The Jesuits, 1534-1921: A History of the Society of Jesus from Its Foundation to the Present TimeCampbell, Thomas J. (Thomas Joseph)
History
The Jesuits, 1534-1921: A History of the Society of Jesus from Its Foundation to the Present Time
Campbell, Thomas J. (Thomas Joseph)
Jesuits -- History
Father Stephens spent his first five years as minister of the professed
house at Goa, and was then sent to Salsette as rector, and, for a time,
was socius to the visitor. After that he spent thirty-five years as a
missionary among the Brahmin Catholics of Salsette, but his labors in
that field did not prevent him from doing a great deal of hard literary
work. Thus, he was the first to make a scientific study of Canarese. He
also plunged into Hindustani, and wrote grammars and books of devotion
in those languages. Most of his writings, however, were lost at the time
of the Suppression of the Society. He died in Goa in 1619. (The Catholic
Encyclopedia, XIV, 292.)
Pounde's Jesuit work was quite different from that of Stephens. Not
being able to present himself in person to the General, he asked by
letter to be received into the Order. It was on December 1, 1578, while
he was imprisoned in the Tower that an answer came from Father Mercurian
granting his request. That encouraged him to labor more strenuously than
ever, and for thirty years he kept on defying the Government. Lingard
gives one notable instance of his audacity, though the great historian
does not seem to be aware that Pounde was a Jesuit. In the proceedings
connected with the Gunpowder Plot, someone was sentenced for harboring a
Jesuit. Pounde appeared in court to protest against the ruling of the
judge, with the result that he himself was arrested. He was condemned to
have one of his ears cut off, to go to prison for life, and to pay a
fine of a thousand pounds, if he did not tell who advised him to act as
he did. He did not lose his ear; while he was in the Tower the queen,
Anne of Denmark, interceded in his behalf. Her loving husband, however,
King James I, told her: "never to open her mouth again in favor of a
Catholic." Finally he got off by standing a whole day in the pillory, an
experience which he probably enjoyed, for in spite of dungeons and
chains and loss of property and his own terrible austerity--he often
scourged himself to blood--he never lost his spirit of fun. He ended his
wonderful career on March 5, 1615, at the age of 76, at Belmont,
breathing his last in the room in which he was born.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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