The plan was no secret; in fact, about the same time the Jesuits renewed their operations. Pius VIII. was pope; a good old man enough in private life, but a great stickler for the Council of Trent. It was a serious grief to him that this _sacro-santo_ Council was not law to the whole world. He was what the Romans call a good Canonist; indeed he was of opinion that the Canon Laws were the greatest possible blessing that the bounty of the Deity had ever bestowed upon mankind. And if such were his real opinion, independent of any personal interest or bias, no doubt he meant well in maintaining it. The Catholic Emancipation Act, therefore, quickly inspired him with the consolatory idea, that he should soon be able to introduce the Canon Laws of the Council of Trent into this kingdom, which, according to his view, was already preparing a return to Rome. The Congregation of the Propaganda at the same time naturally fostered the idea of establishing a hierarchy of bishops and archbishops, in order to govern the Church of England according to the Romish laws. The project was a daring one, but there was work to do beforehand. Every colonist, before he plants, begins by preparing the soil. In like manner England had to be prepared to receive a Romish hierarchy. I imagine it was in the policy of Pius VIII. to prepare this ground in a better manner than it has been done by Pius IX. With another ten years of Jesuitical labour, their attempt would probably have obtained a better result, at least according to their own opinion; but it has pleased the Lord to confound their councils. In what does this work of preparation consist? The grand secret of the Inquisition, the labour of the Jesuits, is to employ every means in their power that is most likely to secure their end. All the world knows that in the moral code of the Jesuits, which is also that of the Court of Rome, it is maintained that, provided the end sought be a holy and religious one, of which they make themselves the sole judge, ALL _means_ whatever are good and lawful; and the reason, according to the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, is, that our actions take their character from the end we have in view. Now the means employed to prepare England to receive the ecclesiastical hierarchy, with the Council of Trent, and the Canon Laws, on which her conversion depends,--the means, I say, are truth or falsehood, as may best serve; promises and threats, secret gifts, and hidden treachery; exaggerated praises to their friends, and the foulest calumny to those they believe to be their enemies. These are the means which the Inquisition invariably employs, in order to gain its end.