The popes Paul III. and Julius III., seeing what a support they would have in the Jesuits against what is usually called "the Reformation," which was rapidly gaining ground, granted to them privileges such as no body of men, in church, or state, had ever before obtained. They were permitted not only to enjoy all the rights of the mendicant and secular orders, and to be _exempt from all episcopal and civil jurisdiction_ and taxes, so that they acknowledged no authority but that of the pope and the superiors of their order, and were permitted to exercise every {95} priestly function, parochial rights notwithstanding, among all classes of men, even during an interdict; but, also (what is not even permitted to archbishops unconditionally), they could absolve from all sins and ecclesiastical penalties, change the objects of the vows of the laity, acquire churches and estates without further papal sanction, erect houses for the order, and might, according to circumstances, dispense themselves from the canonical observance of hours of fasts and prohibition of meats, and even from the use of the breviary. Besides this, their general was invested with unlimited power over the members; could send them on missions of every kind, even among excommunicated heretics; could appoint them professors of theology at his discretion, wherever he chose, and confer academical dignities, which were to be reckoned equal to those given by universities. These privileges, which secured to the Jesuits a spiritual power almost equal to that of the pope himself, together with a greater impunity, in point of religious observance, than the laity possessed, were granted them to aid their missionary labors, so that they might accommodate themselves to any profession or mode of life, among heretics, and infidels, and be able, wherever they found admission, to organize Catholic churches without a further authority. A general dispersion, then, of the members throughout society with the most entire union and subordination, formed the basis of their constitution. {96} In the education of youth, there has been a very unjust charge against them, that is, that they mutilated the classics. Would to God that every pure Christian would follow such an example; and that we might thereby present such an expurgated edition, as would create all the good they may contain, devoid of evil. Any who have read Virgil, Ovid, Terence, or other classic works, must acknowledge this necessity. Even Shakespeare's plays can not be read, as printed, in a modest company. There is not, either, any prudery in this. And, accordingly, a family expurgated edition has been published by Dr. Bowdler, demanding a far greater circulation than it may have as yet received. Praise, then, be awarded to all instructors of youth who will promote such expurgation from the classics as will blot out their immorality!