THE JESUITS. "
[To THE EDITOR OF THE. " SPECTATOR."] SIR,-Your reviewer says in last week's issue, "Whatever defence can be made of the Jesuits, their great and irrefutable condemnation is this—that every enterprise which they attempted has ended in failure." Might not some such remark have well been made by an unbelieving Jew on Calvary ? Strangely, though, the successes of Christianity always appear to be founded upon outward or seeming failure. Christianity is never so virile as after persecution. Defeat is the sign of victory. Apparent death is the sign of a resurrection. "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church." If, then, it is true that while their works perish the Jesuits still fight on, that, in the order of religion, is the proof of their success. What religion needs is the spirit of the Society of Jesus. May not the works which perish be merely the outward and visible sign of the
work which endures P—I am, Sir, &c., J. D. DAVIS. 39 Highbury Park, N.
[Quite true, if it were a case of mere material or worldly failure. The Jesuit failure is a spiritual failure. Theirs is the bankruptcy of the soul, not of the purse. "But ah ! its heart, its heart was stone,
And so it could not thrive." Go into any great Jesuit church such as that in Venice, and look round. The whole vast fabric is in the grip of the worst type of mortmain. Passion, the life of religion as of art, has been squeezed out of the Jesuits by that terrible steam. roller which they have devised and worship as their system. —ED. Spectator.]
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