Jesuits

“ I never heard of a great philosopher, naturalist, historian, orator, or poet amongst them. The Jesuits have been in existence three hundred years ; they have had their pick of the choicest intellect of all Europe,—they never take a common man when they know it,—they subject every pupil to a severe ordeal, physical and intellectual, as well as moral, in order to ascertain whether he has the requisite stuff in him to make a strong Jesuit out of. They have a scheme of education masterly in its way. ”

“ According to the testimony of centuries, the Society of Jesus is the most active, the purest, the most influential and learned order of the Catholic Church. The Jesuits are acknowledged to be the best teachers, the most prudent instructors of youth, the most experienced confessors, and the most zealous priests. They are known as the vanguard of Rome; they are wonderful in mortification and in obedience, and are always ready to make any sacrifice whatever for the church. I can prove this by innumerable passages from Protestant works. ”

“ It is an attempt to understand the Jesuits: to understand the enthusiasm and fiery attachment of one half of the Catholic world no less than the disdain or detestation of the other, to employ the white and the black, not blended into a monotonous grey but in their respective places and shades, so as to afford a truthful picture of the dramatic fortunes of the Society during nearly four centuries, and some insight into the character of the men who won for it such ardent devotion and such intense hostility. ”

“ It is a true saying, that ‘he who gains the youth possesses the future’; and by devoting themselves to the education of youth, the Jesuits secured a future to the Church more surely than by any other scheme that could have been devised. What the schoolmasters were for the youth, the confessors were for those of riper years; what the clerical teachers were for the common people, the spiritual directors and confidants were for great lords and rulers—for the Jesuits aspired to a place at the side of the great, and at gaining the confidence of Kings. ”

“ If these simple-minded people were taught anything about the Church, it was with the view of convincing them that the Jesuits represented all its power, authority, and virtue, and that whatsoever did not conform to their teachings was sinful and heretical. If they were told anything about the pope, it was to represent him as inferior to their general, who was to be regarded by them as the only infallible representative of God upon earth. ”

“ When parents saw that the Jesuits entered heart and soul into the work of education, winning their pupils' hearts by kindness, watching their moods, directing their minds into congenial studies, and inspiring them with generous sentiments, they did not stop to pry into their motives; and universities, when they discovered the superior culture of educated Jesuits, outstripping all their associates in learning, and shedding a light by their genius and erudition, very naturally appointed them to the highest chairs ”

“ The only professors who know how to grip and mark for life these malleable natures are the Jesuits. When Jesuit boys break away from their keepers, the Jesuits have no bitterer enemies. What intelligent Protestant has ever given us arguments so powerful and damning against Jesuit training as those two novels by their old pupils, Le Scorpion of Marcel Prévost, and L’Empreinte by Estaunié? ”

“ I count among my friends Jesuits whom I like and appreciate, for whose private character I have the highest possible esteem, whom I have found in all respects amiable, educated gentlemen, full of gaiety and charm, and of a sympathetic address rarely to be met with in any other class of men. But of the order and its principles, based upon knowledge, I feel nothing but dislike. The Jesuits in China, in South America, have, I understand, and willingly believe, done good work. We know that they are brave, and can sacrifice their lives in the cause of their religion. ”

“ These were the principal points to which the Jesuits swore conformity. How despicable must be the man who is ready to take a special oath for every occasion, and to invoke the God of truth to witness his perjury and infamy!
The Jesuits had no sooner set their foot in France than they began to spread rapidly over the country, and soon after aspired to enter the university and monopolise the whole of the education of the youth. ”

“ There are political Jesuits and philanthropical Jesuits and Protestant Jesuits, as well as Catholic Jesuits and Mohammedan Jesuits. What do you think of a man, wearing the livery of a gospel minister, devoting all his energies to money-making, versed in the ways of the "heathen Chinee,"--"ways that are dark, and tricks that are vain,"--all to succeed better in worldly thrift, using all means for that single end,--is not he practically a Jesuit? ”

“ An appalling prospect, foreboding no good to the welfare of mankind! One cheering idea, however, still remains to dissipate the evil apprehension. The Jesuits, now more decidedly than ever, have identified themselves with the cause of despotism, fanaticism, and ignorance; and the day on which the tottering thrones of tyranny shall crumble under the mighty and resistless arm of progressive civilisation, they will bury deep and for ever under their ruins all traces of the influence once possessed by this most formidable and pernicious Society. ”

“ So profoundly had the Jesuits impressed the world with the sense of their mysterious power that they were felt to be like one of those animal organisms which, when torn apart, carry on a separate existence in every fragment. ”

“ If the world had known, at the beginning of his pontificate, how solemnly he had pledged himself to his brother cardinals before his election, and how his youthful mind had been trained and fashioned by the Jesuits, it is not probable that anything would have been anticipated, or even hoped for, beyond what has transpired; for the skill of the Jesuits is displayed in nothing more effectually than in the indelible impressions they understand so well how to make upon young and undeveloped minds. ”

“ Nor is there need of proving this, though proof might be given, not by a few examples which this Society could furnish from the day of its birth to the fatal and ever deplorable day of its suppression, but by a countless multitude of facts which attest that the Jesuits were always and in every clime, the supporters, the promoters and the indefatigable defenders of true and solid peace. These facts are so evident that they carry conviction to every mind. ”

“ It was during the seventeenth century that the Jesuits, lifting up for a while the thick veil of hypocrisy under which they had perpetrated their crimes, allowed the world to penetrate into the heart of their conduct, and to discover what they really were. ”

“ Lastly, it clearly appears, from what we have related, that, while pretending to fight for the Roman See, the Jesuits, in reality, fought for their own aggrandisement; that they recognise no religion, but their interest; worship no God, but their order. ”

“ It is also of importance that our readers should be made acquainted with the doctrine of the Jesuits regarding religious duties, and the love which is due [246] to God, that they may the better judge of the character of those champions of Romanism, those monks who are labouring hard to make proselytes to their religion—the only true one, as they pretend, out of which there is no salvation. ”

“ They are not vain declamations; I trust to be believed. I have been born and brought up among monks and Jesuits; and it is because I thoroughly know them, that, grateful for the hospitality afforded me, I warn England to beware of all monks, but especially of Jesuits. They are inauspicious birds, which cannot but infect with their venomous breath the pure and free air of Great Britain. ”

“ All lay in that; you find the Jesuits declaring that one can enter into arrangements with heaven; they bend and adjust themselves to the customs, prejudices, and even vices of the times; they smile, all condescension, cast rigourism aside, and practice the diplomacy of amiability, ever ready to turn the most awful abominations “to the greater glory of God.” ”

“ It is precisely that peace against which the piety of the Jesuits in the four quarters of the world have declared an active, a vigorous, a bloody warfare; which they have carried to the limit and in which they have achieved the greatest success. To put an end to that peace, they have devoted their talents; have undergone pain and suffering. By their zeal and their eloquence they have striven to block every avenue of approach, by which this false peace might enter and rend the bosom of the Church ”

“ It is curious to observe, how your accusations turn to the credit of the Jesuits. The strict obedience, which was enjoined and practised in their society, is with you their crime; with every man of sense, it is their commendation. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Who can believe, that protestant Jesuits would ever have submitted to persecute protestants? Who can imagine unanimity of mind, heart, and action among men, who disagreed in the fundamental principle? ”

“ But instead, the wily Jesuits, the men of the world, the plotters, the schemers, the Order that is untrue to everything and everybody save itself, throws itself with undiminished ardor, with a devotion worthy of the fatalist, with all their heart and soul, into a losing cause ”

“ The Jesuits are also of great service in our dioceses, by enforcing and giving new life and vigour to piety and religion, by their sermons, their spiritual instructions, their missionary excursions, their congregations, spiritual retreats, &c., performed with our approbation and authority. ”

“ The extirpation of heresy is their principal occupation, the work which renders them meritorious in the eyes of Rome. Deprive the Jesuits of the vocation of annoying, persecuting, or converting heretics, and they become the most insignificant of all corporations, having no end whatever. Every monastic order is distinguished by a peculiar character. Plots and machinations against Protestants, and against all civil and religious freedom, are the characteristics of the Jesuits. ”

“ The Jesuit is a missionary, a traveller, a mystic, a man of learning, an elegant civilizer of savages, a confessor of queens, a professor, a legislator, a financier, and, if need be, a warrior. His was not a narrow and personal ambition, as people erroneously suppose and assert. He was something more. He was a reactionist, a Catholic and a Roman revolutionist. Far from being attached, as is supposed, to his own interests, [480] the Society has been in the most daring efforts of its indefatigable ambition only the protagonists of the spiritual authority of Rome. ”

“ When their opponents were too strong for them, their practice was, and still is, to give way, as if in submission; but then they begin a hidden and mysterious war of intrigues and machinations, that in the end they are always the victors. So acted Ignatius in this affair in France. The Jesuits contented themselves with living for some time in obscurity and complete seclusion from all society, and preparing the way for future triumph. ”

“ As the Jesuits, in the short space of less than a century, have furnished eight or ten saints to the calendar, perhaps it will not be extraneous to our work to devote a few pages to shew in what manner, mortals such as we are, and who but yesterday were mere loathsome corpses, are, by the pretended power of another mortal man, transformed into privileged and divine beings, to whom is attributed a power almost equal to that of the Almighty. ”

“ Jesuits no longer flaunted the silk robes of a mandarin or the mythological vesture of a Saniassi, no vast estates or commerce sent gold to their European brethren, no troops of soldiers marched at their command, no quaint rites or rebellions against bishops engaged the Roman Congregations. ”

“ We fear that from the very beginning, the Jesuits, notwithstanding all their prudence, could not conceal from the eye of the observer those subtle arts, that duplicity of character, that skill in accomplishing dark and mysterious exploits, for which they were in later times opposed, and at length abolished. ”

“ The society of Jesus was definitely organized and began its notable career in 1640, and although its members, the Jesuits, have given to history many wonderful examples of devotion and heroism, Jesuitry itself is synonymous with the extreme materialism to which the Roman Church resorted in its desperate defence against the Protestants. And on the other side, men became not less sensuous and worldly, giving as good as they got. ”

“ Disguising their hostility to science, under the mask of friendship to literature, the Jesuits have succeeded in making to themselves friends of many who are acquainted with them only through the medium of their writings. And it is the remarkable fact of our day, that, while on the Continent, where they are practically known, the Jesuits have enlisted against themselves the pens of its most eminent novelists, historians, and philosophers, in Protestant England it is quite the reverse. ”

“ Appalling and ominous of incalculable consequences is the influence which the Jesuits have acquired in France—in that country which has prostrated all its past glory and its dignity as a nation, at the feet of an unscrupulous, merciless tyrant; endeavouring, at the same time, to forget its ignominy in the intoxication of feasts and champaigne. The Jesuits and priests are the firmest supporters of Louis Napoleon ”