, and confer academical
dignities, which were to be reckoned equal to those given by universities.
These privileges, which secured to the Jesuits a spiritual power almost
equal to that of the pope himself, together with a greater impunity, in
point of religious observance, than the laity possessed, were granted them
to aid their missionary labors, so that they might accommodate themselves
to any profession or mode of life, among heretics, and infidels, and be
able, wherever they found admission, to organize Catholic churches without
a further authority. A general dispersion, then, of the members throughout
society with the most entire union and subordination, formed the basis of
their constitution. {96}

In the education of youth, there has been a very unjust charge against
them, that is, that they mutilated the classics. Would to God that every
pure Christian would follow such an example; and that we might thereby
present such an expurgated edition, as would create all the good they may
contain, devoid of evil. Any who have read Virgil, Ovid, Terence, or other
classic works, must acknowledge this necessity. Even Shakespeare's plays
can not be read, as printed, in a modest company. There is not, either, any
prudery in this. And, accordingly, a family expurgated edition has been
published by Dr. Bowdler, demanding a far greater circulation than it may
have as yet received. Praise, then, be awarded to all instructors of youth
who will promote such expurgation from the classics as will blot out their
immorality!

The latitude in which this society has understood its rights and immunities
has given occasion to fear an unlimited extension and exercise of them,
dangerous to all existing authority, civil and ecclesiastical, as the
constitution of the order, and its erection into an independent monarchy in
the bosom of other governments, have assumed a more fixed character.

This society seems to have been divided into different ranks or classes.
The _novices_, chosen from the most talented and well-educated youths, and
men without regard to birth or external circumstances; and who were tried
for two years, in separate {97} novitiate houses, in all imaginable
exercises of self-denial and obedience, to determine whether they would be
useful to the purposes of the order, were not ranked among the actual
members, the lowest of whom are the _secular coadjutors_, who take no
monastic vows, and may, therefore, be dismissed. They ser