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Rh other penalties. Similar laws, enacted in Brandenburg and Prussia, have been mentioned in a previous chapter.

But the difference in public opinion is not less remarkable than that manifested by the attitude of governments and rulers towards the Society. No other institution has been so often the theme of the most high-flown panegyric and of the most bitter invective as the Society of Jesus. Its admirers, and not a few Protestants were among these, have proclaimed it as an establishment of the utmost utility to learning, morals, religion, and state. It may even be admitted that some have been extravagant in their praises of the Society and its labors. On the other hand, its enemies see in it an assemblage of ambitious men who, under the disguise of hypocrisy, aim at nothing but universal dominion, which they endeavor to obtain by most odious and criminal means, to the detriment of morality, religion and society. "Perhaps no body of men in Europe," says Quick, "have been so hated as the Jesuits."

So many accusations have been advanced against the Jesuits that it would take a volume of considerable size merely to enumerate them. Years ago Bishop Ketteler of Mentz publicly remonstrated against "that continued crime of systematic calumny against the Society." The Jesuits have been defended and ex-