And it was not until the French Revolution and the empire of Napoleon had passed away, not until the Bourbons had been restored (in August, 1814), that the Order was re-established and again protected by the Papal court. They have now regained their ancient power, and seem to have the confidence of Catholic Europe. Some of their most flourishing seminaries are in the United States. They are certainly not a scandal in this country, although their spirit and organization are still maintained: regarded with some mistrust by the strong Protestants, as a matter of course, as such a powerful organization naturally would be; hostile still to the circulation of the Scriptures among the people and free inquiry and private judgment,--in short, to all the ideas of the reformation. But whatever they are, and however askance Protestants regard them, they have in our country,--this land of unbounded religious toleration,--the same right to their religion and their ecclesiastical government that any other sects have; and if Protestants would nullify their influence so far as disliked, they must outshine them in virtues, in a religious life, in zeal, and in devotion to the spiritual interests of the people. If the Jesuits keep better schools than Protestants they will be patronized, and if they command the respect of the Catholics for their virtues and intelligence, whatever may be the machinery of their organization, they will retain their power; and not until they interfere with elections and Protestant schools, or teach dangerous doctrines of public morality, has our Government any right to interfere with them. They will stand or fall as they win the respect or excite the wrath of enlightened nations. But the principles they are supposed to defend,--expediency, casuistry, and hostility to free inquiry and the circulation of the Scriptures in vernacular languages,--these are just causes of complaint and of unrelenting opposition among all those who accept the great ideas of the Protestant Reformation, since they are antagonistic to what we deem most precious in our institutions. So long as the contest shall last between good and evil in this world, we have a right to declaim against all encroachments on liberty and sound morality and an evangelical piety from any quarter whatever, and we are recreant to our duties unless we speak our minds. Hence, from the light I have, I regard the Society of Jesus as a questionable institution, unfortunately planted among us, but which we cannot help, and can attack, if at all, only with the weapons of reason and truth.