The Roman Catholics had a meeting on Tuesday to express
sym- pathy with the Jesuits in the persecution to which they are being exposed in Germany, the Duke of Norfolk in the chair. The Earl of Denbigh moved that the action of the German Legislature, which had expelled the Jesuits and other teaching orders from its terri- tory, "without proving or even alleging any illegal act against them, is a wrong done to all national right, and an injury inflicted on the Catholics of all nations." Lord Denbigh said that "the Jesuits had been held up as intriguers, but that those who knew them well knew that it was distinctly against the constitution of their Order to mix themselves up in any intrigue." Does Lord Denbigh mean to apply that historically as well as to the Jesuits of the present day? We imagine the history of the Gunpowder Plot shows that at that time they did mix themselves up with very bloody intrigues, while usually professing to know little or nothing about them. But we quite agree with Lord Denbigh that indi- vidual crimes, and not a few of them, should be proved against the Order, before this sort of wholesale legislation against it can be deemed anything but flagrant injustice as well as folly. The Jesuits are often enough the best 'men of the world' in the Catholic Church, and it is not the beat men of the world who indulge themselves in the diversion of plotting against empires and over- setting thrones.
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