The priests of the congregation of St. Vincent of Paul, as zealous now as in the days of their illustrious founder, have penetrated into Abyssinia, and are laboring to bring about a complete reconciliation of that once eminently Christian nation to the church of Pius IX. The Æthiopian may not, indeed, change his skin. But, according to the reports of the missionaries, these people are changing their ideas, and giving proofs of a disposition to return to the centre of Christian unity. Everywhere the missionaries are received with kindness by princes and people, and favored with a respectful hearing.
So great is the reverence of the nations of the Turkish Empire for the character of the Pope, that one would say that he had a Concordat with those nations and their chiefs. The legate of the Holy See, Archbishop Auvergne, of Iconium, was received with the greatest honor by the Sovereign of Ægypt, on occasion of his legation to that country and Syria. A Catholic bishop was established at Alexandria, a city so intimately associated with the memory of Saint Athanasius. His jurisdiction extends over the Æthiopian countries, and this circumstance, considering their relations in bygone ages with the Patriarchs of Alexandria, facilitates their communion with the centre of unity. The Catholic bishop of Cairo, assisted by thirty priests, so long ago as 1840, governed a flock of nearly twenty thousand Copts of the ancient race of Ægypt. This body of faithful Christians is daily increasing, by the adherence of other Copts who had fallen into the Eutichyan heresy, more from want of instruction than obstinacy. Nothing could surpass the generosity of the Khedive towards the church. He presented to the Pope several marble columns, for the restoration of the Basilica of St. Paul at Rome, and built for the missionaries and sisters of St. Vincent de Paul a college, schools, and an hospital in the city of Alexandria. At Tunis and Tripoli there are 7,000 Catholics, who are ministered to by nine priests of the order of St. Francis. So early as 1840, Sisters of Charity went from France in order to establish a community at Tunis, with the full concurrence of the Mussulman government.
It is well known that as soon as a French colony was founded at Algiers, a bishop was appointed. That African Christendom, so happily commenced, still prospers, and extends its labors under the auspices of the august Head of the church. It is consoling to observe that there are so many nascent and even flourishing churches around the vast continent of Africa, from Senegambia and Sierra Leone, by the Cape of Good Hope, the islands on the south-east coast, Æthiopia and Ægypt, to the gates of Hercules. They stand there as sentinels, ready to intimate the moment when the army of the Cross may penetrate to the central continent, and conquer new kingdoms to the cause of Christ. This is surely not too much to hope for in an age when science has done so much, and commerce, that great handmaid of civilization, is opening a highway to the darkest recesses of the wide and long-lost heathen land.