A Curious Correspondence.

the society has always ready to its hand skilled and devoted instruments , prepared ^ if need be—nay , eager to lay down their lives in its cause . As the historian Ranke observes : — "Such a combination of adequate science and unwearied zeal , of study and conviction , of pomp and mortification , of worldwide dissemination and unit y of views , has never been witnessed on this earth either before or since . They were industriousyet visionaryworldl-wise

, ; y yet full of enthusiasm ; well-mannered , pleasant people , having no individual interests , but ready to assist one another . No wonder that they succeeded . " The result of the system on which the members of the Society are trained is apparent in the subtle casuistry employed by its writers in dealing with ethical questions . Thus , Busembaum , Layman , Escobar , Illsung , Voit and Gury have laid down the dangerous propositionexpressed bthe well-known

, y formula , " the end justifies the means . " " The essence of the corrupt morality of the Society lies , " as one critic has correctly remarked , " in the grounds on which all manner of sin and crime , are palliated . " Sanchez and Escobar advocates the doctrine of mental reservation ancl double meaning . According to the former , a person may state , even upon oath , what he knows to be false , if he but mentally add words which make it true . According to the

latter , a person is justified in saying what he does not mean , provided he mentall y supplies the true meaning . Sanchez , Escobar , Novarra , and Sa further uphold the doctrine of Probabilism , which declares all acts allowable that have been sanctioned by any man of wei ght ancl learning . Among other equally dangerous doctrines may be mentioned Quietism , which permits a sin when committed with repugnance , or when the person with whom it is committed is a consenting party ; Clandestinism , which excuses all acts whatsoever provided they remain secret ; and Formalism , by which the prohibition of an

act may be evaded by doing it in a way not specially mentioned . In the field of politics , Lainez and Belarmin were the earliest supporters of the modern theory of Popular Sovereignty . They advanced it , however , not in the interests of the people themselves , but in order to secure the Papal supremacy by weakening the royal power . Belarmin justifies rebellion by subjects against an heretical ruler , and insists upon the right of the Pope to depose him . Suarez ,

Mariana , Sa , Molina , Toletus , and Kellerus go so far as to maintain that , in certain cases , a sovereign may not only be lawfull y deposed , but even put to death by his subjects . As history shows , such teaching has borne abundant fruit . It should be stated , that the cases I have given by no means exhaust the list . According to a careful calculation , the commission of no less than eleven different classes of crimes and sins has been justified or palliated b

y more than three hundred Jesuit writers . It cannot for one moment be argued that the Society ought not to be held responsible for the opinions of individual members , inasmuch as all these works , before publication , not only received the official sanction of the censorshi p , as required by the Constitutions , but were also registered in its official catalogue as works of high authority . There is ample evidence , on the other hand , of the estimate formed of them by the

public . The revelations contained in Pascal ' s "Lettres Provinciales " created so grave a scandal that in 1679 Innocent XI . publicly condemned no less than sixty-five propositions of specially lax morality advanced by Jesuit writers . This , however , is no isolated case . Within two hundred years from the foundation of the Society , its doctrines were publicly censured ten times by Assemblies of the Catholic Clergy , more than fort y times by Catholic Academical Bodies , more than eighty times by Papal Bulls , Briefs , and Apostolic Letters , and more than one hundred times b y Catholic Archbishops and Bishops .

In no respect was the Society more zealous than in striving to convert the heathen . In the Eastern and Western worlds , thousands were rapidly won over to Catholicism through the enthusiastic and devoted labours of Jesuit missionaries like Xavier , the Apostle of the Indies . In South America , aho