The general accusation against the Order was grounded on the fact that many of the conspirators were converts and pupils of the Jesuits, and _therefore_ they were their agents and instruments. This is plausible, and might be worthy of attention if true, but it lacks the essential element of reliability. Some were Catholics from their birth, others had only for the time being or during their minority outwardly conformed to Protestantism, and were simply reclaimed from their vicious habits by the Jesuits. But even if they had all been converts it would not strengthen their opponents’ position. So were many hundreds, nay, thousands of Englishmen who took no act or part in the conspiracy. Besides the Jesuits that had suffered in the preceding reign, the four fathers we have just mentioned had spent each over eighteen years in the country, laboring with a zeal and success seldom equalled, and it was this very success in gaining souls to Christ that furnished the greatest incentive for their destruction. Their intimacy with the conspirators was simply that of pastors with their penitents; the assertions of Bates, the servant of Catesby, to the contrary notwithstanding. That poor wretch was tortured and tampered with to induce him to make some accusation against the missionaries, and then hanged, but not before he retracted on the scaffold every sentence uttered by him when a hope of pardon had been held out as the reward of his perjury. Further, Mr. Dixon’s wild attempts to throw discredit on the English Jesuits abroad rest on no foundation whatever, nor has he a single impartial authority to support him in his broad assertions and elaborate reports of what are said to have been strictly private interviews and confidential correspondence between the plotters in England and the Jesuit colleges abroad. Owen and Baldwin, the alleged foreign correspondents, the parties most sought to be implicated, were never tried, but the latter was examined in England ten years after and discharged, nothing having been proved against him. So much for the bugbear of Catholics justifying wholesale assassination as a remedy for persecution, that has been such a sweet morsel under the tongues of Protestant divines and zealots for so many centuries. The Progressionists. From The German Of Conrad Von Bolanden. Chapter VI.—Continued. The tumult continued. As soon as the orator attempted to speak, his voice was drowned by cries and stamping. “Commissary!” cried the chairman to that officer, “I demand that you extend to our assembly the protection of the law.” “I am here simply to watch the proceedings of your meeting,” replied Parteiling with cool indifference. “Everybody is at liberty in meetings to signify his approval or disapproval by signs. No act forbidden by the law has been committed by your opponents, in my opinion.” “Bravo! bravo! Three cheers for the commissary!”