Francis Parkman, in his brilliant narrative of "The Jesuits in North America," presents the following interesting contrast between the Puritan and the Jesuit: "To the mind of the Puritan, heaven was God's throne; but no less was the earth His footstool; and each in its degree and its kind had its demands on man. He held it a duty to labor and to multiply; and, building on the Old Testament quite as much as on the New, thought that a reward on earth as well as in heaven awaited those who were faithful to the law. Doubtless, such a belief is widely open to abuse, and it would be folly to pretend that it escaped abuse in New England; but there was in it an element manly, healthful and invigorating. On the other hand, those who shaped the character, and in a great measure the destiny, of New France had always on their lips the nothingness and the vanity of life. For them, time was nothing but a preparation for eternity, and the highest virtue consisted in a renunciation of all the cares, toils and interests of earth. That such a doctrine has often been joined to an intense worldliness, all history proclaims; but with this we have at present nothing to do. If all mankind acted on it in good faith, the world would sink into decrepitude. It is the monastic idea carried into the wide field of active life, and is like the error of those who, in their zeal to cultivate their higher nature, suffer the neglected body to dwindle and pine, till body and mind alike lapse into feebleness and disease." Notwithstanding the success of the Jesuits in stopping the progress of the Reformation, it may be truthfully said that they have failed. The principles of the Reformation dominate the world and are slowly modifying the Roman church in America. "In truth," says Macaulay, "if society continued to hold together, if life and property enjoyed any security, it was because common sense and common humanity restrained men from doing what the order of Jesus assured them they might with a safe conscience do." Our hope for the future progress of society lies in the guiding power of this same common sense and common humanity. The restoration of the order by Pius VII., August 7th, 1814, while it renewed the papal favor, did not allay the hostility of the civil powers. Various states have expelled them since that time, and wherever they labor, they are still the objects of open attack or ill-disguised suspicion. Although the order still shows "some quivering in fingers and toes," as Carlyle expresses it, the principles of the Reformation are too widely believed, and its benefits too deeply appreciated, to justify any hope or fear of the ultimate triumph of Jesuitism. _Retrospect_