notwithstanding their attempts against his life, took them into favour, expecting to find in their gratitude that security which the whole strength of his empire could not afford. He was disappointed, and he fell a sacrifice to his own simplicity and no better can be expected of any one who shall place confidence in a fraternity so notoriously treacherous, and so unfeeling with regard to every thing that does not affect their own order. The following is a short specimen of their intrigues in our own country. After the reformation had been carried a considerable length in the minority of King James VI., it was in danger of being overthrown by the artifice of the duke of Lenox, a Papist, and a creature of the French court, who had acquired undue ascendancy over the young king. Through his influence matters were beginning to assume a new appearance; and both the national liberties and the Protestant religion were in the utmost peril. "This change on the court could not fail to alarm the ministers of the church, who had received satisfactory information of the project that was on foot. Their apprehensions were confirmed by the arrival of several Jesuits and seminary priests from abroad, and by the open revolt of some who had hitherto professed the Protestant faith. They accordingly warned their hearers of the danger they apprehended, and pointed at the favourite as an emissary of the house of Guise and of Rome. Lenox, after nolding a conference with some of the ministers, declared himself a convert to the Protestant doctrine, and publicly renounced the popish religion. The jealousy of the nation was revived and inflamed by the interception of letters from Rome, granting a dispensation to the Roman Catholics to profess the Protestant tenets for a time, provided they preserved an inward attachment to the ancient faith, and embraced every opportunity of advancing it in secret. This discovery was the immediate occasion of that memorable transaction, the swearing of the national covenant." McCrie's Life of Melville, vol. i. p. 262. Passing over their more public delinquencies, I shall advert shortly to the unspeakable misery which the Jesuits, according to their own rules, inflict upon private families. One of the first things which they endeavour to accomplish in a family, is to corrupt the servants, and gain them over to their interest. If they cannot be so gained, something against them must be insinuated into the minds of their mistresses, that they may be dismissed; then the Jesuit confessor has a parcel of his own creatures ready to be recommended to fill their places, who, of course, become his spies, and inform him of all that they see and hear in the family. Confession gives a Jesuit the complete command of every family, and binds every individual in it to do just what he is pleased to dictate. See Secreta Monita, Chap. VI. But what is still worse than the corrupting of servants, and retaining them as their spies in every family, the Jesuits teach mothers, especially those who are widows, to make the lives of their daughters miserable, in order that they may become religious; that is become nuns, and throw themselves into the arms of the holy fathers, in the hope of finding that happiness which they cannot find at home. The mothers themselves have scarcely a choice in this matter. They must do as their ghostly confessors bid them, else they shall be subjected to such penances as will make their own lives miserable. Thus a worse than Egyptian bondage is inflicted on all who submit to the insidious interference and influence of the society of Jesus. The fiendlike cruelty of the Jesuits is no less manifest in the measures which they take for entrapping young men into the service of their order. In the eighth rule of the ninth chapter, relating to the children of rich parents, we have the following directions:-"If they have sons who are fit for our turn, let them be allured to us, and the others (that is the daughters) be enticed by the promise of small rewards, to enter themselves of different orders. But should there be an only son, let no means be omitted for the bringing him over to the society, and freeing him from all fear of his parents; let him be persuaded it is a call from above; and shown how acceptable a sacrifice it would be to God, should he desert his parents without their knowledge or consent; if this be effected, let him enter his novitiate in a remote college, having first given information to the general. But if they happen to have both sons and daughters, let the daughters be first disposed of in a nunnery; and afterwards let the sons be drawn into the society, when they are got into possession of their sisters' effects." It was the practice of the society to allure young men of genteel appearance, and superior genius, into their order. They accomplished this by showing them what a happy life the members of the society led. Notwithstanding their vow of poverty, they were wallowing in wealth, and enjoying all the luxuries which wealth could procure. Besides, they were not very strict in restraining the vices of youth. Theirs was what has been called " easy virtue." They would allow the most ample indulgence to youthful passions, provided a decent appearance was preserved, but especially provided the young men would implicitly submit to the rules of the order, and become the devoted slaves of the pope. Thousands were allured by these means; and from the circumstance of selecting young men of superior genius and appearance, the order of Jesuits came to rise above all that had been instituted before it. But miserable was the case of every young man who had been induced to profess himself of the order, even in its lowest degrees, who afterwards repented of the step he had taken, and wished to return to his friends; and miserable was also the case of him, who, upon trial, was found too simple and honest, or not acute enough to serve the purposes of the society. Such persons were dismissed; and all the Jesuits in the kingdom where they resided were instructed to discountenance them; and to whisper about, either that they had been detected in crimes, or had divulged such things of themselves in confession, that it was not consistent with the interest and reputation of the society to retain them. Thus a mark was set upon them, which would remain to the last day of their lives; and they became an excommunicated cast, not for any fault in them, but because they were not villains enough to De Jesuits. "Since those that are dismissed (says Secreta Monita, chap. xi.) do frequently very much prejudice the society, by divulging such secrets as they have been privy to; their attempts must, therefore, be obviated in the following manner: Let them be prevailed upon, before they are dismissed, to give it under their hands, and swear, that they never will, directly or indirectly, either write or speak any thing to the disadvan VOL. II.-22 tage of the order; and let the superiors keep upon record, the evil inclinations, failings, and vices, which they, according to the custom of the society, for the discharge of their consciences formerly confessed: this, if ever they give us occasion, may be produced by the society, to the nobility and prelates, as a very good handle to prevent their promotion. "Let it be immediately published through all our colleges, that such and such are dismissed; and let the general causes of their expulsion (such as an unmortified mind, disobedience, disaffection to spiritual exercises, an obstinate adherence to their own opinion, &c.) be highly aggravated. In the next place, let all be advised to keep no correspondence with them upon any account whatsoever. And if strangers should happen to make any mention of them, let all our members unanimously affirm, in every public place, that the society expels none without weighty causes, spewing out as the sea, all its dead carcasses, &c., and let such causes also be artfully insinuated, which have occasioned us any ill-will, that their ejectment may appear to the world with a more commendable grace. In private exhortations, at people's houses, let these be represented as persons very turbulent, and continually importuning a readmission into the society. And let their sad fate be industriously aggravated, who, after exclusion, have happened to come to an untimely or miserable end." Again, "Let the society, by all manner of obligations, endeavour to prevail upon the noblemen and prelates, with whom the dismissed may have any credit or authority, to deny them their countenance; and let it be shown that the common good of an order, which is as famous as it is useful to the church, should always be preferred to the private advantage of any particular person whatsoever." Thus, if a young man has once consented to put his neck under the Jesuits' yoke, there is no possibility of his ever obtaining deliverance in this world. He will be deprived all the privileges and honours of the society when they are pleased to expel him, or when he is pleased to leave them; but he shall not be able to withdraw himself from the sphere of their malignant influence. He shall be the object of unceasing and unrelenting persecution; and every man who shall seem disposed to befriend him, will have his ear filled with stories to his prejudice, so that he shall be left to perish in misery and contempt; and then the Jesuits will triumph in his death as the judgment of God against him, and hold up his case as a warning to all others. It would be less cruel, and if possible less diabolical, if they would murder in cold blood, those young men whom they find upon trial unfit for their purpose, than thus to torture them to death by their malignant calumnies. Every attempt of a Jesuit to make himself familiar to Protestants ought to be repelled at the very first. The approaches of the order are like the temptations of sin; at first promising and flattering and not presenting any thing very evil or very dangerous; but when they have obtained the smallest compliance, they effect a lodgment in the soul, and obtain a command over the body, from which human power cannot grant deliverance. The first chapter of "Secreta Monita" begins thus: It will be of great importance, for the rendering our members agreeable to the inhabitants of a place where they design their settlement, to set forth the end of the society, in the manner prescribed by our statutes, which lay down, that the society ought as diligently to seek occa |