'HiiaiiBW^s^ 
 
hS'jssfzm 
 
 ^f. 
 
 Peter \V^. Collins 
 Library 
 
 1933 
 
 iS 
 
 
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n, m. D. (j. 
 
 Ulbo iire the JcsuiU? 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. CHARI^ES COPPENS, SJ. 
 
 AUTHOR OF VARIOUS EDUCATIONAL WORKS 
 
 gOSTO ' H CeLLE^E LIBRARY 
 CUKbTJSUT HILL, MASS, 
 
 ST. LOUIS, MO., 1911 
 
 Published by B. Herder 
 
 17 South Broadway 
 
 FRRIBURO (BADEN) 
 Germany 
 
 I.ONDON, W. C. 
 68, Great Russell Street 
 
NIHIL OBSTAT. 
 Sti. Ludoviciy die $1 Jan. igii. 
 R,J. Meyer, S./., 
 
 Praep. Prov. Missour. 
 
 NIHIL OBSTAT. 
 Sti. Ludovici, die 21 Martii., 191 1 
 
 F. G. HOLWECK, 
 
 Censor Librorutn, 
 
 IMPRIMATUR. 
 Sti. Ludoviciy die 23 Martiiy 1911 
 ■f Joannes J. Glenn on, 
 
 Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici. 
 
 Copyright, igii, 
 by 
 Joseph Gummersbach. 
 
 n 
 
 0/1' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Introductory v 
 
 I No Secrecy i 
 
 11 Origin and Purpose of the Jesuits ... 5 
 
 III The Jesuits at Work 12 
 
 IV Constitution of the Society 19 
 
 V Increasing Influence of the Jesuits . . 30 
 
 VI The Jesuits and the Reformation in Ger- 
 many 36 
 
 VII The Jesuits in Catholic Lands .... 42 
 
 VIII Missions to the Heathens 49 
 
 IX Opposition to the Jesuits 59 
 
 X Suppression of the Society 69 
 
 XI The Society Reestablished 76 
 
 XII Principal Slanders Against the Jesuits . 89 
 
 ' \ 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 1. Jesuits are often much amused at the strange 
 notions entertained of them by intelhgent and 
 otherwise well informed men and women in this 
 land of general education. The non-Catholic 
 world, as a rule, does not know what to make 
 of them. Some however among the bitterest 
 opponents of the Catholic Church claim to un- 
 derstand all about the Jesuits, and exert them- 
 selves to the utmost to denounce them as con- 
 stituting a secret society plotting in every land, 
 and in the United States in particular, for the 
 destruction of liberty, and the establishment of 
 an absolute dominion in Church and State. 
 
 2. When such misrepresentations are widely 
 circulated, the amusement of the Jesuits is of 
 course changed to sadness, on seeing that their 
 pure intentions for the greater glory of God and 
 the eternal welfare of souls are so strangely 
 misunderstood. Such was the case, for in- 
 stance, when last summer a pamphlet was cir- 
 culated in one of our Western cities, of which 
 50,000 copies, it is said, were distributed gratis, 
 containing, amid scores of false charges, the 
 following lines : — 
 
vi Iniroduciory 
 
 "To-day the Church and the Order of Jesuits 
 are working as a unit to make America CathoHc 
 ' — by methods which, if successful, must in- 
 evitably destroy our American Government, root 
 and branch." (Life and Action, Vol. 2, n. 2, 
 p. 123.) The writer of the pamphlet quotes 
 with full approbation, from an anti-Jesuit work, 
 as follows: — "The General (of the Jesuits) is 
 placed above all governments, constitutions, and 
 laws, and even above God himself. There are 
 no laws of a State, no rules of morality estab- 
 lished by society, no principles of religious faith 
 established by any Church — including even the 
 Roman Catholic Church itself — that the Jesuit 
 is not bound to resist, when commanded by his 
 General to do so, no matter if it shall lead to 
 war, revolution, or bloodshed, or to the upheaval 
 of Society from its very foundation." (lb. p. 
 124.) 
 
 3. Such charges may not be believed to the 
 letter by persons of even average common sense, 
 but yet they help to spread and deepen a com- 
 mon impression that the Jesuits are a very 
 wicked and dangerous body of men. What 
 makes the matter still worse is that any one who 
 would wish to examine for himself, and for this 
 purpose look for information at the public li- 
 brary of his town or city, is very likely to find 
 there no works on the subject but such as are 
 written by bitter enemies of the Jesuits, for in- 
 
Introductory vii 
 
 stance, "The History of the Jesuits," by Nico- 
 Hni. 
 
 These reasons have induced the present writer 
 to compose a plain, clear and exact statement 
 of the truth, which, though very brief, may give 
 the honest enquirer satisfactory and reliable in- 
 formation. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 NO SECRECY 
 
 4. Is it true that, whatever may be the pur- 
 pose for which the Jesuits chiefly labor, theirs is 
 a secret society, something hke the Freemasons? 
 
 It is not true ; this behef is entirely without 
 foundation. The Jesuits have nothing to hide 
 from the public ; they invite investigation, pro- 
 vided it be sought in the facts themselves, not 
 in the slanderous writings of their enemies and 
 persecutors. Their institute, called the Society 
 of Jesus, is one of the many approved Orders of 
 religious in the Catholic Church, like the Do- 
 minicans, the Franciscans, the Benedictines and 
 others, instituted for some particular phase of I 
 activity in the work of the Church. If the I 
 Jesuits had had any secrets at any time, these 
 would have become known to the world at large 
 when, in the latter half of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, their Society was suppressed, their houses 
 were suddenly seized by tli eir enem ies^ all their 
 books and writings taken p"Ossession of and scat- 
 tered over the countless libraries of Europe. 
 No secrets were discovered then or at any other 
 
 I 
 
2 PVho Are the Jesuits? 
 
 time, because there were no secrets to discover. 
 
 5. Their Society was restored by the Pope at 
 the beginning of last century, and its mem- 
 bers to-day are doing their work openly, as be- 
 fore, in the full light of public notice, attracting 
 and inviting general observation to all their in- 
 stitutions, their writings and their labors. 
 
 6. Some time ago an article appeared in a sec- 
 tarian weekly paper, fiercely attacking the 
 Jesuits, and repeating for the thousandth time 
 charges which had been a thousand times re- 
 futed. The writer of these pages, besides an- 
 swering the accusations in the public press, wrote 
 a very kind private letter to the accuser, telling 
 him that, if the latter knew the Jesuits person- 
 ally as they are, he would never have written 
 the offensive article, and inviting him to visit the 
 Jesuit college and see for himself ; and, if he 
 was afraid of ill treatment, to bring some friends 
 along. The letter added that, if the gentleman 
 declined the kind invitation, he was requested 
 to make an appointment for a day and hour 
 when he would be in his office to receive a visit 
 from his correspondent, that they might get to 
 know one another better. No answer was re- 
 ceived for several weeks. At last one came, 
 in which the editor, in gentlemanly terms, pre- 
 sented a lame excuse for declining the interview. 
 Why not examine? 
 
 7. Jesuit houses are scattered all over the land, 
 
No Secrecy 3 
 
 some college or university or parish residence 
 being found in most of the large cities. The 
 teachings there imparted, the sermons preached, 
 the writings thence issued are in thousands of 
 public libraries and private houses, their alumni 
 and present students are counted by the tens 
 of thousands, their parishioners by the hundreds 
 of thousands. These are the proper sources for 
 reliable information. No body of men should 
 be judged by the speeches and writings of their 
 enemies, which are campaign documents full of 
 misrepresentations. 
 
 8. It must be remembered that an unceasing 
 war is going on between Christ and His ene- 
 mies, the world, the devil and the flesh ; between 
 the Church of Christ and its opponents of all 
 classes and denominations. 
 
 The Jesuits are the body guard of the Vicar 
 of Christ on earth, the Sovereign Pontiff; and 
 like him, and like Christ, the Society of Jesus 
 is, has been all along and will be calumniated : 
 "The disciple is not above the master," said 
 the Blessed Saviour. 'Tf they have called the 
 good man of the house Beelzebub, how much 
 more them of his household!" (St. Matth. x, 
 24,25.) 
 
 9. But how is it that sometimes even good 
 men hate and fear the Jesuits? Because they 
 do not know them, because they are deceived 
 by the copious slanders scattered broadcast 
 
4 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 against them in books and papers, in English 
 Hterature generally, which is in the main anti- 
 Catholic. It is only a portion of the Redeemer's 
 prophecy : — "They will put you out of the syn- 
 agogues ; yea the hour cometh that whosoever 
 killeth you will think that he doth a service to 
 God." (St. John xvi, 2.) 
 
 How the Jesuits are united with the Church 
 of Christ and with the Vicar of Christ, how 
 they are animated by the Spirit of Christ will ap- 
 pear from the following chapters. 
 
CflAPTER II 
 
 ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF THE JESUITS 
 
 10. If anyone desire to read a full and clear 
 account of the rise of the Society of Jesus and 
 the purposes of its institution, he can readily 
 satisfy his curiosity by perusing the volume of 
 ''The Life of St. Ignatius Loyola" from the 
 charming pen of the late poet Francis Thomp- 
 son. For those who want to have the whole 
 matter in a nutshell the following brief account 
 may suffice. 
 
 11. In 1491, a year before Columbus discov- 
 ered the new world, in his father's Castle of 
 Loyola, which is still standing in the little 
 Basque town of Azpeitia, St. Ignatius first saw 
 the light. In his boyhood he was sent to the 
 splendid court of Ferdinand and Isabella. Soon 
 he became a brilliant and ambitious young 
 knight, dreaming only of warlike deeds, and 
 aspiring to gain the heart and hand of one of 
 the first ladies of the time. 
 
 In 1 52 1 he stood, the soul of a fierce fight, 
 on the wall of the fortress of Pamplona, when 
 a canon ball shattered his legs, and Ignatius and 
 Pamplona fell. The chivalrous French foe, 
 
 5 
 
6 JVIio Are the Jesuits? 
 
 through aclmiration for his bravery, set him 
 free without ransom, and carried him in a Htter 
 to the Castle of Loyola. He bore without other 
 sign of pain than the clenching of his fists, the 
 setting and a resetting of his broken limbs, and 
 after they were healed the sawing away of a 
 bone which the imperfect surgery of the day 
 had left protruding to his disfigurement. 
 
 12. To while away the tedium of the long 
 protracted healing process he asked for chival- 
 rous romances ; but books v/ere not numerous 
 in his day, and he had to be satisfied with a 
 copy of "The Life of Christ" and a book styled 
 "Flowers of the Saints." It was a kind dis- 
 pensation of a loving Providence, which thus 
 spoke to the heart of the worldly-minded hero. 
 He found in those pages that there was a higher 
 ambition than that of worldly honors, that there 
 were nobler souls than those of Knight-errants 
 and military conquerors, that there was a higher 
 love than he had so far dreamed of. Could he 
 not emulate the Saints? Could he not, wdth 
 God's grace, live and die for the honor and the 
 love of Jesus? Half measures he despised; he 
 would henceforth leave all earthly attractions, 
 and devote himself to a life of prayer and pen- 
 ance. 
 
 13. Witli this purpose in mind, as soon as he 
 was strong enough to travel, he set out on 
 horseback and rode incoojnito to the celebrated 
 
Origin and Purpose of the Jesuits 7 
 
 sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Mont- 
 serrat, a little town in the neighborhood of 
 Barcelona. There he made a general confes- 
 sion of his whole Hfe. After spending a night 
 in the church, kneeling in prayer, he hung up 
 his sword and dagger by Our Lady's statue, de- 
 termined henceforth to use only spiritual weap- 
 ons ; the next morning he sought an increase 
 of strength by receiving Holy Communion. 
 
 14. For some months he devoted himself to 
 serving the sick in a hospital at Manresa, per- 
 forming the most menial services, and mean- 
 while practicing on his body the most austere 
 penances. Next he retired into a cave in the 
 mountainside, which has hence become famous 
 as the "Grotto of Manresa." He was ignorant 
 in spiritual things when he entered it ; but dur- 
 ing his lengthy meditations there he became so 
 enlightened that he composed a series of con- 
 siderations which, under the name of "The Spir- 
 itual Exercises of St. Ignatius," make up one of 
 the most remarkable and useful books in the 
 world. St. Francis of Sales said of it in his 
 day that it had converted more souls to God 
 than it contained letters. Tliat book contains 
 the entire pith and purpose of the Society of 
 Jesus. 
 
 15. It was by going through those exercises, 
 under the guidance of the Spirit of God who in- 
 structed him, that the hero of Pamplona be- 
 
8 Who Are the Jesuitsf 
 
 came St. Ignatius, the father and founder of 
 the Jesuits. It was by going through those same 
 exercises under the guidance of Ignatius that 
 St. Francis Xavier and all his other associates 
 were formed to the life of a Jesuit; and it is by 
 going through the same exercises under the di- 
 rection of a Jesuit that all the Jesuits of the 
 world, in every succeeding generation, have been 
 formed to their peculiar spirit. 
 
 i6. From that book therefore we can most read- 
 ily learn the spirit and the purpose of the Jesuits. 
 The book can be got in any Catholic book- 
 store. Whoever goes through those Exercises 
 is made to consider most earnestly the purpose 
 for which God has placed him in the world, the 
 evil of departing from that purpose by sin, the 
 danger of living in the state of sin and of thus 
 exposing oneself to the punishment of eternal 
 fire ; the goodness of God who invites all to 
 repentance ; the means of obtaining pardon for 
 sin and returning to the path of duty. Next 
 Christ offers Himself to be our leader in con- 
 quering the Kingdom of Heaven. We study 
 His example in all the details of His earthly 
 career ; we are made conformable to that Divine 
 model in His private and His public life and 
 His holy death. We are encouraged by the 
 thought of His Resurrection and His glorious 
 Ascension into Heaven. Hence many resolve 
 to live like Christ, and, like Him, not only to se- 
 
Origin and Purpose of the Jesuits g 
 
 cure eternal happiness for themselves, but to 
 labor heroically for the eternal happiness of 
 others. 
 
 17. These thoughts were uppermost in Igna- 
 tius' mind when he came forth from the retreat 
 of Manresa; they inspired him in all his subse- 
 quent career ; they are the one great purpose 
 for which the Jesuits exist. For he was made 
 to understand, by the same Divine light that had 
 so far guided his meditations, that to accomplish 
 the grand purpose conceived it was necessary 
 to form a society of men like himself, generous 
 imitators of Christ, who should leave all things 
 to follow Jesus ; who should be a sort of light 
 troops ever ready to do the work of the Blessed 
 Saviour, whom he called therefore *'the Com- 
 pany, or Society, of Jesus." Their motto was 
 to be Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, *'To the 
 Greater Glory of God." 
 
 18. After subduing his own passions by a long 
 course of extraordinary mortifications, when he 
 had come to delight in suffering and in being 
 ■insulted and despised as Jesus had been on 
 earth, he began to preach to the people the gos- 
 pel of sorrow and penance for sin. But he 
 found that the ecclesiastical authorities dis- 
 trusted a man without philosophical and the- 
 ological education. If he wanted to produce a 
 telling influence, on the learned especially, he 
 would have to go through the lengthy course of 
 
 
lo Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 studies then general in the numerous universi- 
 ties of Europe. Nothing daunted by the diffi- 
 cuhy of the task before him, Ignatius, at the 
 age of thirty-three, sat down among the Httle 
 boys in a class room and began to learn Latin. 
 He pursued his further studies in the Uni- 
 versities of Alcala, Salamanca and Paris, Hving 
 meanwhile on the alms he begged, mortifying 
 himself, and profiting by every occasion to con- 
 vert sinners and to lead virtuous souls higher in 
 the way of perfection. It took him eleven years 
 to complete the course of studies then required 
 of the scholar, and it was only in 1535, when he 
 was forty-four years old, that he was ready for 
 the task which it was his ambition to accom- 
 plish. 
 
 19. In Paris he had gathered about him a 
 small band of companions, whom he had, by 
 means of his Spiritual Exercises, animated with 
 his own spirit. At the holy altar they had to- 
 gether vowed to God to go to the Holy Land, 
 there to labor for the conversion of the Mos- 
 lems on the soil sanctified by the sacred blood 
 of the Redeemer; and if this project should 
 prove impracticable, to go and throw themselves 
 at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff, to be em- 
 ployed by him how and where he wished for the 
 glory of God and the salvation of souls. 
 
 20. All of them were young men of talent, 
 who had gone through a thorough course of 
 
Origin and Purpose of the Jesuits ii 
 
 study, and all became great men, achieving re- 
 sults far beyond their expectations. In 1537, 
 Ignatius with his nine companions knelt before 
 the Holy Pontiff, Paul III, who, on finding out 
 by careful investigation their uncommon learn- 
 ing and virtue, offered them generous as- 
 sistance to accomplish their worthy undertaking. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE JESUITS AT WORK 
 
 21. Owing to the war with the Turks that 
 was then beginning, the sea had become im- 
 passable for pilgrims, and the projected evan- 
 gelization of the Holy Land had to be aban- 
 doned. The ten companions, all of whom were 
 now in the holy order of the priesthood, la- 
 bored in the principal cities of Italy, lodg- 
 ing in the hospitals, serving the sick, preaching 
 in the churches and in the streets, and producing 
 everywhere extraordinary fruits of salvation. 
 As they were doing the work of Christ, if asked 
 who they were they answered that they were 
 "of the Company of Jesus." 
 
 22. Ignatius went to Rome to inform the 1/ 
 Pope that all the Company were now and ever 
 would be at his disposal. The offer was most 
 welcome. Peter Favre, who is now honored by 
 the Church among the Blessed, was ordered to 
 lecture in the University of the Sapienza on 
 Holy Scripture, Peter Laynez on Scholastic The- 
 ology, while Ignatius preached to the people, 
 and gave the Spiritual Exercises to educated 
 men. Many of these came forth from their re- 
 
 12 
 
The Jesuits at Work 13 
 
 treat of thirty days remarkably improved in 
 their Hves ; some of them abandoned all things 
 and joined the little Company. St. Francis 
 Xavier, who had been converted and sanctified 
 by those same Exercises while a professor of 
 philosophy in Paris, began his evangelical labors 
 in Bologna. Though suffering from a quartan 
 fever for several months, he there preached with 
 unremitting industry and extraordinary success, 
 foreshadowing his future apostolic career in dis- 
 tant India and Japan. Hozes, a late recruit, 
 soon died, falling a victim to his boundless zeal. 
 Le Jay at Ferrara checked the ravages which 
 the Reformers had begun to work among the 
 people and in the court. Salmeron, Bobadilla, 
 Rodriguez, Broet and Codure preached in vari- 
 ous cities, converting multitudes by their elo- 
 quence and their holy lives. Soon Italy was too 
 restricted a territory for their zealous labors. 
 Rodriguez was sent to Portugal, where, besides 
 preaching missions and recruiting members, he 
 founded seminaries for their training at Lisbon 
 and Coi'mbra, opened an institution for the edu- 
 cation of lay students, and was forced by the 
 King to accept the tutorship of the heir ap- 
 parent. 
 
 23. Henry VIII having made himself the head 
 of the Church in England, Paschal Broet and 
 Alphonse Salmeron, in 1542, were sent by the 
 Pope to Scotland and Ireland to confirm the 
 
14 IV ho Are the Jesiiitsf 
 
 Catholics there in their fideHty to the ancient 
 faith. When they reached Ireland a price was 
 set on their heads by the English government; 
 but their secret progress through the island, as 
 the direct messengers of the Holy Father, 
 brought most timely consolation and encourage- 
 ment to the faithful amid the persecution of their 
 oppressors. 
 
 24. Meanwhile St. Francis Xavier, after only 
 one day's notice, had started for Lisbon, whence 
 he sailed for Goa, the principal city of the 
 Portuguese in India. He was eight months on 
 the sea, and detained six months in a sort of 
 winter quarters on the island of Mozambique. 
 But wherever he was, though he bore a commis- 
 sion of Apostolic Nuncio to the Indies, he spent 
 his time in assisting the numerous sick people. 
 In Goa he began that series of religious con- 
 quests which extended over vast empires, and in 
 which, during his brief career of only ten years, 
 he is said to have baptized about a million 
 pagans. His work was continued by other 
 members of his Society amid the greatest dan- 
 gers and privations. Japan bade fair to become 
 a Christian land, and would probably have be- 
 come such in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies, if the Dutch and English merchants, jeal- 
 ous of the Portuguese, had not persuaded the 
 Emperor that the Catholic missionaries were pre- 
 paring the way for Portugal's conquest of the 
 
The Jesuits at Work 15 
 
 islands, and thus instigated him to begin a most 
 bloody persecution. The ruse was deplorably 
 successful. A law was made and inexorably en- 
 forced that every person in Japan, and all who 
 landed on its shores, should be forced to tram- 
 ple on the Cross. All the missionaries were 
 condemned to exile or death, many of them and 
 of the native clergy were martyred with most 
 cruel tortures, thousands of the laity met the 
 same fate ; Christianity was extinguished. Thus 
 religious division among Christians was the 
 cause that some pagan lands have not, long since, 
 entered into the brotherhood of the civilized na- 
 tions. The same division is the chief cause to- 
 day why Christianity makes so little impression 
 on Japan and China. 
 
 25. While Xavier and his associates were 
 spreading the Gospel through the East, the 
 Jesuits in Europe were brought face to face with 
 the leaders of the Reformation. Peter Favre 
 was sent by Paul III to the Diet of Worms, 
 where a conference w^as held between the Cath- 
 olics and the Protestants to effect a reconcilia- 
 tion. If a reconciliation had been possible, his 
 gentle character and evident sanctity might have 
 succeeded; but the Reformation was not the 
 work of calm and prudent counsel, but of ex- 
 cited minds and angry passions. He could only 
 succeed in benefiting the Catholics by giving 
 the Spiritual Exercises, at Worms, Spires and 
 
1 6 Who Are the Jesuitsf 
 
 Ratisbon, to the bishops, electors, princes and 
 ambassadors who were there assembled. Soon 
 however he was needed in Portugal and Spain, 
 while Le Jay and Bobadilla took up his labors in 
 Germany. The former was so strikingly suc- 
 cessful that King Ferdinand wished to retain 
 him there permanently by raising him to the 
 bishopric of Trieste. But while the Jesuits 
 shunned no posts of labor or of danger, they 
 refused from the beginning all ecclesiastical dig- 
 nities ; and when their Constitutions were drawn 
 up, a few years later, they obliged all the pro- 
 fessed members for all times to make a vow 
 that they would not accept any dignities of the 
 Church unless they were compelled to do so by 
 an absolute command of the Pope, which they 
 could not disobey without mortal sin. 
 
 26. Germany was then the chief battlefield 
 on which the Reformation assailed the ancient 
 Church with a vehemence and power that for a 
 while carried all before them. Prussia, Saxony, 
 Hesse, Wurtemburg, the Palatinate were hope- 
 lessly lost to the Pope, and nearly all the coun- 
 tries north of the Alps seemed on the point of 
 succumbing. The Jesuits were still few, but 
 their influence on Catholic princes, clergy and 
 people was far in excess of their scanty num- 
 bers. Like heroes appearing on the field when 
 a battle is on the point of being lost, halting the 
 fugitives, rallying the scattered combatants, re- 
 
The Jesuits at Work ly 
 
 pelling the foremost columns of the foe ; so 
 moved the missionaries from city to city, from 
 kingdom to kingdom, burning with zeal, preach- 
 ing with power, encouraging, remonstrating, ex- 
 hibiting in their own persons austerity of life, 
 contempt of riches and comforts, copious learn- 
 ing combined with deep ' humility, their minds 
 totally set on glorifying God and saving souls. 
 While in high favor with kings and princes, 
 Pope and bishops, they traveled on foot from 
 town to town, or, if at times on horseback, ever 
 with the poorest outfit, sleeping usually in the 
 public hospitals and living on alms, which they 
 begged from door to door. 
 
 27. Blessed Peter Favre had meanwhile been 
 edifying Portugal and Spain, giving the Spir- 
 itual Exercises to many nobles of the court, vis- 
 iting the poor, nursing the sick at the hospitals, 
 where he lodged with his companion Father 
 Antonio de Araoz, and meanwhile gathering 
 many recruits and founding a house of the So- 
 ciety at Valladolid. But again he was ordered 
 elsewhere. The Ecumenical Council of Trent 
 was going to open, and he was to attend it with 
 Laynez and Salmeron as theologians of the 
 Holy See. He was worn out with labors, but 
 yet he started at once on the long, painful jour- 
 ney in the intense heat of summer, and reached 
 Rome in July, 1546, to die a few days later in 
 the arms of St. Ignatius, at the early age of 
 
1 8 Who Are the Jesuitsf 
 
 forty years. Among the numerous disciples he 
 had gained to continue his labors in future years 
 were St. Francis Borgia and Blessed Peter 
 Canisius, of whom we shall speak further on. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SOCIETY 
 
 28. The preceding chapter exhibits in a clear 
 light the spirit that animated the first Jesuits. 
 It was a spirit of entire devotedness to the cause 
 of Christ, which is no other than the glory of 
 God and the salvation of immortal souls. This 
 was happily expressed in the name they had 
 taken, *The Company of Jesus," and in their 
 motto A. M. D. G., Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, 
 "To the Greater Glory of God." This super- 
 natural spirit they had drawn from the Spiritual 
 Exercises which had formed St. Ignatius to his 
 new life at Manresa, and by which he had fash- 
 ioned every one of his companions to a peculiar 
 resemblance to Jesus. It was his ambition to 
 carry out to its fullest perfection the Divine 
 plan described by St. Paul, *'Whom He (God) 
 foreknew He also predestined to be made con- 
 formable to the image of His Son." (Rom. 
 viii, 29.) 
 
 29. At first Ignatius relied so totally on those 
 Exercises for the elevation of all his disciples to 
 the height of perfection which his first compan- 
 ions had attained, that he did not contemplate 
 
 19 
 
20 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 the drawing up of any rules or constitutions to 
 secure the purpose of his Institute. But as the 
 number of his followers increased, and many 
 of these were mere youths who had to be care- 
 fully fashioned by lengthy training in learning 
 and virtue, he saw the necessity of making fur- 
 ther provisions for the future. 
 
 30. He obtained from the Sovereign Pontiff 
 Paul III, in 1540, a solemn Bull approving the 
 new Institute and raising it to the dignity of a 
 religious Order. It was next necessary to elect 
 for it a Superior General. St. Ignatius made 
 the utmost efforts to escape that post of author- 
 ity, but in vain. It consequently devolved on 
 him to draw up the Constitution of his Society, 
 and it is from this Constitution that we can 
 best learn the character of the Jesuit body, 
 which we are examining. The Constitution 
 itself is one of the most remarkable specimens 
 of wise legislation in existence. Its wisdom is 
 due partly to the uncommon natural ability of 
 Ignatius, and partly to the spirit of prayer and 
 study in which he elaborated every one of its 
 provisions. It has been explicitly approved by 
 twenty Popes, and not disapproved by one, not 
 even by Clement XIV, who suppressed the So- 
 ciety for reasons of expediency only, as a sea 
 captain throws even valuable merchandise over- 
 board to save the vessel in a storm. 
 
 The first care of Ignatius was to admit into 
 
The Constitution of the Society 21 
 
 his society such only as were likely to develop a 
 spirit of zeal and self-sacrifice, and to perform 
 properly the labors of the Institute. He was 
 thoroughly convinced that he could not have 
 lived the virtuous life he had led since his con- 
 version if it had not been for the special graces 
 that God had bestowed on him. He noticed also 
 that the heroism of his companions was not so 
 much due to the perfection of their natural char- 
 acters as to the copious help of the Holy Ghost, 
 the Sanctifier. He understood that such helps 
 could be expected in the case of those only 
 whom the Lord chose and invited to so lofty a 
 height of perfection. Thus Christ while on 
 earth had not called all His disciples to become 
 His Apostles, but He had selected and invited 
 each of these singly. The Society of Jesus is an 
 apostolic body, and the calling of its members 
 must come from God. Therefore St. Ignatius 
 looked first of all in new applicants for clear 
 signs of a Divine vocation ; and he laid down 
 the rule that his followers should never try to 
 induce any person to become a Jesuit. The call 
 must come from the inspiration of the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 31. A person is known to have a true vocation 
 to enter a particular career in life if he feels 
 sincerely convinced, as far as he can judge with 
 God's grace, that such a career is the best for 
 him to attain the end for which God placed him 
 
22 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 on earth, and he is found fit by his talents, 
 habits and circumstances, to enter on that career 
 with a fair prospect of succeeding in the same. 
 The first point therefore in receiving appHcants 
 for the Society is to examine whether they pos- 
 sess these signs of vocation. Those therefore 
 must be refused admission who wish to enter for 
 worldly motives, for instance of respectability, 
 comfort or the advantages of a higher educa- 
 tion; those also who are addicted to bad habits 
 which would disqualify them from attaining the 
 required sanctity and from giving proper edifi- 
 cation ; those who are bound by prior obligations 
 to remain in the world, for instance because 
 their parents greatly need their help ; those who 
 are wanting in either health or talent needed to 
 perform the ministry expected of them ; and 
 all who have ever worn the habit of any other 
 religious congregation, who therefore had bet- 
 ter abide by their first love. 
 
 32. The young man who is admitted as a can- 
 didate is supposed (unless he is to be merely a 
 lay-brother) to have gone through all, or nearly 
 all, the studies of the classical high-school and 
 college. He is not allowed to contract any ob- 
 ligation by vow till he has passed two full years 
 in the novitiate, spending his time in religious 
 exercises and manual labor, which will humble 
 the natural pride of the human heart. Like the 
 first Jesuits, he must perform for thirty succes- 
 
The Constitution of the Society 23 
 
 sive days, in absolute silence and solitude, the 
 Spiritual Exercises which St. Ignatius had gone 
 through in the grotto of Manresa. He is fully 
 instructed in all that belongs to the life of a 
 Jesuit, daily trained in the observance of the 
 rules, more severely tried in the practice of hu- 
 mility, mortification and obedience than he is 
 ever apt to be in after life. For the Society 
 v^ants to find out v^hat stuff he is made of be- 
 fore receiving him among her sons, and she 
 gives him every opportunity of making trial of 
 his nev^ career before he binds himself to abide 
 in it for life. 
 
 33. If at the end of the two years of novitiate 
 both parties are satisfied, he is allowed to pro- 
 nounce the vows of perpetual poverty, chastity 
 and obedience. By the vow of poverty he parts 
 with his former possessions, which he may dis- 
 tribute at his own free choice, either then or 
 when the superiors will appoint; and he prom- 
 ises henceforth to dispose of nothing as his 
 own, but only with the permission of those in 
 authority. By the vow of chastity he promises 
 to God a faithful observance of the sixth and 
 ninth Commandments, and moreover ever to re- 
 main a celibate so as to live for God alone. 
 By the vow of obedience he renounces the doing 
 of his own will, submitting himself to be di- 
 rected by his superiors in all that is not sin. 
 
 34. The "Junior Scholastic," as he is now 
 
24 Who Are the Jesiiitsf 
 
 called, spends the next two years in the study 
 of the Latin and Greek classics, English litera- 
 ture and normal-school work, preparing to teach 
 in academies and colleges. The three following 
 years are devoted to the study of Philosophy, 
 Mathematics and the natural sciences. After 
 these seven years of self-improvement, the 
 scholastic is sent to teach in one of the Jesuit 
 colleges, where, although so proficient now in 
 knowledge, he works for four or five years un- 
 der the direction and supervision of an experi- 
 enced Father, who is the Principal or Vice-Presi- 
 dent. 
 
 V^^5. Thus the Jesuit is trained to be a learned 
 and able college man, and this may be his spe- 
 cialty during the greater part of his life. But 
 he is not yet ready to specialize. He must first 
 become a theologian and a priest. For that pur- 
 pose he is sent to study Theology, Scripture, 
 History and Canon Law in a four years' course, 
 where he attends the lectures of the ablest and 
 most learned professors of the whole Jesuit 
 Society. 
 
 36. At the time of his ordination to the priest- 
 hood he has been about fifteen or sixteen years 
 in the Society, during which he has lived a life 
 of separation from the world, of prayer, morti- 
 fication and intense application to study and 
 college work. Every year he has repeated the 
 Spiritual Exercises for eight days, and twice 
 
The Constitution of the Society 25 
 
 each year he has renewed his fervor by a triduum 
 of silence and meditation. Every day of those 
 many years he has risen at a fixed early hour, 
 spent an hour in meditation, assisted at Holy 
 Mass, usually receiving at it Holy Communion, 
 examined his conscience at noon and night, re- 
 cited the beads, performed spiritual reading and 
 practiced various other devotions. 
 
 37. It would seem that he has now been thor- 
 oughly prepared for any function that may be im- 
 posed upon him. Yet the Society requires him 
 to go through a crowning year of training, during 
 which he returns to the novitiate, studies the 
 Constitution and the higher paths of the spir- 
 itual life, is applied to humble manual labor to 
 renovate his lowliness of spirit, after the ex- 
 ample of Christ's thirty years of private life ; 
 and he performs once more the thirty days re- 
 treat, or Spiritual Exercises. 
 
 38. After all this has been satisfactorily ac- 
 complished, being then a man of thirty-three 
 years or more, he is allowed to pronounce his 
 last and solemn vows by which he becomes a 
 Professed Father, which is the highest grade in 
 the Society of Jesus. The Professed Father is 
 capable of being elected or appointed to any 
 office in the religious body, from which he can- 
 not be separated by any dispensation of vows. 
 But he enjoys no exemption from the common 
 life; he may be kept teaching in the class-room 
 
26 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 or employed in any humble duties of the sacred 
 ministry all his life. To keep him from any 
 ambition of dignities he is obliged to take spe- 
 cial vows by which he promises to God that he 
 will never do anything for the purpose of ob- 
 taining any office of superiorship in the Society, 
 nor out of the Society any prelacy or office of 
 dignity whatever, and to make known to su- 
 periors any one of his brethren who should be 
 guilty of such ambition. 
 
 The entire subject of the training of Jesuit 
 professors and their manner of teaching is 
 treated in Father Hughes' volume entitled 
 "Loyola and The Educational System of the 
 Jesuits," in Scribner's series of ''The Great Ed- 
 ucators," edited by Nicholas Murray Butler. 
 
 39. The solemn vows of the professed are 
 those of perpetual poverty, chastity and obedi- 
 ence with special care of the education of chil- 
 dren, and special obedience to the Sovereign 
 Pontiff to undertake any mission he may im- 
 pose. 
 
 Such then are the professed Jesuits, formed 
 according to the Constitution of St. Ignatius ; 
 such are the men whom the enemies of God and 
 their ignorant dupes consider to be so dangerous 
 to Church and State. 
 
 40. While the Society strives to give this same 
 training to all her students, or " Scholastics," 
 there must necessarily be many cases in which ill 
 
The Constitution of the Society 27 
 
 health, or advanced age on entering reHgion, or 
 a variety of other causes hinders in part the 
 lengthy and difficult course of preparation. 
 And yet persons so affected are usually well 
 fitted to perform some of the varied labors of 
 the Jesuit priest. These constitute a class 
 apart, that of the ''Spiritual Coadjutors." They 
 take simple, instead of solemn, vows, and are 
 not eligible nor can they vote for some few im- 
 portant offices; but in other respects there is no 
 difference made between them and the pro- 
 fessed. Very many of them have been, in every 
 age, among the most esteemed and renowned 
 men of the Order. 
 
 41. The Constitution also provides for the 
 admission and training of another class of mem- 
 bers, the "Lay-Brothers," or "Temporal Coad- 
 jutors." These are devout young men, usually 
 admitted between the ages of twenty and thirty 
 years, who do not aspire to the priesthood, but 
 are willing to cooperate with the priests by 
 spending their lives in humble services about 
 the house, and in retirement and frequent 
 prayer. They perform the retreat of thirty days 
 in their novitiate, and have their yearly eight 
 days^ retreat, their triduums of recollection, 
 daily meditations, Mass, examinations of con- 
 science, etc., the same as the Scholastics. Very 
 many of this degree have attained to the highest 
 virtue, and one of them, Alphonsus Rodriguez, 
 
28 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 is honored by the Church among the canonized 
 Saints. 
 
 42. The Society is governed by a Father Gen- 
 eral, who resides in Rome. He has five Assist- 
 ants, who attend to the interests of the ItaHan, 
 German, French, Spanish and EngHsh prov- 
 inces respectively. These officials are elected by 
 the General Congregation, which consists of the 
 Fathers Provincials and two delegates from 
 each province. The General alone is elected 
 for life. He has the appointment of all the 
 provincials, rectors of colleges and lower su- 
 periors, thus securing everywhere unity of spirit 
 and of action. 
 
 43. All authority throughout the Society is 
 exercised in a very paternal manner, arbitrari- 
 ness and needless harshness would not be tol- 
 erated by higher superiors. All subjects are ex- 
 pected to be perfectly frank and open with their 
 superiors, and each one enjoys at all times free 
 communication with the highest powers. But 
 on the other hand the slightest direction of any- 
 one in authority is to be promptly and cheerfully 
 obeyed ; and obedience is more earnestly incul- 
 cated and insisted on than any other virtue "in 
 all things in which evidently there appears no 
 sin," as the rule expresses it. For the leading 
 idea of the Society is the imitation of Christ, 
 who during His thirty years of private life was 
 subject to His parents, and during all .His life 
 
The Constitution of the Society 29 
 
 did not do His own will but that of His Father 
 who sent Him. Infinite Wisdom stooped down 
 with infinite condescension to obey His crea- 
 tures, and the ambition of the Society of Jesus 
 is above all things to form men of the highest 
 learning and the deepest humility. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 INCREASING INFLUENCE OF THE JESUITS 
 
 44. We have seen above that a General Coun- 
 cil of the Church had been summoned to stem 
 the ever-swelling torrent of the Reformation, 
 and to make such reforms within the true fold 
 as the times had made imperative. The Coun- 
 cil assembled at Trent in 1545. Of the Jesuits, 
 Laynez and Salmeron attended it as theologians 
 of Pope Paul III, Claude Le Jay as representa- 
 tive of the Cardinal Archbishop of Augsburg. 
 Theirs was a delicate task: mere priests, they 
 were to discourse before bishops, archbishops 
 and cardinals and eighty of the most learned 
 theologians of the world; they were to treat of 
 definitions of doctrines and reformation of 
 abuses in the Church. Their learning, modesty 
 and holiness combined overcame all difficulties. 
 Laynez, speaking on the Holy Eucharist, quoted 
 from thirty-six Fathers or Doctors of the 
 Church, and declared that he had read all the 
 works of each of them. His conclusions were 
 unanimously accepted by the Council ; he was 
 allowed to speak on all occasions for an unlim- 
 ited time, which sometimes proved to be three 
 
 30 
 
Increasing Influence of the Jesuits 31 
 
 hours, while all others were usually restricted 
 to one hour only. Salmeron and Le Jay's dis- 
 courses on Grace excited general admiration. 
 Meanwhile all three acted as if they were the 
 most insignificant men in the assembly, appear- 
 ing in well worn cassocks, and faithfully com- 
 plying with the instructions which St. Ignatius 
 had given them, namely : ''Outside the Council 
 omit no opportunity of serving your neighbor; 
 seek for opportunities to hear confessions, to 
 preach, to give the Exercises ; instruct children 
 and visit the poor in the hospitals, so that by 
 works of humility and charity you may draw 
 down the Holy Spirit with greater abundance on 
 the Fathers of the Council." 
 
 45. But of course what endeared the Jesuits 
 to the Catholics made them odious to the Re- 
 formers, and the apostate Fra Paolo Sarpi, the 
 notorious false historian of the Council of Trent, 
 wrote to a friend: — "Nothing is more essential 
 than to ruin the influence of the Jesuits ; in ruin- 
 ing them we shall ruin Rome; and if Rome is 
 lost religion will reform itself." (The Jesuits, 
 their Foundation and History, by B. N. Vol. i, 
 p. 64.) No wonder then that many false 
 charges have been laid to the Society of Jesus 
 for the express purpose of lessening its influence. 
 
 46. Meanwhile St. Ignatius in Rome was 
 starting various institutions for the good of 
 souls ; thus he founded the monastery of St. 
 
32 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 Martha for women reclaimed from a life of 
 sin, and two schools for orphan children, which 
 existed till lately in care of the Brothers of St. 
 Jerome ^milian. He founded also the Roman 
 and the German colleges, both of which have 
 been ever since among the most renowned and 
 fruitful educational establishments in the world. 
 Among the professors of the former were 
 Suarez, Vasquez, Ledesma, Bellarmine, Cor- 
 nelius a Lapide, the older and the younger Sec- 
 chi, Perrone, Liberatore, Mazella, De Augus- 
 tinis, etc., and among its pupils Popes Innocent 
 X, Clement IX, Clement X, Innocent XII, 
 Clement XI, Innocent XIII, Clement XII and 
 Leo XIII, and the Saints Aloysius, Camillus of 
 Lellis and John Berchmans. 
 
 47. The German College was a most wise pro- 
 vision to supply Germany with learned and holy 
 priests, who should repair the sad havoc wrought 
 there by the Reformers. It was begun in 1553, 
 and two centuries later it counted already among 
 its alumni 24 cardinals, one Pope, 6 Electors of 
 the Holy Empire, 19 princes, 21 archbishops, 
 221 bishops and countless priests and martyrs, 
 and the excellent work has been going on to the 
 present day with undiminished success. 
 
 48. The work that had been begun in Spain 
 and Portugal by Blessed Peter Favre and Simon 
 Rodriguez had been proceeding steadily for sev- 
 eral years, bringing about numerous conversions 
 
Increasing Influence of the Jesuits 33 
 
 to better lives and accessions of desirable can- 
 didates to the novitiate, when an event occurred 
 which gave a new and powerful impulse to the 
 progress of the Society in those countries. The 
 celebrated Duke of Gandia, Francis Borgia, who 
 had governed Catalonia for some years as Vice- 
 roy for the Emperor Charles V, after the death 
 of his accomplished consort resolved to aban- 
 don all earthly grandeur and become an humble 
 member of the Society of Jesus. Some years 
 before, deputed to accompany the remains of 
 the Empress Isabella to their final resting place, 
 and beholding in the open casket the disfigured 
 corpse of the most admired lady of the land, he 
 had seen the vanity of human greatness, and 
 had resolved thenceforth to live for higher as- 
 pirations. He made the Spiritual Exercises un- 
 der Father Favre's directions, and then applied 
 for admission as a novice. Some years had 
 still to be spent in properly settling his chil- 
 dren in the world; then, in 1550, he was admit- 
 ted into the Order. He employed the great in- 
 fluence he possessed in extending the Society 
 throughout Spain, and he founded in his ducal 
 town of Gandia a large college so richly en- 
 dowed that all its students were to receive ever 
 after a liberal education without payment of 
 tuition. 
 
 49. This was the plan adopted by the Jesuits, 
 and it was gradually extended wherever they 
 
34 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 secured a firm footing; namely, to establish 
 classical colleges endowed by rich benefactors, 
 in which education was entirely free of expense. 
 The American people are apt to imagine that 
 free schools are a modern improvement. It is 
 a great mistake. All through the Middle Ages, 
 and in modern times up to the abolition of the 
 Jesuits and the confiscation of their colleges in 
 1773, education was generally imparted gratis 
 both in Europe and in missionary countries. 
 The Jesuits were not the originators of free 
 education, which was a very ancient Catholic 
 practice, but they were uncommonly active and 
 successful in establishing a very large number 
 of new colleges, and giving new efficiency to 
 older colleges and universities of which they as- 
 sumed the charge. 
 
 50. Portugal surpassed all other States in the 
 enthusiasm wherewith she welcomed the newly 
 born Society. In 1542 a college was established 
 and endowed at Lisbon and another at Co'imbra. 
 Progress was so rapid that in 1546 St. Ignatius 
 erected Portugal into a province of his Order. 
 A few years later Coimbra contained one hun- 
 dred and forty Jesuits ; it was supplying mis- 
 sionaries for every quarter of the globe, in- 
 structors for other colleges and new foundations 
 for other cities. 
 
 51. The enthusiasm of the Portuguese in 
 favor of the Jesuits was fostered by the good 
 
Increasing Influence of the Jesuits 35 
 
 tidings, constantly coming from the East Indies, 
 of the glorious achievements and spiritual con- 
 quests of St. Francis Xavier among both Chris- 
 tians and pagans, of the miracles he was work- 
 ing, healing the sick, raising the dead to life, 
 while a large number of his religious brethren 
 were following up and enlarging on the work 
 which he had so nobly begun. Many of the 
 missionaries were like bright stars in the galaxy 
 of Portugal ; but all pale in the light of the 
 great apostle and thaumaturgus of modern 
 times, St. Francis Xavier. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE JESUITS AND THE REFORMATION IN GER- 
 MANY 
 
 52. It has been frequently remarked that St. 
 Ignatius appears to have been raised up by 
 Divine Providence to stem the torrent of the 
 Protestant Reformation when it threatened to 
 overwhelm the Catholic Church. The energy, 
 the ability and the success with which his fol- 
 lowers fulfilled that mission are certainly very 
 conspicuous. The principal field of the reli- 
 gious battle was for many years the collection of 
 States which is generally called Germany. 
 Catholicity there was in a most deplorable con- 
 dition. The powerful assaults of Luther, the 
 seductive eloquence of Melanchthon, the glowing 
 harangues of Bucer, Carlstadt and Bullinger 
 had severed large portions from the Church, and 
 infused the poison of false doctrines and disaffec- 
 tion throughout the remainder of those prov- 
 inces. According to the Protestant historian 
 Ranke, the present Empire of Austria, which is 
 almost totally Catholic, then contained only one 
 Catholic to ten Protestants among the people; 
 and against ten Protestant theologians of re- 
 
 36 
 
The Reformation in Germany 37 
 
 nown scarcely one Catholic was found to defend 
 the ancient faith. Even the archbishop of 
 Cologne had apostatized. 
 
 53. Such was the religious desolation of Ger- 
 many that, when the Jesuit Father Peter Can- 
 isius came to Vienna in 1551, more than twenty 
 years had elapsed since the university had fur- 
 nished one worthy candidate for the priesthood. 
 When Father Le Jay, who had accomplished 
 wonders in improving the morals of the Ger- 
 man clergy, died in 1552, the immense influ- 
 ence he possessed was inherited by Blessed 
 Canisius, who had become favorably known by 
 his conspicuous services rendered at the Coun- 
 cil of Trent, and by his remarkable ability in the 
 presidency of the University of Ingolstadt. 
 From Ingolstadt he was, at the request of Fer- 
 dinand, King of the Romans, transferred to 
 Vienna. In both places he shone by his learn- 
 ing and his eloquence, exhibited especially in 
 controversies with the Reformers. He com- 
 posed a Catechism of Catholic doctrine which 
 became a powerful weapon in the hands of the 
 controversialists ; it has been approved by Popes 
 and bishops, translated into almost all European 
 languages, and has gone through five hundred 
 editions. 
 
 54. The success of the Jesuits in the Univer- 
 sities of Ingolstadt and Vienna had been so grat- 
 ifying to the bishops and the princes that the 
 
38 Who Are the Jesnitsf 
 
 archbishop of Augsburg gave over to them his 
 University of DilHngen. Happily in those times 
 the language of the educated was everywhere the 
 Latin, and during a long period the professors 
 who lectured in the German Universities were 
 Jesuits from various Latin countries. Ranke, 
 the Protestant historian, says of them: 'They 
 were natives of Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. 
 For a long time even the name of their Society 
 was unknown, and they were styled the Spanish 
 priests. They filled the chairs of the universi- 
 ties, and there met with disciples willing to em- 
 brace their faith. Germany has no part in 
 them; their doctrines, their constitutions, had 
 been completed and reduced to form before they 
 appeared in our midst. . . . They have de- 
 feated us on our own soil, and wrested from 
 us a share of our fatherland." (History of 
 the Papacy, IH, p. 44.) 
 
 55. The work done by the Jesuits in Ger- 
 many was so brilliant that it is becoming to let 
 the pens of aliens describe it. The same Ranke 
 writes: "In 1552 the Jesuits had no residence 
 in Germany; in 1566 we encounter them in Ba- 
 varia, among the Tyrolese, in Franconia and 
 Suabia; they have spread over a great part of 
 the provinces of the Rhine and Austria; they 
 have penetrated into Hungary, Bohemia, and 
 Moravia. The effects of their presence are 
 soon perceptible. In 1561, the Papal Nuncio 
 
The Reformation in Germany 39 
 
 informs us, that they had made many conver- 
 sions, and rendered infinite service to the Holy 
 See. This was the first durable anti-Protes- 
 tant impulse communicated to Germany." (His- 
 tory of the Papacy, HI, p. 39.) The sceptical 
 Montaigne remarked : ''I am of opinion that 
 there never appeared among us a body of men 
 who have held so high a rank, or effected so 
 much. If they do not relax in the prosecution 
 of their plans, they will very shortly gain a 
 dominant position throughout Christendom. 
 Their Order is a seminary of men illustrious in 
 every career, and from them the heretics of our 
 times have more to fear than from any other 
 members of the Church." {Voyages de 
 Montaigne en Allemagne et en Italie, p. 666.) 
 56. That the fear they inspired into heretics 
 was due to the virtues of the Jesuits, and how 
 this effect was produced is thus explained by 
 the same unimpeachable authority, Ranke, who 
 says: |*Tt must be confessed that they lacked 
 neither zeal nor prudence. You will see them 
 extending their labors successively in all the 
 places in the vicinity of their establishments, se- 
 ducing and gaining over the masses. Their 
 churches are always thronged. Is there any- 
 where found a Lutheran skilled in his Bible, 
 who by his teachings acquires some influence 
 over his neighbors, they use every means to ob- 
 tain his conversion ; and so habituated are they 
 
40 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 to polemic discussions that they rarely fail. 
 They devote themselves to the offices of charity, 
 they heal the sick, they reconcile enemies, and 
 strengthen in their faith, by the contraction of 
 new obligations, those whom they have suc- 
 ceeded in reclaiming." (Ibid. p. 49.) 
 
 57. Poland was included in the sphere of 
 Jesuit zeal. Ranke states: "In Poland the 
 Jesuit schools were frequented principally by 
 the young nobility, who themselves undertook 
 to spread the faith among the lower orders in 
 cities yet remaining true to the Protestant cause. 
 But Catholicity exerted its chief influence on the 
 higher classes. Four hundred students, all of 
 the nobility, filled the college of Pultovsk. The 
 tendency of the times, the teaching of the 
 Jesuits, the newly aroused zeal of the clergy; 
 all these concurred to dispose the Polish nobility 
 to reenter the Church." (History of the Papacy, 
 IV, p. 13.) A friendly pen, that of the Abbe 
 Maynard, in his "Studies and Teachings of the 
 Society of Jesus" thus writes about Blessed 
 Peter Canisius: "His was the guiding spirit of 
 all the diets, he is charged with various nuncia- 
 tures, carries on the warfare with the heretics, 
 and replies to the Centuriators of Magdeburg. 
 The slumbering faith of princes and clergy is 
 awakened, and the Jesuits are everywhere called 
 for. To respond to these demands they seem 
 gifted with ubiquity. They are laboring every- 
 
The Reformation in Germany 41 
 
 where, and everywhere are their labors success- 
 ful" (p. 98). 
 
 58. It must not be supposed however that the 
 reclaiming of the German States to the Church 
 was achieved by the direct labors of the Jesuits 
 alone. In their colleges and universities they-^ 
 formed the youths to learning and virtue ; and 
 it was the pupils trained by them that furnished 
 in the course of time an army of secular priests, 
 religious of various Orders, princes and magis- 
 trates, writers and speakers, leaders of men 
 generally ; and it was these who acted with the 
 Jesuits in their influence on the people at large 
 throughout the length and breadth of the land, 
 and built up a vigorous Catholic population. 
 " To form virtuous, learned, able, fully reliable 
 leaders of men is the purpose for which the 
 Jesuits have made education one of their princi- 
 pal fields of labor. That also is the chief reason 
 why the enemies of the Catholic Church single 
 out the Jesuits as their first victims whenever 
 they attack religion by hostile legislation. / 
 
 But opposition to the Jesuits will be more 
 easily understood when we shall have seen what 
 they did in other lands than Germany. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE JESUITS IN CATHOLIC LANDS 
 
 59. While Canisius was successfully wag- 
 ing the spiritual warfare in Germany, St. Ig- 
 natius in Rome was approaching the end of his 
 earthly career. By nature of a vigorous and 
 robust constitution, he had become enfeebled by 
 austerities and toil, rather than by age ; but 
 though failing in bodily strength, no man had a 
 bearing so noble and dignified, or was so popu- 
 lar with persons of every rank and most oppo- 
 site characters. While directing by letter the 
 labors of his subjects in other lands, and super- 
 vising the training of the young recruits at home 
 and abroad, he preached often to various kinds 
 of audiences, but his favorite occupation was 
 that of teaching catechism to children. Though 
 his knowledge of the Italian language was im- 
 perfect, he made a deep impression on his hear- 
 ers, and large numbers of these flocked to him 
 in private for advice in matters of greatest mo- 
 ment. In the summer of 1556 his weakness in- 
 creased rapidly, but he spoke little of his suffer- 
 ings; after preparing himself quietly for death 
 and receiving Holy Communion with angelic de- 
 
 42 
 
The Jesuits in Catholic Lands 43 
 
 votion, before his companions realized the 
 seriousness of the situation, he quietly expired, 
 on July 31, the day on which occurs now all 
 over the Catholic Church the annual celebration 
 of his feast. Who can convince himself that 
 such a man can have been a danger to mankind 
 and the founder of a detestable Society? 
 
 60. Father Laynez was elected as his succes- 
 sor. He had the consolation of seeing the So- 
 ciety continue its successful labors in Italy, 
 Spain and Portugal, though occasional attacks 
 of envious men would now and then cause an- 
 noyance by false accusations. Even Pope Paul 
 IV had been influenced to interfere somewhat 
 in the labors of the Jesuits ; but very soon his 
 successor Pius IV loaded them with tokens of 
 his confidence and kindness. Among other 
 favors he gave them perfect liberty to found 
 new houses, and also the right to give the de- 
 grees of Bachelor, Master of Arts and Doctor 
 to the pupils of their colleges. 
 
 But their entrance upon the soil of France 
 met with serious and prolonged opposition; and 
 yet France needed them badly. The heresy of 
 Calvin was spreading its poison there through a 
 country convulsed by civil war, the Huguenots 
 striving to tear the whole land away from the 
 Catholic Church. The Parliament of Paris 
 might have been expected to welcome such ef- 
 fective auxiliaries to its cause, but Calvin had 
 
44 Who Arc the Jesuits? 
 
 secret partisans among its members. Laynez 
 determined to go to France himself, where, be- 
 fore the conference at Poissy between the 
 Huguenot leaders and the Catholic theologians, 
 he defended the Church so ably as to gain the 
 confidence and admiration of all the most in- 
 fluential bishops and cardinals. The result was 
 that, after a dozen years' opposition, the Jesuits 
 were at last allowed, in 1562, to found a college 
 in Paris. 
 
 61. But their difficulties were not at an end; 
 their teaching was gratuitous, while the uni- 
 versity students were required to pay a fee ; 
 hence constant opposition. But they had among 
 them members of such conspicuous merit that 
 a few years later their establishment in Paris 
 was the most flourishing and famous of all their 
 colleges. They owed much of this success to 
 Father Auger, one of the most eloquent orators 
 of the time, and as holy as he was eloquent. 
 He had entered the Society as a mere boy ; and 
 a troublesome, restless boy he was, trying the 
 patience of St. Ignatius as young Ribadineira 
 had done some years before ; but he had in him 
 the making of a great man, as he really be- 
 came. He had for long years confronted the 
 heretical preachers in Languedoc, Auvergne and 
 Dauphine, and foiled their attacks on the an- 
 cient faith. Once he had fallen into the hands 
 of the famous Calvinist leader, the Baron des 
 
The Jesuits in Catholic Lands 45 
 
 Ardrets, and was by him condemned to death ; 
 but he spoke so eloquently at the place of exe- 
 cution that the very ministers of error asked 
 that his death might be delayed. The next day 
 he was rescued by Catholic troops. When the 
 plague broke out at Lyons, Auger was indefati- 
 gable in assisting the sick and dying, and inspired 
 such admiration by his fearless devotedness that 
 the city in gratitude offered him the College of 
 the Holy Trinity, which he accepted for the So- 
 ciety. 
 
 62. Father Auger was assisted in his labors 
 by the learned Father Possevinus, who evangel- 
 ized most successfully the valleys of Savoy, 
 where the new errors had been spread. In a 
 short time he converted large numbers, among 
 whom were at least thirty-four Protestant 
 ministers. 
 
 Several colleges had been established in Italy 
 and Sicily, and the Jesuits spread themselves 
 over those countries, giving missions and re- 
 treats, and in various other ways assisting the 
 native clergy. Their heroic virtue was dis- 
 played on many occasions ; here is one example 
 of it. Father Venusti taught a class at the Col- 
 lege of Palermo, and devoted his spare time to 
 preaching in the neighboring villages. He had 
 interested himself in particular in reclaiming a 
 fallen priest, but met with black ingratitude. 
 The poor man, Ruggiero by name, waylaid the 
 
46 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 Father and stabbed him with a dagger, then fled. 
 When the dying man was asked by a passer-by 
 whether he knew his murderer, he answered; 
 "Yes; but, whoever he is, may God forgive him 
 as I do." But the murderer was found out, and 
 sought for by the Viceroy, who threatened 
 severe penalties against anyone who would 
 shelter the fugitive. He sought a refuge at the 
 Jesuit College of Bivona, where he was hidden 
 by the Fathers for two days, and then assisted 
 to fly to another country, where he did sincere 
 penance for his crime. 
 
 63. When Laynez at his death was succeeded 
 by St. Francis Borgia, in 1565, the Society pos- 
 sessed already 3,500 members and 130 houses, 
 divided into 18 provinces. The same year saw 
 the ascent to the Papal throne of another Saint, 
 Pius V. His uncompromising and enthusiastic 
 zeal for the service of God rendered him pe- 
 culiarly capable of appreciating men who, like^ 
 himself, never allowed difliculties or dangers to 
 check their apostolic labors. 
 
 When the plague broke out in Rome, in 1566, 
 and carried off thousands of the people, St. 
 Francis divided the city into districts, and as- 
 signed them to his subjects to attend the dying. 
 The Pope in gratitude then promised him that 
 whenever a like affliction should arise the post 
 of honor and danger should be given to the So- 
 ciety. Similar exhibitions of heroic charity 
 
The Jesuits in Catholic Lands 47 
 
 were witnessed in Southern Spain in 1571, 
 where the lately rebellious Moors were the 
 chief victims. At Toledo, Alcala, Guadalaxara 
 and other towns the Jesuits turned their houses 
 into hospitals. Many of the Fathers died at 
 their post. Father John Martinez expired while 
 lying down among the patients to hear their 
 confessions. In Madrid, in 1569, fourteen 
 Fathers fell victims of like charity. 
 
 64. About this time the Jesuits had entered 
 into the Netherlands, and established there some 
 flourishing colleges, in particular those of Ma- 
 lines, Antwerp and Tournay; but all these were 
 sacked by the Calvinists. 
 
 While various afflictions were thus befaUing 
 the Jesuits in different lands, their Society was 
 greatly honored and consoled by the advent to 
 the Roman novitiate, in 1567, of the youthful 
 St. Stanislaus Kostka, whom the Blessed Virgin 
 herself, in a vision at Vienna, had directed to 
 become a Jesuit. The boy-saint was destined 
 to be a special model during all future ages for 
 the thousands of youths who were to flock to 
 Catholic schools and colleges. Grown up to 
 early boyhood in angelic innocence in his parents' 
 home in Poland, he was formed to high sanctity 
 at the Jesuit College of Vi^enna, where his virtue 
 was refined in the crucible of persecution at the 
 hands of his tutor and his elder brother Paul. 
 There he had miraculously received Holy Com- 
 
48 Who Ave the Jesuits? 
 
 niunion at the hand of Angels, in what appeared 
 to be a mortal sickness ; he received from 
 Mary's hands her Divine Infant Son into his lov- 
 ing arms, and w^as then restored to perfect 
 health. He edified the novitiate by his cheer- 
 ful but perfect life for only ten months, and 
 then expired in the sweetest odor of sanctity. 
 
 65. Five months before the death of Stanislaus 
 another future Saint was born who was also to 
 be a bright ornament to the Society of Jesus 
 and a perfect model for her students, Aloysius 
 Gonzaga. After a long contest with his father 
 to be allowed to renounce his right of succes- 
 sion in the marquisate of Castiglione, he en- 
 tered the Roman novitiate of the Jesuits, whicn 
 he adorned with the brightest virtues ; and, made 
 perfect in a short time, he joyously departed for 
 Heaven on the 21st of June, 1591. 
 
 To these two scions of the nobility Divine 
 Providence added a third youthful Saint, a son 
 of the common people, St. John Berchmans. 
 An humble flower of piety, he had grown up as 
 it were at the feet of Mary's statue. On read- 
 ing the life of Blessed Aloysius, just then pub- 
 lished, he felt a strong desire to follow him, and 
 entered the novitiate. There he was called by 
 his companions *'the cheerful brother" ; but it 
 was the alacrity of an Angel. He is to-day by 
 his bright example drawing countless other 
 youths to lead holy lives ; he is the special patron 
 of the acolytes. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MISSIONS TO THE HEATHENS 
 
 66. While St. Francis Xavier and his numer- 
 ous companions were continuing their zealous 
 labors to convert the heathens in the East, other 
 missionaries of the Society had gone to evan- 
 gelize the savages of Brazil, where soon after 
 several of them gained the palm of martyrdom. 
 From 1549 the work of those missions had been 
 gradually widening its circle, and numerous souls 
 had been gained to Christ, when, in 1570, 
 Father Ignatius Azevedo undertook to give a 
 strong impulse to the work by going back to 
 Spain to gather more recruits. He collected 
 sixty-eight companions, many of them youthful 
 novices, and with thirty-nine of them embarked 
 on a vessel called the St. James. The ship 
 was attacked by the fierce Calvinist pirate 
 Jacques Sourie, who meant to pillage the vessel 
 and massacre the missionaries. Blessed Aze- 
 vedo was butchered at once. Life and liberty 
 were offered to the others if they would re- 
 nounce the faith, but all were glad to die for 
 Christ ; only the cook was spared, that he might 
 serve the pirates. In his stead a youthful 
 
 49 
 
50 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 nephew of the slaughtered captain put on the 
 blood-stained cassock of a dead missionary, and 
 shared the martyr's crown. That day St. 
 Theresa in Spain had a vision of the glorified 
 band. The feast of these Blessed Martyrs is 
 kept by the Church on the 15th of July, the an- 
 niversary of their heroic death. 
 
 The following year thirty other Jesuits were 
 similarly massacred by the Calvinist pirate Cap- 
 devielle. At last Father Tolosa with thirteen 
 companions reached Brazil in safety. This vast 
 field of labor was cultivated by the Jesuits for 
 two centuries with immense toil and the sacrifice 
 of numerous lives, but also with the most con- 
 soling fruit. While some evangelized the white 
 settlers and the Indian villages along the coast, 
 other missionaries penetrated into the forests 
 and gradually converted entire tribes of the sav- 
 ages, whom they induced to form colonies, called 
 "Reductions," where piety and industry were 
 happily blended under the supervision of the 
 provident men of God. The most renowned of 
 the Brazilian missionaries was the venerable 
 Father Anchieta, who composed a dictionary, a 
 grammar and various religious works in the 
 language of the converts. He spent many years, 
 partly in organizing the reductions, partly in 
 traveling alone tlirough the forests, with no 
 other baggage than his breviary and the neces- 
 sary articles for saying Mass, no weapon save 
 
Missions to the Heathens 51 
 
 his crucifix. Sometimes for months together he 
 would be the prisoner of some wild tribe, treated 
 cruelly till he converted the savages. The Lord 
 glorified his charity by countless miracles ; for 
 he cured the sick, raised the dead to life, fore- 
 told the future, so that he has been called the 
 Thaumaturgus of Brazil. 
 
 67. Similar reductions, formed in Paraguay, 
 have elicited the admiration of Catholic, Prot- 
 estant and infidel historians. But the formation 
 and maintenance of them required endless pa- 
 tience, consummate tact, unyielding persever- 
 ance. For the savages had not only to be con- 
 verted to the true faith, but to be changed in 
 their modes of living, their habits, their very 
 characters ; to be transformed into orderly, 
 obedient, industrious, steady and faithful citi- 
 zens of the colony. In 1614 there were 119 
 Jesuits scattered through Paraguay, and two re- 
 ductions in operation, the nucleus of what de- 
 veloped afterwards into a mighty work. 
 
 68. China had for many centuries been jeal- 
 ously barred against foreign influence. It is 
 thought to contain about one third of the popu- 
 lation of the globe, all of whom were without 
 the light of Christianity, when in i^^2 St . 
 F rancis Xav ipr, on the point of entering the 
 empire, expired on the neighboring island of 
 Sancian. Three years later Father Boretto suc- 
 ceeded in entering Canton ; but he had soon to 
 
e;2 Who Are the Jesuits f 
 
 abandon this post of vantage. For nearly 
 thirty years the Jesuits tried in vain to effect a 
 settlement, v^^hen at last Fathers Ruggieri and 
 Ricci obtained leave to live in Tchao-Khing, in 
 the province of Canton. They built a house 
 and chapel, and assuming the costumes of the 
 literates, began to teach religion. The explana- 
 tion of the ten Commandments created special 
 admiration, so that the literates requested them 
 to commit their teachings to writing. With in- 
 finite pains they published an abridgment of the 
 Christian doctrine in the Chinese tongue. 
 
 But as the toleration of the missionaries de- 
 pended altogether upon the good will of some 
 mandarins, they were soon obliged to leave Can- 
 ton, and could only settle in an unhealthy town, 
 where two of the number soon expired. Father 
 Ricci determined to make his way to Pekin, and 
 gain the protection of the Emperor himself. 
 After prolonged efforts and exhausting journeys 
 he reached Pekin at last, but only to find that 
 access to the monarch was impossible. So he 
 went to Nankin and opened there a school of 
 mathematics and the physical sciences. His lec- 
 tures were taken down in writing, printed and 
 scattered through the land. Then he began to 
 preach religion and soon formed a fervent con- 
 gregation of converts. 
 
 Encouraged by this success and furnished with 
 letters of recommendation from the literates, 
 
Missions to the Heathens 53 
 
 Ricci set out again for Pekin, carrying with him 
 several clocks as presents to the Emperor. On 
 the way he was seized by a powerful mandarin, 
 who kept him six months a close prisoner, and 
 would never have released him if the Emperor 
 had not heard of the clocks that were coming, 
 and sent immediately for the European scientist. 
 Ricci so delighted the sovereign that he gained 
 after a while free access to the palace, a thing 
 unheard of before regarding any foreigner. 
 This conciliated for him universal favor among 
 the people. A chapel was built in the city, and 
 a number of leading men with their families be- 
 came fervent and steadfast Christians. Hence- 
 forth, for a long period, all over China, liberty 
 of action was secured for all the missionaries. 
 Applicants for Baptism were found everywhere ; 
 but strict conditions were laid down for admis- 
 sion among the faithful, the result being that 
 there grew up numerous congregations distin- 
 guished for eminent virtue and piety. Even a 
 novitiate was opened, and gradually a native 
 clergy of uncommon fervor began to assist the 
 European Fathers and Brothers. Fr. Ricci 
 was constantly in evidence, preaching, promoting 
 science, writing and publishing books, instruct- 
 ing converts, etc. Worn out with excessive 
 toil, he died in 1610, when only fifty-eight years 
 old. His funeral was most solemn, a public 
 tribute to his distinguished greatness, and the 
 
54 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 Emperor gave the Fathers a palace and grounds 
 near the city to serve as his burial place. 
 
 The labors of the Jesuits in China were con- 
 tinued for generations afterwards with most 
 gratifying success, such scientists as Schall, Ver- 
 biest and others maintaining their reputation for 
 extraordinary profane learning, while numerous 
 Fathers and Brothers astonished and edified the 
 natives by their heroic virtue. Pope Innocent 
 XI addressed a brief to the missionaries in 1681, 
 in which he said : "It has been especially wel- 
 come to us to observe with what wisdom and 
 tact you have applied the use of human science 
 to the salvation of the people of China, and to 
 the service and increase of religion. . . . 
 There is nothing that we may not hope for, with 
 the help of Heaven, from men such as you." 
 
 69. As has been the case all along through- 
 out the history of the Society of Jesus, the mem- 
 bers were too few in the seventeenth century to 
 do all the work before them ; and yet in their 
 zeal to save souls they were ever prospecting 
 for new fields of missionary enterprise. With 
 this object, as no Fathers could be spared, the 
 lay-brother Goes was sent to explore the King- 
 dom of Catai. He traveled alone, in the dis- 
 guise of an Armenian, and after five years he 
 found a way from India to China through Tar- 
 tary. Another lay-brother was sent by Father 
 Ricci to meet him on his arrival in China. He 
 
Missions to the Heathens 55 
 
 found Brother Goes in a dying condition, but 
 happy to expire in the arms of his fellow-re- 
 Hgious, to whom he said in his last moments : 
 ''My dear brother, it is five years since I have 
 been to Confession, and I am now deprived of 
 that happiness ; but blessed be Our Lord, for 
 by His grace I do not remember, since my de- 
 parture, to have committed any fault the recol- 
 lection of which can sadden me at this mo- 
 ment." 
 
 70. Father Alexander de Rhodes began the 
 mission of Cochin China and Tong-King about 
 the year 1627; twelve years later it contained 
 82,000 Christians, and at the end of half a cen- 
 tury 200,000 had been received into the Church. 
 Banished from those lands by the machinations 
 of the idolaters, the missionary returned to Eu- 
 rope and there founded the congregation of the 
 ''Missions Etrangcres/' which has given to the 
 Church countless Apostles and Martyrs. He 
 himself traveled over Persia, Media and Ar- 
 menia. The mission of Tong-King was con- 
 tinued by the Jesuits in the midst of incessant 
 persecutions. 
 
 In India an almost insurmountable obstacle 
 prevented the spread of Christianity among the 
 higher castes of the nation, the Brahmins, or 
 priests, and the members of the learned classes, 
 called Rajahs. These refused to have any inter- 
 course whatever with the Pariahs, or with any- 
 
56 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 one that employed the Pariahs as even mere 
 servants. The Portuguese had done so all 
 along; therefore all of them were accounted as 
 Pariahs, to be shunned by the higher castes. 
 Father Robert de Nobili resolved to give up all 
 intercourse with his brethren and live like a 
 Brahmin. He dwelt alone in a hut of turf, 
 dressed like a Rajah, subsisting on rice, herbs 
 and water, taken only once a day, and spending 
 his time in study and prayer. The Brahmins 
 began to visit him ; they were charmed by his 
 learning, especially by his perfect knowledge of 
 their Vedas, or sacred books. Gradually he 
 proceeded to explain the doctrines of the faith. 
 Other Fathers were sent to join him ; in a few 
 years over 100,000 had been converted, nearly 
 all of whom belonged to the higher castes. 
 
 However the conduct of Father de Nobili and 
 his associates was severely criticised at Goa, as 
 opposed to the idea of Christian equality and 
 tainted w4th superstition. He went to Goa to 
 defend his conduct before a synod of priests 
 presided over by the grand-inquisitor of the 
 place. The decision was, referred to Rome, 
 where Pope Gregory XV justified the Father in 
 all he had done. 
 
 71. In the United States we are naturally in- 
 terested in a special way in the Jesuit Missions 
 of North America, and these make up a bright 
 chapter of heroic virtue practised in the midst 
 
Missions to the Heathens 57 
 
 of uncommon difficulties. The explorations of 
 Father Marquette and his discovery of the Mis- 
 sissippi certainly reflect glory upon such apos- 
 tolic men ; but the courage therein displayed is 
 far outdone by the missionary labors and the 
 sufferings of Father Jogues, Breboeuf, Lalle- 
 mant, Daniel, Bressani and many others. Per- 
 haps it would be difficult, in the history of all 
 times and all lands, to find men remarkable for 
 longer and at the same time more severe hard- 
 ships and tortures, endured with unyielding pa- 
 tience, than the Catholic missionaries generally; 
 and those of Canada seem to have borne more 
 than the common share. We will quote one in- 
 stance. Father Bressani, in 1664, writes to 
 Father General an account of his late sufferings 
 from the Iroquois Indians. He begins by apol- 
 ogizing for the stains that cover his paper, as he 
 wrote upon the bare earth, with damp gunpow- 
 der to serve as ink, and the blood from his 
 wounds flowing on the pages. For many weeks 
 he had been dragged through the woods, ex- 
 posed to hunger and cold, tortured and beaten 
 daily ; his hands were burnt eighteen times ; all 
 the fingers of his right hand except one were 
 cut off ; he was hung up by the feet, and at night 
 tied upright to a tree, so that even then rest was 
 impossible, etc. In the life of Father Jogues 
 such torments lasted for years. And yet when 
 he had at last succeeded in escaping and had got 
 
58 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 back to Europe, he could not rest till he re- 
 turned to Canada, where he was murdered by 
 the Indians for the Gk)spel which he preached. 
 
 y2. The missions of the Jesuits like those of 
 other religious Orders, are an endless story of 
 heroic enterprises, dauntless zeal, persevering 
 labors, cruel sufferings, unyielding patience, and 
 bloody deaths for the glory of God and the sal- 
 vation of souls. Those of Canada and the 
 Northern portions of the United States have 
 lately been published under the title of "Jesuit 
 Relations and Allied Documents" by the Bur- 
 rows Brothers, Cleveland. They fill seventy- 
 two octavo volumes. Hundreds of volumes 
 would have to be added to narrate similar labors 
 in other heathen countries. The same spirit of 
 pure zeal and generous self-sacrifice reigns in 
 all of them. Enough has here been told to an- 
 swer the question on our title page, "Who Are 
 The Jesuits?", as far at least as their missions 
 to the heathens are concerned. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 OPPOSITION TO THE JESUITS 
 
 73. The open war of the Jesuits against error 
 and vice has been going on from the beginning 
 of their history and is to go on till its end. It 
 is their life, their only raison d'etre. It is car- 
 ried on, not by the sword, but by the pen and the 
 crucifix and prayer and sacrifice ; for like the 
 Apostles of old they preach Christ and Him 
 crucified, and like the Apostles they have been 
 persecuted, they have been put into prisons and 
 they have sealed their testimony with their blood. 
 Above all they have been slandered. 
 
 From the first years of their existence their 
 Society was, as we have seen, among the fore- 
 most defenders of the Catholic Church against 
 the assaults of rising Protestantism. The con- 
 test between these conflicting forces for the 
 mastery was a severe battle during at least a 
 century. "At first," writes Macaulay, "the 
 chances seemed to be decidedly in favor of 
 Protestantism, but the victory remained with the 
 Church of Rome. On every point it was suc- 
 cessful." Pie draws the following contrast: 
 "In fifty years from the day in which Luther 
 
 59 
 
6o Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 publicly renounced communion with the Church of 
 Rome and burned the bull of Leo before the gates 
 of Wittenberg, Protestantism attained its highest 
 ascendency — an ascendency which it soon lost, 
 and which it has never regained. In England, 
 Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Livonia, Prussia, 
 Saxony, Hesse, Wurtemburg, the Palatinate, in 
 several cantons of Switzerland, in the Northern 
 Netherlands, the Reformation had completely 
 triumphed, and in all the other countries on this 
 side of the Alps and the Pyrenees, it seemed on 
 the point of triumphing. . . . If we over- 
 leap another half century, we find her (the 
 Church of Rome) victorious and dominant in 
 France, Belgium, Bavaria, Bohemia, Austria and 
 Hungary. Nor has Protestantism, in the course 
 of two hundred years, been able to reconquer 
 any portion of what it then lost. It is more- 
 over not to be dissembled that this wonderful 
 triumph of the Papacy is to be chiefly attributed, 
 not to force of arms, but to a great reflux in 
 public opinion." (Essay on Ranke's History of 
 the Popes.) 
 
 74. That great reflux in public opinion was, 
 of course, the work of grace ; the Church was 
 the agent' of God in the matter ; and the Jesuits 
 were very conspicuous agents of the Church. 
 And therefore the Jesuits were more hateful in 
 the eyes of Protestants than any other body of 
 men. It would then have been wonderful if in 
 
opposition to the Jesuits 6i 
 
 the midst of this extraordinary reHgious and 
 poHtical excitement the leading writers of the 
 Protestant party had not tried their best to les- 
 sen the influence of the Jesuits by all manners 
 of accusations. They constantly assailed their 
 lives, their methods, their teachings, their col- 
 leges, their writings, their direction of penitents 
 in the confessional, etc. Libraries could be 
 filled with books and papers calumniating the 
 Society of Jesus. English literature in particu- 
 lar, which is generally anti-Catholic, is especially 
 anti-Jesuit to the core. 
 
 Just as the associated press lately sent all over 
 the reading world the slander that the Jesuits 
 had thrown dynamite among an inoffensive line 
 of students in Portugal, while the nuns were 
 making a bloody assault on the soldiers, and the 
 entire press of this country printed the account 
 with scarcely an expression of doubt, so have 
 the Jesuits in particular and religious in general 
 been accused by Protestant historians, preachers 
 and all manner of writers, of every crime in the 
 catalogue. Macaulay writes of the Jesuits : 
 ''Nor was it less their office to plot against the 
 thrones and lives of apostate kings, to spread 
 evil rumors, to raise tumults, to inflame civil 
 wars, to arm the hand of the assassin. . . . 
 The right of rulers to misgovern the people, the 
 right of every one of the people to plunge his 
 knife in the heart of a bad ruler, were incul- 
 
62 JVIio Are the Jesuits? 
 
 cated by the same man, according as he addressed 
 himself to the subject of Phihp or the subject of 
 EHzabeth." (lb.) 
 
 Macaulay in this passage is only repeating 
 what has been said a thousand times by the ene- 
 mies of the Jesuits, but not proved a single time. 
 And it is the same with all the other charges of 
 any serious nature that have been brought against 
 the Society of Jesus. It is so easy to impute a 
 crime to a whole body of men, and so difficult 
 to prove a negative, especially when the defender 
 has no chance to get a hearing. 
 
 75. It is" often argued that there must be 
 something very wrong with the Jesuits because 
 not Protestants alone but Catholics also have 
 often opposed them ; and in fact they have been 
 driven out of many Catholic lands. Yes, but 
 by whom? From Portugal just now because 
 the pronounced enemies of the Catholic Church 
 and of all religion are in power. From France, 
 because the Freemason government there openly 
 proclaims its determination to stamp out all 
 Christianity. And what they now proclaim 
 openly as their direct purpose they labored for 
 in hidden ways in former times, as they at pres- 
 ent boast. The Jesuits were excluded from Ger- 
 many by the authors of the Kulturkampf, and 
 are kept out to-day by the enemies of the Pope. 
 They were driven from Italy, a Catholic land, 
 but by an anti-Catholic party. They were driven 
 
opposition to the Jesuits 63 
 
 from Spain on former occasions, and may be 
 expelled thence any day again, contingently 
 upon the anti-religious character of those who 
 happen to control the power. 
 
 76. The principal source of the bitterness felt 
 by Englishmen generally against the Jesuits is 
 the part these took in resisting Elizabeth and 
 her successors on the throne, when a most bloody 
 persecution strove to impose the Reformation on 
 the country. And yet their conduct in that mat- 
 ter is a brilliant gem in the crown of the So- 
 ciety of Jesus, and in that of the Catholic 
 Church itself ; it is a close imitation of the con- 
 duct of the Apostles of Christ. The efforts 
 made by Elizabeth to crush out the ancient faith 
 were like those formerly made by Julian the 
 Apostate, and exceeded them in cunning, cruelty 
 and duration. For a hundred years it was ac- 
 counted treason for any priest who had been or- 
 dained on the continent to enter England and 
 say Mass there, or reconcile any fallen Catholic 
 to the Church of his fathers. The penalty was, 
 to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execu- 
 tion, there to be hanged, cut down and disem- 
 boweled while still alive, then cut up into four 
 parts, and the quarters exposed in a public place 
 till the birds had picked off all the flesh. Dur- 
 ing Elizabeth's reign alone 124 priests were thus 
 executed, and a large number of seculars, men 
 and women, who had sheltered the priests or adr 
 
64 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 mitted their ministrations. Many others died in 
 prison of tortures and privations. The old 
 priests of preceding reigns were rapidly passing 
 away, and no Catholic bishops remained in Eng- 
 land to ordain fresh recruits. The object of the 
 government was to force all the country into 
 Protestantism by cutting off all supply of priests. 
 77. To prevent this crying evil, Rev. Wm. 
 Allen, formerly principal of St. Mary's Hall, 
 Oxford, established a seminary for young Eng- 
 lishmen at Douay, which was afterwards trans- 
 ferred to Rheims, in France. Then he went tc 
 Rome and begged earnestly for the assistance 
 of the Jesuits. The first two sent over for this 
 purpose were Fathers Robert Parsons and Ed- 
 mund Campion, both English and Oxford men, 
 endowed with extraordinary talents and thor- 
 oughly educated. Both soon exerted a power- 
 ful influence. Parsons was active and bold, 
 gifted with rare knowledge of character, pos- 
 sessed of a mind fertile in expedients, ready wit 
 and untiring energy, and thus well suited to ap- 
 proach all sorts of persons, supporting the Cath- 
 olics, priests and laity, by his example and wise 
 counsels, and bringing back large numbers of 
 *he fallen to the path of duty. Blessed Campion 
 from his boyhood had been conspicuous for lit- 
 erary ability and amiability of disposition, a uni- 
 versal favorite. He soon wrote a book, called 
 the ''Ten Reasons," by which he was ready to de- 
 
opposition to the Jesuits 65 
 
 fend the claims of the Catholic Church in public 
 discussions, if the universities or the govern- 
 ment would send disputants to oppose him. 
 Father Parsons managed to have the book se- 
 cretly printed and copies scattered through the 
 country. It created an intense excitement 
 among the learned and led to many conver- 
 sions. The prime minister, Cecil, became all the 
 more active in his persecution. The Fathers 
 then left London, under the guidance of mem- 
 bers of an association called "Young Gentle- 
 men," organized by a rich squire, George Gil- 
 bert, to protect all the missionaries. They went 
 separately, as Father Parsons writes, "through 
 most parts of the shires of England, preaching 
 and administering the Sacraments in almost 
 every gentleman's and nobleman's house that we 
 passed by, whether he was Catholic or not, pro- 
 vided he had any Catholics in his house to hear 
 us. . . . We had our lodgings, by procure- 
 ment of the Catholics within the house, in some 
 part retired from the rest, where . . . the 
 next morning very early we had Mass, and the 
 Blessed Sacrament ready for such as would com- 
 municate." 
 
 The Jesuits had many hair-breadth escapes, 
 and after one year Campion was betrayed by 
 the pursuivant Eliot, caught in the Castle of a 
 Mr. Yates, taken to London, and there confined 
 in a solitary dungeon called "little ease," where 
 
66 ' Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 he could scarcely move, and three times racked 
 to within an inch of his life. When he was half 
 dead with exhaustion from torture and hardship, 
 he was brought to a semi-public disputation, and 
 seated on a stool without support while two 
 learned deans plied him with objections to the 
 Catholic doctrine, and continued the dispute for 
 three days. But such were Campion's intellect, 
 eloquence and undaunted spirit that many who 
 had come to scoff went away greatly edified. 
 
 78. Blessed Campion, with Blessed Alexander 
 Briant, Blessed Thomas Cottam, all Jesuits, and 
 four secular priests, also beatified, were con- 
 demned as guilty of high treason and executed 
 as described above. The secular priests who 
 died victims of the cruel and protracted persecu- 
 tion in England displayed the same heroic forti- 
 tude as the religious of various Orders; but we 
 must confine ourselves to our subject, and show 
 "Who Are the Jesuits ?" 
 
 When on December 7, 1581, Campion was 
 butchered at Tyburn, a drop of the martyr's 
 blood fell upon Henry Walpole, who from that 
 moment felt himself called to enter the Society 
 of Jesus; he estimated the number of persons 
 converted on the spot at 1,000, and Father Par- 
 sons soon after wrote to Rome that 4,000 had 
 lately entered the Church. 
 
 The number of Jesuits in England increased 
 so rapidly that some twenty years later there was 
 
opposition to the Jesuits 67 
 
 an English province of tlie Society; for Father 
 Garnet, who was so unjustly accused of having 
 taken part in the Gunpowder Plot, was provin- 
 cial superior at the time. He had come to the 
 country with Father Southwell, the gentle poet 
 of our language, who was tortured thirteen times, 
 and then cruelly hanged and quartered at Ty- 
 burn, like so many of his brethren. A price was 
 set on the head of every Jesuit, and of course 
 all were ever hiding. They would have been 
 foolish if they had not studied such secrecy, and 
 protected themselves and others by every lawful 
 means. They were often very successful in 
 these efforts, to the great annoyance of the Prot- 
 estants. These called the Jesuits secret emis- 
 saries of the Popes, and branded their evasive 
 answers before the courts as ''prevarications." 
 The false charge has been perpetuated in the 
 English language by coining the opprobrious 
 terms "Jesuiiry," "Jesuitical" to denote false 
 and deceitful language. Yet their answers were 
 not false, but merely necessary and lawful eva- 
 sions, such as are allowed to all accused parties 
 before the courts of justice in the United States. 
 79. Happily those persecutions have passed 
 away. The secrecy of the Jesuits exists no 
 longer except in the perverted traditions of his- 
 torians and the prejudices of an ignorant public. 
 Amid those constant dangers of imprisonment, 
 torture and a cruel death, the Jesuits were com- 
 
68 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 pelled to assume various disguises, sometimes 
 traveling as merchants, peddlers, well-to-do gen- 
 tlemen, etc., so that even a magistrate might be 
 conversing with one of them without ever sus- 
 pecting it. Hence the false impression has orig- 
 inated that even to-day there are Jesuits in dis- 
 guise scattered through this country. Thus a 
 few years ago a congressman in Washington in 
 one of his speeches stated that he could point out 
 such persons among the representatives of the 
 nation then present in the hall. Such ignorance 
 is truly laughable ; but considering that it exists 
 among men of education, it is really disgraceful. 
 It can only be accounted for by remembering 
 that English literature is thoroughly saturated 
 with the poison of prejudice and hostility to the 
 Catholic Church. For this the present genera- 
 tion of Protestants and infidels are more to be 
 pitied than blamed ; and these pages are intended 
 to tell them the plain, unvarnished truth. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SOCIETY 
 
 80. From all that has so far been said it is 
 evident that the Society of Jesus had been insti- 
 tuted for the most laudable purposes, the glory 
 of God and the welfare of men, and that its 
 members have in various lands and times exhib- 
 ited heroic virtue in pursuing those lofty de- 
 signs. Of course v^e do not pretend that every 
 one of them was an Ignatius, a Xavier, an 
 Aloysius, a Campion, or the equal of such Saints ; 
 but we do maintain that the number of truly 
 great and admirable Jesuits, in sanctity of life, 
 in apostolic labors, in learned writings, in zeal- 
 ous and eloquent preaching, in the more hidden 
 life of the confessional, the classroom and the 
 hospital, etc., etc., is exceedingly large in pro- 
 portion to the fewness of the men admitted into 
 their Order. We maintain besides that the great 
 heroes we have mentioned, and others like them, 
 are ever held up to the novices and young mem- 
 bers of each succeeding generation as their mod- 
 els for emulation. The training of all by the 
 same Spiritual Exercises, the Constitution and 
 the rules of the Order, the religious vows and 
 
 69 
 
/ 
 
 o WJio Are the Jesuits? 
 
 their observance, — these have remained the same 
 throughout the history of the Society, except 
 only that more prayer has been added by the 
 General Congregations, and more cautions en- 
 acted to prevent all relaxation. 
 
 8i. Of course faults have at times been com- 
 mitted by individuals, and when they did occur 
 they have given great scandal, because in such 
 contrast to the general reputation of the Order. 
 Thus a Jesuit Father stood out so prominent 
 among the Modernists. But such men do not 
 infect the Society, because as soon as found out 
 they are expelled from its body, and they leave 
 behind them for their brethren nothing but a 
 warning against similar falls. And so the So- 
 ciety of Jesus has never had a season of relaxa- 
 tion or decay. While Hannibal's soldiers were 
 in the field of war they were heroic, when in the 
 rest and luxury of Capua they were demoral- 
 ized. 
 
 The Jesuits have all along been at war with 
 the enemies of God and His Church, ever on 
 the firing line and in the thickest of the bat- 
 tle. In every land where and when the op- 
 ponents of the Church prevailed, these have ex- 
 pelled the Jesuits, as we have seen above. If 
 in France the Sorbonne opposed them, it was the 
 natural jealousy of trade, because its monopoly 
 of education was at stake ; and similar instances 
 may be found elsewhere. But as a rule the ene- 
 
The Suppression of the Society yi 
 
 mies of the Jesuits have always been the enemies 
 of the Pope. 
 
 82. But to the eyes of such as have not studied 
 the matter with care, one dark spot appears to 
 rest upon the history of the Society of Jesus, 
 namely that it was suppressed by the Supreme 
 Pontiff Clement XIV. That Pope did not pro- 
 nounce any condemnation of the Jesuits. The 
 Protestant historian Schoell in his ''Cours d'His- 
 toire des Etats Europeens" (vol. 44, p. 83) 
 writes: "It (the Brief of suppression) con- 
 demns neither the doctrine, nor the morals, nor 
 the discipline of the Jesuits. The complaints of 
 the courts against the Order are the only motives 
 alleged for its suppression." In fact that Brief 
 "Domiftus et Redempto/' is a most valuable doc- 
 ument to vindicate the honor of the Society. 
 The Pope says in it that he "tenderly loves in 
 the Lord all its individual members." Why 
 then did he suppress the Order? Because all 
 the leading powers of Catholic Europe de- 
 manded it, and urged their demands with re- 
 lentless pertinacity. Already Portugal, Spain, 
 France, Naples, Parma and Malta had taken 
 the matter in their own hands, had expelled the 
 members from all those lands and all the mis- 
 sionary countries subject to them, confiscated all 
 their property and sent the Jesuits by the ship- 
 loads to the ports of the Papal States. The 
 Pope offered to hold a General Council to con- 
 
"^2 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 sider the way of restoring peace. The powers 
 would not hear of any measure but the total sup- 
 pression of the Order. When at last Maria 
 Theresa, induced to do so by her eccentric son 
 Joseph, joined in the demand of the Bourbon 
 courts, Clement XIV lost courage. A powerful 
 appeal to him was the threat of a wide schism in 
 the Church. He begged piteously for delay at 
 least, but the Spanish envoy, Florida Blanca, re- 
 plied that if any further resistance was made 
 the King would require the abolition, not only 
 of the Jesuits, but of all religious Orders. 
 
 83. But what reasons had the courts for hat- 
 ing the Jesuits? The Spanish government had 
 issued a proclamation declaring that good rea- 
 sons existed for banishing the Jesuits, and for 
 confiscating their property, but that ''these rea- 
 sons must remain forever locked up in the royal 
 bosom'* ; and the King afterwards stated that no 
 one should ever know the motives which had 
 induced him to act as he had done. The real 
 reason is now publicly known ; it was that his 
 prime minister, d'Aranda, had made him believe 
 that the Jesuits were plotting to dethrone him, 
 on the false plea that the King was an illegiti- 
 mate son. The very suspicion of such a dis- 
 grace was not to be publicly discussed. (Vic 
 du Pcre Pignatelli, par BoiifHcr, chs. 12, 13.) In 
 France the weak King Louis XV was domineered 
 by his mistress, the infamous Madame de Pompa- 
 
The Suppression of the Society 73 
 
 dour. Angered by the opposition of the Jesuits 
 to her status in the court, she joined for revenge 
 the coahtion of the Bourbon courts against the 
 Society. The first mover in the whole plot had 
 been Pombal, the prime minister of Portugal. 
 He had risen from the middle classes, and two 
 of the noblest families of Portugal had refused 
 to let their daughters marry his son. In revenge 
 he had all their members arrested and tried on an 
 unproved charge of conspiracy to murder the 
 King. He had them all condemned to death 
 and executed in frightful torments. Three 
 Jesuits were special friends of those families. 
 He had them also arrested. But the law was 
 that only the Papal Nuncio could pronounce 
 judgment on clergymen. He expelled the Nun- 
 cio, and caused the Jesuit Father Malagrida, a 
 most venerable old man of distinguished merit, 
 to be accused of heresy and burned in a solemn 
 auto-da-fe. He banished at once all the Jesuits 
 from all the Portuguese dominions and confis- 
 cated their property for the use of the State. 
 
 84. But how did it come that the people in 
 all those countries tolerated such outrages? The 
 people had very little to say in those days. The 
 courts were at the height .of their tyrannical 
 power, and were thoroughly corrupt by immo- 
 rality and infidelity, preparing by their excesses 
 for the vast upheaval against them in the Reign 
 of Terror, which followed a few years later, and 
 
74 J'^ho Arc the Jesuits? 
 
 swept the Bourbon rulers from the face of the 
 earth. A vast tidal wave of impiety had been 
 poured lately over Europe, raised by the abuse 
 and ridicule of Christianity uttered by Voltaire, 
 Bayle, Diderot, Holbach, Condillac, Helvetius, 
 d'Alembert and many others, who wrote in a 
 most popular style to inflame the passions of the 
 learned and the ignorant. The Jansenists mean- 
 while, by exaggerated severity of morals and 
 doctrine, had alienated the faithful from the sac- 
 raments and from the Pope. The Jesuits were 
 the principal breakwater to resist the swelling 
 tide of hatred against the Church and her sound 
 doctrine ; and therefore all the powers of evil 
 were unanimous in warring against them. Nor 
 were their enemies remiss in their attacks. Here 
 is an instance. Sealed dispatches were sent by 
 the King of Spain to his officers in the four 
 quarters of the globe, bearing the superscription 
 that they were not to be opened, on pain of 
 death, before the evening of April 2, 1767. 
 Then, at the same hour, throughout the vast ex- 
 tent of the Spanish dominions, the officers of the 
 government broke the seals and read these dread- 
 ful lines: "I invest you with all the powers of 
 my royal authority to enter immediately with 
 force of arms the house of the Jesuits, to seize 
 on their persons, and to convey them as pris- 
 oners, within twenty-four hours, to the port indi- 
 cated, where they are to be embarked in vessels 
 
The Suppression of the Society 75 
 
 destined for that purpose. At the moment of 
 executing this decree, you will seal up the 
 archives of the house, and the private papers of 
 the Jesuits, and not allows them to take anything 
 with them but their breviaries and the linen 
 strictly necessary for their voyage. If after the 
 embarkation there remain a single Jesuit (even 
 though ill or dying) in your district, you will be 
 liable to capital punishment." 
 
 The sufferings then endured by the Fathers 
 and Brothers were heart-rending. In a single 
 night six thousand of them — many venerable for 
 their age, illustrious by their birth, esteemed for 
 piety and virtue, celebrated for talents and learn- 
 ing — were seized like the vilest criminals, and 
 embarked as if in slave ships. Half starved dur- 
 ing the voyage, they were finally landed in 
 utter poverty on the coast of Italy. Similar 
 treatment was meted out to all the Jesuits of 
 three Catholic lands. And yet history has not 
 preserved any record of an impatient spirit or 
 conduct or word on the part of the victims ; they 
 suffered as the early Martyrs had suffered under 
 the Pagan tyrants, as the Divine Saviour, their 
 one great Model, had suffered before the tri- 
 bunals and on Calvary. Such were the Jesuits 
 till their suppression. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE SOCIETY REESTABLISHED 
 
 85. The Society of Jesus had not only been 
 officially suppressed and had ceased to exist as 
 a living body, as its great Model, Christ, really 
 died upon the cross, but, like Christ also, it had 
 been overwhelmed v^ith false accusations and all 
 manner of ignominy before and during and after 
 its death. The Supreme Pontiff himself, though 
 without expressing any conviction of their guilt, 
 had yielded to the cries of their enemies and de- 
 livered up the Jesuit Order to destruction. True 
 he had proclaimed in his Brief a defense of the 
 members, saying : *' We forbid all and every one, 
 under pain of excommunication reserved to us 
 and to our successors, to dare attack or insult, 
 on occasion of this suppression, whether in se- 
 cret or in public, in word or writing, by disputes, 
 insults, affronts and any other manner of con- 
 tempt, any one whatever, and still less those who 
 were members of the said Order." 
 
 What did the wicked enemies, who had 
 brought about the suppression, care for these 
 earnest words of the Supreme Pontiff? The 
 Socletv of T^^i^is went down in an ocean of abuse 
 
 76 
 
The Society Reestablished yy 
 
 and calumny, and many writers have perpetuated 
 the false charges in the pages of histories and 
 other literature till the present day. 
 
 But the Blessed Saviour graciously deigned 
 to preserve a remnant of His Society from utter 
 destruction, and soon after brought about its 
 glorious resurrection. The Protestant King of 
 Prussia, Frederick II, refused to allow the 
 Jesuits to be suppressed in his dominions. The 
 bishops, not wishing to offend the monarch, de- 
 clined to interfere ; and one of them, the bishop 
 of Culm, even requested the Jesuits to take the 
 direction of his seminary. The Fathers how- 
 ever would not disobey the Pope. But soon 
 Clement XIV sank under the burden of his trou- 
 bled pontificate ; and only two years after the 
 suppression Frederick II informed the Jesuits 
 of Breslau, September 2y^ I775, that the new 
 Pope, Pius VI, left him perfect liberty to take 
 all the measures he considered fitting for the 
 maintenance of the Society in Prussia, and that 
 they might therefore, without fear of disobedi- 
 ence to the Pontiff, live in community and direct 
 their colleges. 
 
 86. Things had gone still better in Russia. 
 There the Empress Catherine II had promised 
 the Catholic inhabitants of White Russia, when 
 they submitted to her dominion, to maintain their 
 religious houses and colleges ; she wrote to Rome, 
 and in June, 1774, obtained a decree from Clem- 
 
yS IV ho Are the Jesuitsf 
 
 ent XIV himself, authorizing the Jesuits of 
 White Russia to remain in statu quo till further 
 orders. In 1785 they were allowed by a verbal 
 approbation of the Pope to elect a Vicar-Gen- 
 erai over them ; in 1801 Pius VI published a de- 
 cree reestablishing the Society for that country. 
 At last, on the 7th of August, 1814, the Supreme 
 Pontiff went in solemn state to the Jesuit Church 
 of the Gesu, in Rome, amid the enthusiastic 
 shouts of joy of his people ; and there, in the 
 presence of 150 surviving members of the old 
 Society, by the Brief "Sollicitudo Omniiun Ec- 
 clesiarum/' with intense feelings of joy, rees- 
 tablished the Society for the entire Church of 
 God. 
 
 The document is an eloquent tribute to the 
 Society. It says in part: ''The Catholic world 
 unanimously demands the reestablishment of the 
 Society of Jesus. We daily receive most earnest 
 petitions to this effect from our venerable breth- 
 ren the archbishops and bishops, and from other 
 eminent persons. . . . We should deem our- 
 selves guilty of great negligence before God, if, 
 in the presence of the perils that threaten Chris- 
 tendom, we neglected the assistance given to us 
 by God's special providence, and if, placed at 
 the helm of the bark of Peter, tossed by con- 
 tinual tempests, we refused to employ vigorous 
 and experienced seamen to master the waves 
 
The Society Reestablished 79 
 
 that threaten every instant to cause destruction 
 and death," etc. 
 
 It will be noticed that Pius VII performed this 
 solemn act of restoration for the Society of 
 Jesus only three months after he had been de- 
 livered from captivity in France by the fall of 
 Napoleon. His predecessor Pius VI, v^ho had 
 been a pupil of the Fathers and ever loved them 
 v^armly, v^ould have been most happy to reestab- 
 lish the Society if it had not been for the con- 
 tinued opposition of the Bourbon princes. God 
 Himself removed that obstacle by destroying 
 their kingly thrones. 
 
 87. The Jesuits had not v^aited for their for- 
 mal reestablishment to give proof that the same 
 spirit of zeal for the glory of God and the sal- 
 vation of souls which had animated them from 
 the time of St. Ignatius was still as lively as ever 
 in their hearts in the period of their humiliation. 
 Thus when the army of Napoleon had marched 
 on Moscow, they were, as of old, in the midst of 
 the sick and dying soldiers in the hospitals and 
 on the field of battle, and fourteen of the Fa- 
 thers gave their lives in the service of charity. 
 
 While teaching and preaching in their colleges 
 and churches, they devoted themselves especially 
 to gain all hearts for Christ, by propagating 
 among them a lively devotion to the Sacred 
 Heart of Jesus, For those who know the his- 
 
8o IV ho Are the Jesuitsf 
 
 tory of the Church of Christ more thoroughly 
 must be aware that the same storm which had 
 raged against the Society of Jesus, had also as- 
 sailed with special violence the devotion to the 
 Sacred Heart. When the Blessed Saviour had 
 revealed the rich treasures of this wonderful de- 
 votion to His favorite servant Blessed Mar- 
 guerite Mary Alacoque, in 1689, she wrote : ''The 
 Divine Heart wills that the Jesuit Fathers shall 
 make known the usefulness and the excellence 
 of this devotion ; for It has reserved this task 
 for them." On another occasion she wrote : 
 *'This Heart has promised that it will pour out, 
 above all measure and without restriction. Its 
 sacred blessings upon the labors which the So- 
 ciety undertakes for the love of the souls com- 
 mitted to its care." 
 
 Now it is a notorious fact that the Jansenists 
 liad been all along the violent opponents of this 
 devotion ; its spirit is most nearly akin to the 
 spirit of the Society of Jesus, and the spirit of 
 the Jansenists was diametrically opposed to both. 
 They had been successful by their intrigues at 
 the courts to have the Jesuits suppressed ; they 
 also agitated for the condemnation of that de- 
 votion. In fact in 1786 their synod of Pistoia 
 dared to pronounce such condemnation. While 
 the Jesuits were removed from the sacred min- 
 istry, the devotion to the Sacred Heart lan- 
 guished in most countries, but they carried it to 
 
The Society Reestablished 8i 
 
 a high degree of fervor in White Russia. Since 
 their reestabUshment they have been active in 
 propagating it and the ahied practice of the 
 Apostleship of Prayer, which has at present 
 twenty-five milhon members ; and they have thus 
 with God's grace helped to renovate the fervor 
 of tlie CathoHc world. These practices prepared 
 the way for the increased frequentation of Holy 
 Communion among the faithful, which our Holy 
 Father Pius X is using so efficiently for the 
 grand aim of all his endeavors, ''to renew all 
 things in Christ." 
 
 Thus, while the enemies of the Jesuits con- 
 tinue to talk and to write against them as plotting 
 revolutions, assassinations, treason and all 
 manner of wickedness, the Fathers have been 
 busy all along in the course of their history, 
 promoting piety, morality, learning, and every 
 private and public virtue. 
 
 88. Russia, though a schismatic power, had 
 sheltered the Society during the stress of the 
 storm which swept them from all Catholic lands ; 
 in 1 815 it expelled them also, but the rest of 
 Europe was then ready to receive them. Two 
 numerous congregations of priests had meanwhile 
 been formed in France and -Italy to replace them 
 in their absence, as far as this was feasible, and 
 to unite with them when the long expected re- 
 establishment had been accomplished, the Fathers 
 of the Faith and those of the Sacred Heart. 
 
82 Who Arc the Jesuits? 
 
 Both contained many learned and holy men, who 
 became in due time most worthy and efficient 
 members of the Society of Jesus. But the 
 Jesuits acted with consummate prudence. They 
 admitted those applicants, not conjointly but 
 singly, and formed each of them individually in 
 the ancient mold of the Spiritual Exercises, the 
 ordinary trials of the novitiate, and all the old 
 customs and practices which had been preserved 
 with religious fidelity in White Russia. 
 
 Thus the Fathers and Brothers of the restored 
 Society have, by Providential dispensation, been 
 preserved in the same spirit, and with all the 
 same aims and traditions, that characterized 
 their predecessors. They have been doing the 
 same work, have rendered the same services, 
 attained the same success, and met the same 
 opposition from the world, the devil and the 
 flesh. What proves their identity with the old 
 Society most clearly is the identity of the spirit 
 in which they have been opposed in every period 
 of their history. 
 
 89. The restored Society had many and great 
 difficulties to contend with. All Europe had been 
 deeply disturbed by the French Revolution and 
 the spirit of anarchy it had left behind it, and 
 ravaged by the Napoleonic wars. The higher 
 studies had been generally interrupted, espe- 
 cially in Catholic lands. Civilization had to be in 
 
The Society Reestablished 83 
 
 great part rebuilt; and the former educators, 
 who had been mostly Jesuits, were nearly all 
 dead or in foreign lands*. The young Society 
 contained, naturally, as yet few thoroughly 
 learned men, trained in the old curriculum of 
 solid studies. It is truly wonderful that in so 
 short a time it has recovered its ancient prom- 
 inence in the Catholic world. An additional 
 difficulty, in the way of its progress in higher 
 studies, lay in the rapid accumulation of work 
 upon its hands, both in Europe and in foreign 
 missions, especially in the multiplication of col- 
 leges, to which it was invited on all sides. Thus 
 its younger members were often prevented from 
 performing those long courses of studies which 
 are ever expected from its Fathers. Happily all 
 these obstacles were overcome after some years 
 by earnest and persevering efforts, and its studies 
 have been brought up before this time to a 
 degree of fullness and thoroughness which has 
 never been surpassed. 
 
 90. The lists of its leaders of thought in 
 Theology, Philosophy, Astronomy, Mathematics, 
 History, Canon law. Biology and other sciences 
 is long and brilliant; and the gigantic labors of 
 the Bollandists, of the commentators who have 
 published the Cursus Completus Scripturce SacrcB, 
 and other enterprises of the present day, rival 
 the most remarkable productions of the old 
 
84 Who Are the Jesidtsf 
 
 Society, while the foreign missions cover most 
 of the heathen lands with as vast a net work of 
 establishments as ever before. 
 
 91. This efficiency of the new Society is em- 
 phasized by the violence with which, like its 
 parent body, it has been persecuted in many lands 
 by the enemies of the Church. In 1834 the 
 Freemasons and a raving mob attacked the 
 Jesuit College at Madrid, broke open the gates, 
 profaned the sacred vessels and massacred fif- 
 teen of the Fathers. The following year the 
 Society was formally suppressed in Spain. No 
 pretext was assigned, either religious or political. 
 The same year saw it banished from Portugal 
 under circumstances of exceeding cruelty. In 
 1845 France demanded of Pope Gregory XVI 
 that the Jesuits in that country should once more 
 be secularized. A congregation of Cardinals was 
 assembled to consider the matter, that the Pope 
 might not oppose himself to the French govern- 
 ment ; but the decision was clear and firm, stating 
 that, the existence of the Jesuits in that land 
 being perfectly legal, their conduct blameless and 
 their services valuable to religion, the Holy See 
 could not yield to the request of the government. 
 Still the Society was soon compelled to close 
 several of its colleges. Everybody knows how, 
 at the beginning of the Kulturkampf, Germany 
 drove out all the religious and has not yet allowed 
 the Jesuits to have a corporate existence in their 
 
The Society Reestablished 85 
 
 native country ; how France perpetrated the same 
 outrage a few years ago, Portugal within the last 
 few weeks, and Spain and Italy may do so any 
 day. 
 
 92. The religious body thus perpetually assailed 
 is the Company of Jesus, and it is not surprised 
 that it is treated like its Master. Of Him the 
 Royal Prophet sang: ''Why have the Gentiles 
 raged and the people devised vain things? The 
 Kings of the earth stood up and the princes met 
 together, against the Lord, and against His 
 Christ." And when the Divine Child had come 
 and was brought into the Temple, the old man 
 Simeon took Him in his arms and said : ''Behold 
 this Child is set for the fall and for the res- 
 urrection of many, and for a sign which shall 
 be contradicted." And Jesus has been so ever 
 since, the source of salvation to many, the object 
 of persecution to many others, — Jesus and His 
 Church, and all Plis friends, among them the 
 little Society of Jesus. 
 
 Why should all those powerful countries with 
 their millions of armed soldiers be as it were 
 afraid of the handful of men which constitutes 
 the Society of Jesus? How many of them are 
 there after all? and where are they? and what 
 are they doing? Let us get some clear ideas 
 on the subject. We will begin at home. In 
 the United States alone there are, as given in 
 the World Almanac for 1906, 1,062,425 Free- 
 
86 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 masons ; the Jesuits here do not count one 500th 
 part of that number, only 1,824, and of these far 
 more than half are humble lay-brothers and 
 young men still preparing for the priesthood. 
 There are in the whole United States, counting 
 those disabled by age or sickness, only 707 Jesuit 
 priests. 
 
 Where are they? Most of them in the class 
 room teaching boys, others in the confessionals, 
 the hospitals, by the sickbed in private houses, 
 in the pulpit, at their desk writing books or 
 articles for the ''America" or other Catholic peri- 
 odicals, in which every one can read their publi- 
 cations on religion, science, literature, etc., etc. 
 Or they are giving missions in public churches, 
 where every one is invited to come and hear 
 them ; or they go among the Indians and the 
 negroes, preaching everywhere Christ and Him 
 crucified. And as they are doing in this land 
 so they are in every other country. How many 
 Jesuits are there in the whole world? There 
 were on the ist of January, 1909, in all 16,159, 
 of whom 4,015 were lay-brothers, 4,416 
 scholastics, and only 7,728 priests, all working 
 in open daylight Ad Major em Dei Gloriam, to 
 the Greater Glory of God. 
 
 The manner in which Jesuit priests spend 
 their time can best be understood by seeing a de- 
 tailed account of what has been done by a given 
 number of them in a definite space of time. 
 
The Society Reestablished 87 
 
 It is a fair sample of their ordinary labors. It 
 will clearly show, among other things, that men 
 so occupied have no leisure to plot against the 
 liberty of the State or mix in worldly politics. 
 
 The middle portion of the United States is 
 served by the Jesuits of what is called the Mis- 
 souri Province. Among them 356 are priests, 
 265 scholastics, that is young men still prepar- 
 ing for the priesthood, and 163 lay-brothers. 
 Now these 356 priests, during one year, July i, 
 1909, to July I, 1910, have been engaged in the 
 following professional works : 
 
 Institutions officered and directed by them, 
 
 Universities, 4, Colleges, 10; 
 
 High-Schools, 10, Grammar Schools, 36; 
 
 Parishes administered, 20; 
 
 Mission stations in foreign lands, 9; 
 
 Societies directed, 156; 
 Baptisms administered, 
 
 Infants. 3,364 
 
 Adult converts, after instruction, 956 
 
 Extreme Unction to the dying, 5o90 
 
 Marriages blessed, 1,082 
 
 Confessions heard, 1,302,906 
 
 Holy Communions distributed, 1,472,122 
 
 Sermons and addresses, I4>i78 
 
 Catechetical instructions to classes, I3,337 
 
 Retreats to bodies of the clergy, 22 
 
 to convents of religious, 217 
 
 to colleges and academies, 57 
 
 Parish missions, 248 
 
 Novenas and Tridua, 247 
 
88 IV ho Are the Jesuits? 
 
 Visits to prisons, 985 5 
 
 to hospitals, 6,109; 
 
 to sick in their homes, 15,827; 
 
 Periodicals regular!}' published, 19; 
 
 Besides volumes, pamphlets, and contributions to peri- 
 odicals not under their direction. 
 
 Why then are such men dreaded and even hated 
 by many? Because they have been constantly 
 misrepresented by designing men, in histories, 
 novels and the daily press. We will examine 
 some of the principal slanders. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 PRINCIPAL SLANDERS AGAINST THE JESUITS 
 
 93. I. Perhaps the best known slander against 
 the Jesuits is that they teach the false doctrine 
 that the end justifies the means. St. Paul tells 
 us that the early followers of Jesus were accused 
 of teaching the same error : " As we are slan- 
 dered, and as some affirm that we say, 'Let us do 
 evil that there may come good.' " (Rom. iii, 
 8.) It is no wonder then that the Society of 
 the same Jesus should be similarly slandered. 
 This slander has been scattered broadcast over 
 the English-speaking world in many writings, 
 in particular in the Encyclopedia Britannica, a 
 most untrustworthy publication on Catholic sub- 
 jects, which has been printed in so cheap an 
 edition that copies of it are found everywhere, 
 serving as a storehouse of anti-Catholic slanders 
 for every village editor. In it Dr. Littledale, 
 a notorious enemy of the Catholics, in his article 
 ''The Jesuits" pretends to prove by direct quo- 
 tations from three Jesuit theologians that this 
 false doctrine is taught by the Society. He 
 names the authors. Fathers Layman, Busenbaum 
 and Wageman, but he does not say where the 
 
 89 
 
90 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 texts quoted from their voluminous works are 
 to be found. This is not honest. However 
 Father Brandi, S.J., in an article of the Ameri- 
 can Catholic Quarterly Review for 1890, pp. 472, 
 etc., triumphantly refutes the slanderous accusa- 
 tion. 
 
 In the year 1852 Father Roh in Germany, to 
 lay this spectre once for all, issued a public 
 challenge, offering 1,000 marks to anyone who 
 could prove the charge, the law faculty of the 
 University of Heidelberg or of Bonn to be the 
 judge. The money has not yet been earned. 
 Similar offers for proving the same charge have 
 been made every now and then, in the United 
 States and elsewhere. The charge was never 
 proved, because it is a myth. The three Jesuits 
 referred to teach just the same as all other 
 Jesuit moralists. Thus Layman, one of them, 
 says : ''The fact of being directed towards a 
 good end does not make good an action which 
 is in itself evil, but leaves it simply and entirely 
 evil, — and therefore it would be a sin to tell a 
 lie in order to help your neighbor." (Theol. I\Ior. 
 B, I, Treat. H, c. 9.) 
 
 While the Encyclopedia Britannica is thus 
 shown to be very unfair to the Jesuits, the 
 reader may find in Chambers' Cyclopedia a 
 sober and trustworthy article under the heading 
 "Jesuits." 
 
 94. H. A. second calumny often quoted 
 
Slanders Against the Jesuits 91 
 
 against the Society of Jesus is in the shape of a 
 book called "Monita Seer eta," or *' Secret Instruc- 
 tions," which Father Aqua viva, the fifth General 
 Superior of the Society, fs pretended to have 
 drawn up to direct the conduct of the fully 
 initiated members. It is not simply a misrep- 
 resentation but a rank imposture, a fabrica- 
 tion cut out of the whole cloth. No well in- 
 formed man believes it to be authentic. The 
 Catalogue of the British Museum, a most dis- 
 passionate witness, calls the work "Apocryphal." 
 Pascal, the bitterest and ablest of the opponents 
 of the Jesuits, never mentions it. Dr. Dollinger 
 discredits it. Huber writes : ''With Dollinger 
 and the Protestant historian Gieseler, I consider 
 the Monita as spurious and a lampoon on the 
 Order." Why, even Dr. Littledale in his most 
 bigoted article on the ''Jesuits" criticised above, 
 calls it "an ingenious forgery." If further ref- 
 utation be desired, it can be got from Duhr's 
 "Jesuiten-Fabeln," 2d Edit. pp. 47, etc. 
 
 95. III. A similar forgery is a Jesuit oath 
 of a peculiarly objectionable nature. There is 
 no such thing, a mere calumny, not a shadow 
 of proof, no historical authority that can stand 
 critical examination. 
 
 An elaborate refutation of this slander is 
 found in a volume of the London Catholic Truth 
 Society, 1902, entitled "Concerning Jesuits," in 
 an article by Father John Gerard, headed "The 
 
92 Who Arc the Jesuits? 
 
 Jesuit Oath." He traces the origin of the 
 caUimny to the notorious Robert Ware, the story 
 of whose forgeries is given with much au- 
 thentic detail in the Rev. T. E. Bridgett's learned 
 work ^'Blunders and Forgeries," pp. 209, etc. 
 
 The Weekly Paper "America" for July i6th, 
 1910, states on page 372: 
 
 The Irish Orangemen have been exploiting 
 Titus Oates' ''Jesuit Oath" in support of the 
 King's coronation oath. A Rev. Mr. Moffat, 
 their Grand Master in Dublin, recited at a public 
 meeting *'the Oath taken by the Jesuits," renounc- 
 ing allegiance to heretical States and rulers, obe- 
 dience to their inferior magistrates, etc. Father 
 Delany, S.J., wrote exposing the myth and 
 added: *T challenge him to repeat the statement 
 about myself or any other Irish Jesuit by name, 
 and we shall without delay give him an oppor- 
 tunity of proving his statements in the public 
 courts." The challenge has not been accepted. 
 
 If then the Jesuits do not bind all their mem- 
 bers by the obligation of an oath, how do they 
 bind their consciences to live up to the duties 
 of their Institute? They require them to take 
 vows, or promises made to God, on the observ- 
 ance of which their eternal salvation will depend. 
 But what are these promises? May an out- 
 sider know them, without ambiguity or reserva- 
 tion? Yes, they are printed in a large variety 
 of books and booklets for both private and pub- 
 
Slanders Agaijist the Jesuits 93 
 
 lie use. There is no seeret whatever about 
 them. Here they are : 
 
 When a novice has spent two years in prep- 
 aration, studying the Institute and practising its 
 Rules, he is allowed, not compelled, to take v/hat 
 is called his Simple Vows. Then before the 
 Holy Altar, during Holy Mass, he recites aloud, 
 in the presence of his brethren, the formula here 
 put down: ''Almighty and eternal God, I (the 
 name), though altogether unworthy of Thy 
 Divine sight, yet relying upon Thy infinite mercy, 
 and impelled by the desire of serving Thee, 
 in presence of the most holy Virgin IMary and 
 all the Court of Heaven, do vow to Thy Divine 
 Majesty perpetual Poverty, Chastity and Obe- 
 dience in the Society of Jesus ; and I promise 
 that I will enter the said Society to spend my 
 entire life therein — understanding all things ac- 
 cording to the Constitutions of the same Society. 
 Wherefore I suppliantly beg of Thine infinite 
 goodness and clemency, by the Blood of Jesus 
 Christ, that Thou wouldst deign to accept this 
 liolocaust in the odor of sweetness ; and as Thou 
 hast given me grace to desire and offer it, so 
 Thou wouldst also give me abundant grace to 
 fulfill it. Amen." 
 
 These vows are repeated with similar cere- 
 monies twice every year, after three days spent 
 in recollection and Renewal of Spirit, as it is 
 called, so as to check any tendency to relaxa- 
 
94 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 tlon in their observance ; till, after the lapse of 
 about fifteen years, the Jesuit Father is at last 
 allowed to take his last or solemn vows, in 
 the presence of public witnesses, in the follow- 
 ing words: "I — (the name) make profession, 
 and promise to Almighty God, in presence of 
 His Virgin JMother and the whole Court of 
 Heaven, and all here present, and to you. Rev. 
 Father A.B., representing the Very Rev. Father 
 CD., Superior-General of the Society of Jesus, 
 holding the place of God, and to his successors, 
 perpetual Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience in 
 the Society of Jesus, and moreover special care 
 of the instruction of youth, according to the 
 mode of life contained in the Apostolic Letters 
 of the Society of Jesus and its Constitutions. 
 I also promise special obedience to the Sovereign 
 Pontiff regarding Missions, as is set forth in the 
 same Apostolic Letters and Constitutions." 
 (Place and date.) We have given these formu- 
 las in full, because they bear directly upon the 
 question treated in this book : "Who are the 
 Jesuits?" 
 
 96. IV. A fourth common calumny is that 
 the Jesuits are a body of ambitious men. We 
 can only deal with facts, not fancies. Now it is 
 a plain fact that everything conceivable is done 
 to keep down pride and ambition in the Society 
 of Jesus. Ambition among priests would natu- 
 rally take the form of efforts to attain ecclesias- 
 
Slanders Against the Jesuits 95 
 
 tical dignities, or superiorships within the rehg- 
 ious body to which they belong. Now every pro- 
 fessed Jesuit is made to pronounce vows to God, 
 in the presence of his brethren and superiors, 
 which read as follows: *'I promise that I will 
 never so act or devise, even indirectly, as to be 
 chosen for or promoted to any prelacy or dignity 
 within the Society. Likewise I promise that I 
 will never strive for any ambition of prelacy or 
 dignity outside the Society, nor consent to my 
 election to such, as far as I am able, unless I be 
 compelled by obedience to one who has power to 
 command me under pain of sin. Also, should 
 I know that any one is seeking or ambitioning 
 dignities of any kind, I will forthwith inform the 
 Society or its General." 
 
 The whole history of the Society is there to 
 testify that Jesuits have not pushed themselves 
 forward into dignities, but have steadily opposed 
 such promotions, and almost always actually es- 
 caped them, except only when missionary coun- 
 tries held out to their bishops far more hard- 
 ships and dangers than honor. 
 
 97. V. A fifth charge is that the Jesuits are 
 rich. They try to make their churches beautiful, 
 the altars elegant or magnificent, the vestments 
 and sacred vessels, all in fact that concerns Di- 
 vine service, as rich as circumstances allow, even 
 although a Judas may stand by and say, "This 
 might have been sold for much and given to the 
 
96 Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 poor." But the Jesuits do not possess any per- 
 sonal property, for themselves or their relations. 
 They dress like any decent secular priests, but 
 their rooms are more poorly furnished than 
 theirs, with not a book or picture they can call 
 their own, without any pocket money to spend 
 as they may list, eating at the common table at 
 the appointed times only, sharing the same food 
 as the plainest lay-brother or the youngest novice, 
 no matter what important posts they may fill or 
 have ever filled. And lest the luxury of the 
 times should gradually bring in relaxation, every 
 professed Father takes a vow, saying: ''I will 
 never in any manner contrive or consent that the 
 ordinances of the Constitutions of the Society 
 concerning Poverty be altered, unless at any time 
 there should appear to be just cause for further 
 restriction." The Colleges of the Society may 
 be magnificent, but the professors and lay-broth- 
 ers are all equally poor. 
 
 All these are undoubtedly very strong safe- 
 guards and wise regulations ; but it may be asked. 
 What if any of the members refuses to observe 
 them ? How is the Society going to compel ob- 
 servance? Is there bodily coercion or imprison- 
 ment ? No, it is not needed ; a shorter and more 
 efficient remedy is at hand. The supervision 
 which the Society exercises over its members is 
 strict ; superiors are very likely to find out pretty 
 soon whatever is seriously wrong ; they admonish 
 
Slanders Against the Jesuits 97 
 
 the offending party with great charity, correct 
 with wisdom and patience, but, if the evil is per- 
 sisted in, dismission is an infalUble remedy; and, 
 though not often needed, when necessary it is 
 unflinchingly carried out. No one, not even the 
 Father General, is exempt. 
 
 98. But while the individual Jesuit is poor, 
 not possessed of anything of which he can dis- 
 pose at will, is it not a notorious fact that the 
 Society of Jesus is a very rich corporation, pos- 
 sessed of vast estates in various cities and coun- 
 tries, and enjoying an immense revenue, by 
 which all the parts support one another? It is 
 not true. Though even many intelligent Cath- 
 olics may imagine such a state of things, there 
 is no foundation for the- supposition. Every 
 Jesuit house has its own limited possessions, of 
 real estate and habitual or casual income, to 
 which no other Jesuit community has any right. 
 The superiors of the Society can transfer their 
 subjects from one house to another, but they 
 have not normally the power of transferring 
 I^roperty or debts from one community to an- 
 other. Briefly, there is not among the Jesuits a 
 common purse. 
 
 The reason is that each Jesuit establishment is 
 founded for the service and benefit of the partic- 
 ular city or town whose citizens have furnished 
 the means of erecting the buildings and support- 
 ing their inmates. And are the several houses 
 
98 Who Are the Jesuitsf 
 
 rich? As a general rule they have a very lim- 
 ited income. A college needs ample buildings 
 for its work and the abode of the faculty, for 
 library, chapel, lecture halls, recitation rooms, 
 laboratories, etc., with more or less extensive 
 grounds for its campus, etc. It must have such 
 possessions if it is to be a college at all. And 
 it must have a considerable income to support 
 the institution in decent condition, and more still 
 if it is to make such improvements in its accom- 
 modations and furnishings as to enable it to 
 keep abreast of the country's educational prog- 
 ress. Few if any Catholic colleges in this land, 
 whether managed by Jesuits or others, have more 
 than what is strictly necessary for them; all can 
 rather be called poor than rich. 
 
 Parochial schools are not self-supporting; they 
 are supported by their respective parishes, and 
 even this is possible on the sole condition that 
 the devoted Sisters who teach in them be willing 
 to work for less than half the salary that is paid 
 to the teachers of the public schools. Catholic col- 
 leges, as a very general rule, would not be pos- 
 sible if it were not for the life of self-sacrifice 
 led by the members of their faculties. 
 
 On this matter the ignorance of many Catho- 
 lics even is phenomenal. Do they suppose that 
 college professors can live on the brick and mor- 
 tar that constitute the buildings? The tuition 
 fees of the students would not generally support 
 
Slanders Against the Jesuits 99 
 
 one-third of the faculty, if its members had to 
 be paid at the same rate as such men are in the 
 colleges of the State. The wonder is that with 
 such scanty means such success has been and is 
 all along being achieved. 
 
 99. VI. Are not the Jesuits too independent of 
 the Bishops f In the care of the parishes and 
 other such labors of the sacred ministry they are 
 no more independent than the secular clergy. 
 In the work of their colleges and the internal 
 administration of their Order, like all other re- 
 ligious Orders of the Church, the Supreme Pon- 
 tiff absolutely controls them, and imder his su- 
 pervision allows them such home government 
 and useful privileges as long experience and the 
 light of the Holy Ghost have taught to be most 
 conducive to the welfare of the faithful and 
 of the religious themselves. What would be- 
 come of any one of the grand Orders in the 
 Church if its spirit could be modified by the in- 
 dividual bishops, each in his own diocese? Cer- 
 tainly the unity of spirit could not thus be main- 
 tained, nor could the unity of government ; and 
 yet for combined action both these unities are of 
 paramount importance. 
 
 100. VII. But do not Jesuits mix too much in 
 politics f Let but the people of the United States 
 look around them : where are the Jesuit poli- 
 ticians? If there is any country where everyone 
 is likely to do what he likes best, it is this coun- 
 
lOO Who Are the Jesuits? 
 
 try ; and the Jesuits here are and have been all 
 along remarkable, even among the clergy, for 
 leaving politics alone. The only times when they 
 would speak up would be when legislation is 
 threatened which would injure immortal souls. 
 But in mere politics, never. 
 
 What then about the Gunpowder Plot? The 
 Jesuits did not meddle with that detestable con- 
 spiracy at all. What two of them were blamed 
 for by the government of England, and executed 
 for, was for not meddling, for not making the 
 plot known to the authorities so as to prevent 
 its execution. Their reason for abstaining was 
 that their knowledge was entrusted to them under 
 the seal of Sacramental Confession, by one of 
 the conspirators, who consulted his confessor 
 about the lawfulness of the attempt. In no case 
 whatever is the confessor allowed to betray the 
 secrets of the confessional. Fr. Garnett did all 
 he could to dissuade Catesby from the rash en- 
 terprise, and got a promise from him that noth- 
 ing should be done without permission of the 
 Holy See, which of course would not have been 
 given. But Catesby broke his promise, and 
 acted without any further knowledge of the con- 
 fessor. 
 
 But did not some Jesuits sometimes meddle 
 in mere political matters ? Possibly so ; no sane 
 man would pretend that no Jesuit ever made a 
 mistake. But certain it is that the Society 
 
Slanders Against the Jesuits loi 
 
 strictly forbids it to all her members, under the 
 severest penalties. Every year that prohibition 
 is read before all the members of the Order. To 
 say therefore that the Society meddles in politics 
 is a gross slander. 
 
 These pages contain a very imperfect sketch of 
 the labors and struggles of the Jesuits during the 
 course of their checkered existence ; but they are 
 deemed suificient to make knoivn the spirit and 
 main purpose of their society, zvhich are ex- 
 pressed in their zvell known motto 
 
 AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM 
 To the Greater Glory of God. 
 
REFERENCES FOR INFORMATION ON 
 
 THE JESUITS. 
 
 Francis Thompson — Life of St. Ignatius. 
 
 Bartoli — Life of St. Ignatius. 
 
 B. N. — The Jesuits, Their Foundation and History. 
 
 Kip (Protestant Bishop) — Jesuit Missions in the U. S. 
 
 Hughes — Loyola, or Educational System of the 
 Jesuits, 
 
 Maynard — The Jesuits : Their Studies and Teaching. 
 
 Schwickerath — Jesuit Education. 
 
 De Ravignan — The Life and Institute of the Jesuits. 
 
 Weld — The Suppression of the Society of Jesus in 
 Portugal. 
 
 Caddell — Missions in Japan and Paraguay. 
 
 Wolferstan — Catholic Church in China. 
 
 Father Prout's Works — The Jesuits and Literature.. 
 
 Jansen — History of the German People, Vol. XII, 
 XIII. 
 
 American Catholic Quarterly Review Vol. II, p. 51 : 
 Pombal and the Jesuits. 
 
 American Catholic Quarterly Review III, 404: — La 
 Salle and the Jesuits. 
 
 American Catholic Quarterly Review XIII, 119: The 
 Jesuits and End and Means. 
 
 American Catholic Quarterly Review July, 1890, 472 : 
 The Immoral Teachings of the Jesuits. 
 
 The Month, Aug., 1882, p. 538: The Encyclop. Brit, on 
 the Jesuits. 
 
 The Month, May, 1882, 49: Anti-Jesuit Morals. 
 
 The Month, March, 1873, 269: The Jesuits and Tyran- 
 nicide. 
 
 102 
 
References 103 
 
 The Month, July, 1873, 96 : The Monita Secreta. 
 
 The Month, Jan,, 1893, 5i '■ The Monita Secreta. 
 
 The Month, March, 1871, 201 : Pascal's Provincial 
 Letters. 
 
 The Month, Nov., 1889, 439: Dr. Littledale and the 
 Jesuits. 
 
 The Month, Oct., 1896, 157: Blind Obedience. 
 
 Dublin Review, Sept., 1856, 66: Anti-Jesuit Crusade. 
 
 Dublin Review, Aug., 1861, 329: Calumnies on the 
 Jesuits. 
 
 English Catholic Truth Society: — Concerning Jesuits. 
 
 Burrows Brothers — Jesuit Relations and Allied Docu- 
 ments, 72 volumes. 
 
ALPHABETICAL INDEX 
 Numbers, not pages, are referred to. 
 
 Aloysius, St., 65. 
 
 Ambition, 96. 
 
 America, 66, 67, 71, 72. 
 
 Anchieta, 66. 
 
 Auger, 61. 
 
 Azevedo, 66. 
 
 Berchmans, St., 65. 
 Borgia, St., 27, 48, 63. 
 Brazil, 66. 
 Bressiani, 71. 
 Br Get, 22, 23. 
 
 Campion, Bl., 77. 
 Canada, 71, 72. 
 Canisius, Bl., 27, 53, 57. 
 Catai, 69. 
 China, 68. 
 Clement XIV, 82. 
 Coadjutors, 40. 
 Codure, 22. 
 Colleges, 46-49, 54, 57, 
 
 58, 89. 
 Companions of Ignatius, 
 
 19-21, 26. 
 Constitution, 28-43. 
 
 Empress Catherine II, 
 
 86. 
 End and Means, 93. 
 England, 76-79. 
 
 Faults, 81. 
 
 Favre, Bl, 22, 25, 27. 
 
 Forty Martyrs, 66. 
 
 105 
 
 France, 61, 75, 81, 83, 88, 
 
 91- 
 Frederick II, 85. 
 
 Garnet, 78, 100. 
 Germany, 25, 26, 52, 73, 
 
 91- 
 Goes, 69. 
 
 Government, 42. 
 
 History of the Jesuits, 3, 
 
 10, 72. 
 Henry VIII, 23. 
 Hozes, 22. 
 
 Ignatius, St., 11-22, 29, 
 
 44, 46, 59- 
 Independence, 99. 
 'India, 70. 
 Indies, 24, 31. 
 Innocent XI, 68. 
 Ireland, 23. 
 
 Jansenists, 84. 
 
 Japan, 24. 
 
 Jesuit Relations, 72. 
 
 Lay-Brothers, 41. 
 Laynes, 22, 44, 60, 61. 
 Le Jay, 22, 25, 44, 53. 
 
 Alacaulay, 73, 74. 
 Marquette, 71. 
 Maynard, 57. 
 Missions, 66-72. 
 
io6 
 
 Index 
 
 ^onita Secreta, 94. 
 Montaigne, 55, 56. 
 
 Netherlands, 6^. 
 Nobili, 70. 
 Novices, 30-32. 
 Numbers, 63, 92. 
 
 Oath, 95. 
 Obedience, 43. 
 
 Paraguay, 67. 
 Parsons, yj, 78. 
 Persecution, 76, 92. 
 Poland, 57. 
 Politics, 100, 
 Pombal, 83. 
 
 Portugal, 48, 50, 75, 83. 
 Possevinus, 62. 
 Professed, 38, 39. 
 Protestantism, y^y 7A- 
 Publicity, 5, 7. 
 
 Ranke, 52, 54, 55, 57- 
 Reductions, 66, 67. 
 Reformation, 25,. 52. 
 Restoration, 85. 
 Rhodes, 70. 
 Ricci, 67, 68. 
 Riches, 97, 98. 
 Rodriguez, 22. 
 
 Sacred Heart, 87. 
 
 Salmeron, 22,, 44. 
 
 Sarpi, 47. 
 
 Schall, (^. 
 
 Secrecy, i, 4, 5. 78, 79. 
 
 Slanders, 2, 6, 8, 9, 45, 
 
 74, 93-100. 
 Society of Jesus, 17. 
 Spain, 27, 63, 75, 83, 84, 
 
 Spiritual Exercises, 14, 
 
 29,. 32. 
 Stanislaus, St., 64. 
 Studies, 18, 32-37. 
 Suppression, 82-85. 
 
 Tong-King, 70. 
 Training, 80. 
 Trent, 27, 44. 
 
 Venezuela, 62. 
 Verbiest, 68. 
 Vocation, 30, 31. 
 Vows, 19, 25, 33, 3&-40, 
 95- 
 
 White Russia, 86, 87. 
 Writers, 90. 
 Worms, 25. 
 
 Xavier, St., 22, 24. 
 
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