Before the re-establishment the few Jesuits in White Russia had kept up the missionary traditions of the Society. Their missions extended all along the Volga and they were at Odessa in 1800. In 1801, thanks to the Emperor Paul's intercession, they had returned to their ancient posts on the Ægean Islands, which were in the dominions of the Grand Turk; by 1806 they had reached Astrakhan; and in 1810 were in the Caucasus. Before Father Grassi came to America, he was studying in St. Petersburg to prepare himself for the missions of Astrakhan.
In America, in spite of the Suppression, the work of the old Jesuits did not fail to leave its traces. Thus in Brazil where Nobrega and Anchieta once labored, over 800,000 domesticated Indians now represent the fruit of their toil. Deprived during sixty years of their fathers and guides and too often scandalized by men who are Christians only in name, the native races have not only preserved the Faith through all their sorrows and trials, but every where rejected the bribes and promises of heresy. In that vast region, which stretches from the mouth of the San Francisco to the Isthmus of Panama, watered by the mightiest rivers of our globe, and including the district of the Amazon with its 45,000 miles of navigable water communication, "the natives who still find shelter in its forests or guide their barks over its myriad streams," says a Protestant writer, "push their profession of the Catholic religion even to the point of fanaticism."
The Paraguayans of course could be counted upon not to forget their fathers in Christ. Both Sir Woodbine Parish and d'Orbigny testify that the effects of the preponderating influence of the monastic establishments are still visible in the habits of the generality of the people. One thing is certain, they say, and ought to be declared to the praise of the Fathers, that since their expulsion the material prosperity of Paraguay has diminished; many lands formerly cultivated have ceased to be so; many localities formerly inhabited present at this day only ruins. What ought to be confessed is this — that they knew how to engrave with such power, on their hearts, reverence for authority that even to this very hour the tribes of Paraguay beyond all those who inhabit this portion of America are the most gentle and the most submissive to the dictates of duty.
In "La Compañía de Jesús en las Republicas del Sur de America," Father Hernández tells us that there were three former Jesuits in Chile at the beginning of the nineteenth century: Father Caldera, Vildaurre and Carvajal. The first two died respectively in 1818 and 1822, the date of Carvajal's demise is not known, nor is there any information available as to whether or not they ever re-entered the Society. In the old Province of Paraguay, there was a Father Villafañe who was seventy-four years old in 1814. Hearing of the re-establishment, he wrote to the Pope asking to renew his vows when "in danger of death." The request, of course, was granted but he continued to live till the year 1830. Whether he waited till then to renew his vows has not been found out. In that same year there died in Buenos Aires an Irish Jesuit named Patrick Moran. His name is inscribed not only on the headstone over his remains, in the Recolta graveyard, but on a slab inserted in the wall of the church. He was probably a chaplain in some distinguished family or what was more likely exercising his ministry in the Irish colony of that place.
Coming to the northern part of the hemisphere we are told by Mr. Russell Bartlett that the Yaqui Indians of Sonora, the fishermen and pearl divers of California are invariably honest, faithful and industrious. They were among the first to be converted by the Jesuits. Originally extremely warlike, their savage nature was completely subdued on being converted to Christianity, and they became the most docile and tractable of people. They are now very populous in the southern part of Sonora.
Anyone who has visited the Abenakis at Old Town in Maine, or La Jeune Lorette in Quebec, or Caughnawaga on the St. Lawrence, or the Indian settlements at Wekwemikong and Killarney on Lake Huron will testify to the excellent results of the teachings implanted in their hearts by the old Jesuit missionaries who reclaimed them from savagery.
A most remarkable example of this fidelity to their former teachers was afforded by the Indians of Caughnawaga. They were mostly Iroquois from New York who after their conversion to the Faith were sent or went, of their own accord, to the Christian village that was assigned to them above Montreal. Long after the Suppression of the Society, namely in the first third of the nineteenth century, a party of these Indians headed by two chiefs with the significant names of Ignace and François Régis tramped almost completely across the continent, and without the aid of a priest, for none could be got, converted an entire tribe to Christianity and did it in such wonderful fashion that the first white men who visited these converts were amazed at the purity, honesty, self-restraint and piety that reigned in the tribe. Over and over again, Ignace travelled down to St. Louis, thus making a journey of two thousand miles each time to beg for a Black Robe from the poor missionary bishop who had none to give him. The devoted Ignace, at last, lost his life in pursuance of his apostolic purpose. He fell among hostile Indians, and though he might have escaped, for he was dressed as a white man, he confessed himself an Iroquois and died with his people.
Father Fortis, the first General after the re-establishment of the Society, was rather averse to any missionary enterprise for the time being, because he judged that he had not as yet any available men for such perilous work. Father Roothaan, his immediate successor, was of a different opinion, and when in 1833, he appealed for missionaries the response was immediate. Hence Bengal was begun in 1834; Madura, Argentina and Paraguay in 1836, and the Rocky Mountains and China in 1840. In 1852 at the request of Napoleon III the penal colony of French Guinea was accepted as were the offers of Fernando Po in Africa and the Philippines from Queen Isabella of Spain.
The Spanish missions in Latin America were the least successful of any in the Society. The Fathers were debarred from any communication with the native tribes, even those formerly Christianized and civilized by them, or if permission were granted it was soon under some frivolous pretext or other rescinded, as we have mentioned above.
The Belgian Jesuits went to Guatemala in 1843, but only after considerable trouble was their existence assured by a government Act, in 1851. In 1871, however, they were expelled and withdrew to Nicaragua, from which they were driven in 1884. The Brazilian Mission was inaugurated by the Jesuits whom Rosas had exiled from Argentina. They were acceptable because priests were needed in the devastated Province of Rio Grande do Sul, which had been the theatre of an unsuccessful war of independence. Of course, the usual government methods in vogue in that part of the world were resorted to.