The year just past will long be known in the missions of the East as the year of martyrs. In presence of its events, it seems almost wrong to call only the early age of Christianity the Age of Martyrs. Brief accounts have already been given in the public prints; but our readers will be glad to have copious extracts from the letters of the survivors among the missionaries, who have seen their flocks, with their brethren, slaughtered by thousands. We give these the more willingly, as there has so far been no full review of Catholic Mission work in the English language. This tale of steadfastness in faith is also a new incentive to love of the Sacred Heart of our Lord.

Mgr. Colombert, vicar-apostolic of Eastern Cochin China, writes under date of August 29, 1885: "This mission, tranquil and flourishing two months ago, is now blotted out. There is no longer any doubt that twenty-four thousand Christians have been horribly massacred.... The mission of Eastern Cochin China is utterly ruined. It has no longer a single one of its numerous establishments! Two hundred and sixty churches, priests' houses, schools, orphan asylums, everything is reduced to ashes. The work done during two hundred and fifty years must be begun anew. There is not a single Christian house left standing.... The Christians have seen the massacre of their brethren and the conflagration of their houses. They have experienced the pangs of hunger, and have felt the heat of the sun on the burning sands. They must now undergo the hardships of exile, far from their native land and the graves of their forefathers."

During this time of terror and destruction, several priests had lost their lives, some under circumstances of horrible barbarity. New telegrams continued to announce to the Christians of the West that their brethren were daily called on to lay down their lives. Thus, on the 17th of October, a dispatch to the venerable superior of the seminary of Foreign Missions at Paris, announced that, besides one more missionary and ten native priests, seven thousand Christians had just been massacred. Letters, which arrived later, contained painful particulars of what had before been known only in its general outline of horror.

Five of the refugee missionaries wrote on the 15th of August: "We dare not enter into new details on this catastrophe. We will only say that to find in history a disaster to be compared to ours, it would be necessary to go back beyond the Sicilian Vespers, to the acts of vandalism of the savage hordes which swept over, one by one, the vast provinces of the Roman empire. A fact which adds to the horror is that this series of slaughters and butcheries of our Christians has been done in a country without means of communication or defence. In this way conflagration and carnage have spread as widely as our Catholic parishes were numerous. They were scattered here and there over a great extent of territory, from the north to the south. On this account the murderers and incendiaries have been able to accomplish their infamous designs with impunity. We believe that never have there been seen so many massacres and conflagrations, following one on the other for two or three weeks continuously, on so vast a scale and at so many points at the same time, with such ferocity and rage on the part of unnatural fellow-countrymen who were exterminating their unarmed brothers.

"Alas! our souls are sad unto death at the sight of the extent of our misfortunes. New dispatches will soon inform you how many survivors are left of twenty-nine missionaries and seventeen native priests, of more than forty male teachers of religion, of one hundred and twenty students of Latin and theology, of four hundred and fifty native religious sisters, and of forty-one thousand Christians.

"In order that these almost incredible misfortunes may not be thought exaggerated, even by those who are ill-disposed, God has permitted that laymen in great number—officers and soldiers of the French post, officers and sailors of the war-ship moored in the harbor of Qui-nhon, the crew and passengers of the steamer which came to port August 5th—should witness the horrible sight of ten or twelve different centres of conflagration. There were as many fires as there were Christian settlements. These lighted up the horizon all along the shore for several miles. The officers, soldiers, and travellers were for the most part strangers, and in some cases indifferent to everything that concerns the missions. They have seen with their own eyes and with lively emotion the greatness of the disasters which have befallen us.... Missionaries and Christians, we have literally been deprived of everything: clothing, houses, rice, vestments for the celebration of the holy Mass and the administration of the sacraments, books; we are in need of everything. Scarcely one of us was able to save any part of his possessions. But that which has the most saddened us missionaries, is to have been forced to be present, down-hearted and powerless, during the ruin and extermination of our Christians. How many times have we repeated the words of Scripture: I saw the oppressions that are done under the sun, and the tears of the innocent, and they had no comforter: and they were not able to resist their violence, being destitute of help from any. And I praised the dead rather than the living. (Eccl. iv. 1-2.) Yes, happy are those among us who died before witnessing all these calamities, in comparison of which a typhoon, an inundation, even a pestilence, would seem only ordinary misfortunes."

The Messenger of the Sacred Heart.