Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 61731-h.htm or 61731-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61731/61731-h/61731-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61731/61731-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/footprintsofjesu00thom [Illustration: _R. W. Thompson._] THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE JESUITS. by R. W. THOMPSON, Ex-Secretary of the Navy, and Author of "The Papacy and the Civil Power." "It was very difficult, not to say impossible, that the Church could recover a firm or durable peace so long as the said society existed."--Pope Clement XIV. "The Jesuits, by their very calling, by the very essence of their institution, are bound to seek, by every means, right or wrong, the destruction of Protestantism. This is the condition of their existence, the duty they must fulfill, or cease to be Jesuits."--Nicolini, of Rome. Cincinnati: Cranston & Curts. New York: Hunt & Eaton. 1894. Copyright by Cranston & Curts, 1894. PREFACE. The civil institutions of the United States could not have been formed without the separation of Church and State, and could not continue to exist if they were again united. Christianity could not maintain its primitive purity if politics and religious faith were mingled together; nor could the State preserve its capacity to provide for the general welfare if subjected to the dominion of ecclesiastical authority. Our success as a nation is mainly attributable to the fact that these sentiments are deeply imbedded in the American mind. A party pledged to restore to the pope the temporal power which the Italian people have taken away, must necessarily be _politico-religious_ in character, because it proposes to interfere with the temporal affairs of one of the European nations. And if the attempt to do this is justified upon the ground that such restoration involves religious duty, any one can see that the obligation is the same in the United States as in Italy, for the laws of God do not shift to suit the exigencies of human affairs.