I have already cited Voltaire, but I place him in the list here, for the purpose of inserting some farther extracts from his Letters. When

he was solicited by the Jansenistical magistrates to join with them in accusing the Jesuits of the crime of regicide, he gave this remarkable answer, in his Letter to the Atheist Damilaville: "I should rouse posterity in their behalf, if I accused them of a crime, of which Europe, and Damiens himself, have acknowledged them innocent." Writing, in 1765, three years after the suppression of the Jesuits, to the same Damilaville, he thus exults in the realized expectations of D'Alembert: "Victory declares for us on every side. I can assure you, that, in a short time, the rabble alone will remain under the standard of our enemies." In subsequent letters he declares, that "a general revolution was making its appearance in every quarter; that philosophy was gaining strength in the north of Germany; that similar revolutions were taking place in Poland, Italy, and Spain." Such was the rapid effect of the substitution of philosophical to religious education! However borne away by the charms of

philosophy, Voltaire was greatly attached to the Jesuits, and had the highest opinion of them: this he fully expresses in a letter to father de la Tour, principal of the college of Louis le Grand, where he was himself educated, which has been already cited.

MONTESQUIEU.

Montesquieu, mentioning the government of Paraguay, then under the guidance of the Jesuits, as an instance, among other extraordinary institutions formed to exalt nations to virtue, alludes to the imputed ambition of the society to govern; to which he replies, "but it will ever be a glorious ambition to govern men by rendering them happy. It is glorious to the society to have been the first to give, in those regions, the idea of religion united with humanity. By repairing the devastations of the Spaniards, they have begun to heal one of the

most dangerous wounds the human race ever received. They have drawn wild people from woods, secured them regular maintenance, and clothed their nakedness; but even, had they done no more than add to the stock of industry among men, that would have been doing a great deal[[52]]."

BUFFON.

"The missions," says this celebrated natural philosopher, "have formed more men, in the barbarous nations, than the victorious armies of the princes, who subjugated them. It is only in this way, that Paraguay has been conquered: the gentleness, the good example, the charity, and the exercise of virtue constantly maintained by the missionaries, made their way to the hearts of the savages, and conquered their distrust and their ferocity. They

would frequently come, of their own accord, and beg to be made acquainted with the law, which rendered men so perfect; to that law they submitted and entered into society. Nothing can do more honour to religion than to have civilized those nations and laid the foundations of an empire, with no other arms than those of virtue[[53]]."

HALLER.