Those familiar with the hatred the Spanish people entertained for the Jesuits--not only on account of their bad influences over Ferdinand VII, but because of the tendency of their doctrines to convert men into machines and blunt their moral sensibilities--are not surprised at the detestation in which they were held in Germany. The Spanish people had long been known for obedience to the Roman Church, but had reached a point of intelligence which enabled them to understand the difference between the Church and the papacy, and, therefore, they would not permit even Pius VII to force the Jesuits upon them--a fact of great significance in forming a true estimate of their character. In Germany, however, where the Reformation began, the remembrance of their former vicious career had not died out, the opposition to them after their re-establishment was more intense than it had been before their suppression; for as the German people increased in enlightenment they were better able to see and understand the irreconcilable hostility of the Jesuits to intellectual development and constitutional government. Their own experience had taught them that reconciliation and concord between Protestants and Roman Catholics were not only possible, but desirable; and they had learned, from that same experience, that, as the Jesuits had participated in all the measures designed to strike down constitutional governments established by Roman Catholic populations, their delight would be increased if, with the same weapons, they could destroy similar governments established by Protestants. Therefore, the German people built around themselves a wall of defense in their own intellectual enlightenment, which Jesuit craft and ingenuity has in vain endeavored to undermine.