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Untitled Article
Brasil , who was sent to Portugal to compliment the king , John IV . This monarch , captivated by the eloquence of Vieyra , appointed him his pTeacher , and having found him possessed of talents for public business , entrusted him with many negociations . It was in vain that the king endeavoured to attach him to his person , and to reward his services by a bishopric . His truly apostolic soul sought a career of activity and of dangers . Vieyra determined to devote himself altogether to the instruction of the American savages .
In 1652 , he arrived at the Captainship of Maranhao , accompanied by twelve missionaries . In the following year he was compelled to return to Lisbon to carry a complaint to the king against the Colonists , and to demand the freedom of the Indians as necessary to their conversion . Having succeeded in this honourable undertaking , he again set out for his deserts . It was then that , devoting himself to his proselyting zeal , he brought over to Christianity the greater part of the tribes who wandered in the Seara , Maranha 6 , Para , and on the banks of the Amazons . He erected sixteen churches , and
composed a catechism in six languages for the use of the converts . He subjected the Nhemgaybas to the Gospel and to Portugal , which received them in triumph on the 5 th of August , 1659 . In 1661 , the Colonists , more and more irritated by the impediments which the missionaries opposed to their criminal avarice , shipped off Vieyra and his associates in a vessel bound for Lisbon , on the pretence that they were conspiring with the Dutch to deprive Portugal of Brasil . This absurd accusation fell of itself : the voyage occasioned Vieyra , however , many misfortunes . Alphonso VI . had now succeeded to John IV . The young nobility had rendered themselves masters of the king ' s will . Vieyra , being consulted by the regent , advised that the favourites should be banished . A remonstrance , attributed to his pen , was forwarded to the young monarch . This piece appeared in French in a work entitled , Relation des troubles arrivfo d la Cour de Portugal , by Fremont d'Ablaneourt . The following year , however , the favourites again became
the masters , and Vieyra was banished first to Oporto , and afterwards to Coimbra . Old enmities were now awakened . From the year 1652 , the Jesuits of Portugal , enraged by a measure which they believed to have originated in his advice , were desirous of expelling him from their society as an innovator . On this occasion they charged him with having delivered from the pulpit doctrines contrary to the true faith . Will it be believed that neither the genius of this great man , nor the eminent services he had
rendered to the cause of Christianity , could prevent their persecuting him through the Inquisition ? He was imprisoned , by order of the Holy Office , on the 2 nd of October , 1665 ; and it was considered that they did him a favour when they released him on the 24 th of December , 1667 , after a confinement of twenty-six months , by sending him to assist at an auto-da-fe ,
and restricting themselves to prohibiting him to preach . This injury was too odious to pass unnoticed . The Pope interposed , and the honour of Vieyra received a striking satisfaction and a singular distinction . By a brief of Clement X ., he was removed from the jurisdiction of the Portuguese Inquisitors , and placed under the charge of the Roman congregation of Cardinals . We owe to this dispute of Vieyra with the Holy Office a very curious little
work , which was not printed till 1821 . It is entitled , 'A Secret Note addressed to the Sovereign Pontiff , Clement X ., on the manner in which the Inquisition of Portugal proceeds towards its Prisoners . ' * It is to be * " Uarbosa has not mentioned this piece among the manuscript productions of Vieyra ; the reason of his silence may be easily understood . "
Untitled Article
Memoir of Antonio Vieyra . 99
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1828, page 99, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2557/page/27/
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