Robert Charles Dallas

“ Hence it plainly appears, that the Jesuits are never bound to obey their general's orders, when, by obeying him, they would be found guilty of the least sin at God's tribunal. We find, that most other religious orders, according to the stile of their rule, profess obedience to all their superiors' commands, which are not repugnant to faith or morality. But what danger can be apprehended, either to the church or state, from that obedience, which is not sinful on any account, which is neither prejudicial to religion nor hurtful to the rights or properties of any of your majesty's subjects? ”

“ Come, my children, the moments are precious; to-morrow, perhaps to-day, we shall be no longer in this world; let us, by a sincere repentance, qualify ourselves to be happy in the other. Let me not lose a single soul among you. Add to the hope, that God will receive myself into his bosom, the happiness of being able to present you to him, as children all of whom he charges me to save, and to render worthy of his mercy.' They throw themselves at his knees, embrace, and cling to them. ”

“ I cannot here refrain from contrasting the intelligence, the spirit, and the wisdom of that great and distinguished statesman, Charles James Fox, with the tame and adoptive, though virulent, disposition of a writer, who, in another part of his pamphlet, has dared to warn every man from speaking in favour of the catholic priests of Ireland, lest he should be provoked to overwhelm the whole body with damning proofs—proofs charitably kept in petto, by this insinuator of more than he chooses to say. ”

“ Attached, myself, to the church of England, it is, nevertheless, clear to me, that the Reformation has generated the most absurd superstitions; and I cannot conceive that there is a man, of unbiassed mind and good sense, who would not rather embrace all that has been retrenched from the catholic creed, than adopt the spurious abominations and blasphemies which, every where, under the screen of toleration, disgrace the world. But I am not here entering into a defence of the Roman church, or into a derision of the vagaries which have sprung from imaginary rationality, or misapplied enthusiasm ”

“ Nothing, in fact, can be more laudable than such a zeal, and all that can be objected to it is foreign to its real nature. The treasons and crimes, which have been imputed to the Jesuits, Hume himself has shown were falsely charged to them. Vice is not inherent in any profession of faith; it is inherent in the corrupted nature of man. Compare a Knox with a Bordaloue, a Prynne with a Beauregard or a Bossuet, and we shall be blind if we do not perceive the difference between the zeal which actuates the Christian, and that which leads to treason and to crime. ”

“ There is, you know it, even in this enlightened nation, a mass of fanaticism and bigotry, which may easily be called into action. If you are forty-five years old, you may remember, that, in 1780, one extravagant religionist made the streets stream with blood, and nearly wrapped the capital in flames. If you have read history, you know that the projectors of the exclusion bill found the profligacy of Titus Oates quite sufficient to raise an enormous ferment throughout the nation, and to procure the legal murder of twenty harmless Jesuits, gentlemen and priests. ”

“ No man of common sense will allow even the possibility of a large body of men being governed, or of attaining credit and power by such absurd maxims, under the inspection of so many powerful princes, wise ministers, and learned prelates. Certainly these lords of church and state could not be so blind, during one hundred and fifty years, as to tolerate, to cherish a gang of thieves, and to intrust to them the public instruction of the people, and the education of youth. ”

“ The people, in all towns, even in villages, felt their gratuitous services. A hundred years ago, if the public voice had been individually collected in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Poland, undoubtedly, they would rather have parted with any other, perhaps with most other religious bodies, than with the society of Jesuits alone. A hundred years ago, all the continental sovereigns in Europe would have concurred in the same sentiment. With them they advised in all concerns of religion; to them they listened as preachers ”

“ The destruction of the Jesuits was, literally, the destruction of that education, in catholic countries, by which order was established on its best and surest foundation, the belief of future rewards and punishments, and the conviction, that man was on earth but a transient being, whose chief object was to work out his salvation and eternal happiness in another world ”

“ To the foregoing testimonies, let us add that of one of the bitterest enemies of Christianity. "The magnificence of the ceremonies," says Raynal, "attracts the Indians to the churches, where they find pleasure and piety united. There it is that religion is amiable, and it is at first in her ministers that she there gains love. Nothing equals the purity of the morals, the mild and tender zeal, the paternal solicitude, of the Jesuits of Paraguay. Every pastor is truly the father, as well as the director of his parishioners. ”

“ The ignorance of the lower classes is deplorable; it is the moral duty of those in higher stations, it is the noble task of governments to raise them on the scale of intellect; education cannot be too general, but let it be in the true spirit of education. We are creatures, who depend greatly, perhaps wholly, on instruction. We can in general do little of ourselves. ”

“ It is indeed a glorious ambition to make men happy, to teach, and to save: such is the ambition displayed by the Jesuits, and the throne they raised on the cross was one of faith, hope, and charity.
With respect to commerce. By the canons of the church, it is forbidden to ecclesiastics, and, certainly, for good reasons. Commerce is a profession, a pursuit, to which men devote their time, for the purpose of obtaining a livelihood, and of amassing fortunes. It is a pursuit inconsistent with the habits and duties of the ministers of religion. ”

“ They brought them to live together in villages. They trained them to arts and manufactures. They made them taste the sweets of society, and accustomed them to the blessings of security and order. These people became the subjects of their benefactors, who have governed them with a tender attention, resembling that with which a father directs his children. Respected and beloved almost to adoration, a few Jesuits presided over some hundred thousand Indians. They maintained a perfect equality among all the members of the community. ”

“ He professes to write the history only of his own times; and, consequently, his story rests upon his own credit, unsupported by vouchers: his ipse dixit is the whole proof. He is wonderfully fond of detailing conspiracies against princes, and, in these fabulous tales, he completely sacrifices the dignity of the historian; he sinks into a romancer and a comedian. He leads his conspirator through cities and provinces, to gather associates; the pope, or the king of Spain, or some cardinal, directs the plot; he has at his finger-ends the closest secrets of the conspiracy ”

“ From what has been already said, and from the neglect shown by Robertson to the multitude of other writers adopted as authorities in the pamphlet before me, it is but too evident that there long existed a conspiracy against a society, whose principles and energy awed infidelity and rebellion, and whose superior talents excited jealousy and hatred. Let us, however, see what kind of men they are to whom the new accuser of the society refers us for proofs of their being such demons as he has represented them. ”

“ Most undoubtedly, next to the purity of religion, the best and dearest interest of the Jesuits always was, and always must be, public tranquillity, order, and subordination of ranks. In tumults and confusion, they must unavoidably be sacrificed. To favour the daring projects of civil and religious innovators, their body was devoted to destruction; and the extinction of it was presently followed by the universal uproar of the Gallic revolution. ”

“ It is not an easy task to unfold to its full extent the injustice and various iniquities of it, since even respectable historians have been led away by the imposing appearance, which the then undetected and half-unconscious ingenious agents of jacobinism had, by every expedient of invention, of colouring, and of wit, given to the hue and cry raised by those bitter enemies of the order, the university and parliaments of France, and by some ministers of other governments, particularly by the marquis de Pombal, the minister of the king of Portugal. ”

“ In what historian, or in what tradition, has Laicus found, that pope Innocent XIII was murdered, or murdered by Jesuits? Strange, that the discovery of such a crime should have been reserved for Laicus, ninety-one years after the death of that pontiff [99] ! Who, before Laicus, ever wrote, {283}that the assassin of Henry III of France was instigated by Jesuits? Wait another number of the Times, Laicus will improve: he will roundly assure us, that the miserable Jacques Clement actually was a Jesuit. ”

“ They are not formed, it is true, to shine in the drawing-room or at the tea-table; nor are such qualifications very desirable in churchmen; for you well know, that the refined manners of fashionable life are often as incompatible with Christian morality, as the grosser vices of the vulgar herd. Their manners are, in general, decent; but their exertions are great, their zeal is indefatigable. See them in the most inclement seasons, at the most unseasonable hours, in the most uncultivated parts, amidst the poorest and most wretched of mankind! They are always ready at a call ”

“ It is, indeed, but too fashionable to put up fantastic reasoning against authority, and particularly against sacred authority; but reason, which knows to distinguish the nature of authority; reason, which is bold in the affairs of men, and humble in its permitted intercourse with God; reason, as Fox and Hume, and all historians worthy the title, convince us, steps not out of its province when it interposes to rectify misleading records or historical assertions ”

“ Suum cuique tribuitur is a maxim of confined morality; the refined moralist is a cosmopolite; and, still more refined, he denies the rights of meum and tuum; and the government that suffers one man to enjoy more than another is an unjust government, consequently man ought to seek a just one, and so we have the revolutionary system. It is only religion, it is only the Christian religion, which can reconcile morality to the state of man. ”

“ It is astonishing, with the experience men have so lately and so dearly gained, that there can be found one to approve of a system, in this country, the archetype of which has desolated Europe and ruined France. In attributing the explosion of the French revolution to the deistical and atheistical philosophers, I do not hesitate to attribute the long continuation of it to the change that took place in the forms of education ”

“ But I do not mean to interweave, here, an essay upon government and civil rights; the contemplation of the admirable system of education among the Jesuits led to these observations on the systems of general education, and in concluding them with expressly stating my opinion of the grand object of national community my view is, to leave no room for attributing the sentiments of loyalty and of religion, which, in such a work as this, have naturally fallen from my pen, to servility or bigotry. ”

“ I have bestowed a considerable degree of labour in making myself acquainted with them, and, having been induced to throw the result of my inquiries into the form of a book, I know not to whom I can better present it than to a man, who, among the services which he has been active in rendering to his country, in her legislation and letters, has been the liberal advocate of the catholic body in general, and who, I am confident, will be pleased to see any society, or any individual, rescued from opprobrium, which time and colouring may have fixed on character. ”

“ For my part, I would as soon, or rather, be called Jesuit, than Augustinian or Dominican. As to the churchmen, who except against them, ignorance has always borne a grudge to learning; and I observed, when I began to speak of re-establishing the Jesuits, that two sorts of persons opposed this design; those of the pretended reformed religion, and churchmen of irregular conduct, which has gained them still greater credit and reputation. ”

“ The growth of one generation sufficed to strip the tiara of the veneration due to it, and to threaten every crown in Europe with ruin. Philosophical universities and academies were every where, on the continent, substituted for the colleges of the Jesuits; religion and reason no longer went hand in hand in education ”

“ I am an advocate for the toleration of conscientious scruples; but there is one thing which I think no government ought to tolerate, and that is public schools openly professing to banish religious instruction; for they must prove seminaries of malcontents and democrats. The luxury and aristocracy of a few well educated rich atheists and deists afford no objection; it is of the low and of the indigent that these schools are formed, of persons who may be rendered the most valuable or the most pernicious part of the community. ”

“ But you, Sir, are not content to suck in the black bile of the old Gallic magistrates; you emulate the savage cruelty of Nero towards the primitive Christians—you dress up your Jesuits in the semblance of wild beasts, to entice your dogs to devour them.
And could you not, then, see the inconsistency of representing the whole body of Jesuits, as men systematically trained to every vice and crime, and of acknowledging, at the same time, {267}that they governed the consciences of all monarchs, and of all their grandees; that they ruled courts ”