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242 onerated of the charges by thousands of prominent Catholics and by distinguished Protestants, and yet the muddy stream of calumny flows on; the old charges are repeated and new ones are fabricated almost daily, and believed. It is customary now-a-days to sneer at the credulity of former ages, at the superstition of the Middle Ages, and the witch panic of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, our age has little reason to look down superciliously on the benighted people of times gone by, for there is among us, and even in circles that lay claim to enlightenment, a great deal of superstition and credulity; only the forms and the objects of credulity are different from those of former ages. In fact, the "Jesuit panic" has been called a chronic disease of modern times, and the credulity manifested in accepting implicitly the most absurd charges against the Society is stupendous.

Whenever a person is indicted for a crime we demand that he be given a fair trial; we want to hear and examine impartially the whole of the evidence against him, before we pronounce him guilty. In the case of the Society of Jesus, we have a body of fifteen thousand men, who devote their lives to the propagation of Christianity, the civilization of savages, and the education of youth. Almost every day they are maligned in books, papers and public speeches. No evidence is asked for; the ordinary demands of prudence and justice are set aside; it is enough to hurl accusations against the Jesuits, and thousands and tens of thousands willingly believe them. This is no exaggeration. One need only read the most popular books on education to become convinced of