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Witlzdrawal of Queretaran ,Jfissionaries from Te:tas
weeds, unappetizing worms, and roots. The mission Indians would tell them of the comforts of mission life during the inclement weather and of the abundant food. On their return to the mission the neophytes would tell the Padre where their friends lived and suggest that he should go to visit them. Before the end of the winter a missionary would set out with a liberal supply of clothes and food. Without a military escort, guided perhaps by one or two faithful converts, he would penetrate the unexplored woods and swamps, returning after an absence cf a week or ten days with a group of hopeful natives. The natives had no fixed ideas on religion. They ignored the existence of God, but they had a deep and overwhelming fear of the evil spirit, who they claimed pursued them with fiendish glee and ambushed them in the woods. Idolatry was almost unknown among the tribes the mis- sionaries met in Texas. They lived more like animals than human beings, but they had no great depravity. They generally established their villages along the rivers or the seashore, lived from the chase and from fishing, depending often for their livelihood on roots and insects in the winter. They were visited by devastating epidemics of measles ·and smallpox, and venereal diseases were not unknown among them when the missionaries first met them. It was during the unwelcome visits of epidemics that the missionaries succeeded in inducing them to give up their roaming lives and to come to live in the missions. The mere fact of living in a mission did not save them from epidemics, but when these scourges came, they knew they would be taken care of, gi\'en medicine, nursed, and looked after. Rude and ignorant though they were, the natives realized the advantage of mission life and soon came to feel the compelling urge of Christian charity. The unselfish devotion of the missionaries. their patience and love, soon won the hearts of the neophytes. Arricivita declares with some pride that not a single case of violence on the part of a mission Indian against a Pa.dre was recorded. He says that the most the mission Indians did when displeased was to run away. But when the Padre came after them, they soon forgot their grievance at sight of his kindly face and Christian n.1icn and came running to greet him. But the presence of a respectable military force was an indispensable factor in the success of the missionary endea\'ors of the good Padres. The peaceful Franciscan frankly admits that for the permanence of conversion the respect inspired by military force in the early years was of inestimable value. The great success of the first missionaries in Mexico, Arricivita points out, was due in large measure to the presence
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