200th Anniversary of the Restoration of the Society of Jesus (Suppressed in 1773 and restored in 1814)

 This Chinese inscription on a wall in Peking: (Bangert, 410), was discovered by a French Vincentian missionary, Bishop Martial Mouly, and brought tears to his eyes:

     In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

     Long unshaken but overcome at last by so many storms, It has fallen.

     Traveller, stop and read. Reflect for a few moments on the inconstancy of things human. 

     Here lie the French missionaries of that renowned Society which taught and spread  

     abroad in all its purity the worship of the true God;

     which, while imitating amid pain and toil and as far as human weakness allows,

     Jesus Whose Name it bore, lived virtuously, helped the neighbour

     and, making itself all things to all in order to gain all, for two flourishing centuries

     and more gave to the Church martyrs and confessors.

     I, Joseph-Marie Amiot, and the other French missionaries of the same Society,…

     still forward the divine cause……

     We, secretly grieving even to the last of our days, have erected here amid burial groves

      this monument of our fraternal affection.     

      Go, traveller, continue on your way. Felicitate the dead; weep for the living; pray for all.

      Wonder, and be silent.                      

                        

                 In the year of Christ 1774, on the 14^th day of October ….