casuistry, and hostility to free inquiry and the circulation of the Scriptures in vernacular languages,—­these are just causes of complaint and of unrelenting opposition among all those who accept the great ideas of the Protestant Reformation, since they are antagonistic to what we deem most precious in our institutions.  So long as the contest shall last between good and evil in this world, we have a right to declaim against all encroachments on liberty and sound morality and an evangelical piety from any quarter whatever, and we are recreant to our duties unless we speak our minds.  Hence, from the light I have, I regard the Society of Jesus as a questionable institution, unfortunately planted among us, but which we cannot help, and can attack, if at all, only with the weapons of reason and truth.

And yet I am free to say that for my part I prefer even the Jesuit discipline and doctrines, much as I dislike them, to the unblushing infidelity which has lately been propagated by those who call themselves savans,—­and which seems to have reached and even permeated many of the schools of science, the newspapers, periodicals, clubs, and even pulpits of this materialistic though progressive country.  I make war on the slavery of the will and a religion of formal technicalities; but I prefer these evils to a godless rationalism and the extinction of the light of faith.

AUTHORITIES.

Secreta Monita; Steinmetz’s History of the Jesuits; Ranke’s History of the Popes; Spiritual Exercises; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Biographie Universelle; Fall of the Jesuits, by St. Priest; Lives of Ignatius Loyola, Aquiviva, Lainez, Salmeron, Borgia, Xavier, Bobadilla; Pascal’s Provincial Letters; Bonhours’ Cretineau; Lingard’s History of England; Tierney; Lettres Aedificantes; Jesuit Missions; Memoires Secretes du Cardinal Dubois; Tanner’s Societas Jesu; Dodd’s Church History.

JOHN CALVIN.

A. D. 1509-1564.

Protestant theology.

John Calvin was pre-eminently the theologian of the Reformation, and stamped his genius on the thinking of his age,—­equally an authority with the Swiss, the Dutch, the Huguenots, and the Puritans.  His vast influence extends to our own times.  His fame as a benefactor of mind is immortal, although it cannot be said that he is as much admired and extolled now as he was fifty years ago.  Nor was he ever a favorite with the English Church.  He has been even grossly misrepresented by theological opponents; but no critic or historian has ever questioned his genius, his learning, or his piety.  No one denies that he has exerted a great influence on Protestant countries.  As a theologian he ranks with Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas,—­maintaining essentially the same views as those held by these great lights, and being distinguished for the same logical power; reigning like them as an intellectual