54
THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE JESUITS
precision is concealed by chimeras, dragons, etc. Kang-Hi, "the enlightened despot", who reigned for 61 years, appreciated the services of that scientist who gave him wise advice, accompanied him to war and even managed a foundry for cannons. But this profane and war-like activity was directed "ad majorem Dei gloriam", as the good Father reminded the emperor in a note he sent him before his death: "Sir, I die happy as I used nearly every moment of my life to serve Your Majesty. But I pray Him very humbly to remember, after my death, that my aim in all I did was to procure a protector for the most holy religion in the universe; and this protector was you, the greatest king in the East".(7) However, in China as in Malabar, this religion could not survive without some artifice. The Jesuits had to bring the Roman doctrine to the chinese level, identify God with heaven (Tien) or the Chang-Ti (Emperor from onhigh), blend Catholic rites with Chinese rites, accept Confucian teachings, the cult of the ancestors, etc. Pope Clement XI, who was told of it by rival Orders, condemned this doctrinal "laxism" and, as a result, all the missionary work of the Jesuits in the Celestial Empire collapsed. The successors of Kang-Hi proscribed Christianity and the last Fathers left in China died there and were never replaced.
(7) "Correspondence" of Verbiest (Brussels 1931, p.551).