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 />
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