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midst of France to declare his disapprobation of the Patriarch Oviedo's
sanguinary zeal, who was continually importuning the Portuguese to beat
up their drums for missionaries, who might preach the gospel with swords
in their hands, and propagate by desolation and slaughter the true
worship of the God of Peace.

It is not easy to forbear reflecting with how little reason these men
profess themselves the followers of Jesus, who left this great
characteristic to His disciples, that they should be known by loving one
another, by universal and unbounded charity and benevolence.

Let us suppose an inhabitant of some remote and superior region, yet
unskilled in the ways of men, having read and considered the precepts of
the gospel, and the example of our Saviour, to come down in search of the
true church: if he would not inquire after it among the cruel, the
insolent, and the oppressive; among those who are continually grasping at
dominion over souls as well as bodies; among those who are employed in
procuring to themselves impunity for the most enormous villainies, and
studying methods of destroying their fellow-creatures, not for their
crimes but their errors; if he would not expect to meet benevolence,
engage in massacres, or to find mercy in a court of inquisition, he would
not look for the true church in the Church of Rome.

Mr. Le Grand has given in one dissertation an example of great
moderation, in deviating from the temper of his religion, but in the
others has left proofs that learning and honesty are often too weak to
oppose prejudice. He has made no scruple of preferring the testimony of
Father du Bernat to the writings of all the Portuguese Jesuits, to whom
he allows great zeal, but little learning, without giving any other
reason than that his favourite was a Frenchman. This is writing only to
Frenchmen and to Papists: a Protestant would be desirous to know why he
must imagine that Father du Bernat had a cooler head or more knowledge;
and why one man whose account is singular is not more likely to be
mistaken than many agreeing in the same account.

If the Portuguese were biassed by any particular views, another bias
equally powerful may have deflected the Frenchman from the truth, for
they evidently write with contrary designs: the Portuguese, to make their
mission seem more necessary, endeavoured to place in the strongest light
the differences between the Abyssinian and Roman Church; but the great
Ludo