se Church in the White Town at Madras, and not
suffer it to stand." The church was demolished accordingly, as also a
Roman Catholic chapel in Vepery. The church in old Black Town had
already been demolished by the French when they destroyed the greater
part of old Black Town itself; and, in accordance with another edict
of the Directors in England, by which the Company's representatives in
Madras were "absolutely forbid suffering any Romish Church within the
bounds, or even to suffer the public profession of the Romish
religion," Roman Catholicism was altogether scouted in Madras.

Twenty-five years later, the English troops, after defeating the
French in various engagements, captured Pondicherry and demolished its
fortifications; and the peace of Paris left the French in India
powerless. With the danger of French aggression removed for good, the
Company were less intolerant of the religion which Frenchmen
professed; and a few years later they paid the Capuchin priests some
Rs. 50,000 as compensation for the destruction of the church in White
Town and of the chapel in Vepery.

With funds thus in their hands, the Capuchin fathers set about
building a new church in the 'Burying Place.' This new church, which
they built in 1775, was the edifice which is now the Roman Catholic
Cathedral in Armenian Street. On the gate-posts appears the date 1642,
but this was the year in which the Company made a grant of the land
for a Roman Catholic Cemetery and in which Father Ephraim arrived and
the Madras Mission began, and is not the date of the building of the
present church or of its predecessor. The Capuchin missionaries
continued in charge of Roman Catholic affairs in Madras until 1832, in
which year they were put under episcopal jurisdiction.

Reference has been made in this chapter and elsewhere to the churches
that were already in existence in Mylapore when the English first
settled in Madras. According to local tradition, the Apostle St.
Thomas made his way to the East, and, after preaching in various parts
of India, settled down in the ancient Hindu town of Mylapore, where he
made numerous converts. The Hindu priests, indignant at the loss of so
many of their clients, sought the missionary's life. The Apostle,
according to the tradition, lived in a small cave on a small hill--the
'Little Mount'--fed by birds and drinking the water of a spring that
bubbled up miraculously within the cave. Driven from the cave, he
fled to ano