THE JESUITS.

THE party which had now the undisputed ascendant were denominated "Jesuits," as a term of reproach, by the enemies of that famous society in the Church of Rome, as well as by those among the Protestant communions. A short account of their origin and character may facilitate a faint conception of the admiration, jealousy, fear, and hatred, the profound submission or fierce resistance, which that formidable name once inspired. Their institution originated in pure zeal for religion, glowing in the breast of Loyola, a Spanish soldier, a man full of imagination and sensibility, -in a country where wars, rather civil than foreign, waged against unbelievers for ages, had rendered a passion for spreading the Catholic faith a national point of honor, and blended it with the pursuit of glory as well as with the memory of past renown. The legislative forethought of his successors gave form and order to the product of enthusiasm, and bestowed laws and institutions on their society, which were admirably fitted to its

various ends. Having arisen in the age of the Reformation they naturally became the champions of the Church against her enemies. They cultivated polite literature with splendid success; they were the earliest and perhaps the most extensive reformers of European education, which in their schools made a larger stride than it has done at any succeeding moment; * and by the just reputation of their learning, as well as by the weapons with which it armed them, they were enabled to carry on a vigorous contest against the most learned impugners of the authority of the Church.

While the nations of the Peninsula hastened to spread religion in the newly explored regions of the East and West, the Jesuits, the missionaries of that age, either repaired or atoned for the evils caused by their countrymen. In India they suffered martyrdom with heroic constancy. They penetrated through the barrier which Chinese

*"For education," says Bacon, within fifty years of the institution of the Order, "consult the schools of the Jesuits. Nothing hitherto tried in practice surpasses them" (De Augment. Scient., lib. vi., cap. 4.) "Education, that excellent part of ancient discipline, has been, in some sorts, revived of late times in the colleges of the Jesuits, of whom in regard of this and of some other points of human learning and moral matters I may say 'Talis cum sis utinam noster esses "" (Advancement of Learning).

policy opposed to the entrance of strangers, cultivating the most difficult of languages with such success as to compose hundreds of volumes in it; and, by the public utility of their scientific acquirements, obtained toleration, patronage, and personal honors, from that jealous government. The natives of America, who generally felt the comparative superiority of the European race only in a more rapid or a more gradual destruction, and to whom even the Quakers dealt out little more than penurious justice, were, under the paternal rule of the Jesuits, reclaimed from savage manners, and instructed in the arts and duties of civilized life. At the opposite point of society, they were fitted by their release from conventual life, and their allowed intercourse with the world, for the perilous office of secretly guiding the conscience of princes. They maintained the highest station as a religious body in the literature of Catholic countries. No other association ever sent forth so many disciples who reached such eminence in departments so various and unlike. While some of their number ruled the royal penitents at Versailles or the Escurial, others were teaching the use of the spade and the shuttle to the naked savages of Paraguay; a third body daily endangered their lives in an attempt to convert the Hindus to Chris

tianity; a fourth carried on the controversy against the Reformers; a portion were at liberty to cultivate polite literature; while the greater part continued to be employed either in carrying on the education of Catholic Europe, or in the government of their society, and in ascertaining the ability and disposition of the junior members, so that well-qualified men might be selected for the extraordinary variety of offices in their immense commonwealth. The most famous Constitutionalists, the most skilful casuists, the ablest schoolmasters, the most celebrated professors, the best teachers of the humblest mechanical arts, the missionaries who could most bravely encounter martyrdom, or who with the most patient skill could infuse the rudiments of religion into the minds of ignorant tribes or prejudiced nations, were the growth of their fertile schools.

SIR JAS. MACKINTOSH,

Review of the Causes of Revolution. 1688.

RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V.

THIS great Emperor, in the plenitude of his power, and in possession of all the honors which can flatter the heart of man, took the extraordinary resolution to resign his kingdoms; and to withdraw entirely from any concern in business or the affairs of this world, in order that he might spend the remainder of his days in retirement and solitude.

Though it requires neither deep reflection, nor extraordinary discernment, to discover that the state of royalty is not exempt from cares and disappointments; though most of those who are exalted to a throne, find solicitude, and satiety, and disgust, to be their perpetual attendants, in that envied pre-eminence; yet, to descend voluntarily from the supreme to a subordinate station, and to relinquish the possession of power in order to attain the enjoyment of happiness, seems to be an effort too great for the human mind.

Several instances, indeed, occur in history, of monarchs who have quitted a throne, and have