services." It then declares that the Pope "in virtue of the plenitude of Apostolic power, and with perpetual validity, had decreed that the concessions made to the Jesuits in Russia and Sicily should extend to all his ecclesiastical states, and to all other states. All necessary powers are then granted to the present General of the Society "in order that the said states may freely receive all who desire to be, or shall be, admitted into the Order; and power is granted to the members to apply themselves to the education of youth-to direct colleges and seminaries to hear confessions, to preach, and administer the sacraments;" the several colleges, houses, and members of the Order and all who shall join it are then taken under the protection of the Holy See, which "reserves the power of prescribing and directing all that may be necessary to consolidate the Society more and more; to render it stronger; and tå purge it of abuses SHOULD THEY EVER CREEP IN."

Now we have a hatred of intolerance. It is a weapon we should disdain to employ even against a body who refused to employ any other. Those who take that sword will ordinarily perish by it; and, if not, it is our wish and duty to listen to the command of Him, who has bid us 'put' it up.' It is not, there fore, by any means, our intention to condemn even Jesuitism un→ heard; still less is it our wish to confound Catholics with Jesuits, and to make the crimes of the one a handle for an attack upon the other. We design, indeed, no assault upon popery: although steady adversaries to many of the claims of its adherents, and to all of these claims, when they are urged as rights, we think it neither just nor politic to endeavour to widen the breach between Protestants and Papists. We have each studied the opposite system too long and too exclusively through the media of jealousy and suspicion. Nor is this our only reason for leaving popery unassailed: it is our strong conviction, that it lags too much behind the temper and genius of the age long to survive in its present form; we are willing, therefore, to let it die a na tural death, taking care, at the same time, not to be injured by its expiring struggles. In this view of the subject, we have evidently no temptation to attack the Church of Rome through the sides of Jesuitism. Nor is this all: in this particular instance we feel ourselves called upon to make a common cause with many Popish individuals and nations; for many of these have been found among the steadiest enemies to the system of Loyola. Nor is it our wish to confine this spirit of moderation to the Pa pists in general; we desire to extend it even to the Jesuits them selves. If indeed these faults are only those of a particular season or country; if they attach rather to a few individuals than to the whole body; if they arise rather from a violation of the principles of the order, than from the principles themselves ; if

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any reasonable hope may be entertained, that under any practicable modification of the system these errors will not recur; then are we content to ascribe the offences of Jesuitism to the common infirmities of our nature, and shall be disposed rather to pity their weakness than to denounce their guilt. But if, as we believe, the offences of Jesuitism are the natural and necessary fruits of the system; if they are confined to no age, piace, or person; if they follow, like the tail of the comet, the same disastrous course with the luminary itself; not this or that nation, but humanity is startled at the re-appearance of this common enemy of man; and we must not tolerate a mandate, which is possibly to be sealed with the blood of ourselves, or of our chil dren. It is, however, far from our wish, that this charge against Jesuitism should be received upon our mere assertion. The pamphlet before us, and a few other accredited works, will enable us, we think, to prove that the crimes of Jesuitism are wrought into its very essence and constitution; that a certain succession of evils may be expected to mark its course, as the march of an army is to be tracked by the bodies of those whom it has slain. In order to the establishment of this point, let us look, first, at the constitution of Jesuitism, and then at some facts connected with its history.

One of the most striking features in the constitution of the order, is the vow of implicit obedience to the pope: the pledge given to serve him in any part of the world without requiring any support from the papal see. Until this pledge was given, Paul the Third refused to sanction the institution of the order. He refused to charge so formidable an engine, unless he himself might have his hand upon the trigger. Now this vow in itself, we conceive, constitutes a sufficient objection to the order. It is incompatible with the peace of society that one empire should float within another without subordination, union, or agreement; that the legitimate monarch of every state should wear his crown by sufferance; should be hemmed in by unknown agents, whose duty it may become to resist his sceptre, or to wrench it from his hands. The Society, it has been said, is a sword of which the hilt is at Rome! But if the hilt be there, the blade is every where, and that with so fine an edge as to make itself felt before it can be seen.

But the authority of the pope was by no means the most formidable feature of the institution. Popes are sovereign princes, surrounded by a court, exposed to public scrutiny, and responsible to other civilized states for their conduct. Jesuits were placed under the control of another master, whose influence, like that of the laws of Nature, was secret and irre sistible.

The

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"A General chosen for life by deputies from the several provinces, possessed power that was supreme and independent, extending to every person and to every case. He, by his sole authority, nominated provincials, rectors, and every other officer employed in the government of the society, and could remove them at pleasure. In him was vested the sovereign administration of the revenues and funds of the order. Every member belonging to it was at his disposal; and by his uncontrolable mandate, he could impose on them any task, or employ them in what service soever he pleased. To his commands they were required to yield not only outward obedience, but to resign up to him the inclinations of their own wills, and the sentiments of their own understandings. They were to listen to his injunctions, as if they had been uttered by Christ himself. Under his direction they were to be only passive instruments, like clay in the hands of the potter, or mere machines incapable of resistance. Such a singular form of policy could not fail to impress its character on all the members of the Order, and to give a peculiar force to all its operations. There is not in the annals of mankind any example of such a perfect despotism exercised, be it observed, not over monks shut up in the cells of a convent, but over men, dispersed among all the nations of the earth." (P. 5, 6.)

It was necessary to the efficient exercise of this unlimited power, that the general should possess an intimate knowledge of the persons who bore arms under his authority. Each man was constrained to lay bare his bosom to his examiner. Reports of the character and abilities of each were collected in every small district; these were re-examined and corrected by general examiners; and all were transmitted to the grand depository at Rome, there to be treasured up against an emergency. The number of the reports sent to Rome in a single year amounted

to 6584.

Were our evidence with regard to the Jesuits to stop at this point, enough, we conceive, has been said to prove, that they cannot exist with safety to the great mass of society. Religion, and laws founded upon religion, are the proper guardians of na tional and individual welfare. But the general of the Jesuits was superior to either; he interpreted religion, and limited law, according to his own pleasure, and either extended or crippled both to promote the interests of a few at the expense of all the

rest.

As might be expected, unlimited power was indefinitely abused. The instruments were suited to the agents, and both to the end in view. The principle on which their polity appears to be founded is this: "quod convenit id honestum" whatever is expedient is right-whatever will promote Jesuitism is sanctified by the purity of the object. That we may not be supposed to scandalize the order, we shall here give some extracts from the • Secreta Monita.' We need scarcely remind our readers, that

these are the secret instructions of the Jesuits; instructions which, if discovered, the members of the order were commanded to disown; of which men knew nothing but the consequences for many years; and which the order, in an ill-fated moment for them, surrendered to public examination in the course of a celebrated law-suit.

"Princes and distinguished persons must by all means be so managed that they may gain their ear, which will easily secure their hearts; so that all persons will become dependant upon them, and opposition be prevented. Since Ecclesiastics secure the greatest favour by winking at the vices of the great, as in the case of incestuous marriages, &c. such persons must be led to hope that, through their aid, a dispensation may be obtained from the Pope, which he will no doubt readily grant. It will further their object much, if their members insinuate themselves into foreign embassies, but especially in those to the Pope. Favour must, above all, be obtained with the dependants and domestics of princes and noblemen, who by presents and offices of piety may be so far. biassed as to impart intelligence of their employers' inclinations and intentions. The marriages of the Houses of Austria, Bourbon, and Poland, having benefited the Society, similar alliances must be formed with the like object-Princesses and females of rank may be gained by women of their bed-chambers, who must therefore be particularly addressed, whereby there will be no secrets concealed from the members. Their Confessors must allow greater latitude than those of other Orders, in order that their penitents being allured with such freedom, may relinquish others, and entirely depend on their direction and advice. Princes and Prelates capable of being signally useful to the Society, may be favoured so far as to become partakers of all its advantages. The people must be taught that the Society has, beyond all other orders, the fullest powers of absolution even in reserved cases; of dispensing with fasts, discharging from debt, and dissolving impediments to marriage-by which many will apply to them, and thereby incur the strictest obligations. The animosities of the great must be enquired into, in order that the credit of reconciling them may at least gain one of the parties. Such an ascendancy must be acquired over rulers and magistrates of every place, that they may be led to exert themselves even against their nearest relatives and best friends, when the interests of the Order shall require. Where the Clergy are more predominant, as in Germany, Poland, &c. they must be carefully gained, in order that by their, and the Prince's authority, religious houses, patronages, and foundations of masses, may fall to the Society, an object not difficult to accomplish in those places where Catholics are intermixed with heretics and schismatics. Prelates must be engaged to employ the Jesuits both for Confessors and Advisers-care must be taken when Princes or Prelates found either Colleges or Parish Churches, that the Society always have the right of presenting, and that the Superior of the Jesuits, for the time being, be appointed to the cure, so that the whole government of that Church and its parishioners may become de pendant on the Society-whenever the governors of academies thwart

their designs or the Catholics, or Heretics oppose their foundations, they must endeavour by the Prelates, to secure the principal pulpitstheir members, in directing the great, inust seem to have nothing in view but God's glory, and not immediately, but by degrees, interfere in political and secular matters, solemnly affirming that the administration of public affairs is what they engage in with reluctance, and only as compelled by a sense of duty-Their Confessors and Preachers must be informed of persons proper for every office, and they must soothe Princes and never offer them the least offence in their sermons or conversations."-"Widows shewing particular liberality to the Order may be made partakers of its advantages, favoured with a special indulgence from the Provincial, and allowed whatever pleasures they have an inclination to, so that public scandal be avoided: women who are young, and descended from rich and noble parents, should be placed with those widows, that by degrees they may become subject to the same directions and mode of living; and the family confessor must appoint them a governess-That the widow may dispose of her property to the Society, she must be told of those who have devoted themselves to the service of God, and be led to expect canonization from the court of Rome.”"The increase of the Society must be regarded above all things, and in every action, for ends known to the Superiors, who are at all events agreed in this, that for the greater display of God's glory the Church should be restored to its ancient splendour-It must therefore be frequently published that the Society consists partly of professors so very poor, that excepting the daily alms of the faithful, they are entirely destitute of the common necessaries of life. Confessors of persons of rank, widows, and others, must with great seriousness inculcate the impression that while they are served in divine things they at least should in return contribute of their earthly substance, and Prelates and other dignitaries must be allured to the exercise of religious acts, that through their affection for holy things, they may be gradually gained to the Society, and made its benefactors-Confessors must also enquire of their penitents what family, relations, friends, and estates they possess, and what they have in expectancy, as also their intentions, which they must endeavour to mould in favour of the Society-Merchants, rich eitizens, and married persons without children must be thus addressed, whose entire estates the Society may often acquire, but chiefly are rich female devotees to be thus won.' "The superiors must borrow money on their notes of some rich friends to the Society, and when due, delay the payment; afterwards the person who lent the money (especially if dangerously ill) must be constantly visited, and wrought upon by all methods to give up the notes thus the Society will not be mentioned in his will-and yet gain largely without incurring the odium of his heirs-Money must also be borrowed of some at a yearly interest, and disposed of to others at a higher rate; and, in the mean time, the first lender, compassionating the necessities of the Society, may, by will or donation, forgive the interest and perhaps the principal."-" The Confessors must be assiduous in visiting the sick, particularly those in danger; and care must be taken that when they withdraw, others may immediately succeed, and keep up the sick person in his good resolu