Excerpt from The History of the Jesuits in England: 1580-1773I venture to think I have found the key to his character. Puritanism certainly at one time in¿uenced him, and his after-life shows how strong in him was this bias. Now, Puritanism, which I take it is not so much a religious as a mental attitude, gives a consistency to his life and to the efforts of those who set themselves to carry out his policy. I may add I did not approach the subject with this theory in my mind, and it was not until I had the facts of the case before me that I realised the importance of the Puritan episodes in Parsons' life at Oxford.There is, however, another side to the story of the English Jesuits, and it is one I have been careful to point out.While Parsons and his followers only succeeded in achieving a brilliant failure, they were acute enough to snatch the credit of Campion, Southwell, Thomas Garnett and others, who did the better and more fitting work. These, it seems to me, are the true heroes of the Society in England. Their lives and aspirations were pure and Christlike. They were men devoted to what they considered the work of the Gospel, and with the earnest cry of their life's blood pleaded for the rights of conscience.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.