The answer is not difficult. The Jesuits as a body represent the intellect of the church. They represent indeed more, much more, than this; for intellect, great as it is, is not the highest thing in the eye of God or of his church; but our present point deals with their intellectual power. The _Pall Mall Gazette_ said the other day, writing on this question: “One of the most remarkable traits of the Society of Jesus has always been its literary productiveness. Wherever its members went, no sooner had they founded a home, a college, a mission, than they began to write books. [We beg to call the attention of those who would fain make the church the mother of ignorance, to testimony of this kind from such a source.] The result has been a vast literature, not theological alone, though chiefly that, but embracing almost every branch of knowledge.” The Jesuits in Germany, as in all countries where they have freedom, possessed the best schools and colleges. They made themselves heard and felt in the press. “In Italy, Germany, Holland, and Belgium,” says the journal above quoted, “the most trustworthy critics are of opinion that there are no better written newspapers than those under Jesuit control.” It says further, and nobody will accuse the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of being a Jesuit organ: “Why indeed is their Order so dangerous, if it be not on account of the ardent, disinterested conviction of its members, their indomitable courage and energy, their spirit of self sacrifice, to say nothing of their intelligence and their learning? The effect of all this can but be heightened by persecution. On the other side [Austria, if we recollect rightly], the danger which the existence of the Order in the country really offers is much less than it is supposed to be. In Germany, it does not really exist.” These extracts from various numbers of one of the leading rationalistic organs in England, which it were easy to supplement by many others of the same import, notably from the _Saturday Review_ and the _Spectator_, we merely present here to such of our non‐Catholic readers as might receive our own testimony of whatever value with a certain suspicion. They embody very sound reasons for Bismarck’s unprovoked and unlawful attack. We purpose going a little deeper into the question.