consecrated his life to her. Exhausted he lay for hours like one inanimate, till Peter the Prince of the Apostles appeared to him and commanded him to arise. Ignatius of Loyola arose, went to Rome, prostrated himself in the dust before the Pope, kissed his feet, declared himself his slave, but delayed obeying him until he altered his orders to the pleasure of the Spanish visionary. That man so full of poetry, of chivalry, of romance, founded an order which, in its corporate life and action, is without poetry, without chivalry, without generosity, without nobleness, without independence, without the sentiment of honour. To the liberty of the Gospel, it was to oppose the canonization of slavery; to the dignity of the Gospel, the most abject servitude. The new order was to be anti-nationalistic and anti-domestic; it should only know Country and Family as instruments to be utilized, as independencies to be crushed. It should establish the system of centralization, absolutism, direction, espionage, chicanery.

As Mr. Arthur says (vol. ii., p. 162):

'Out of regard for the honour of the Church, many Roman Catholics suppressed the horror they felt at what they discovered in the books of the Jesuits. Only those who have read some books-those which reflect the modern phases of their moral teaching can appreciate the weight that must have lain on the hearts of some good men when striving to uphold before their imagination the Church as the perfection of beauty. Among the disciples of the Church of Rome are many who hold close to the Christian side of her theology, and seem to forget its Pagan side; many who avoid what is material in her cult, and, by aid of that same theology, cherish spiritual worship; many who turn to the noble morals of the Gospel, from the lower and ever deteriorating morals of the schools; and many to whom the secular spirit of the Papacy and the earthly empire aimed at by the Jesuits are repugnant.

'Friedrich learned, in Rome, that those who confess to the Jesuits are not to be trusted. Any one who will read even one

hundred pages out of the seven hundred of Gury's Casus Conscientia would not think of trusting-would only think of pitying any creature into whose head the principles of that bad book had been put. Friedrich evidently does not repeat any light talk when he says that he heard it stated, upon good authority, that the Jesuits in Rome were in the habit of employing women as lures to procure the overthrow of men who stood in their way, which women would then return to the Jesuit confessionals as penitent Magdalenes; and this, he adds, the Pope knows right well. When Vitelleschi speaks of the evils arising from severity against errors of the intellect, and indulgence to errors of the will, he means what we should describe as strictness as to Papal principles, and laxity as to moral practices.'

Such statements, to inexperienced Roman Catholics, seem grossly exaggerated, but Bishops and the more experienced of the Clergy know them to be true. They are the almost necessary results of a system in which obedience is the only virtue, the only guide; and the only appeal is to an irresponsible authority. The Jesuit is taught to regard himself as a staff in the hand of his superior, and thereby in the hand of God; and he is bound to strive to impress a like doctrine on each and all of his penitents.

The older orders had each a special aim, characteristic and spirit: the Benedictines, the tranquillity of literature, and its sloth; the Franciscans, the democracy of poverty, and its credulity; the Dominicans, the aristocracy of mind, and its independence; the Cistercian and Carthusian lived as if the world was dying, 'dazzled and terrified by the vision of the Invisible and fear of the Eternal.' Orders had been founded to carry out special works of mercy, for teaching, for war, for literature, for art, for prayer, for repose, for self-discipline, for preaching: these were in se, objects under God. The Jesuit order might diversify amidst those pursuits as occasion should demand; but never as an object, never as for a good in

itself; only as a means toward one single result-power; one single object-the aggrandizement of the order. It has been often noticed that clever men become Jesuits, but afterwards never strike out a new thought, or display a single token of genius or of soul. It is because all the powers of their being are brought to bear on the self-creation of a slave; who, having. become a slave, must strive to spread that slavery. Hence, besides secret confession of sin, each member is compelled periodically to manifest to a Superior all his temptations, errors, tendencies, wishes, weaknesses, sins. That'manifestation' is at the absolute disposal of the Superior to whom it is made; whatever he deems of any moment, he notes down and communicates to the Provincial, and if need be, to the General. Moreover, every one is encouraged to convey secret information regarding every one else, as to such details. These informations are carefully noted down.

This system is introduced, as far as possible, amongst all the penitents of the Jesuits and the members of their sodalities. Thus lady penitents visiting in private houses, servants and governesses are utilized; they are encouraged to send regular and minute information to their Directors as to innumerable domestic details, persons, conversations, etc. Moreover, when people of any influence move from one country or neighbourhood to another, private information is sent to the nearest Jesuit House. In many cases such information is sent in cipher, and proper names masked. Other orders' have sundry privileges and guards for the protection and independence of their subjects. The Jesuit order offers none. Any one can be expelled from the Society at once, without any reason being assigned. Local Superiors, and all offices, changes, movements, are under the absolute control of the

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General and his small Council of Consulters at Rome. It is strictly true to say, that there is no one single gleam of liberty allowed to penetrate anywhere unless by virtue of an abuse to be corrected. This slavery is bound round the soul by solemn oaths, enforced by unceasing 'exercises,' fortified by the fear of Hell.

Such is the system the Pope has been striving to imitate and to impart to the whole of the Roman Catholic Church.

In order to secure a few hundred years more of life, the Church at the Pope's bidding embraces a system of perpetual death. Infallibility was but the funereal wreath of cypress pressed upon her brow when she was dead. For it is a living death when in every act of the mind and of the life, men are to move as machines. We do not mean to assert that death is entire : mankind dies gradually. But at best it is a state of second childhood. During thirty years the Pope has succeeded in destroying nearly all the liberties of the Clergy; he has established principles destructive of all the liberties of the civil government. Those principles cannot be enforced until the laity have been fully subjected to the new system: that subjection is progressing, and is being vigilantly and thoughtfully aimed at. It is probable that the new Pope will carry on the scheme with greater reticence and prudence than the outspoken Pius, and, therefore, more successfully and more dangerously. may perhaps seem to yield, but wording his concessions so as to maintain the fulness of the principles, and thus to work on more quietly. In spite of a few outwardly deceptive appearances, the Pope has now practically the appointment of all the Bishops everywhere. In consequence of the brief periods for which 'faculties' and other powers are bestowed, ecclesiastics of all grades are utterly

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powerless in the hands of superiors; and those superiors in the hands of the Pope. The dress, expenses, mode of living, vacations and all such details are now prescribed for the Clergy.

Synods are held, and dust is thus thrown in the eyes of the public, to whom it would seem incredible that those deliberative and consultive assemblies, solemnly opened with prayer to the Holy Ghost for guidance, cannot deliberate or discuss or legislate; but only receive meekly any new orders issued from Rome. When at one of these synods the Bishop promulgated a tax of money to be levied on all the Clergy of his diocese, a venerable priest wished to remonstrate and to express his willingness to give it as a freewill offering but not as a tax, deeming as he did, that such was an invasion of ancient liberties. He was informed in the gentlest way, that unless he paid it unconditionally and without protest he could not obtain a renewal of his faculties.' A priest without faculties' is a pauper; a pauper avoided by all Roman Catholics and suspected by all Protestants; as it is easily whispered to such, that the suspension was in consequence of moral turpitude: a statement not verbally false, inasmuch as Roman Catholics are taught to regard disobedience to ecclesiastical authority as the greatest moral sin next to heresy. One excellent English priest remained for years thus suspended, because he would not practically admit the justice of a Roman decision on English property case which had been most obviously obtained by bribery. But we in England are only beginners in slavery. Those who would learn, something of the sad results already produced in France as to the pitiable helplessness of the Clergy, might consult Canon Mouls at Brussels, and the Abbé Michaud at Geneva.

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It is pretended that the Chapter elect the Bishop. How was that acted

upon in our most important see? The Chapter of Westminster proposed three names, first on the list being that of Archbishop Errington; to whom the right of succession had been promised. The Pope set aside the three names and appointed Man-* ning instead, to the indignation and dismay of the Clergy and laity of the archdiocese. That is only one instance out of many. In Ireland, amongst other remnants of ancient liberties, the Parish Priests had the right of nominating three names offered to the Pope for election. In former times the Pope, as a matter of course, selected the first named unless there were some strong reason against him; but it was, as far as we can learn, almost an unheard-of event for Rome to set aside all three. Now such an event is no longer exceptional it was done in the case of Dublin by the appointment of Cardinal Cullen, and in other instances. Indeed, the Pope has thus acted on purpose to accustom people to this exercise of supreme absolutism. Mr. Gladstone, with his accustomed conscientious accuracy, drew attention to the difference between absolute authority-centralizing all in itself and under pain of mortal sin falling on the disobedient- and infallibility, whereby that authority, already made by Pio Nono monarchical and parental, became also Divine, unerring and irreformable. The system of absolute government was greatly facilitated by the regulation insisted on by the late Pope whereby each Bishop was compelled to visit the Holy Father and do homage triennially.

The ancient Roman theory was that all the Apostles were Bishops, and received individually from Jesus Christ the power of the keys: of jurisdiction and of absolution, and that the Bishop of Rome only pos sessed the Primacy of Honour and of Appeal. The Popes gradually claimed the plenitude of power.