erroneous impressions and false information of the Author. It is matter of regret also that the obvious impolicy of dividing the strength of religion and frittering it away in bye-battles at a moment when absolute union and hearty co-operation was required amongst the friends of order and religion, did not present itself more forcibly to Fr. Theiner. Even now, if it were useful or wholesome to prolong the controversy, we could cite twenty instances in which the author has been so ludicrously mis-informed as to make us painfully sensible how easy it is for even the most gifted and well intentioned to err when they accept anything upon authority that they have not absolutely tested. The entire work is as full of" on dits," on matters compromising the character of the Society, as a column of fashionable intelligence in the Morning Post. Many things are stated as fact, even without this qualification, for which the author gives no authority whatever, and some expressions applied to members of the Society and their acts, are wounding and intemperate to say the least. We shall confine ourselves to one instance of mis-statement just by way of sample, and if it be any justification of Fr. Theiner, to say that he makes it on the authority of a dispatch from the anti-Jesuit nuncio at Paris to his own court, the author is of course entitled to it. The Pere de la Vrillière, an ex-Jesuit, son of the Duc de la Vrillière, according to the Nuncio and Fr. Theiner, indulged in language disrespectful to the Holy See, from the pulpit of the "Missions Etrangères," on the Feast of St. Francis Xavier, 1773, the year of the suppression; and not only was he suspended à divinis, by the Archbishop of Paris, the great Christophe de Beaumont, but his father, the Duc de la Vrillière, to punish him and put under control his intemperance of speech, sent him to make the spiritual exercises in the Grande Maison de Saint Lazare. Now it so happened the Nuncio must have been deceived, as there was no Jesuit, or ex-Jesuit of the name; and secondly, the Duc de la Vrilliere never had children, and died shortly afterwards without an heir.

We might quote a great many other passages more or less false as to facts and dates, and we might confront Fr. Theiner of the "Pontificate of Clement XIV." with Fr. Theiner the historian of the Catholic Educational Institutes, but we have no desire to do so at present, One of the heads of accusation upon which Fr. Theiner justifies

the suppression of the society is the alleged decline, nay, the positive nullity of education, literary, philosophical, scientific and theological, in the houses of the society all the world over. As may well be imagined, nothing could be more hurtful to the feelings of the society or its friends, amongst whom, notwithstanding all that may be said to the contrary, the great mass of the friends of religion must be classed, than so outrageous a proposition. We are, therefore, more pleased than surprised to see this branch of the subject taken up by one who is not a Jesuit himself, but, being a labourer in the same field as the Jesuits, is thoroughly able to appreciate their system-its working and its results at every period of their history. The learned apologist, to whom we allude, is himself a Professor in a French College, maintaining an honourable rivalry with the Jesuit establishments, now so numerous and flourishing in France; the Abbe Maynard, honorary canon of Poitiers; and Professor of Rhetoric in the great establishment of Pontlevoy, has undertaken the vindication of the teaching of the society in a small but pithy volume, of which we have an American translation on our table, but which, unfortunately, reached us too late for more than mention. We only give expression to our earnest wish, in recommending the public to master it well. For our own part we have never seen more matter in so short a space. Some of the positions of Fr. Theiner in reference to this subject of the Jesuit teaching, are so singular in themselves, and so strangely at variance with his own previous ideas on the subject, that one is lost in astonishment at meeting with them. The most startling of all, perhaps, has regard to the reformation of University studies at Coimbra, after the expulsion of the society; "the execution of which important measure, says Fr. Theiner, "was intrusted by the king to the minister and the Council of Censure over which the Cardinal da Cunha presided, who, with the entire approbation of the Apostolic Nuncio, engaged in the glorious work of the scientific and literary regeneration of Portugal," surely one is tempted to say in God's name, When or how has Portugal been regenerated in any sense literary, political, or religious, much less gloriously regenerated? and the temptation is stronger when we remember Fr. Theiner's words in his "Annals of of Religious Sciences for 1836," where he says "the Professors of the University of Coimbra have utterly destroyed

true science in Portugal. The Government of Pombal and its effects in Portugal furnish a most triumphant apology for the Society of Jesus." The teaching of the society in Germany fares no better in Fr. Theiner's hands-he says broadly that they found good theologians in Germany, and left none behind them at their suppression; that the long inferiority of German theology is due to their teaching, and its present advancement to their withdrawal; in substance, if not in terms, that Catholicity owes them nothing, and Protestantism a great deal. Yet as M. l'Abbé Maynard calls to mind, those great theologians whom the Jesuits found in Germany, had allowed twenty-one years to elapse in Vienna without an ordination, and the Protestants to outnumber the Catholics in the proportion of ten to one in those provinces where now the proportion is reversed, and reversed as all, Protestant and Catholic admit, by the instrumentality of the Jesuits; whose success in every department of instruction, sacred, and profane, is acknowledged by none more candidly than by Protestants themselves. M. Maynard takes up every proposition of Fr. Theiner upon this matter seriatim; and there is nothing he shows more effectually, without any pomp of words, often by the mere catalogue of names, but in sober though vigorous language, than that at the very epoch of the suppression, and for years afterwards, the men most eminent in all the sciences, sacred and secular, were Jesuits, ex-Jesuits or pupils of the order. We cannot say how much we regret not being in a position to give some extracts from this admirable work.

Whoever thinks he can vindicate the memory of a Sovereign Pontiff does no more than his duty in making the attempt, and does much if he succeed. The "Popes in general, according to the motto chosen by the Père de Ravignan, from Le Maistre, only require truth for their defence, "Les Papes n'ont besoin que de la Vérité, and from studies such as those in which Fr. Theiner and our author have been engaged, prosecuted with simplicity of purpose, and afterwards made public without bitterness, nothing but good can result. There is no age of Church history not pregnant with lessons for the future and the present. The Church, in fact, has had throughout her annals one only enemy to deal with, and that one is the world. He shifts his ground or changes his tactics according to circumstances. Three hundred years ago his arms

offensive and defensive, were such as would now be accounted cumbrous and unserviceable; but they were the best known at the time, and they answered the purpose just as well then, as his present weapons with all the modern improvements, serve him now. But there is still in his style of attack, whether he proceed by sap or storm, a something that keeps up his personal identity. For instance, no matter how impetuous his assault, no matter how obstinate his blockade,, he is always ready to make terms specious and splendid, but perfidious and fatal. If a national church covet the riches and finery of his followers, he and they will soon oppress her with their bounty, as the Sabine soldiers rewarded the treason of the Roman maiden at the first siege of Rome. In the Middle Ages the attack was always made through the kings; towards the close of the Middle Ages texts of Scripture were the pellets; when Clement XIV. reigned, and the Jesuits were suppressed, philosophy was captain-general; the attack now comes less from king and sophist than from the people; from the savage selfishness of the passions, at once disorganized and organized of democracy. Protestantism decomposing into materialism, and a generating swarms of hungry ambitions, artificial wants, and stinging cupidities, from its very dissolution; has filled the air with darkness and with murmurs. The earth seems to shake off thrones as though they sat heavy on her; she thinks it mean to be the footstool even of God; and believes, like her poor children, that she is self-poised and independent. The world has this time veiled his brows like Mokannah, and borrowing a new name, calls himself the State-a monster of the fancy, that is neither a man nor a corporation,—that is pulled down and set up at pleasure,--that is only known for a god like the dragon of the Assyrians, by all that it devours; but that in every form is the enemy of the Church. This is not authority-the one is from God, the other from ourselves; to the one we must render obedience, but to the other, which is the grand enemy, which is neither Cæsar nor the Commonwealth, but an abstraction of the economists, or if not an abstractión, an association of adventurers, we have only to offer opposition and defiance. Whether it attempt to fetter education, to confiscate our rights social or religious, to suppress convents, or oppress conscience, it must be encounted by every means that God and honour sanction. And in this conflict with the

world, whatever shape it borrow, king, corruption, heresiarch, sophist, socialist, or state; the reverses and successes of the Church have been so uniform as to keep alert and vigorous the spirits of us who are in the struggle, and make us strong in hope. Threatening as things appear, how signal have not our successes been since the great convulsion of '48. Though Peidmont and Spain are, the one upon the steep incline, and the other in the very depth of anarchy; yet the religious revival and enfranchisement of education in France and Austria; the freshness of life and action in all that deserves the name of Catholic, all the world over; and above everything, the consciousness that the storm cannot choose but overblow itself, that the waves must subside when the wind falls; but that the rock is planted to defy both winds and waves, must give us heart and nerve. "I know at this time no less than a hundred and twenty-seven Jesuits between Charing Cross and Temple Bar," says Mr. Croker, in the "Good Natured Man." We cannot say so much of our own knowledge, but we can avouch the fact that, where there is anything like public opinion and personal freedom,-whatever be the form of government, the Jesuits have trebled their numbers within the last twenty years; and that it is only under the most gross and besotted despotism, whether of the one, the few, or the many, that the Jesuits are proscribed, doubted, or feared. Nor is this increase confined to the Jesuits. In our own country, as in every other, where civil rights are protected by serious laws, religious communities of men and women, with no protection but that of justice, and no privilege but the right of citizenship, have successfully vindicated for themselves the inestimable liberty of association. Wherever revolution has not grown into confirmed anarchy, or subsided into flat despotism,wherever it has not swept away the first notions of law along with all its ancient constitutions, the Church has been the gainer. Be it our part to struggle, not only with the spirit of the age, when we must, but in it when we can. To understand our position is to be master of it. Liberty has not made one real conquest that we cannot appropriate and secure, but let Providence shape events in the way it pleases, any time between the year of our Lord 1855 and the coming of Antichrist, the hopes of our enemies are not likely to be higher, nor the prospects of the Church more gloomy than they were the morning after

VOL. XXXIX.-N). LXXVII.

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