No More Learning

[645] _He who first shall crown thy labours, Gama. _--Pedro de Cabral, of
whom see the preface.

[646] Ceylon.

[647] _Some Macon's orgies. _--Macon, a name of Mecca, the birthplace of
Mohammed.

[648] _The tomb where Thomas sleeps. _--There is (to talk in the Indian
style) _a caste_ of gentlemen, whose hearts are all impartiality and
candour to every religion, except one, the most moral which ever the
world heard of. A tale of a Brahmin, or a priest of Jupiter, would to
them appear worthy of poetry. But to introduce an apostle---- Common
sense, however, will prevail; and the episode of St. Thomas will appear
to the true critic equal in dignity and propriety.

To renew and complete the labours of the apostle, the messenger of
Heaven, is the great design of the hero of the poem, and of the future
missions, in consequence of the discoveries which are the subject of it.

The Christians of St. Thomas, found in Malabar on the arrival of GAMA,
we have already mentioned. The Jesuit missionaries have given most
pompous accounts of the Christian antiquities of India and China. When
the Portuguese arrived in India, the head of the Malabar Christians,
named Jacob, styled himself Metropolitan of India and China.
And a
Syriac breviary{*} of the Indian Christians offers praise to God for
sending St. Thomas to India and China. In 1625, in digging for a
foundation near Sigansu, metropolis of the province of Xensi, was found
a stone with a cross on it, full of Chinese, and some Syriac characters,
containing the names of bishops, and an account of the Christian
religion, "that it was brought from Judea; that having been weakened, it
was renewed under the reign of the great Tam" (cir. A. D. 630). But the
Christians, say the Jesuits, siding with the Tartars, cir. A. D. 1200,
were extirpated by the Chinese. In 1543, Fernand Pinto, observing some
ruins near Peking, was told by the people, that 200 years before, a holy
man who worshipped Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, lived there; and
being murdered, was thrown into a river, but his body would not sink;
and soon after the city was destroyed by an earthquake. The same Jesuit
found people at Caminam who knew the doctrines of Christianity, which
they said were preached to their fathers, by John, the disciple of
Thomas. In 1635, some heathens, by night passing through a village in
the province of Fokien, saw some stones which emitted light, under which
were found the figure of crosses. From China, St. Thomas returned to
Meliapore in Malabar, at a time when a prodigious beam of timber floated
on the sea near the coast. The king endeavoured to bring it ashore, but
all the force of men and elephants was in vain.