tions he may be then advantageously moved by the terrors of hell, or at least of purgatory, and told that sin is extinguished by acts of charity, which can never be better bestowed than in support of men who profess a desire to promote the salvation of their neighbour, by which means he will be made a partaker of their merit, and atone for his own sins; charity must also be represented as the wedding-garment, without which no one is admitted to the heavenly feast."-" If any member expects a Bishopric, or other dignity, he must take an additional vow always to think and speak honourably of the Societynever to have a Confessor who is not a Jesuit-nor determine in any affair of moment without first consulting with the Society-Confessors and Preachers must be cautious of offending nuns, since those descended from noble families (especially rich Abbesses) can be very useful either through their own interest, or that of their parents and friends; so that by the aid of the principal religious houses, the Society may by degrees form acquaintance with, and secure the friendship of almost the whole city; but, on the other hand, female devotees must be forbidden to frequent nunneries, lest they should be allured by that kind of life, and so disappoint the expectations of the Order as to their property.""Kings and rulers must have this principle instilled into them, that THE CATHOLIC FAITH, AS MATTERS NOW STAND, CANNOT SUBSIST WITHOUT THE CIVIL POWER, by which means the members will be acceptable to men in the highest stations, and admitted into their most secret councils-The Society will contribute much to its own advantage by fomenting and heightening (but with caution and secrecy) the animosities that arise among princes and great men, in order that they may weaken each other." (P. 49-56.)

So much for the machinery by which this tremendous engine was to be worked. At the first discovery of it mankind stood aghast. The extinction of the order was felt by all to be necessary; the world rose, and will again rise, to rescue from the grasp of the monster the principles of morality, the rules of charity, the peace and hope of civilized and domestic life. It is too much to require, even of this tolerant age, to suffer a second mine to be prepared under our feet, and then quietly to permit the enemy to collect his combustibles, and once more to sap the citadel of our happiness and repose.

The facts connected with the history of this order have been answerable to the genius of its frame and contrivance. We would not hang even Jesuits upon hypothesis, although it would be difficult to maintain that a society, formed of such dire ingredients, and upon so mischievous a model, has any right to be presumed innocent till proved guilty. We will, however, patiently examine its proceedings amongst the nations of Europe; and to this end we cannot do better than make some extracts from the little volume before us, of which there is not the smallest

reason to question the accuracy. Indeed it would be easy to

VOL. VI. NO. XI.

I

trace the march of the author in some of the most unsuspected works of our language.

"In Portugal, where they were first received, they became the entire directors of that Court, which, for a long series of years, delivered to them the consciences of its princes and the education of its people, overwhelmed them with riches and honours, endowed rich Colleges for them, gave them up its most celebrated Universities, and granted them the largest privileges; they abused the confidence of those misguided monarchs both in Portugal and Spain who trusted them most, deprived them of their truest subjects, disposed of the most valuable appointments to their own creatures, and overturned the schools in Portugal to forward their own views; indeed so important was education to them, that when at one time driven from France, they collected its youth at Dole in Franche Comté to educate it. It was Portugal which opened the door for their missions, and gave them establishments in Asia, Africa, and America, enabling them thus to accomplish their grand object of founding a temporal monarchy: in vain, for ages, did the cries of the oppressed reach the Court of Lisbon; in vain did even Rome herself protest against the enormities of her own children; all gave way before the superior power and craft of the Jesuits; they usurped the sovereignty of Paraguay, and resisted the lawful forces of the Kings of Portugal and Spain who claimed it. When Joseph of Portugal could no longer shut his eyes to facts, with which every quarter of the world rung, he ordered their expulsion, and the consequence was that two conspiracies of the Jesuits against himself and his whole family followed. Long before, this they had supplanted Anthony King of Portugal, and transferred his Crown to the King of Spain, compelling him to take refuge in Terceras, one of the Azores, where they excited a revolt against him and beheaded eighty Frenchmen, and hung 500 Friars for maintaining his rights. If Rome was the nursery, Paris was the cradle, of the Jesuits, and perhaps no city has smarted more from fostering them. The great pretext of the league in France was to defend Catholicism against Calvinism; but it was, in fact, a conspiracy of the Jesuits, with the sanction of Pope Sixtus Vth, to disturb the succession of the French throne in favour of the Cardinal Bourbon, a creature of their own; and they are, in the judgment of the best historians, the authors of all the miseries and horrors which desolated France in consequence. The Pope omitted no exertion, sending Cardinal Cajetan into France as his legate, and assigning him for advisers the Jesuits Bellarmine and Tyrrius, with orders to prevent the election of any Protestant King in France; and it was the same Pope who joined the league of the King of Spain against England." (P. 15-17.)

"The result of that league was the overthrow of Henry III. whose assassin was undoubtedly instigated by the Jesuits. In the three months that Paris was besieged, it was supposed that 100,000 perished by famine and war in resisting Henry IV" (P, 18.)

"In Poland (especially at Cracow the capital) their excesses were as revolting as elsewhere; and their cruelties to the Protestants at Thorn

will never be forgotten. Sigismund III., of Poland, was himself a Jesuit. They were expelled from Abyssinia because, as the decree states, "they meddled with affairs of state." In Japan, whence they were banished, in 1587, they were accused by the Emperor, that "under pretence of teaching the way of salvation, they had united his subjects against himself, and taught them treason instead of religion:" and Collado says, that "the consequence of their conduct, in Japan, was that Christianity itself was abolished there, as well as an order which gave such a distorted view of it." (P. 18.)

"It is stated in the edict for their banishment from Bohemia, in 1618, that "they had incited assassins to murder kings, interfered with affairs of state, and been the authors of all the miseries of Bohemia." Indeed the severe persecution raised by them against the Protestants at Prague hardly yields to any single persecution of paganism, and it was merely to obtain the property of its victims. The proclamation of the Duchy of Bouillon, in the Low Countries, may also be consulted, as well as that of Brabant. (P. 19.)

"I would next advert to their infamous practices in attempting the lives of sovereigns hostile to their views. The reign of Queen Elizabeth affords a succession of their plots: Parsons and Campion the Jesuits first stirred up sedition and revolt. The latter, with Sherwin and Bryant, were convicted on the clearest evidence in 1581." (P. 22.)

"On the 18th Oct. 1591, Elizabeth published her famous declatation against the Jesuits, in which after describing at length the designs of Spain and Rome, she says that she has "the most undoubted information that the Jesuits form the nests and lurking places of those who are in rebellion against her person and government; that their General had himself been to Spain and armed its King against her, that Parsons who taught among them and was the General of the English seminary at Rome had done the same, and that the Jesuits, as a Society, had been the life and soul of the armies which had been raised against England. (P. 23.)

"In a memorial presented to the Pope in this reign, and preserved by De Thou, it is said that "their political ambition had set a price upon kingdoms, and put up crowns to sale, that they had libelled the magistracy, written seditious letters, and published many volumes against the legitimate succession of the throne.

"Lucius enumerates five separate conspiracies of the Jesuits against James I. before he had reigned a year; and the King in his own proclamation of 22d February, 1604, does the same, and names the Jesuits who fomented them.

"That the Jesuits were the soul of the Gunpowder Plot no man can doubt, who consults either the "Actio in proditores" drawn up by our own Judges, the "State Trials" of that time, the history of De Thou, or the Jesuites criminels de Leze Majesté." (P. 24, 25.)

"In this pestilent school," says the University of Paris, "the three assassins who attempted the life of Henry IV., viz. Barriere, Chastel, and Ravaillac, were trained, all of whom had been previously in

structed by the Jesuits, Varade, Gueret, Guignard, and D'Aubigny." (P. 29.)

After this hurried sketch of the principles and actions of the Order, we will sum up the evidence which has been adduced.

In the first place it appears unquestionable, that the main principles and regulations of Jesuitism are such as to threaten the most tremendous consequences to all but those who are marshalled in its ranks.

In the next place, the practical result of its principles are such as to show, that the system did not ally with these mischievous principles any others calculated to control or to correct their operation. In many instances, although the main principles of a sect or party be bad, they are qualified by others less demonstrated, which work with a silent efficacy; and we consequently discover the practice of the men to be better than their creed. But if we are to judge of Jesuitism from its practical results, no such counteracting ingredients are found in its constitution—it is pure, unmixed, unmitigated evil.

Thirdly, it appears that the opposition to Jesuitism has not been confined to Protestant sovereigns or churchmen; not to heretics or Dominicans; not to orders whom the Jesuits had tried to supplant, or to sects whom they had endeavoured to destroy; but, during the comparatively short period of its existence, there is scarcely a respectable body of Catholic divines, and scarcely a judicious monarch of a Catholic country, who has not protested against its principles and its practice. Nor are these their only accusers. In the whole history of man, perhaps, it would be difficult to select a body more upright, more learned, more candid, more disposed to maintain what they deemed right in religion and morality, than the chambers and parliaments of Paris; and yet these have been the indignant, unchanging, unwearied enemies to Jesuitism. Should the Jesuits disclaim their authority, as that of men secularized by their employments, and inclined to sacrifice religion to worldly policy; and require us to produce some able, unbiassed, and devout advocate of the Church of Rome, who was at the same time their enemy, we would name, not one but many-the College of Port Royal, probably a body of as able, disinterested, and devout men, as were ever collected, at one moment, in the bosom of a single church. If the good fathers still insist upon a single name, we, without hesitation, give the name of Pascal-of a man whose genius, integrity, and piety, it is impossible to estimate too highly. The Provincial Letters of that great man are probably the finest specimen of controversial writing in existence. All that is great is allied in its pages to all that is beautiful. The Jesuits bowed before the

terrors of its arguments as soon as it appeared. And D'Alembert states that it at once seemed to fix the standard of the French language; for, during the century which followed, not one of its words became obsolete. It equally fascinated the high and the low. When the greatest general of the age was asked what entertainment should be provided for him during a short visit he was to make in the country, his answer was, The Provincial Letters.' Every mechanic in Paris had committed parts of them to memory. The only imputation upon the piety of Pascal is his almost superstitious reverence for the Church of Rome; a superstition which nothing but the crimes of the Je suits had power to suspend for a moment-a superstition which must have disposed him to favour the Jesuits, the sworn champions of papacy, if his religion had not been too strong for his superstition. These celebrated letters are probably in the library of most of our readers; and those that read them with the attention they deserve, will need none of our assistance to bring before their minds the monstrous mischief of Jesuitism.

But, lastly, the sentence against Jesuitism has been pronounced not merely by fallible men, however great, and wise, and good, but by an infallible judge-the Pope himself.

Such being the evidence against Jesuitism, we shall exercise our right of reply when we have heard the testimony in its fayour; and what are the grounds on which the present Pope presumes to put this insult upon one of his infallible predecessors; upon the decisions of monarchs, divines, philosophers, and statesmen; and to endeavour to restore a system at which humanity turns pale.

The present age is too wise and tolerant to expect complete unity of opinion in religion; and even those men who may indulge themselves in this amiable but chimerical expectation, are, in the main, persuaded, that compulsory measures would not tend to the accomplishment of these hopes. We are convinced, that there are few of the strongest Antipapists in this country who expect any speedy extinction of popery among us; and still fewer who would use violence to promote it. What then is our hope?-That by the gradual increase of light and philosophy; by a fuller development of the evils of superstition; by the progress of a spirit of inquiry among the poor; by the extensive circulation of that book which the old Papists criminally withheld from the hands of the community; by the increase of a spirit of sincere, simple, and spiritual religion; and especially by the more copious effusion of the Spirit of God, the bleak and blasted summit of popery will gradually clothe itself with the effulgence of truth. The end then, as far as respects the Papists, for which we think ourselves called upon most assi