The reader who shall intelligently trace the history of the Jesuit through their conspiracies against the peace of Europe, and especially their tireless efforts to eradicate everything that tended to freedom of conscience and the public enlightenment, will not wonder that, during the last century, it became necessary to the interests of society and the Church that one of the foremost of the popes should suppress and entirely abolish the order. And as that event was brought about, not alone on account of the odium they incurred by intermeddling with the temporal affairs of States, but because they pursued practices which shocked the whole Christian world, their society can not be thoroughly understood without becoming familiar with the history of their missionary enterprises. As they prosecuted these among ignorant and illiterate multitudes of peoples, where no watchful eye could observe them, they have mainly become their own historians; yet there is enough to be discovered to show that, at every stage of their development, they have been true to the injunction of their founder, to be "all things to all men." Loyola considered his society superior to the ancient monastic orders. We have seen that he looked upon the latter as corrupted, and no longer worthy to be intrusted with the work of Christian missions, on which account he claimed for his society superior jurisdiction in the missionary field. There, among populations unable to detect imposture, his followers had their own way, made their own history, and executed their own purposes, without intelligent popular inspection. Consequently, when he realized the odium his society had encountered among European peoples, he considered it necessary to remove this by setting up for it exaggerated claims of merit in the missionary work. By this means he evidently hoped to be able to appeal successfully to the pope and the Church to protect the Jesuits from the rising indignation of such Christians as had resisted their introduction into France. Hence it became a fixed Jesuit habit, and yet is, to shield the society under pretense that it is a necessary part of the Church machinery, and that the Church can not exist without it. And out of that same necessity must have grown that multitude of miracles, said to have been performed in remote and unfrequented parts of the world, and in the manufacture of which the Jesuits have acquired the reputation of being thorough adepts. It was not a difficult matter in those days to impose upon superstitious people by the claim of miraculous powers. None understood this better than the Jesuits.