THE GREAT SOCIETY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
WE began our “Story of the Jesuits” by the remark, that its claim upon our interest was far greater than would be the past history of a gigantic but effete religious movement. Would that it were possible to inscribe “Finis” at the close of this our last chapter, and to be able to tell our readers that English men and women have nothing now to fear from men whose names are for evermore associated with an accumulation of guilt and crime in the name of Christ’s holy religion! How different is the case. The Jesuits of the present day, unlike, perhaps, all other religious fraternities which have undergone modifications, are exactly the same in principle as they were in Loyola’s lifetime. His bold, ambitious despotism has transmitted itself to his Society in perpetuity. And, therefore, Rome, desiring above all things the ruin of England, entrusts her delicate and secret undertakings to the Jesuit fathers. G. B. Nicolini of Rome, writing in 1854, remarks: “I have been born and brought up among monks and Jesuits; and it is because I thoroughly know them that I warn England to beware of all monks, but especially of Jesuits. Indeed, I would rather see all the various species of those parasite animals called ‘monks’ transplanted into the English soil, than let one Jesuit live in it a single day. The influence of the Jesuits in the United Kingdom has increased since 1814, and its bad effects may be daily traced.”
We can only enumerate some few instances which prove that the Jesuit of the nineteenth century is as formidable a foe to Divine truth, peace, and liberty as the Jesuit of the seven-tenth or eighteenth century. Their most extraordinary growth has been witnessed in the North American free States. The gigantic strides with which Jesuitism has spread in the dioceses of Buffalo and Cincinnati is illustrated best by the census of 1866, which showed that whereas sixty years previously, one Roman Catholic bishop had been sufficient to meet all requirements, there were then not only an archbishop but 54. Bishops, 20,000 priests, and 1109 seminaries, almost all of them being in the hands of the Jesuits.
And it must not be forgotten that the civil war in America, with its five hundred thousand slain, was owing to the intrigues and fomenting influence of the Jesuits. We quote President Lincoln’s words, who at length fell at the hand of a Jesuit assassin:
“This war would never have been possible without the sinister influence of the Jesuits. We owe it to Popery that we now see our land reddened with the blood of her noblest sons. I pity the priests, the bishops, and monks of Rome in the United States when the people realize that they are in great part responsible for the tears and blood shed in this war. The Protestants of both the North and the South would surely unite to exterminate the priests and the Jesuits if they could hear what Professor Morse has said to me of the plots made in the very city of Rome to destroy their republic ; and if they could learn how the priests and nuns who daily land on our shores under the pretext of preaching their religion, instructing the children in their schools, taking care of the sick in the hospitals, are nothing else but the emissaries of the Pope . . . to undermine our institutions, alienate the hearts of our people from our constitution and our laws, destroy our schools, and prepare a reign of anarchy here as they have done in Ireland, in Mexico, in Spain, and wherever there are any people who want to be free.”
But to return to Rome itself. Their power reached its summit when, in 1866, they gained their ascendency over Pope Pius IX. By that time the Pope was again Sovereign of the States of the Church. In the first place, they undertook the editing of the Civilta Catholica, which is the official organ of the reigning Pope. Pius IX. devoted a special building to the editorial office, as well as considerable salaries, which rendered the editors independent of all earthly anxieties.
Here two Jesuits fathers were supposed to voice the Holy Father’s utterances, although it is a known fact that they were the authors of the Pope’s thoughts. It is easy to understand, therefore, the origin of the new dogma which issued from Rome as one of its great nineteenth century productions, the “Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.” Such a doctrine might well be propounded by followers of the first Knight of the Virgin. And, inasmuch as Jesuitism and the Papacy had by this time completely intermingled, it is not wonderful that the astounding doctrine of the Infallibility of the Pope should proceed from the same quarter in 1870.
For if the Pope were infallible, the Jesuits were infallible. This fulness of absolute power obtained by the Pope would enable the sons of Loyola to take possession of and rule the entire Roman Catholic Church.
No wonder that when this edict came forth the Jesuits exclaimed exultingly in their ultramontane journal, Le Monde: “Protestantism has arrived at its last stage of decomposition. The Catholic religion will triumph.”
This cry resounds today in our midst. “Cardinal” Vaughan, when Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford, stated at a public meeting at Manchester some few years ago, that “Protestantism as an intellectual system is confessedly a wreck. It no longer molds the minds of the English people. Ask the House of Commons, men of science, and members of the Bar; ask the intelligent writers and editors of daily papers; go to the offices of the chief London and Manchester papers, and inquire how far their views are modelled and their leading articles dictated by the teaching of orthodox Protestantism.”
We are quite prepared to endorse the utterances of a well-known writer respecting the Jesuits of the nineteenth century in England. We very much doubt whether there has been any period since the Reformation when the Jesuit conspiracy was so formidable as it is at present. In 1887 the number of Roman Catholic bishops and priests in Great Britain was 2335: today, 1896, this has risen enormously. It must not be overlooked that Romish priests are, at the present time, appointed to chaplaincies in the army, navy, prisons, and workhouses, and that Popery is endowed in the British Empire to the extent of over a million of money each year. Jesuitism, so far from being dead, as many people suppose, is proving itself to be one of the most powerful agencies of the present day. The Jesuits have colleges at Stoneyhurst, Roehampton, and Old Windsor. The college at St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, is entirely under their influence; while scattered over the United Kingdom there are schools for all classes under the control of Jesuits. Tempting educational baits are continually (and successfully) presented before the eyes of the unsuspecting British parent. Take the following advertisement from a Roman Catholic newspaper as an illustration: “In addition to the ordinary school subjects, the students will be taught bookkeeping, the ordinary system of banking, shorthand, and French. The Post Office electric telegraph instruments have lately been erected in the school for the instruction of the boys by the Government officials.” When the father in charge was asked why his school was thus specially favored by the State, he replied: “I have a friend at Court.” At that time the Postmaster-General was connected with the Church of Rome.
But we do not need an outsider’s testimony as to the spirit which animates the nineteenth century followers of Loyola today. The Roman Catholic Bishop of St. Louis, U.S.A., wrote not long since in Le Signel: “We grant that the Catholic Church is intolerant―that is to say, that she does all in her power to extirpate error and sin―but this intolerance is the direct consequence of her infallibility. Heresy is in her eyes a grave sin which merits death. The Church permits heretics where the force of circumstances constrains her, but she hates them mortally, and employs all her forces for their annihilation. When one day Catholics shall have the majority―a state which will certainly arrive some day or other―then religious liberty will come to an end. . . If actually we do not now pursue heretics, it only happens because we are still too weak to do so, and consider that by doing so we may do more harm than good to the Church.”
Thus far we have endeavored to trace the past history of the “Society of Jesus,” and with Dr. Hiles Hitchens we exclaim: “Alas! that that dear name ‘Jesus,’ which is a synonym for all that is pure, truthful, sincere, merciful, and lovely, should be associated with men so notoriously the servants of Satan!”
We cannot close our brief and imperfect “Story of the Jesuits” without reverting once more to the secret spring which they are forever touching—and by which they are obtaining entrance to the inner life of our British people while men slumber and sleep—the education of the young.
Whilst congregations of intelligent and professedly Protestant English Christians of all denominations are left in lamentable ignorance of Protestant principles; whilst they are seldom, if ever, exhorted from pulpit or platform to “earnestly contend for the faith;” whilst the children of day and Sunday schools, of hoarding and high schools, of institutions and colleges, are seldom instructed or catechized in definite Protestant doctrine as such; and while English childhood is suffered to pass into youth and manhood without being able to give a clear and immediate answer to the important question, “Why am I a Protestant?” we need not be surprised at the drifting of the current or the setting of the tide towards Rome. For her religion is attractive to the unrenewed heart, and the Jesuit “father” or “mother” is an alluring guide to our sons and daughters at the moment of their souls’ awakening.
“So soon removed unto another gospel” ― “bewitched . . . that ye should not obey the truth” ― “entangled again with the yoke of bondage” ― “corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” Are these to be the characteristics of us who claim descent from the noble army of martyrs―the true Society of Jesus―who “overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony,” and “were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the Word of God”?
If “My people love to have it so,” then let the Divine Voice be heard as in rolling thunder over England:
“What will ye do in the END thereof?”