The Parliament of Paris decreed the constitution of the Society to be fatal to all government. The King wished to save them, for he knew that they were the best supporters of the throne of absolutism. But he could not resist the pressure,--the torrent of public opinion, the entreaties of his mistress, the arguments of his ministers. He was compelled to demand from the Pope the abrogation of their charter. Other monarchs did the same; all the Bourbon courts in Europe, for the king of Portugal narrowly escaped assassination from a fanatical Jesuit. Had the Jesuits consented to a reform, they might not have fallen. But they would make no concessions. Said Ricci, their General, Sint ut sunt, aut non sint. The Pope--Clement XIV.--was obliged to part with his best soldiers. Europe, Catholic Europe, demanded the sacrifice,--the kings of Spain, of France, of Naples, of Portugal. Compulsus feci, compulsus feci, exclaimed the broken-hearted Pope,--the feeble and pious Ganganelli. So that in 1773, by a papal decree, the Order was suppressed; 669 colleges were closed; 223 missions were abandoned, and more than 22,000 members were dispersed. I do not know what became of their property, which amounted to about two hundred millions of dollars, in the various countries of Europe.
This seems to me to have been a clear case of religious persecution, incited by jealous governments and the infidel or the progressive spirit of the age, on the eve of the French Revolution.
It simply marks the hostilities which, for various reasons, they had called out. I am inclined to think that their faults were greatly exaggerated; but it is certain that so severe and high-handed a measure would not have been taken by the Pope had it not seemed to him necessary to preserve the peace of the Church. Had they been innocent, the Pope would have lost his throne sooner than commit so great a wrong on his most zealous servants. It is impossible for a Protestant to tell how far they were guilty of the charges preferred against them. I do not believe that their lives, as a general thing, were a scandal sufficient to justify so sweeping a measure; but their institution, their regime, their organization, their constitution, were deemed hostile to liberty and the progress of society. And if zealous governments--Catholic princes themselves--should feel that the Jesuits were opposed to the true progress of nations, how much more reason had Protestants to distrust them, and to rejoice in their fall!
And it was not until the French Revolution and the empire of Napoleon had passed away, not until the Bourbons had been restored (in August, 1814), that the Order was re-established and again protected by the Papal court. They have now regained their ancient power, and seem to have the confidence of Catholic Europe. Some of their most flourishing seminaries are in the United States. They are certainly not a scandal in this country, although their spirit and organization are still maintained: regarded with some mistrust by the strong Protestants, as a matter of course, as such a powerful organization naturally would be; hostile still to the circulation of the Scriptures among the people and free inquiry and private judgment,--in short, to all the ideas of the reformation.
But whatever they are, and however askance Protestants regard them, they have in our country,--this land of unbounded religious toleration,--the same right to their religion and their ecclesiastical government that any other sects have; and if Protestants would nullify their influence so far as disliked, they must outshine them in virtues, in a religious life, in zeal, and in devotion to the spiritual interests of the people. If the Jesuits keep better schools than Protestants they will be patronized, and if they command the respect of the Catholics for their virtues and intelligence, whatever may be the machinery of their organization, they will retain their power; and not until they interfere with elections and Protestant schools, or teach dangerous doctrines of public morality, has our Government any right to interfere with them. They will stand or fall as they win the respect or excite the wrath of enlightened nations. But the principles they are supposed to defend,--expediency, casuistry, and hostility to free inquiry and the circulation of the Scriptures in vernacular languages,--these are just causes of complaint and of unrelenting opposition among all those who accept the great ideas of the Protestant Reformation, since they are antagonistic to what we deem most precious in our institutions. So long as the contest shall last between good and evil in this world, we have a right to declaim against all encroachments on liberty and sound morality and an evangelical piety from any quarter whatever, and we are recreant to our duties unless we speak our minds. Hence, from the light Ihave, I regard the Society of Jesus as a questionable institution, unfortunately planted among us, but which we cannot help, and can attack, if at all, only with the weapons of reason and truth.
And yet I am free to say that for my part I prefer even the Jesuit discipline and doctrines, much as I dislike them, to the unblushing infidelity which has lately been propagated by those who call themselves savans,--and which seems to have reached and even permeated many of the schools of science, the newspapers, periodicals, clubs, and even pulpits of this materialistic though progressive country. I make war on the slavery of the will and a religion of formal technicalities; but I prefer these evils to a godless rationalism and the extinction of the light of faith.
AUTHORITIES.