p. 159 | THE JESUITS

The S.D.A. Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 8, 1880

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 14

THE JESUITS.

VERY clearly the Jesuits have been hoisted by their own petard. Instead of accepting Article 7, which prohibited them from teaching in the schools and universities, they would have none of it and defeated it. And then they thought they had won a triumph. They have won many such triumphs! And now the news comes that they are to be expelled from France under the laws of the first Empire, passed in 1804. Why should they not be expelled?

There is nothing whose nature seems more misunderstood than the Jesuits. They are often spoken of as a religious body, but they are no more such than is a baseball club composed of Protestants and Roman Catholics. The idea of Loyola in organizing them was that of an educational, political and commercial character: indeed, Loyola was himself a soldier, and his organization was established on a military basis. Under its second general, Laynez, it doffed its monkish apparel, put its missionary work in the background, and thenceforth addressed itself to the maintenance of the absolute dominion of the Pope against Protestantism, kingdoms, universities, councils, bishops, anything and everybody showing an independent tendency. Since then it has fought for the Pope, intrigued for the Pope, burnt men at the stake for the Pope, waged wars and deluged countries with blood,—all in the service of the Pope. And it in time grew so strong and imperious that it did not hesitate to quarrel with and threaten the Pope. It is 300 years since Pascal exposed the immorality of the lives of the Jesuits, their selfishness and the falseness of their actions. They never recovered from that blow, and yet they have at various times been a power—always a dangerous power in any State—and with what a record! At one time and another they have been expelled from every country where they have had a foothold. They were condemned by the Paris Sorbonne 1554, expelled from France 1594, re-admitted 1604, again expelled and their property confiscated 1764; again expelled in 1831 and 1845; expelled from England five times between 1579 and 1829, the last expulsion being final. Expelled from Venice 1607, from Holland 1708, Portugal 1759 and 1834, Spain 1767, 1820 and 1835, from Belgium 1818, Russia 1820, Sardinia and Austria 1848, Italy and Sicily 1860. They were abolished by Pope Clement XIV. in 1773 and restored by Pius VI. thirty years later. During the last thirty years the Jesuits have succeeded in penetrating every European country, existing in the dominions where they are forbidden, secretly, resorting to every form of intrigue for extending their power and increasing the influence of Vaticanism. They are dangerous to the peace and welfare of society, antagonistic to the sentiment of the age and opposed to every phase of individual liberty, except the liberty to obey the commands of the Roman Curia. It will be a red-letter day for sunny France when she shall banish from her dominions these conspirators against her government, these disturbers of the peace and safety of her people.—Christian at Work.