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Rh cation may contribute much to foster and quicken the development of genius. But the Society can justly claim to have made excellent men of pupils with only ordinary abilities, and these count by thousands, nay by hundreds of thousands: lawyers, professors, state officials, officers of the army, priests and bishops.

Considering the number and work of the Jesuit schools, we may conclude that they wielded a very great influence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This influence led to the persecution and finally the suppression of the Order; not as if the Order had abused its influence, but because the power which the Society exercised in the intellectual and moral world, was an eye-sore to the numerous enemies of the Jesuits. At last, after the middle of the seventeenth century, the hated Order fell a victim to the intrigues of its opponents. We cannot here enter on a lengthy account of the history of the destruction of the Society, but must refer the reader to special works on this subject. Suffice it to mention briefly the opinions of a few impartial witnesses.

Prince Hohenlohe wrote at the time of the suppression that the destruction of the Order was "une cabale infernale." Theiner, who was a bitter enemy of the Society, calls the suppression a "disgraceful warfare, a deplorable drama, in which too many impure elements played a leading part." Many prominent Protestant historians, as Ranke, Schoell, J. v. Müller, Sismondi, Leo, declare the charges brought against