stincts, were meant to furnish instruction in all the answering varieties of moral and spiritual character among the reasonable creatures of God. The docility of domestic animals, and the fierceness of the beasts of prey; the gentleness of the dove, the ferocity of the tiger, the sensual wallowing of the swine, the soaring flight of the eagle, were all so many varied emblems of spiritual things. The moles and bats, the creatures which love darkness, were lessons of the degradation of worldly minds, that shrink from the light of Divine truth, and seek to busy themselves in the transitory cares and employments of earth. "The fishes of the sea, and the creeping things, that have no ruler over them," were to prefigure the anarchy of men who are uncontrolled by the laws of God, and float blindly on the wide sea of their own interests and passions, or crawl blindly in the pursuit of their own petty and earth-born desires. The fox is a parable of worldly cunning, the bear of savage cruelty, the serpent of subtlety and deadly malice, the lamb of innocence, the dove of purity, gentleness, and peace. And if our insight were deeper into the laws of natural history, and the varieties of moral character, the analogy might perhaps be carried through every distinct race of lower creatures, and all nature be found stored, in every corner of her dominions, with perpetual messages of heavenly wisdom, and illustrations of all the countless form of good and evil among the children of men.

Here, then, in the wonders of the animal creation, there is a boundless range opened before our view, to meditate on the hidden wisdom of our Lord. Nature, no less than Providence, is a seven-sealed book, and only He, whose name is the Lamb, can open the seals, or look into all its secret treasures. He alone can éx

pound the hieroglyphics of Divine morality, couched in the structure, the physiology, and varied habits, of every insect that crawls on the ground, or sports in the sunbeam; of every wild beast that ranges through the forest, or of every bird that flies in the open firmament of heaven. He alone can bring to light hereafter, for the instruction of His people, those mysterious relations of animal life, in its innumerable forms, which look upward towards the world of spiritual being, and are dimly foreshadowed in the emblem of the living creatures, that worship with veiled faces before the eternal throne. The lion, the ox, and the eagle, are memorials, in the visible and outward creation, of deep and unfathomable wonders, and the near fellowship of all creatures, from the lowest brute to the highest seraph, with Him who is the common source of all their faculties and varied endowments. As the eyes of the prophet's servant were once opened, to see the chariots of fire and horses of fire on the mountains of Israel, we also may be enabled to see hereafter, in every beast, bird, insect, or worm, that moves around us, a mirror of some deep truth that reaches into eternity, a lesson of those manifold varieties of moral good and evil, which issue in the course of Providence, from the unfathomable depths of the human heart, and an earnest of a like variety in the faculties of the redeemed, when they shall flock, like doves to their windows, or as the birds of Paradise, to their destined homes of light and glory in the kingdom of God.

T. R. B.

THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE JESUITS.

It was in the hour of greatest need, when the Papal power had been most rudely shaken by the preaching of the Reformers, that Ignatius and his enthusiastic band offered to become its champions. They promised to add to their other vows, one of unlimited obedience to the Pope the bait was too tempting to be refused, and after many months of urgent solicitation, Paul III., by a Bull of the 27th September 1540, confirmed the Institution.

The order of Jesuits therefore owed its origin to the contest between Rome and the Reformation. By its origin, by its institution, by its first principles, it is a military order, and we Protestant Christians are the foe against whom it has sworn eternal enmity. When Rome was vigorously contending against Protestant principles, and striving in the latter half of the sixteenth century to regain her lost ascendancy, she found the Jesuits her most valuable emissaries. When in the eighteenth century her zeal had grown cold, and political, rather than ecclesiastical, considerations swayed the fate of Europe, she disbanded the Jesuit army, which had indeed grown insupportable by its corruption. But when after the French Revolution, she was raised from the lowest depths of humiliation she had ever experienced, and began to think of retrieving her ruined fortunes, she once more summoned to her aid these corrupt but powerful auxiliaries. Pius VII, in 1814, pub

lished a Bull, stating, that he should deem himself guilty of a great crime towards God, if, amidst the dangers of the Christian Republic, he should neglect to employ the aids which the special providence of God had put in his power, and if placed in the bark of St. Peter, and tossed by continual storms, he should refuse to employ the vigorous and experienced rowers who volunteer their services.' What rowers these were, and what must be the character of a church that could need their services, and regard them as the gift of a special Providence, the facts we are about to relate, will soon show. Meanwhile it behoves us, as British Protestants, to consider that the Jesuit army is re-organized, and is in full force in the field, powerful in all that unnatural strength which lawless falsehood can for the moment give.

That we may better understand our present danger and the character of our enemy, let us look a little at their past history. Their progress was extremely rapid. ́ In 1540, when they presented their petition to Paul III, they only appeared in the number of ten. In 1543 they were not more than twenty-four. In 1545 they had only ten houses: but 1549 they had two Provinces : one in Spain, and the other in Portugal, and twenty-two houses, and at the death of Ignatius in 1556, they had twelve large Provinces. In 1608 Ribadeneira reckoned twenty-nine Provinces, and two vice Provinces, twenty one houses of Profession, 293 Colleges, thirty-three houses of Probation, ninety-three other residences, and 10,581 Jesuits.' *

Preaching and the instruction of youth had been the two great instruments of diffusing the doctrine of the

* History of the Jesuits, vol. i. 379.

Reformers; and on this ground the Jesuits prepared to meet them. Their preachers were charged to consider the common people, and employ a style suited to attract them. The spiritual exercises of Ignatius were eminently calculated to practice them in exciting the affections of the people. Crowds gathered round the Jesuit preacher, and the influence of Rome was restored, in many places, where it was almost extinct. They established numerous colleges, and with that deep policy which has always marked the society, bestowed special attention even on the lower grammar-schools. It was,' says Ranke, in his history of the Popes,* 'one of the principal maxims of Lainez, that the lower grammarschools should be provided with good masters. maintained, that the character and conduct of the man were mainly determined by the first impressions which he received. With accurate discrimination, he chose men who, when they had once undertaken this subordinate branch of teaching, were willing to devote their whole lives to it, for it was only with time, so difficult a business could be learned, or the authority indispensable to a teacher be acquired. Here the Jesuits succeeded to admiration it was found that their scholars learned more in one year than those of other masters in two, and even Protestants recalled their children from distant gymnasia, and committed them to their care.'

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The Jesuits employed means like these to gain a footing in Protestant Germany, where men had enjoyed the light of the Reformation; and the new life they infused into the smouldering ashes of Popery, soon produced a sensible effect. This, however, was not their only line of action: in papal countries they developed

* Ranke's History of the Popes, vol. ii. p. 33