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278 nature and products of the soil, and other questions. Of course we are not unaware that there are people who go about declaring that the religious congregations encroach upon the jurisdiction of the Bishops and interfere with the rights of the secular clergy. This assertion cannot be sustained if one cares to consult the wise laws published on this point by the Church, and which we have recently re-enacted."

On more than one occasion Leo XIII. gave expression to the high esteem in which he holds the educational work of the Jesuits, from whom he himself had received his early training. In the year 1886 he solemnly confirmed once more the Institute of the Society and its ecclesiastical privileges, exhorting the sons of Ignatius courageously to continue their work in the midst of all persecutions.

Before closing this chapter we may mention one explanation for the widespread animosity against the Society at which some may be inclined to smile. It is recorded that the founder of the Society, St. Ignatius of Loyola, used to beg of God continually that his sons might always be the object of the world's hatred and enmity. He knew from the words of Our Divine Master: "If the world hate you, know that it hated me before you," and from the history of the Church that this persecution for the sake of Jesus has always