dded a mite to the torrent of
abuse of Jesuits, which inundated Europe about fifty years ago, when the
complete overthrow of that order was finally planned and determined. The
Jesuits fell; and within a few years Rome was sacked and pillaged; two
successive pontiffs were lodged in dungeons; every French infidel, every
fanatical gospeller throughout Europe, exulted in the discomfiture of the
scarlet whore; the papacy was, on every side, pronounced to be extinct.
But, behold, by the unerring operation of Providence, the papacy is again
seated on the seven hills, and its old champions, the Jesuits, are once
more called forth to sustain the assaults of calumny. But what inept
calumny, what {263} falsehoods, what inconsistencies, what contradictions,
have you, Laicus, raked together, to stifle the new life, which they are
only beginning to enjoy! Thus in days of old conspired the Jewish pharisees
to murder Lazarus, as soon as the Son of God had raised him from the
tomb.--John xii, 10. Consider, Sir--you need not be so precipitate. Many
years must yet pass, many powers must concur, to recruit, to drill, to
marshal a new body of Jesuits, capable of achieving the mischief, which
your virulent declamation imputes to their predecessors. I have spent some
years of my life in foreign countries; I there read every libel against the
Jesuits, that came in my way; but I never found one so perfectly
contemptible as your two tottering columns in the TIMES, newspaper, of
January the 27th. They will not support either themselves, or the credit of
the publication which has received them. And yet this infamous trash must
be noticed, because it is calculated to do harm. I say again, who are you?
Tell me, if you dare. If you have written truth, why should you skulk {264}
from the light? But, alas! _Omnis, qui male agit, odit lucem._--John iii,
20.

I need not ask again, what is your aim? Your two columns plainly tell it.
It is not to convey information to discerning men; it is to poison the
minds of the undiscriminating vulgar; it is to raise a popular cry, which,
in this country, has more than once either intimidated virtuous ministers,
or favoured the projects of bad ones. There is, you know it, even in this
enlightened nation, a mass of fanaticism and bigotry, which may easily be
called into action. If you are forty-five years old, you may remember,
that, in 1780, one extravagant religionist made the streets stream with
blood, and nearly wra