“They are angels like Michael in their most eloquent battles with heretics—like Gabriel in the conversion of the infidels in India, Ethiopia, Japan, and the Chinese hedged in by terrible ramparts,—they are like Raphael in the consolation of souls, and the conversion of sinners by sermons and the confessional. _All_ rush with promptitude and ardour to hear confessions, to catechise the poor and children, as well as to govern the consciences of the great and princes; all are not less illustrious for their doctrine and wisdom: so that we may say of the Company what Seneca observes in his 33d epistle, namely, that there is an inequality in which eminent things become remarkable, but that we do not admire a tree when all the others of the same forest are equally high. Truly, in whatever direction you cast your eyes, you will discover some object that would be supereminent if the same were not surrounded by equals in eminence.”[254] These quotations may suffice to give the reader an idea of the book. It will, however, be instructive to give the opinion of Crétineau upon it. He calls the work, indeed, a dithyrambic, and admits that there are some exaggerations in those academical exercises (he might as well have said that even the Court of Rome condemned the book); “but,” adds he, “the critics would not recollect the extravagances, the impieties even, of the book entitled _Conformity of the Life of St Francis with that of Christ_, by brother Bartholomew of Pisa, nor the _Origo Seraficæ Familiæ Franciscanæ_ by the Capuchin Gonzalez;” and so on. Indeed we know that other monks are as boastful, as impudent, as impious as the Jesuits; yet it seems a very poor apology to exculpate one’s own faults by proving that our neighbour has committed similar ones. But so it is, we repeat it again, the Jesuits would inculpate God himself to justify their order. All we can say of the book is, that it is a most ingenuous and sincere exposition of the feelings of the Jesuits at such epochs, and of the opinion they had of themselves. They were at the height of their prosperity. The difficulties they had encountered—the battles they had fought—the victories they had obtained—the consciousness of their own strength and power, all combined to make them believe that their ambition had to recognise no limits short of the absolute dominion of the world. This idea is clearly expressed in every page of the _Imago_; and they struggled hard to realise it. Had the Jesuits united to this consciousness, and to the superlative force of will and perseverance which is characteristic of their order, the conception of some great and magnanimous object, which drew upon itself the interest and admiration of the multitude; and had they by bold and unequivocal conduct contrived to carry into execution the lofty design,—who knows what might have not been accomplished by a society so strongly and so admirably constituted? Such as they were, however, their influence became greater and greater