[Footnote 28: Coxe puts the expulsion on the morning of 1st April, and the signing of the decree on 2nd April. This seems to be an error.]
Nowhere, perhaps, is the conflict of evidence so sharp in regard to the Jesuits as when we turn to consider their activity outside of Europe. On the one hand we have the _Edifying Letters_ which the missionaries themselves sent to their Roman authorities for publication in Europe. From these letters the apologetic writers construct a picture of the most charming devotion and spiritual success; we are invited to see thousands of Jesuits breaking every home-tie in order to carry the gospel of Christ across seas infested with Dutch and English enemies, to lands whence only one in a hundred will return, and where the tooth of the serpent, the poison of the tropics, or the knife of the savage awaits them; we are told how they advance unarmed into the forests, and fierce tribes surrender to the feeble symbol of the crucifix, how they charm the jealous monarchs of the east with their vast learning and open to other missionaries doors which had been closed against them for centuries, how from the rawest savage material they make ideal republics such as Plato had despaired of making out of the enlightened Athenians.
From the other side we learn that these _Edifying Letters_, which so plainly announce their purpose, are "pious lies"; that they wilfully exaggerate conversions and martyrdoms, and convey a wholly false picture of Jesuit activity; that the Jesuits are engaged in a vast commercial activity all over the globe, are utterly unscrupulous in protecting their monopolies and in accumulating wealth, and make the most scandalous concessions to paganism in order to obtain numbers and influence. These things, moreover, are said by Catholic priests and prelates, not by jealous merchants and free-thinking politicians. Prelates of indisputable sanctity send to Europe the sternest and gravest charges against the Jesuits, and declare that they have been subjected by the Society to the most virulent and unprincipled persecution. We have therefore to make our way here with extreme prudence. Fortunately, many of the charges against the Jesuits receive serious consideration at Rome, and from the evidence which is submitted to, and generally endorsed by, the Roman tribunals, the historian is at times enabled to reach a confident verdict. Let us begin our survey with the action of the Jesuits in the far east.