THE JESUITS; AS THEY WERE, AND ARE. By EDWARD By J. MICHElet. We have on former occasions occupied so much of our space with the detail of the history, the principles, and the proceedings of the company of the Jesuits, that our readers will not require us to resume these subjects now. Those to whom the theme is an inviting one, will find a rapid sketch of the history of this formidable order in Mr. Duller's book, drawn up with considerable ability; but, as it occurs to us, too meagre to answer the laudable purpose of its author, which is to arouse the public mind in Germany to a sense of the danger which threatens the entire frame-work of society in that country from the intrigues of the Jesuits. The outlines of their eventful story are already before the general reader in several forms, and we cannot help expressing our conviction that the author would have better answered his purpose had he confined his remarks to the proceedings of the Jesuits in Germany,-a subject of the most intense interest, yet so far as we know, one altogether inaccessible to any but the student of history who has leisure to devote to it. All but he must be content with the very unsatisfactory table of contents (for it is nothing better) with which Mr. Duller dismisses this, the really and interesting part of his proposed design, or with something equally meagre. Yet is the subject pregnant with matter of the deepest import to the questions which now convulse the public mind. It was in Germany that in all probability the terribly successful expedient of dispensation was first tried upon Protestantism. Their operations there were on a far bolder and more extensive scale than in any other country. Every section of German Protestantism was saturated with dispensed villains who wore the garb of Reformers, for the one object of multiplying schisms among the Reformed. It was in Germany also that the Jesuits took the immense advantages that the infinite complications of its vast and unwieldy system of governments afforded them, to display to the full their talent for political intrigue. The issues of their machinations, the League, the Restitution's Edict, the Thirty Years' War, are written in characters of blood upon the page of her history. The question demands, imperatively demands, that mode of elucidation which shall place its details within the reach of the general reader: we strongly recommend it as one of all others the most needed at the present moment. That which we wish to see done for the history of Jesuitry in Germany, the highly-gifted author whose name stands second in our list, has accomplished, and in masterly style, for their history in France. His various works (principally the substance of lectures delivered in the University of Paris) scarcely leave any thing to be desired to the full and perfectly popular elucidation of this the most remarkable page in the record of the world. We venture to say that the most indifferent reader of this exposure will be shocked at the moral horrors (if the solecism be permitted) which are therein exposed. Jesuitry is sin systematized; it is a code of immorals; it is a series of conditions addressed to man's depravity, under which sin becomes a moral obligation to the sinner. The unutterably awful consequences to the nation over whose entire government this system reigned triumphant for two centuries and a half, are abundantly illustrated in the history of France. The brilliant work of M. Michelet, which we have selected for our remarks on the present occasion, is especially devoted to one branch of the subject, the intrusion of Jesuitry into the bosom of domestic life, through the agency of trained ecclesiastics of insinuating address and engaging personal appearance, who insinuate themselves into the good graces of the mothers, the wives, and the daughters of France, under the title of Directors. The nature of this office, the points wherein it differs from that of the Confessor, and the baleful effects of both upon the peace of families, are forcibly drawn in the following passage: "Every reflecting mind knows full well, that thought is the most personal part of the person. The master of a person's thoughts is he to whom the person belongs. The priest has the soul fast, as soon as he has received the dangerous pledge of the first secrets, and he will hold it faster and faster. The two husbands now take shares, for now there are two-one has the soul, the other the body. "Take notice that in this sharing, one of the two really has the whole; the other, if he gets any thing, gets it by favour. Thought by its nature is prevailing and absorbing; the master of her thought, in the natural progress of his sway, will ever go on reducing the part that seemed to remain in the possession of the other. The husband may think himself well off, if, a widower with respect to the soul, he still preserves the involuntary, inert, and lifeless possession. "How humiliating, to obtain nothing of what was your own, but by au thorisation and indulgence; to be seen, and followed into your most private intimacy, by an invisible witness, who governs you and gives you your allowance; to meet in the street a man who knows better than yourself, your most secret weaknesses, who bows cringingly, turns and laughs. It is nothing to be powerful, if one is not powerful alone-alone! God does not allow shares. "It is with this reasoning that the priest is sure to comfort himself in his persevering efforts to sever this woman from her family, to weaken her kindred ties, and, particularly, to undermine the rival authority-I mean, the husband's. The husband is a heavy encumbrance to the priest. But if this husband suffers at being so well known, spied, and seen, when he is alone, he who sees all suffers still more. She comes now every moment to tell innocently of things that transport him beyond himself. Often would he stop her, and would willingly say, "Mercy, madam, this is too much!" And though these details make him suffer the torment of the damned, he wants still more, and requires her to enter further and further into these avowals, both humiliating for her, and cruel for him, and to give him the detail of the saddest circumstances. "The confessor of a young woman may boldly be termed the jealous secret enemy of the husband. If there be one exception to this rule (and I am willing to believe there may be), he is a hero, a saint, a martyr, a man, more than man. "The whole business of the confessor is to immolate this woman, and he does it conscientiously. It is the duty of him who leads her in the way of salvation, to disengage her gradually from all earthly ties. It requires time, patience, and skill. The question is not how these strong ties may suddenly be broken, but to discover well, first of all, of what threads each tie is composed, and to disentangle, and gnaw them away thread by thread. "And all this may easily be done by him who, awakening new scruples every day, fills a timid soul with uneasiness about the lawfulness of her most holy affections. If any one of them be innocent, it is, after all, an earthly attachment, a robbery against God: God wants all. No more relationship or friendship; nothing must remain. "A brother?' no, he is still a man. 'But at least my sister? my mother?' 'No, you must leave all-leave them intentionally, and from your soul; you shall always see them, my child; nothing will appear changed; only, close your heart.' A moral solitude is thus established around. Friends go away, offended at her freezing politeness. People are cool in this house.' But why this strange reception? They cannot guess; she does not always know why, herself. The thing is commanded; is it not enough? Obedience consists in obeying without reason. 666 People are cold here: this is all that can be said. The husband finds the house larger and more empty. His wife is become quite changed: though present, her mind is absent; she acts as if unconscious of acting; she speaks, but not like herself. Every thing is changed in their intimate habits, always for a good reason: To-day is a fast-day-and to-morrow? 'Is a holyday.' The husband respects this austerity; he would consider it very wrong to trouble this exalted devotion; he is sadly resigned: this becomes embarrassing,' says he: I had not foreseen it; my wife is turning saint.' "In this sad house there are fewer friends, yet there is a new one, and a very assiduous one: the habitual confessor is now the director; a great and important change. As her confessor he received her at church, at regular hours; but as director he visits her at his own hour, sees her at her house, and occasionally at his own. "As confessor he was generally passive, listening much, and speaking little; if he prescribed, it was in a few words; but as director he is all activity; he not only prescribes acts, but what is more important, by intimate conversation he influences her thoughts. "To the confessor she tells her sins; she owes him nothing more; but to the director everything must be told: she must speak of herself and her relations, her business and her interests. When she entrusts to that man her highest interest, that of eternal salvation, how can she help confiding to him her little temporal concerns, the marriage of her children, and the will she intends to make? &c. &c. "The confessor is bound to secrecy; he is silent (or ought to be). The director, however, is not so tied down. He may reveal what he knows, especially to a priest, or to another director. Let us suppose about twenty priests assembled in a house (or not quite so many, out of respect to the law against meetings), who may be, some of them, the confessors, and others directors of the same persons; as directors they may mutually exchange their information, put upon a table a thousand or two thousand consciences in common, combine their relations, like so many chessmen, regulate beforehand all the movements and interests, and allot to one another the different parts they have to play to bring the whole to their purpose. "The Jesuits alone formerly worked thus in concert; but it is not the fault of the leaders of the clergy, in these days, if the whole body of the Jesuits, with trembling obedience, do not play at this villanous game. By their allcommunicating together, their secret revelations might produce a vast mysterious science, which would arm ecclesiastical policy with a power a hundred times stronger than that of the state. "Whatever might be wanting in the confession of the master, might easily be supplied by that of his servants and valets. The association of the Blandines of Lyons, imitated in Brittany, Paris, and elsewhere, would alone be sufficient to throw a light upon the whole household of every family. It is in vain they are known, they are nevertheless employed; for they are gentle and docile, serve their masters very well, and know how to see and listen. Happy the father of a family who has so virtuous a wife, and such gentle, humble, honest, pious servants. What the ancients sighed for, namely, to live in a glass dwelling, where he might be seen by every one, this happy man enjoys without even the expression of a wish. Not a syllable of his is lost. He may speak lower and lower, but a fine ear has caught every word. If he writes down his secret thoughts, not wishing to utter them, they are read:-by whom no one knows. What he dreams upon his pillow, the next morning, to his great astonishment, he hears in the street."-(pp. 176-182.) This is a felicity, the possession of which by the fathers of France, we rather think, will by no means be envied by the householders of England. Yet they may rely upon it, such a consummation is designed for them, and to a considerable extent accomplished, in many domestic circles. More than one case has already come to our knowledge, in which the peace of a family has been utterly destroyed by the crafty agency of some Anglo-Catholic masquerader, who has serpentized into its bosom. The means by which their devices are compassed in England are precisely the same in principle as in France, though in detail considerably modified by the different circumstances of society. The females are of course the primary objects of attack, but in many instances the change to be effected is exactly the reverse of that which has to be effected by the French director. The Anglo-Catholic deceiver often finds his intended victims the daughters of religious parents, under some religious convictions; and though perhaps having married more with a view to the advantages of this world than those of the next, yet retaining many of the salutary impressions of a religious education. The object of the intruder whom we are describing will be, in the first instance, to call up those latent compunctious feelings, for the purpose of giving a new direction to them. A most affectionate interest is professed in the spiritual advancement of the intended victim. The favourite authors-perhaps Hannah More, or John Newton, or Howells-are, in the first instance, highly commended, but in a tone which always makes apparent some mental reservation on the part of the commender, The subject is often repeated, and the praises perceptibly diminish, and the reserved faults as visibly increase, at every visit; until, if the case deserve the expense, the lady is astonished some fine morning by a neatly folded parcel, containing a reprint (impression de luxe) of Cousin's "Hours of Devotion," in an elaborately ornate medieval morocco binding, of faultless elegance, by Hayday. On the blank-leaf of this gaudy butterfly net, is an inscription which has evidently tasked highly the vicar's calligraphy, and to the effect that the book is presented to Mrs. by her parishpriest and affectionate friend the Vicar of. Should this cast be a successful one, the lady is immediately immersed in a round of lip-services, the prompters to which are not the impulses of the heart, but the hands of the horloge on the mantelpiece ;-very deadening to the affections, but very lulling and composing to the conscience. A prie Dieu, a fald-stool, a little gingerbread altar, and the rest of the trumpery of the Romanizers, are found to be important accessories to these picturesque devotions. An oratory is projected, some closet perchance in the vicinity of the drawingroom. The vicar himself is consulted, both as to the device for the stained glass window and as to its due orientation, and enters deeply into both these solemn questions. A firm footing in the house is now attained, and then the work of perversion must be begun in serious earnest. The lady's bookseller is permitted by the vicar to send to her a parcel of new publications for approval, every one of which he is permitted to state that the vicar himself has selected. By the merest chance in the world the vicar makes his appearance at her house within a quarter of an hour of the parcel, mentions the circumstance casually, and in a tone which makes it doubtful whether he reproves the boldness of the bookseller or commends his anxiety to do business, and proposes that the parcel be opened. The ladies are of course all in raptures at the thought; and notwithstanding the grave looks of papa (who thinks upon the cost), the vicar's motion is carried by acclamation; and then it is that the consummate skill of our tactician has the finest possible opportunity of displaying itself. "Ha! my dear sir"-addressing the master of the house-"I am glad he has sent this work," handing him a volume of the Anglo-Catholic Library. "I have just read it, and feel so doubtful as to what judgment to form upon it, that I have more than once named you as the person whose opinion, above all others, I should like to |