In  these  crooked  ways,  then,  the  pious  Fathers  always  attained


THE   JESUITS   IN   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTUET.      689

what  they  desired ;  and  how,  then,  was  it  to  be  wondered  at
*hat  the  situations  of  Court  Father  Confessors  were  almost
■always  to  he  found  in  the  hands  of  the  sons  of  Ignatius  ?
No,  verily,  on  this  point  need  no  one  wonder,  and  still  less  as  to
-the  use  to  which  they  put  the  confessional.  Their  main  object,
-indeed,  was  to  regain  for  their  Society  the  dominion  which  it
possessed  previous  to  its  abolition,  and,  in  order  to  accomplish
■■•this,  the  belief  must  be  established  among  the  great  of  this  earth
■that  the  Jesuits  alone  were  the  possessors  of  true  religion,  while
•by  their  aid  only  could  a  monarchical  Government  be  upheld.
They  continually  whispered  into  the  ears  of  the  princes  that,
""with  the  abolition  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  the  power  of  the  Boman
See  sank  lower  and  lower;  with  this  See  the  power  of  kings,
-also,  diminished  in  a  precisely  similar  proportion.  Thereupon
JDroad  thinking,  enlightenment,  and  science,  or,  as  it  may  otherwise
be  called,  irreligion,  burst  all  the  bands  of  obedience  to  the  laws,
«,nd  the  general  spirit  of  liberty  which  now  spreads  itself  from
•one  end  of  the  world  to  the  other  is  nothing  else  than  the
"degradation  of  the  true  faith.  This  must,  then,  be  firmly  planted
;again,  and  in  order  to  accomplish  this  the  sons  of  Loyola
alone  are  fitted."

Such  is  the  confessional  teaching  of  the  Jesuits,  and  what
they  meant  by  the  "  true  faith  ■"  is  to  be  seen  in  their  missions,
with  their  rosaries,  their  scapularies,  their  penitential  shirts,
their  fasts,  their  processions,  and  all  the  other  baubles  of  their
worship.
