whole libraries. Worn out by fatigue, the Jesuits still toiled
on with marvelous zeal. Though hated and opposed, they wore serene and
cheerful countenances. In a word, they had learned to control every
faculty and every passion, and to merge every human aspiration and
personal ambition into the one supreme purpose of conquering an opposing
faith and exalting the power of priestly authority. They hold up before
the subjects of the King of Heaven a wonderful example of loving and
untiring service, which should be emulated by every servant of Christ
who too often yields an indifferent obedience to Him whom he professes
to love and to serve.

Francis Parkman, in his brilliant narrative of "The Jesuits in North
America," presents the following interesting contrast between the
Puritan and the Jesuit: "To the mind of the Puritan, heaven was God's
throne; but no less was the earth His footstool; and each in its degree
and its kind had its demands on man. He held it a duty to labor and to
multiply; and, building on the Old Testament quite as much as on the
New, thought that a reward on earth as well as in heaven awaited those
who were faithful to the law. Doubtless, such a belief is widely open to
abuse, and it would be folly to pretend that it escaped abuse in New
England; but there was in it an element manly, healthful and
invigorating. On the other hand, those who shaped the character, and in
a great measure the destiny, of New France had always on their lips the
nothingness and the vanity of life. For them, time was nothing but a
preparation for eternity, and the highest virtue consisted in a
renunciation of all the cares, toils and interests of earth. That such a
doctrine has often been joined to an intense worldliness, all history
proclaims; but with this we have at present nothing to do. If all
mankind acted on it in good faith, the world would sink into
decrepitude. It is the monastic idea carried into the wide field of
active life, and is like the error of those who, in their zeal to
cultivate their higher nature, suffer the neglected body to dwindle and
pine, till body and mind alike lapse into feebleness and disease."

Notwithstanding the success of the Jesuits in stopping the progress of
the Reformation, it may be truthfully said that they have failed. The
principles of the Reformation dominate the world and are slowly
modifying the Roman church in America. "In truth," says Macaulay, "if
society continued to hold to