And there was another object, besides gain, which was predominant in the minds of almost all the early explorers, namely, the spread of the Christian religion.

This desire of theirs, too, seems to have been thoroughly genuine and deep-seated; and it may be doubted whether the discoveries would have been made at that period but for the impulse given to them by the most religious minds longing to promote, by all means in their power, the spread of what, to them, was the only true and saving faith.

"I do not," says a candid historian [Faria y Sousa] of that age, "imagine that I shall persuade the world that our intent was only to be preachers; but on the other hand the world must not fancy that our intent was merely to be traders," There is much to blame in the conduct of the first discoverers in Africa and America; it is, however, but just to acknowledge that the love of gold was by no means the only motive which urged them to such endeavours as theirs.

To appreciate justly the intensity of their anxiety for the conversion of the heathen, we must keep in our minds the views then universally entertained of the merits and efficacy of mere formal communion with the Church, and the fatal consequences of not being within that communion.
EARLY ADVENTURERS.
This will go a long way towards explaining the wonderful inconsistency, as it seems to us, of the most cruel and wicked men believing themselves to be good Christians and eminent promoters of the faith, if only they baptized, before they slew, their fellow-creatures.

And the maintenance of such church principles will altogether account for the strange oversights which pure and high minds have made in the means of carrying out those principles, fascinated as they were by the brilliancy and magnitude of the main object they had in view.
But while piety, sometimes debased into religious fanaticism, had a large part in these undertakings, doubtless the love of adventure and the craving for novelty had their influence also.