PLANTING THE CROSS. THIS picture represents the landing of the Spaniards in America, between four and five hundred years ago. A strange, sad history of bloodshed and oppression, is that of these savage conJanuary 1859. querors. Attracted by the marvellous reports which had been spread abroad of the rich mines of gold and silver to be found in different parts of America, Cortez and his followers landed in Mexico, conquered the people, and made themselves lords of the land. A few years afterwards, Pizarro, with a determined band of men, followed his example in Peru with the same marvellous success, only far outstripping him in cruelty. Some of the stories of Pizarro, and his treatment of the gentle Peruvians, are enough to make one exclaim with horror, "Could these wretches be men!" And yet, with all their cruelty, they professed a great deal of piety, pretending that all they desired was to make the natives Christian, and that it was only when they refused to give up their old religion that they killed them. Well might the poor natives hate the very name of Christian; for how could they believe in a religion whose professors were so wicked? But numbers of them were baptized, and called themselves Christians to save their lives, keeping most of their old superstitions, and adding to them others which the Spaniards taught them, such as bowing to the Cross, and to pictures of the Virgin Mary, and other saints, sprinkling themselves with holy water, making the sign of the Cross, and such like other ceremonies. Wherever the Spaniards went, they planted a huge cross in the ground, and told the wondering natives that by so doing they had taken possession of their country for the king of Spain, that henceforth they were his subjects, and must obey him as their lord, and first of all they must be baptized in the name of Christ. If they refused, they would only have themselves to blame for what followed; if they consented, they were promised all kinds of riches and honours in another world. But, alas! whether they submitted or not it mattered little, for their cruel masters "made their lives bitter with hard bondage." Thus did the Spaniards plant the Cross of the Prince of Peace! and it was this they called the conversion of the heathen. Very differently, dear reader, do our Protestant missionaries plant the Cross in heathen lands; they, too, seek to win over the natives to the service of their king: but it is a king whose servants may not fight in His cause. Their victories are all won without a drop of blood being shed on the stranger's soil, unless it is their own. They go, not to enrich themselves with the treasures of the ignorant natives, but to take them the Pearl of great price. Instead of making them slaves, they tell them of a great deliverer, who is come to make them free indeed. They put into STORY OF THELE, A BASSUTO GIRL. 3 their hands the Bible, and tell them | prince offers to give them and thus that it contains the title-deeds of their do our missionaries plant the standinheritance to a kingdom which their ard of the Cross. STORY OF THELE, A BASSUTO GIRL. MANY of our readers have heard of "I then found myself without any amongst the Bassutos in South Africa. a captive Mossulo observed me, and, said his wife, 'do you not know that our masters have already given me their own child to bring up for them, and that they will punish me if they see me divide my attention between their child and another?' The husband was silent. I was left to take care of myself, and was obliged to wander about the neighbouring plains, seeking for roots and bulbs to feed upon. Soon I became accustomed to "I was still very young when my native village was destroyed by the Zulus. My father and nearly all the men of the place perished. I was taken prisoner with my mother. We became the property of a rich man, who at first treated us very harshly, but afterwards he became rather kinder. My mother pleased him; this kind of life. I used to sleep in he wished to make her his wife, and tried to persuade her by good treatment. She declared that she would never marry one of the murderers of her husband. The Zulu repeated the attempt; but being always refused, he one day entered the house in a violent passion, and pierced my poor mother with his spear. the fields, and by degrees got further |