Again, in 1614, we find him in Asuncion combating calumnies spread by the Spanish settlers against the Jesuits. In the same year (as he informs us[76]) he was witness in the Reduction of Loreto of a strange circumstance. ‘An Indian,’ he says, ‘of intelligence and pious conduct called me to administer the last Sacraments, and to confess him before he died, and this I did. As there seemed little hope of his recovery, and pressing business called me away, I quitted him after having given orders for his burial. He died in a short time—at least, all those who were with him had no doubt of this; on my return I found the man whom I had charged to stay beside the Indian till his death preparing for his funeral. Toward mid-day they came to tell me that the dead man had come to life, and wished to speak to me. I ran there, and found him with a cheerful face in the middle of a crowd of Indians. I asked him what had happened since I last saw him, and he answered me that the instant that I quitted him his soul had taken its departure from his body; then, at a point which he thought near to his hammock, a devil had appeared, who said to him, “You are my prey,” and that he answered it could not be, for he had confessed himself to the best of his ability, and had received the holy Viaticum before his death; that the devil had sustained that his confession had been incomplete, and that he had forgotten to confess that twice he had been drunk, to which he answered that it was an oversight, and he hoped that God would not remember it. Then, on the devil sustaining that he had committed a sacrilege, St. Peter had appeared, followed by angels, and driven off the fiend. I asked him how he had known St. Peter, and he replied by describing him, though he had never seen an image of the saint. “The saint,” he said, “covered me with his mantle, and I felt myself instantly carried through the air. First I perceived a lovely landscape, and further on a great city, from which a shining light appeared. Then the Apostle and the angels stopped, and the first said to me, ‘This is the city of the Lord; we live here with Him, but the time of your entry is not yet. It is written that your soul shall once more join your body, and in three days you must appear in church.’ Then all was dark, and in an instant I woke up alive and well.”
‘I,’ says Montoya, ‘understood by the last words of St. Peter that the man had to die in three days, and I asked what he thought himself. “I think,” said he, “that next Sunday they will carry my body to the church, and I am certain that I only returned to life in order to exhort my relatives and my friends to listen to your instructions.” . . . When Sunday came he made his general confession,[77] admitted the two sins the devil had reproached him with, exhorted all to live a Christian life, and a few moments afterwards quietly gave up the ghost.’
This is the sole occasion on which Padre Ruiz Montoya even remotely touches the field of miracles, as he in general relies upon himself, his knowledge of the world, and on his patience, which must have been almost North British in its quality, if he acted up to his own favourite maxim of ‘by returning thanks for injuries is how wise men conduct their business.’[78]
In 1623 we find him praying Father Cataldino to let him accompany the expedition to Itiranbaru, a mountain wooded to the summit, in which lived several wild tribes. There he so worked upon the Indians as to establish them in a reduction under the title of St. Francis Xavier,[79] and left the mountain, which had been a haunt of savages, as Padre del Techo says in his curious work on Paraguay, ‘all at the service of the Lord.’
In 1623, whilst preaching, he was suddenly assailed by hostile Indians, and seven of his Indians pierced with arrows at his feet. Undoubtedly, he must have been killed had not an Indian taken his hat and cloak, and run into the middle of the enemy to distract the fire. In the confusion both the heroic Indian and Montoya managed to escape, the latter getting into a canoe which, fortunately, was ready at the river-side. But in the midst of all his occupations he had time to study natural history in the spirit of the time, as the following description clearly shows: ‘Amongst the other rarities of the land is an amphibious animal. . . . It is like a sheep, with but the difference that its teeth and nails are like a tiger’s, which animal it equals in ferocity. The Indians never look on it without terror, and when it sallies from the marshes where it lives (which it does ordinarily in troops), they have no other chance of escape but to climb up a tree, and even then sometimes are not in safety, for this terrible creature sometimes uproots the tree, or sometimes stays on guard until the Indian falls into its jaws.’ Thus far Montoya; but Charlevoix informs us that, en langue Guaranie, it is known as the ‘ao’, and rather tamely adds, ‘When one of these animals is slain, the people make a jacket of its skin.’
Again, Montoya tells us of the horse on which the venerable Padre Roque used to ride, which, when he died, refused all food, and wept perpetually, two streams of water running from its eyes. It never allowed an Indian to mount it after its master’s death, and finally expired, close to his grave, of grief. A kindly, scholarly, intrepid priest, well skilled in knowledge of the world, and not without some tincture of studies in science, as the above-related anecdotes reveal to us. No doubt the Indians loved him far and wide, and his superiors stood in some little awe of him, as those in office often do of their subordinates when they show that capacity for action which is a sure bar to advancement either in Church or State.
In 1627 Montoya was made head of the missions in Guayrá, which opened up to him the opportunity of showing what kind of man he was. In this year the Spaniards of Villa Rica, the nearest town in Paraguay to the reductions in Guayrá, sent out an expedition to chastize some Indians who had insulted a chief called Tayaoba, whom Montoya had baptized. This was the pretext for the expedition, but Montoya knew well that the real object was to hunt for slaves. He brought before the Governor the edict of the King of Spain forbidding any war to be made upon the Indians without sufficient cause. All was in vain, and the expedition left Villa Rica and plunged into the wilds. Montoya, sore against the Governor’s desire, went with the expedition, taking with him Padre Salazar and some well-armed Indians. It was lucky for the Spaniards that he was there, for on the second day a flight of arrows burst from a wood and wounded many of them. The captain of the expedition ordered a retreat, which, situated as they were, exposed on all sides to the fire of an enemy whom they could not see, must have proved fatal. Montoya counselled throwing up earthworks before some huts which stood upon the edge of the woods in which the Indians were; this done, he sent a messenger to Villa Rica for reinforcements. Even behind the earthworks the Spaniards were hard pressed; no one could show himself without being pierced by an arrow. The number of the Indians daily increased, till on the third day they numbered about four thousand, and seemed likely to advance upon the huts. The Spanish captain ordered a rally, and the neophytes wished to decamp, taking Montoya with them, and then gain the shelter of the woods. This he would not allow, and, charging with the soldiers, put the Indians to flight. The Spaniards, far from being grateful for their lives, seeing their hopes of making prisoners had vanished, wished to lay hands upon the Indians whom Montoya had brought, and who had fought beside them in the recent fray. Hearing that in the morning the Spanish soldiers would attack his neophytes, Montoya sent them off by night, and in the morning, when the Spanish captain found him and the other priest alone, he said, ‘Thinking you had no other use for the Indians, I advised them to return.’ The captain had the grace to say nothing but, ‘Then, you gave them good advice, my father.’ The two priests waited patiently till the soldiers had retired, and then sent for their Indians and quietly went home. Thus it appears that at necessity Padre Montoya was a true son of San Ignacio.
In 1628 Montoya seems to have met for the first time Padre Diaz Taño, who afterwards was his companion both in the retreat from Guayrá down the Paraná and in his mission to the King. No matter whether a man make his career with Indians in the wilds of Paraguay or amongst the so-called reasoning people in more sophisticated lands, if he once show himself superior to the ordinary run of men, there is something of an invidious character certain to be attributed to him by those who think that genius is the worst attribute that man can have. This, Montoya did not escape from amongst the Spaniards, but the Indians, at least, were less envious, being perhaps less educated, for they believed that the soul of one of their caciques,[80] known in his life as Quaratici, had entered into him. The rumour reached at last a chief called Guiravera, known to the Spaniards as the ‘Exterminator’ from his cruelty, who, hearing that the soul of his late rival had entered into Montoya, came to see him at the head of a large retinue of people of his tribe. Montoya and Maceta were at Villa Rica, and on the chief’s approach they happened to be seated in the plaza of the town. As he approached them, followed by his men, and with a threatening air, they remained seated, merely motioning him to take a seat upon a bench. This he did, after making one of his men cover the seat with a tiger-skin and stand behind on guard. What passed between them, most unluckily, Montoya has not set down. What he has told us only makes us wish for more, for it appears that after the usual salutations Guiravera refused to speak, and getting up walked about the town, silently looking at everything. But, as it ever happens, even Montoya was no exception to the general run of history-writers, who usually are occupied alone with facts which seem to them important at the time, forgetting that posterity (for whom they write) can judge of the result as well as they themselves, but thirst for details to complete the chain betwixt them and their predecessors. One thing is set down in extenso—not by Montoya, but by another Jesuit—that is, the sermon which Montoya preached to bring the chief into the fold. Considered as a sermon it does not seem out of the common way, and judged by its results was futile at the time, for the chief answered coldly that he would think the matter over, and then retired into the woods. But the seed thus sown in Villa Rica was to bear fruit, for in a year the chief, either tired of his ancestral gods or having pondered on the sermon, came into the fold and was baptized as Paul.
An irruption[81] of the Mamelucos called Father Montoya from baptizing Indians and recovering their souls to the more prosaic, if as useful, task of saving their bodies, which he did at the immediate peril of his own. The Mamelucos had appeared (1628) before the Reduction of Encarnacion, and many of the Indians had already taken refuge in the woods. Those who remained were like a flock of sheep without a shepherd, and knew not what to do. Padre Montoya hastened to the spot, and called on every Christian to take up arms. Under the circumstances he undoubtedly was right; still, in reading history one is puzzled to observe how often and in how many different countries Christians have to resort to arms. But before proceeding to extremities, Montoya sent out Fathers Mendoza and Domenecchi with some of the principal inhabitants of the reduction to parley with the Mamelucos, who, under their celebrated leader Antonio Raposo, were encamped outside the place. Upon arriving within range of the Paulista camp they were greeted with a shower of balls and arrows, which killed several of the Indians and wounded Father Mendoza in the foot. But when, in spite of his wound, the Jesuit advanced towards the camp and insisted on speaking with the leader, the Mamelucos were so struck with his courage that they gave up to him several of the Indians whom they had taken prisoners upon the previous day. Next day Father Montoya, encouraged by the unhoped-for success of Father Mendoza, went out himself, and, facing the Paulistas, somewhat imprudently threatened them with the wrath of Heaven and the King if they did not retire. The wrath of Heaven is often somewhat capricious in its action, and the King of Spain, although as wrathful as he had been an Emperor, was too far away to inspire much terror in his subjects on the Paraná. So that the Paulista treated the wrath of both their Majesties as qualities which he could well neglect, and for sole answer ordered his men to march upon the town. But, whether owing to their hard hearts having been touched by the good Father’s eloquence, or the fact that the neophytes were under arms, when the Paulistas arrived close to the town they altered their intentions and filed off into the woods. Profiting by the respite from hostilities, Montoya, in conjunction with Padre Diaz Taño and a Father bearing the somewhat curious name of Padre Justo Vansurk Mansilla,[82] devoted all his attention for the time to the Mission of Santa Maria la Mayor, which was the most flourishing of all the missions of the time, and which to-day still shows the greatest remnants of the Jesuits’ work, both in regard to architecture and the remains of Indian population still settled on the old mission lands. But even there the Jesuits did not escape without their trials, for it appears[83] that a quantity of new proselytes arrived with women, whom the good Fathers stigmatized as ‘concubines’, and whom the ignorant Indians in the innocence of their hearts looked on as wives. The order being given to dismiss these concubines (or wives), a few submitted; but the rest, leaving the mission, started cultivating a tract of land in the vicinity.
Then the good Fathers, with Montoya at their head, hit on a stroke of genius. Taking the opportunity when the seceding Indians were away gathering their crops, they set fire to their houses and carried off the children and the women,[84] back to the mission. The recalcitrants appeared next day at Santa Maria la Mayor, and were received again into the bosom of the Church. Heresy, also, now and then made its appearance, for two rascals, having built two temples upon two hills, transported to them the skeletons of two magicians long since dead, and the fickle people left the churches empty, and went to worship at the magicians’ shrines. But in this season of sorrow and of care, and whilst the churches in the Mission of Encarnacion were left deserted, Montoya once again showed his determination, and put things right. Not being able to cope alone with the heathen, Father Diaz Taño went to Guayrá, and induced Montoya (still the superior of the reductions in that province) to give his aid. He came, and, having armed some of the faithful, at dead of night attacked the temples and razed them to the ground.