Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

Jesuit Missionaries in CHINA and MALABAR called forth a formal Bull of POPE CLEMENT XI. against them, and also à Charge of the CARDINAL DE TOURNON, enforcing its execution; but both the Pope and the Cardinal might have spared them selves the trouble of issuing their decrees against such refractory subjects, for neither of them were attended to.

The Jesuit LAINEZ, on his return to Malabar, from an embassy to Rome, whither he had gone to plead for the continuance of the idolatrous Rites, solemnly assured the people, in his character of their Bishop, that the Pope had declared for those Rites; and the Jesuit BoUCHET confirmed the same state. ment publicly, declaring at the Sacramental Table, that he had it from the Pope himself*; assertions which good Catholics must either believe to be absolutely false, or else consent to believe that the Pope could sanction Idolatry, and tolerate indecency.

One fact more shall suffice on the subject of the Missions of the Jesuits. The celebrated SERRY asserted, in his examination of the Pope's Bull against the Chinese Idolatry, that the Jesuits of the Island of Chio in the Archipelago permitted their converts there the exterior observance of MAHOMETANISM, on condition of their retaining within, a belief in Jesus Christ; that these Fathers administered the Sacraments there, in secret, to the females who lived in this criminal dissimulation, and that such impious abuse was not discovered till the year 1694. The Jesuits having asserted that this charge was false, the Archbishop of Corinth, who was on the spot at the time of the discovery, confirmed its truth by a declaration dated the 4th of June, 1710, which was also strengthened by other declarations to the same effect †.

Thus much may suffice respecting the Missions of the Jesuits, together with what follows on the same subject in the succeeding History; and there can be little doubt that the

* See Mémoires Historiques du Père Norbert, part i. book 5.

See the Bishop's Declaration entire, in a work published in 1710, entitled, Le Mahometisme toléré par les Jesuites dans l'Isle de Chio.

whole taken together, especially when considered in connexion with the authorities which are produced, in support of it, will afford a satisfactory answer to the various assertions on the subject of Missions, which are abundantly scattered throughout the work of MR. DALLAS, but which appear in a somewhat less desultory form, from p. 173 to p. 193, of his Book.

Should the readers of this Reply to MR. DALLAS be disposed to believe the counter-statement, which it presents in opposition to his view of the advantages resulting from Jesuitical Missions, they may, while they apply to those Missions the query quoted by MR. DALLAS, from Virgil,

66

Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris ?"

be also inclined to apply to them another query from Juvenal, rather more illustrative of the character of those Missions, "Quando uberior vitiorum copia?”

66

In proceeding with his view of the advantages of the Institute, MR. DALLAS comes (in p. 193) to consider the question of EDUCATION, which he calls "one of the prominent "features of the Jesuits' Institute." "Their founder" (he says) saw that the disorders of the world, which he wished "to correct, spring chiefly from neglect of Education. He "perceived that the fruits of the other Spiritual functions of "his Society would be only temporary, unless he could perpe"tuate them through every rising generation, as it came for"ward in succession. Every professed Jesuit was bound by "a special vow to attend to the instruction of youth; and this "duty was the peculiar function, the first important Mission, "of the younger members who were preparing themselves for "profession."-Again: "The object of Ignatius, in charging "his Society with the management of boys and youths, as it "is announced in various parts of the Institute, was to form "and perfect their will, their conscience, their morals, their manners, their memory, imagination, and reason."—Again : Religion is the most engaging and most powerful restraint upon rising and growing passions; and to imprint it deeply

66

[ocr errors]

in the heart, was the main business of the Jesuits' Schools: "the principles of religion were there instilled, while the ele"ments of learning were unfolded." With much more of assertion to the same purpose.-See pp. 193 to 210, and from 240 to 257.

The whole of MR. DALLAS's observations upon THE EDUCATION OF THE JESUITS resolve themselves into two great questions, which require distinct consideration; 1st, The nature of the Education inculcated by the Jesuits, so far as science and literature were concerned, and how far the cultivation of the human mind was advanced by that particular system of Education; and 2dly, What kind of Religion was taught by the Jesuits, and whether mankind at large were the better for such a Religion as they obtained through the instrumentality of the Jesuits.

With regard to the first of these points; the Education afforded by the Jesuits was undoubtedly of a contracted and limited kind, calculated only to promote their own advancement in the world, but not to form scholars of their pupils upon an extended scale; not to instruct men in the superior parts of knowledge, nor to give them those large and exalted views which eminently distinguish the greatest and wisest of our species, from those metaphysicians and theologians, who, while they may have dazzled the ignorant with a parade of scholastic learning, were themselves untaught in all the higher and nobler departments of science. Mathematical and physical learning, philology, criticism, and rhetoric, were among the chief pursuits and attainments of the Jesuits; while all that related to the moral sciences, the faculties, the duties, and the privileges of man, all that regarded his peculiar relations with Society, or affected the general interests of his nature, was studiously kept out of sight by the Jesuits, as hostile to an exclusive system, and injurious to the interests of its professors. The nature of the EDUCATION of the Jesuits is, however, so ably described by VILLERS, in his celebrated TREA

TISE ON THE REFORMATION, that it cannot be too much admired:

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"The Jesuits were put in possession of the principal di"rection of public instruction in all Catholic countries. Europe had tasted of the tree of knowledge; light was diffused " on all sides, and had made rapid progress. It had become impossible to oppose it directly. The most salutary expe"dient now was, no longer to attack science, but to manage ❝ it in such a manner as to prevent its becoming hurtful. As "the torrent could no longer be excluded, it was necessary to "dig for it a channel in which it might fertilize, instead of ❝desolating, the territory of the Church. To well-informed

adversaries, therefore, the Court of Rome resolved to oppose "defenders equally well-informed. To satisfy the universal "desire for knowledge manifested by the age, they destined the artful companions of Ignatius. In this province it was that the inconceivable talents of the new Instructors of the "human species were displayed. Their directing principle was, "to cultivate, and carry to the highest possible degree of per"fection, all those kinds of knowledge from which no immediate danger could result to the system of the hierarchical power; and to acquire, by this means, the character and renown of "the most able and learned personages in the Christian world. "By means of this command of the opinions of men, it be "came easy for them either to prevent the growth of those

branches of knowledge which might bear fruit dangerous to "the Papal power, or to bend, direct, and graft upon them "at their pleasure. Thus, by inspiring a taste for classical "learning, profane history, and mathematics, they contrived "dexterously to extinguish the taste for inquiry into matters "of religion and state, the spirit of philosophy and inves"tigation. The philosophy taught in their schools was calcu"lated to excite aversion and disgust. It was no other than

the scholastic system, revived and corrected by them, ap"plied to present circumstances, and to the controversy with "the Reformers; whose arguments, it may well be supposed,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"were always there presented in a manner to fall before "the artillery of the Schools. With regard to the study of Religion, it was confined to the books of theology composed "for that purpose by the members of the Society, to the Ca"suists, and the Jesuitical moralists. The study of the original Charters of Religion was prevented; or if the Gos"pels and other pieces appeared sometimes in the books of de"votion (and this it was impossible to avoid, when the trans"lations given by the Protestants were public), they were ac"companied with interpretations, and even alterations, suit"able to the main views of the Society. Their great watch"word was, the utility of the sciences, and the beauty of the "belles lettres. All that relates to the moral improvement, "to the ennobling of human nature; all that relates to the "philosophical and theological sciences, the Jesuits endeavour"ed, and in reality were enabled, to retain in oblivion; to "render theology as well as philosophy a barbarous system "of subtleties, and even ridiculous to men of the world. "How can it be determined to what a degree this Jesuitical "mode of instruction, which became the prevailing mode "in Catholic countries, and differs so prodigiously from the "mode of instruction among Protestants, modified the "species of culture, and the particular turn of mind in Ca"tholic countries, so different in general from what is dis"covered in the Protestant? From all this, however, it fol"lows (and this consideration appears to me the key to the 5 very contradictory judgments passed on the plans of the

66

[ocr errors]

Jesuits in the cultivation of the sciences) that this Soffciety performed immense services to certain parts of litera"ture, which it improved; but that, on the other hand, it

[ocr errors]

retained, designedly, certain other important parts in the "dark, or so obstructed the avenues to them with thorns, "that nobody was tempted to enter, Thus, considered gene

rally, the instruction given in their schools, very brilliant in -one respect, continued very dark in another, was a system "partial, incomplete, and which set the mind in a wrong di

« ÖncekiDevam »