In my last, I engaged myself to say a word on your _Monita Secreta_. This rancid libel, indeed, refutes itself. No man of common sense will allow even the possibility of a large body of men being governed, or of attaining credit and power by such absurd maxims, under the inspection of so many powerful princes, wise ministers, and learned prelates. Certainly these lords of church and state could not be so blind, during one hundred and fifty years, as to tolerate, to cherish a gang of thieves, and to intrust to them the public instruction of the people, and the education of youth. Such a set of maxims would not have held together a band of professed forgers or swindlers, during a single {275} year. And the contriver of them, you tell us, was Laines, whom you incautiously allow to have been a man of _superior abilities in the science of government_. The folly of imputing such trash to Laines must appear evident to all who know, that he was one of the most distinguished divines and preachers of his age; that he was deputed, in three different pontificates, as pontifical theologian to the council of Trent; that his harangues were considered almost as oracular by the fathers of that venerable assembly; that his manners were as saintly as his learning was extensive, that he was specially selected by Pius IV to confute the Hugonots in the conference at Poissy; that, on his return from that embassy, he refused the dignity of cardinal, with which the pope offered to distinguish his eminent merit; and, that he ended his career in 1565, seven years after he had been elected general of the young society. Now, say, what time could a man so busied in theological and missionary labours in Italy and France, command to conduct commercial {276} speculations in India, as you in your odious libel assert? But alas, why should Laicus spare Laines, when he has dared to blaspheme the great, the renowned Francis Xavier, as a monster of cruelty, as an extortioner of Indian wealth? As if such senseless insult, at the distance of two hundred and sixty years, could disparage the revered merit, or obliterate the tribute of admiration and praise, which mankind have agreed to give him, and which sober protestants have not refused: such are Baldeus and Hackluyt, cited in the wonderful life of that famous apostle, by Bouhours, translated into English by our Dryden.--See p. 766, 767.