Excerpt from The Christian World, Vol. 16: The Magazine of the American and Foreign Christian Union; January to December, 1865 Religious possession was taken of the country almost immediaw after the first discovery. No antagonistic influences Of other Christian sects came in to nullify, or in any way interfere with those of the RO man Catholic Church. That Church was brought face to face with paganism under the most favorable circumstances possible for showing its salutary power, as will appear by the following brief statement of facts: The discoverer made, in rapid succession, a second and third voyage under the auspices of the Portuguese government, which seemed as sanguine as Cam himself, that the discovery would result in great advantages both to Portugal and the Catholic Church. On the second soyage three Dominican missionaries, and on the third twelve Fran cis cans were taken out. These were followed in succeeding years by a host of others. At first everything seemed most favorable to their de sires. Early in their work the Conghese king and others in high office embraced the Catholic faith, and the people followed so willingly in themame course, that before very many years it is said the en tire nation -r-every man, woman, and child - had received Romish baptism. A single unhap tized adult was a rare exception. Wherever the mission aryt came it was the duty of the local officer to send throughout the village and call the people to assemble, and have their religious wants attended to. If the Officer failed in this, he was liable to removal. But the people needed no such prompting. They came to the priest with the greatest eagerness. One missionary says that the mothers in a contain village rushed upon him like mad women, to have their children baptized. According to the accounts given by the missions sies themselves, this continued for more than two hundred years. To all outward appearance, Congo was as much a Roman Catholic nation as Portugal, Spain, or Italy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.