Now the avowed object of the Order of Jesuits is the support of the See of Rome. In the original plan submitted by Loyola to Pope Paul III. it was stated, “The Society of Jesus shall constitute a trained host, ready at all times to fight for God’s vicegerent, the holy Roman Father, and for the Roman Catholic Church, in which alone is salvation.” To this declaration of their original designs, the Society has to this day avowedly adhered; and although their countless intrigues against the other Orders have shown very clearly that, in professing to serve the Pope, they have had an ulterior end, viz., the aggrandizement and exaltation of their own Order, yet we must always regard this as their professed design, and form our estimate of the object of the Society by our estimate of the value of the Popedom. There are, alas, those who, trying it by this test, would pronounce its object good; but, thanks be to God! there is, I verily believe, a vast, and vastly increasing, multitude who have been driven by recent events to bring Popery to the test of Scripture, and who have risen from the study with the deep and indelible conviction that, instead of being our Lord’s vicegerent, the Pope of Rome is the usurper of his sovereignty; and that, therefore, if this be the object of Jesuitism, Jesuitism must be bad; and if this be the end of its action, the better its machinery the worse its effects upon the world. The full principles of the Society it is extremely difficult to discover or to describe, inasmuch as there appears to be a very wide difference between the system as exhibited in its public documents and as carried out in the practice of its members. There are countless facts in the history of the order which prove conclusively that there is one code for the world to look at, and another for the world to feel; a uniform for inspection days, and a plain dress for common life. The constitutions and other acknowledged documents are open to the world, but if we want to know how the Jesuit will act when he has secretly wormed his way into the confidence of our family, or to discover any real moral principle by which the conduct of such an one will be guided, I believe that we shall be utterly at a loss. He has his own secret instructions from his superiors, and what they are will probably be never known out of the Order, till the great day shall come when the secrets of all hearts shall be made known.