caused so much general controversy at the end of the eighteenth century
as the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain and Portugal
and their colonial possessions. As no definite charges were ever brought,
at least in Spain, against the members of the Company of Jesus
(King Charles III. having kept the reasons `ocultas y reservadas'
and the proofs `privilegiados'), curiosity is to some extent not satisfied
as to the real reason of their expulsion from the Spanish possessions
in America.

It is almost impossible to understand nowadays the feelings
which possessed the average man in regard to the Jesuits
from the middle of the last century till a relatively short time ago.
All the really great work done by the Society of Jesus
seemed to have been forgotten, and every vulgar fable
which it was possible to invent to their prejudice found ready acceptance
upon every side. Nothing was too absurd to be believed.
From the calumnies of the Jansenists to the follies of Eugene Sue
the mass of accusation, invective, and innuendo kept on increasing
in intensity. Indiscriminate abuse and unreasoning hatred,
mixed with fear, seem to have possessed all minds. Even Pascal
confesses (in a postscript to the ninth Provincial Letter) that
`after having written my letter I read the works of Fathers Barry and Binet.'
If such a man as Pascal could be so grossly unfair as to write a criticism
on works which he had not read, what can be expected from
the non-judicial and uncritical public which takes all upon trust?

From Japan to the interior of Bolivia there is scarcely a country
in which the Jesuits have not laboured assiduously, and in which
they have not shed their blood freely without hope of reward,
yet it would require much time and a lengthy catalogue to enumerate