These joys the Jesuits described in language worthy of the Koran.

Dabbled in Sarpi's or Duplessis Mornay's blood, quartered and tortured like Ravaillac, the desperado of so pious a crime would swim forever in oceans of ecstatic pleasure.

The priest, ambitious for his hierarchy, fanatical in his devotion to the Church, relying upon privilege if he should chance to be detected, had a plain interest in promoting and directing such conspiracies.

Men of blood, and bandits up to the hilts in crimes of violence, rendered reckless by the indiscriminate cruelty of justice in those days, allured by the double hope of pay and spiritual benefit, rushed without a back-thought into like adventures.

Ready to risk their lives in an unholy cause, such ruffians were doubly glad to do so when the bait of heaven's felicity was offered to their grosser understanding.