their learning most extensive; their knowledge most refined; their hearts most true; their views most steady; and that among the people of their own nations, there is not one in a thousand so accomplished, or one in ten thỏu- sand so talented as these men. Now the reason of their coming thou- sands of miles eastward, is because hearing that the teachers, the sages and worthies of China, served Heaven by the cultivation of personal virtue, just as the teachers in their respective nations by the cultivation of personal virtue, served the Lord of Heaven, and knowing that there was this correspondence in principles, they desired, notwithstanding the difficulties and dangers by land and by sea, to give their seal to the truth, in order that men might become good, and so realize high Heav- en's love to man.

According to their sayings, the service of the High Ruler is a prime duty; the protection of the body and the salvation of the soul are grand essentials; fidelity, filial piety, compassion, and love are to be universally exercised; the reformation of errors and the practice of virtue are initiatory steps; repentance and purification are the requi- sites for personal improvement; the true felicity of life celestial is the glorious reward of doing good; and the eternal misery of earth's pri- son is the bitter recompense of doing evil. All their commands and injunctions are in the highest degree compatible with the principles of Heaven and the feelings of men. Their laws can cause men to do good most truly, and to depart from evil most completely, for that which they say of the favor of the Lord of heaven's producing, nourishmg and saving, and of his principles of rewarding the good and punishing the evil, is perfectly plain and most strictly true; sufficient to move the hearts of men and to excite in them the love and confidence, ine fear and dread, which naturally spring from internal rectitude.

Your majesty's servant has always been accustomed to consider the rewards and punishments ordained by the ancient rulers and kings, and the distinctions between right and wrong laid down by our sages and worthies, as most luminous and most perfectly adapted to guide

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