oratory, its artificial cadences and flowery verbiage, its theatrical appeals to gross sensations, wrought miracles and converted thousands. Their sickly Ciceronian style, their sentimental books of piety, 'the worse for being warm,' the execrable taste of their poetry, their flimsy philosophy and disingenuous history, infected the taste of Catholic Europe like a slow seductive poison, flattering and accelerating the diseases of mental decadence. Sound learning died down beneath the tyranny of the Inquisition, the Index, the Council of Trent, Spain and the Papacy. A rank growth of unwholesome culture arose and flourished on its tomb under the forcing-frames of Jesuitry. But if we peruse the records of literature and science during the last three centuries, few indeed are the eminences even of a second order which can be claimed by the Company of Jesus. The same critique applies to Jesuit morality. It was the Company's aim to control the conscience by direction and confession, and especially the conscience of princes, women, youths in high position. To do so by plain speaking and honest dealing was clearly dangerous. The world had had enough of Dominican austerity and dogmatism. To do so by open toleration and avowed cynicism did not suit the temper of the time. A reform of the monastic orders and the regular clergy had been undertaken by the Church. Pardoners, palmers, indulgence-mongers, jolly Franciscan confessors, and such-like folk were out of date. But the Jesuits were equal to the exigencies of the moment. We have seen how Ignatius recommended fishers of souls to humor queasy consciences. His successors expanded and applied the hint.--You must not begin by talking about spiritual things to people immersed in worldly interests. That is as simple as trying to fish without bait. On the contrary, you must insinuate yourself into their confidence by studying their habits, and spying out their propensities. You must appear to notice little at the first, and show yourself a good companion. When you become acquainted with the bosom sins and pleasant vices of folk in high position, you can lead them on the path of virtue at your pleasure. You must certainly tell them then that indulgence in sensuality, falsehood, fraud, violence, covetousness, and tyrannical oppression, is unconditionally wrong. Make no show of compromise with evil in the gross; but refine away the evil by distinctions, reservations, hypothetical conditions, until it disappears. Explain how hard it is to know whether a sin be venial or mortal, and how many chances there are against its being in any strict sense a sin at all. Do not leave folk to their own blunt sense of right and wrong, but let them admire the finer edge of your scalpel, while you shred up evil into morsels they can hardly see. A ready way may thus be opened for the satisfaction of every human desire without falling into theological faults. The advantages are manifest.