WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE JESUITS?
By G. D. Ballou
LET the following from "Historical Studies," pages 140-142, answer:— At last came the final blow that was to shatter into pieces the great army of Loyola. For more than two centuries the Jesuits had been fighting the battle of Rome. To exalt the supremacy of the pope they had died by thousands in English jails and Indian solitudes, had pierced land and sea to carry the strange story of the primacy to heathen millions, and to build anew the medieval church in the heart of oriental idolatry. And now it was the pope and Rome that were to complete their destruction. By a cruel ingratitude the deity on earth, whom they worshiped with a fidelity unequal among men, was to hurl his anathemas against his most faithful disciples. France and Spain elected Pope Clement XIV. upon his pledge that he would dissolve the order. He issued his bull July 21, 1773, directing that, for the welfare of the church and the good of mankind, the institution of Loyola should be abolished. The Jesuits protested in vain. Ricci, the general, threw himself at the feet of the cardinals, wept, entreated, recalled the memories of Trent, the exploits of Loyola, and suggested in a whisper that Clement, like Judas, had betrayed the Lord. The pope not long after died in fearful torments; the Jesuits were allowed to preserve a secret unity; but it was reported once more that the horrid custom of the Middle Ages had been revived; that the pope had been carried off by poison. Driven from their almost ancestral homes in Spain, Italy, Austria, and France, the Jesuits found a liberal welcome in the heart of Protestantism itself. Persecuted like heretics by the Church of Rome, they now sought shelter in the free lands, against which they had once aimed its spiritual and temporal arm. And it is curious to reflect that had the Jesuits succeeded in their early design of subjugating the North, they would have left themselves no place of refuge in their hour of need. To their enemies of the sixteenth century, they came in the close of the eighteenth asking hospitality; and the disciples of Loyola were scattered over every part of Protestant Europe as teachers, professors, men of letters and science, and were everywhere received with friendly consideration. England, charitably overlooking the past, saw Jesuit colleges and schools flourish in her midst without alarm. Frederick the Great opened for them an asylum in Silicia. Catherine II. welcomed them to St. Petersburg, and Greek bishops were often seen mingling in friendly intercourse with the once hostile company. Many Jesuits crossed the sea to the New World. Expelled from Lima and persecuted in Brazil, they founded their schools freely in Louisville and New York, and flourished with vigor under institutions and laws which owed their birth to the teachings of Luther and Calvin. The doctrine of universal toleration alone saved the Jesuits from complete destruction; and we may reasonably trust that, as the army of Loyola recruits its shattered strength in the bosom of Protestantism and freedom, it will show its gratitude by abstaining from all hostile attempts against the institutions by which it is nurtured; that the Jesuit will never suffer his promise of obedience to an Italian potentate to interfere with his obligation to free thought, free schools, and a free press. Thus fostered by the descendants of Ridley and Cranmer, and sheltered by the arm of schismatic Russia, the fallen society prolonged its existence. At length in 1814 the Bourbons were restored to France, and Pope Pius VII. revived the order of the Jesuits. Their college at Rome was given back to them in nearly the same condition they had left it nearly forty years before; but their magnificent837library and their revenues were cut off. A scanty band of eighty-six Fathers, worn with toil and wandering, made, it is said, a triumphant entry into Rome amidst the acclamations of its people. Yet it can scarcely be doubted that the followers of Loyola are as unpopular with the citizens of the holy city as they seem ever to have been with the people of all Catholic lands. Isolated by their fatal vow of obedience, they are followed everywhere by suspicion and dislike. Russia, which had received them in their hour of need, expelled them again in 1816; France drove them out in 1845; the people of Madrid in 1835 massacred their Jesuits; the pope again exiled them from Rome, and it is only England and America that even in the present day afford a safe asylum to the fallen company. This was written in 1869. Nearly twenty-five years have passed, and what do we see as to the fruits of their sojourn in America? In every city and town of any note they have flourishing schools, churches, hospitals, and orphan asylums; and thousands of beguiled Protestants and non-professors are sending their children to these schools, where, in the most subtle manner, the principles of the Papacy are instilled into the minds of the youth. Their hospitals and asylums increase their church membership by hundreds and thousands annually, while immigration has filled cities and towns until their political and financial influence is such that they can control legislation and abstract money from the public treasury, both State and national, for the support of their sectarian schools. They build their charitable institutions by extorting money from leading tradesmen under threat of the boycott. This I know from direct testimony. They hold the balance of power in several of our most important cities, and control legislation in our most populous States. So well disciplined are they that their vote is a unit, controlled by the prisoner of the Vatican. Their followers hold the police and many other offices in all our leading cities, and perform most of the labor on the public works. The thirst for political power is still strong in the Papacy, and growing stronger every year. Pope Leo XIII., seeing the grand opening in America, has not been slow to fill it with a man after his own heart. The new American pope, Satolli, has come to manipulate the affairs of the government, and, by unifying the papal element in America, present an influence in politics and religion which will be little less than irresistible. New and startling developments are constantly being made. But American Protestantism no longer protests. Her feeble energies are spent in adulations and compliments for the growing papal hierarchy. H. W. Beecher could preach Pius XI. into heaven, and other popular preachers speak in glowing terms of the "mother church." The National Reformers seek alliance with Rome to enforce the papal sabbath by national enactments, while the man who brings up the past history of the Papacy and the Jesuits, and would let their true character appear, is frowned upon as a feeble-minded cynic or a misguided crank. Their famous university in our national capital is designed to polish and mould young men after the model of American statesmen, and thus give them an influence with the masses wherever they may go. The bonds of union between the Church of Rome and her wayward daughters of America are being strengthened each month that passes. The little commotion between the A. P. A. element and the "mother church" is only like chemical elements when uniting to form a new compound. Indeed, the union in principle is already complete, for the masses of professed Protestants have fully adopted every fundamental principle of Rome. Infallibility is assumed by nearly all in their clamors for religious legislation. The union of Church and State, and the right to control the conscience, is proclaimed in the same manner. And Jesuit and priestly and popish intrigue are smoothing the way by soft speeches for the daughters to return, and strengthening the cords with which to bind the American republic to the chariot wheels of Rome. Soon, all too soon, we shall see the image of the beast and hear its dragon voice. Blind indeed are the men who cannot discern the undercurrent everywhere setting Romeward. For those who do see, is it not about time for the loud cry of the Third Angel's Message to begin to sound forth? Yea, do I not already hear it sounding; and what means it that men everywhere are ready to heed the cry? Jesuit intrigue has had a moulding influence on the religions and customs of English-speaking peoples, and the Spirit of God too has been working as in days of old. Happy the men and women who now, in these closing years of earth's dark history, can hear the voice of God, and clearly discern his hand in the message that is going to the earth to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Such will not fall under the influence of the mystery of iniquity, but will stand like the pillars of heaven and shine with the light of God, and his jewels everywhere will reflect the light, and Jesus will come and gather them to beautify his kingdom of glory. O Lord Jesus, hasten that glad day!