But with the admirable energy, disinterestedness, and self-
devotion which were characteristic of the Society, great vices
were mingled. It was alleged, and not without foundation, that
the ardent public spirit which made the Jesuit regardless of his
ease, of his liberty, and of his life, made him also regardless
of truth and of mercy; that no means which could promote the
interest of his religion seemed to him unlawful, and that by the
interest of his religion he too often meant the interest of his
Society. It was alleged that, in the most atrocious plots
recorded in history, his agency could be distinctly traced; that,
constant only in attachment to the fraternity to which he
belonged, he was in some countries the most dangerous enemy of
freedom, and in others the most dangerous enemy of order. The
mighty victories which he boasted that he had achieved in the
cause of the Church were, in the judgment of many illustrious
members of that Church, rather apparent than real. He had indeed
laboured with a wonderful show of success to reduce the world
under her laws; but he had done so by relaxing her laws to suit
the temper of the world. Instead of toiling to elevate human
nature to the noble standard fixed by divine precept and example,
he had lowered the standard till it was beneath the average level
of human nature. He gloried in multitudes of converts who had
been baptized in the remote regions of the East: but it was
reported that from some of those converts the facts on which the
whole theology of the Gospel depends had been cunningly
concealed, and that others were permitted to avoid persecution by
bowing down before the images of false gods, while internally
repeating Paters and Ayes. Nor was it only in heathen countries
that such arts were said to be practised. It was not strange that