estants of Southern Germany have contributed powerfully to the creations of the German intellect), but purely to outward circumstances. And these are readily discovered in the pressure exercised for centuries by the Jesuitical system, which has crushed out of Catholics every tendency to free mental productiveness." It is, indeed, in Catholic countries that the weight of ultramontanism has been most severely felt. It is in such countries that the very finest spirits, who have dared, without quitting their faith, to plead for freedom or reform, have suffered extinction. The extinction, however, was more apparent than real, and Hermes, Hirscher, and Günther, though individually broken and subdued, prepared the way in Bavaria for the persecuted but unflinching Frohschammer, for Döllinger, and for the remarkable liberal movement of which Döllinger is the head and guide.
Though managed and moulded for centuries to an obedience unparalleled in any other country, except Spain, the Irish intellect is beginning to show signs of independence, demanding a diet more suited to its years than the pabulum of the middle ages. As for the recent manifesto where pope, cardinal, archbishops, and bishops, may now be considered as united in one grand anathema, its character and fate are shadowed forth by the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, recorded in the Book of Daniel. It resembles the image, whose form was terrible, but the gold, and silver, and brass, and iron of which rested upon feet of clay. And a stone smote the feet of clay, and the iron, and the brass) and the silver, and the gold, were broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors, and the wind carried them away.
There is something in Jesuitism profoundly interesting, and at the same time clearly intelligible, to men of strong intellects and determined will. The weaker spirits, of whom there are many among us, it simply fascinates and subdues. From the study of his own inward forces, and their possible misapplication, the really determined man can understand how possible it is, having once chosen an aim, to reach it in defiance of every moral restraint—to trample under foot, by an obstinate effort of volition, the dictates of honesty, honor, mercy, and truth; and to pursue the desired end, if need be, through their destruction. This force of will, relentlessly applied, and working through submissive instruments, is the strength of Jesuitism.
Pure, honest fanaticism often adds itself to this force, and sometimes acts as its equivalent. Illustrations of this are not far to seek, for the dazzling prize of England, converted to the true faith, is sufficient to turn weak heads. When it is safely caged, it is interesting to watch the operations of this form of energy. In a sermon on the Perpetual Office of the Council of Trent, preached before the Right Reverend Fathers assembled in Synod, the Archbishop of Westminster has given us the following sample of it: "As the fourth century was glorious by the definition of the Godhead and the Consubstantial Son,
