Monarchism and Jesuitism are twin sisters. Popular liberty and Jesuitism can not exist in unity; the former may tolerate the latter, but the latter can not be reconciled without exterminating everything but itself. Whatsoever institutions existed, therefore, in Paraguay whilst the country was under the exclusive dominion of the Jesuits, must be held to have been in precise conformity to the Jesuit constitution, and of such a character as the society would yet establish wheresoever they possessed the power either to frame new institutions or to change existing ones. The Jesuit idea of exclusiveness and superiority influenced the conduct of their missionaries in Paraguay as elsewhere. But for this, different results might have ensued. If they had been content to recognize the monastic orders as equally important and meritorious as their own in the field of missionary labor, and the ancient machinery of the Church as retaining its capacity for effectiveness in spreading Christianity throughout the world--if, in other words, they had been content to recognize any merit as existing elsewhere than among themselves--the natives might have been subjected to a very different destiny from that which, in the end, overwhelmed them. But they were not permitted, by the nature and character of their order, to entertain any such feelings, or to cherish any ideas of success other than those which promised to inure to their own advancement. Accordingly we find them--as explained by one of their modern defenders of high celebrity--basing their claim to exclusive jurisdiction over the natives of Paraguay upon the express ground that the ecclesiastical influences sent out under the auspices of the Church and the patronage of the Spanish and Portuguese kings, had become injurious rather than beneficial to the natives, in consequence of the most flagrant corruption. In explanation of the course pursued by the Jesuit missionaries, he says: "One of the first experiences of the missioners was, that it was in vain to hope for any permanent fruit among the Indians, unless they were separated from the evil influences of the Europeans, who swarmed into the New World, carrying with them all the vices of the Old, and adding to them the licentiousness and cruelty which the freedom of a new country and the hopes of speedy riches bring with them."[93] This same author also speaks of "the hordes of adventurers who flocked over to the New World, the scum of the great cities of Europe," in order to show that by intercourse with them the natives knew "little more of the Christian name than the vices of those who professed it."[94] To let it be known that "lay adventurers" are not alone referred to, he mentions expressly the "worldly and ambitious ecclesiastics and religious," who were "forgetful of the spirit of their calling, or apostates from their rule."[95] He casts a variety of aspersions upon the characters of the Bishops of Assumption and of