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The Jesuits - James Aitken Wylie

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powers. <strong>The</strong>se evil courses of intrigue and faction<br />

within the country, and impotent and arrogant<br />

policy outside of it, were persisted in till the natural<br />

issue was reached in the partition of Poland. It is at<br />

the door of the <strong>Jesuits</strong> that the fall of that onceenlightened,<br />

prosperous, and powerful nation is to<br />

be laid.<br />

It concerns us less to follow the <strong>Jesuits</strong> into<br />

those countries which lie beyond the boundaries of<br />

Christendom, unless in so far as their doings in<br />

these regions may help to throw light on their<br />

principles and tactics. In following their steps<br />

among heathen nations and savage races, it is alike<br />

impossible to withhold our admiration of their<br />

burning zeal and intrepid courage, or our wonder at<br />

their prodigiously rapid success. No sooner had the<br />

Jesuit missionary set foot on a new shore, or<br />

preached, by an interpreter it might be, his first<br />

sermon in a heathen city, than his converts were to<br />

be counted in tens of thousands. Speaking of their<br />

missions in India, Sacchinus, their historian, says<br />

that "ten thousand men were baptized in the space<br />

of one year."[3] When the Jesuit mission to the<br />

148

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