fyxmll Uttivet^itg I §xhm]^ 97^4 Cornell University Library BX4700.L7 T23 Loyola : and Jesuitism in ts rudiments oiin 3 1924 029 423 393 A Cornell University y Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029423393 XaiiQijn-,I(mgmaii_,Erowii, Sreea&Xaagmaiis, 1849. LOYOLA: JESUITISM IN ITS RUDIMENTS. ISAAC TAYLOR. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATEBNOSTEK-ROW. 1849. e' UNiVERSITY iRAI (\/ /J London : SrOTTiswooDEs and Shaw, New-street- Square. CONTENTS. Pbeface . . - . . Page v. PAET I. PEESONAL HISTORY. Chapter Page I. Loyola, and the relative position of his system - 4 II. Loyola's early years, and conversion - - 21 m. Loyola's attempt to convert the Mahometan world, and the failure of the enterprise - - 52 IV. Loyola, in preparation for the work to which he de- votes himself, goes to school at Barcelona, and elsewhere ... - 66 V. Loyola's colleagues, and the birth of the Society - 85 VI. Loyola's election to the generalship of the Society - 111 VII. Loyola's government of the Society - - 1.32 "Vin. Loyola's mind 170 PAKT II. JESUITISM IN ITS EUDIMENTS. Chapter I. The "ExercitiaSpiritualia" - - - - 187 IL The "Letter on Obedience" / " " " ^38 IIL The "Constitutions" - '- - - - 262 IV. The purport of the Jesuit Institute . - - 301 V. Pascal, and the " Provincial Letters '■ - - 327 Notes ...---- 345 * By an oversight the eighth chapter has been numbered as the ninth. PREFACE. It seems due to the Eeader^ as well as to myself, to explain — briefly at least — the intention which led to the production of the volume now put into his hands. Regarded by itself, this outline of the Life and Institute of Loyola would probably give rise lo an entire mis- apprehension of my purpose. It might be supposed that I had wished, at a moment of political and ecclesiastical commotion, to step forward and signalise my protestant zeal, in an assault upon the ever to be dreaded " Society of Jesus." This is not the fact. I have little or no faith in the beneficial tendency of assaults upon particular systems, sup- posed to be of mischievous quality. Nor, even if I might hope to render some service to Protestanism by attempting a direct attack upon its opponents, do I think that Jesuitism, in particular, could, at this time substantiate its claim to be singled out as the most to be feared among the antagonists of truth. Although far from entertaining the belief that Jesuitism Is about presently to disappear, I could not consent to give it a foremost place in the list of things especially formidable. — — On the contrary, it Is because Jesuitism Is now, as I think, falling Into its place among schemes that may be PEEFACE. analysed without alarm, and that may be treated, in all calmness, according to its merits, that I have se- lected it from among those institutes which are still ex- tant, and likely to subsist a while, and to exert some dying influence, although they be hastening to their end. The same might be said, at this time, of all those products of the Middle Ages, or of the season of convulsion which brought the mediaeval era to a close ; — namely, that, as things about to " vanish away," they offer themselves as fit objects of tranquil and in- structive contemplation. So far as it may be possible, in a comprehensive manner, to compare our own times with past ages, a difference presents itself which is highly characteristic, and full of meaning in relation to the future. It is this, that — whereas each revolution of opinion, and each signal event, hitherto marking the intellectual and religious history of Europe, has borne the impress of individual minds, or perhaps of some one mind, so that a great name stands as the symbol of theories, systems, communions — now, the influence of individual men seems to have ceased almost to make itself felt, in any such manner. The course of events, and the pro- gress of opinion, is the tide wave of a mighty ocean, in relation to which the very mention of individual agency would sound like a mockery. In times past great minds led a host ; and gave their names to the regions that had been opened or conquered, under their guidance. But now it seems task enough if we can bring ourselves to contemplate, with serenity, and to comprehend, the giddy tossings — the reeling to and fro — of the social system. In presence of these vast and ominous convulsions — what is the pulpit — or the press even — or what the con- PREFACE. Vll sultations of goodjnen in committee? They are little more than what the very same means of influence would be, if opposed to the storm-borne swell of the Atlantic ! Ominous convulsions, we may call them, and yet are they not auspicious ? for, at a time when man is thus compelled to confess his impotence, may not the inter- vention of Omnipotence be so much the more confidently looked for? But the cessation — or the apparent cessation — of human agency, as related to the movements and pro- gress of the moral system, seems to invite attention to the times when its power was at the height ; and when the individual peculiarities and the personal history of illustrious men gave a well defined direction to the mind of nations, and left a strongly marked image upon their forms of belief, and iipon their permanent institutions. As Christian men we are all now living in the light (or under the shadow) of great names. Our faith, and our worship, and our usages, are all emblazoned, as with the armorial bearingrs of our religious ancestors. The present religious existence of the European com- monwealth— if indeed the continental nations may be said to retain any of the elements of a religious existence — various as it is in its features, might be described under the designation of some twelve or twenty illustrious leaders of past times. Nothing on any side exists which might not fairly be brought under review in con- nection with a name, or which would not involuntarily suggest itself to every well informed mind — on the mere mention of such a name. I will confess, then, to have entertained the idea of bringing the several existing religious systems under separate review — each considered as the product of the VIU PEEPACE. mind which, principally, gave it its form and character. The execution of a task such as this, in a manner fully- proportioned to" its magnitude and importance, would demand qualifications to which I make no pretension. The qualification which I do profess, and apart from which such a task assuredly should not be attempted, is — on the one hand, a profound belief of the truth of that Gospel which " is not of man " — and, on the other, a thorough freedom of mind, in relation to all those forms of Christianity which bespeak a lower origin. I. T. Stanford Rivers, March 26. 1849. LOYOLA, &c. PART I.. PERSONAL HISTOEY. CHAPTER I. LOYOLA, AND THE EELATIVE POSITION OF HIS STSTEJI. The lapse of even so long a period as three centuries has not in every instance been enough to place a gi'eat name beyond the reach of political or religious prejudices ; nor indeed can any such oblivion of undue aversions, or relinquishment of partialities equally undue, be well looked for in the case of those eminent men whose names stand connected with institutions, or with modes of belief, which are still extant. It is the fate of such men to wait long for bare justice on earth; — they live on, from age to age, in the systems they have originated, and are doomed to stand anew at the bar of each succeeding generation, until their influence and their authority shall have become extinct. Nevertheless, although influences of this sort must live while parties live, yet are they continually losing their hold of the educated classes ; nor is it difl5cult now to find those who have attained equanimity enough to enable them freely to award his due to a distin- guished man of past times, irrespectively of any opi- nion that may be entertained as to the quality of the B 2 4 LOYOLA, AND system, the institution, or the doctrines, to which he may have given perpetuity. Yet even such persons, exempt as they may be from vulgar prejudices, may very probably have come under an influence of a more subtile kind, against which the more caution is needed, because it neither stirs the passions, nor excites the imagination; and, on the contrary, soothes and flatters a philosophic temper. The modern tendency to theorise, and to pursue gratuitous generalisations on the field of history, may beguile us as far from the path of simple truth, in forming our opinion of distinguished men, as does even the most acrid bigotry, or the most overween- ing idolatry. Doubtless the moral universe, not less than the material, obeys the impulse of general laws; but who shall profess himself to be master of them, even in their rudiments, much less in that infinitely varied in- teraction of these laws which makes up the course of human affairs? Of these occult principles we catch a glimpse, once and again, and what is called the Phi- losophy of History availing itself of such sudden flashes, constructs, by their aid, a fragmentary science — not utterly vague indeed, nor quite useless ; but not to be had recourse to, or to be relied upon, without the utmost caution. We here occupy ground where no experiment can ever be repeated ; and where no two events, or courses of action, although apparently identical or analagous, can be brought into comparison with any confidence that the very same causes, and no others, have been in operation, in both cases. The Philosophy of History may indeed be applied with some certainty to great breadths, and to extensive surfaces ; but scarcely at all, or not without extreme risk, can it be brought to bear upon single events, or individual characters. Abroad, and in Germany, especially, the practice of HIS SYSTEM. 5 theorising upon events and persons has become a fashion — a fashion fruitful of absurdities, and while it perverts the simplicity of history, by a show of ingenuity and novelty, it has rendered plain realities distasteful ; and, in some momentous instances, has broken up the very ground of historic certainty. If any such pseudo-scientific method were adopted and applied to the instances of Martin Luther and of Ignatius Loyola, it might be easy to shed upon our theme a glare of philosophic splendour. Thus this pair of worthies might be held up to view as binary stars, revolving round a common centre, and exhibiting the counteractive forces, moral and religious, of the six- teenth century ! Each, it might be said, and each, as related to the other, was the necessary consequence of the conflicting ferments of that stirring age. Each of these great men came forth, we might be told, when he came, and each was what he was, and each did what he did, in obedience to certain occult forces which, from the depth of ages, had been working themselves up to the surface of European civilisation ! The one was " an Idea" proper to Germany; the other "an Idea" proper to Spain ; and the two were simultaneously evolved by a silent energy of the moral system, then struggling into light, and asking to be defined, and to be uttered aloud, and to be defended, and to be consigned to future ages ! Luther, according to some such theory, was the spokesman of the Teutonic idea of Christianity ; Loyola, of the Spanish ; and thus we should have before us the philosophy of the religious movements of the sixteenth century ; that is to say, of the Eeformation throughout the northern, and of the Catholic reaction throughout the southern nations of Europe ! But if, in dealing with secular history, the theorising tendency ought to be very cautiously indulged, how B s 6 LOTOLAj AXD much more occasion is there for hesitation when the persons and events of religious history are to be dis- posed of! For, on this ground, the causes we have to do with are more occult, and are less easily defined, and they are more easily misunderstood, There is, indeed, a philosophy of religious history; but who, among mortals, shall say that he has fathomed its depths ? From the dim recesses of a human bosom — and this bosom put in movement by the falling of a leaf, or by in- fluences unseen and inscrutable — may spring the germs of a new era for millions of the human family ! Could then such an order of events have been predicted? or, after it has taken place, are we competent to assign these events to their causes? Too often have portions of history, or single bio- graphies, been composed in the spirit, or after the fashion of an epic. Unity of intention has been looked for where it was not to be found ; and every trivial incident has been shown to have had its meaning in conformity with the theory which governs the whole. Such histories or biographies might gain much praise if given to the world as pieces of art. A special exception, however, must be taken against this philosophic method, if it were attempted to apply it to the case of Ignatius Loyola ; — and periiaps another instance equally remarkable in this respect does not pre- sent itself on the page of history. We have to do, in this case, with one Ignatius Loyola; but with two types of mind — with two historic personages ; and, therefore, any theory which may seem applicable to the one, must be laid aside, and give place to a wholly different hypo- thesis, when we direct our attention to the other. The Loyola of the biographers, and the St. Ignatius of the Society, stand contrasted in a manner that seems to set at defiance any attempt at generalisation. HIS SYSTEM. 7 The Loyola of the biographers is indeed a very in- telligible person, dilBfering in no very marked manner from scores of saints of whom the Church of Rome is used to make her boast. Seen in this light, he may ■well enough be regarded as the child and creature of his times, and of his country, and of his church : — all, so far —appears to be congruous, and to be of ordinary quality, and therefore it is explicable upon knoAvn and obvious principles. But a moment comes when the well-defined contour and vivid colours of this cognizable figure begin to dissolve, and to give place to a mys- terious outline, or rather monocrome, and which we are told to look upon as the image of the Founder of the Society of Jesus ! As to Luther, his personal character is all of a piece, whether we take up his private history, or his public conduct, as leader of the great movement of his times. The regenerator of northern Europe is one man, whether he be seen confronting princes and diets, or recreating his spirit at home. It is otherwise with Loyola, who, although not to be accused of acting a part, either as a "saint" or as a chief, nevertheless, when he shifts himself from the one character to the other, seems almost to have laid aside his identity. What are the facts, summarily stated ? — A Spanish gentleman, of bold bearing, and who courts every chivalrous distinc- tion, and breathes at once a nice honour, and a gallantry less nice, Is grievously wounded and thrown upon his bed, where he endures weeks of anguish, and months of languor. Spoiled for war and pleasure by the hurt he has received, and fired, in a moment, by a new am- bition, he breaks from his home, and sets forward as a Christian fakir, to amaze the world by feats of wild humility. He undergoes mental paroxysms, he sees B 4 8 LOYOLA, AND visions, and exists thenceforward in a condition of in- tense emotion, resembling, in turns, the ecstasies of the upper, and the agonies of the nether world. He dedi- cates himself, body and soul, to the service of the blessed Virgin — the queen of angels : — he sets out on a preaching pilgrimage to convert the Mahometan world, and he contemns all prudence and common sense in ap- plying himself to an enterprise so immensely dispropor- tioned to his abilities. In the course of a year or two he has merited canonization — if frenzied pietism can ever merit it. But now this same devotee — this unmanageable enthusiast as he seems, and whose cheeks are furrowed with perpetual streams of penitence and rapture — sud- denly conceives and quickly digests (at a very early period after his conversion) and puts forward, and brings into operation, a scheme of life and a polity of which nothing more need be said than that it has proved itself to be the most firmly compacted, and the most efficient, of any which the world has seen. A scheme so bold, as to the means of which it avails itself, and so refined in its modes of dealing with human nature, and so elaborate in its frame-work, and so far-reaching in its views and purposes, could not have sprung from any but a mind of extraordinary compass ; — a mind self-possessed and tranquil, delicate in its perceptions, sure in its intui- tions, and capable of a wide comprehension of various objects. The framer of this spiritual polity, if he was not moved by, must have mastered, a boundless ambition, and must have known how to beseem himself as a lamb, while planning nothing less than the subjuga- tion of the world. The personal history of Don liligo Lopez de Recalde is in itself perfectly intelligible, and it has many counterparts : and so, although it has scarcely a counterpart, is the history of the Founder of HIS SYSTEM. 9 Jesuitism, if considered by itself; but how shall we weld the two together, as the history of one person — the Ignatius Loyola ? In order to remove, or in some degree to lessen, the difficulty that here presents itself, two suppositions have been advanced ; — the one is this : — That Loyola's con- temporary biographers have materially falsified the portrait of their master, attributing to him those virtues and that phase of piety which they thought becoming to him when he was to be held forth as the founder of a religious order; at the same time throwing into the shade those true and prominent features of his intel- lectual character, which. If they had been brought into notice, might 'have bred suspicion as to his heavenly- mindedness, and the simplicity of his intentions. The other of these explanatory suppositions is this : — That Loyola, being truly represented by his biographers, and having been indeed an ecstatic devotee, was, in fact, thrust forward in front of the Jesuit Institute, by its real authors, as a means of covering their actual in- tentions with a disguise of empassioned and seraphic piety. Either of these suppositions might seem probable; but neither of them will bear a strict examination; for, in the first place, a comparison of the two or three contemporaneous memoirs of Loyola's personal history, while they exhibit indications of their having been derived from independent sources, present too many marks of genuineness and of verisimilitude to allow of their being rejected as fabrications. The ex- aggerations that attach to them may easily be set off; and as to that intermixture of the supernatural which they contain, those who are familiar with the legends of the *' canonised," will have learned how to disengage a true story from this sort of decoration. The " Life of St. 10 LOYOLA, AND Ignatius" we must then receive as substantially true, filthough it may be circumstantially spurious. As to the second supposition, even if it might be partially admitted as probable, it cannot so be entertained as would serve to remove the difficulty in question. It is certain that two veins of thought are discernible in the original documents of the Jesuit Institute, the one exhibiting far more of astute ingenuity than does the other ; and hence it may be inferred, that, while the simpler elements are attributable to the real Loyola, the authorship of the less simple should be assigned to his colleagues. It Is in fact known that one or two of those who constituted the " Society," in its infant period, were men superior to himself in -acquirements, and of a keener intellectual type. Easily, therefore, may it be supposed that these more skilful hands took part In laying the foimdatlons, and In rearing the super- structure of the Jesuit polity. But the supposition that Loyola was the mere screen of the machinations of his colleagues, and that he was Innocent of all but a cognizance of what they were doing, cannot be ad- mitted, inasmuch as those portions of the canonical writings * of the Society which, on the best grounds, are attributed to his own hand, exhibit so much refine- ment, and so much skill, and so much of mathematical steadiness in pursuing a desired conclusion, and so thorough an Intuition of human nature, that they might be held to vouch for his competency to have been the author of the whole. The fact then, little relieved of difficulty, presents Itself * By the phrase, once and again employed in reference to the Jesuit documents — " canonical writings," what is intended is — those writings which, from the first, have been appealed to by Jesuits as embodying the principles and the laws of the Society, and which are still so appealed to. HIS SYSTEM, 11 — that the ever-weeping, the ecstatic, the vision- seeing " St. Ignatius" was indeed the originator of the Society of Jesus, and therefore could have been no en- thusiast, no dreamer, no fanatic ; but one who might have been matched with Macchiavelli in subtile command of the springs of human action — with Richelieu in the practice and art of governing mankind — with Hobbes in daring paradoxical consistency — with Mahomet in that fascination which links together stronger minds for the achievement of an arduous enterprise — with Hildebrand in boundless and well-digested purpose; and, in a word, with any among the few whose single energies have turned the current of human affairs into a new channel. Loyola's elementary idea — that of an absolute domi- nation over the spirits of men, and of a centralisation of all powers on earth, in the bosom of one master of souls, was not of his invention ; for it suggests itself always to a certain class of minds, and is as old as human nature, and has, under various phases, been coming to the surface, and striving to give itself a real and visible existence, from age to age. But no former endeavour of this kind had been so consistently imagined, or has been so successfully achieved. It is Loyola who has shown the world what might be meant by the phrase " Spiritual Polity :" it is he who has known how to smelt soul-ore into one mass — a mass uniformly crys- tallized, and shining on its surface, and mathematical in its figure, and thoroughly malleable and ductile, and a good conductor of sounds : it is he who has brought to perfection the process — often attempted, of forging hundreds of individual wills into so true a continuity of substance that the volitions of a single mind should pass, like galvanic currents, through the whole, and become intelligible and effective at the remotest distances. 12 LOYOLA, AND It is easy to fall into the error of supposing that Jesuitism, which at the first so signally came in to the aid o£ the Komish Church in its time of need, and which has made so many professions of devotedness to its service, is itself a mere appendage of that Church ; or that it is a sort of emphatic Romanism ; or that it stands on level ground along with the other religious orders, and that it is related to the Papacy nearly as they are. Such an idea of the Society as this is not merely contra- dicted by every page of its history, but is incompatible with its spirit and its rudiments. Jesuitism may outlast Eomanism ; or it may be wholly severed from it, and yet may live and grow. Often as the Society has been seen prostrate at the foot of the Sovereign Pontiff, venting itself in vehement professions of loyalty, it has, in fact, always hung loose upon ecclesiastical Catholicism, and has shown itself to be organically independent, living by its own sap, drawn from the soil by its own root and fibres. Jesuitism has its own purposes to secure, and its own law of self-preservation; and should the day come when it could not save both itself and the Church, or could save itself only by conspiring against her, its past history would warrant the belief that the Papacy might, at such a conjuncture, fall — set upon by its pro- fessed friends, and with Csesar's last words on its lips, while it looks to " the Society." Not only, however, did Loyola take care to give his Institute an organisation that should render it inde- pendent of that of the Church, so that it might stand firm on its own basis ; but, with a sagacity which must be admired, and a boldness of which there is perhaps no parallel example, and with a far-reaching perception of the occult relations of things, equally rare, he set his new polity as clear as possible of any entanglement with the emasculate pietism of the regular and ascetic HIS SYSTEM. 13 orders. The Society of Jesus was made to stand com- paratively exempt from the trammels and disparagements that are connected with excessive austerities, with debas- ing superstitions, and with liturgical burdens. It stood clear of the seclusive anchoretic temper and practice ; it made no show of celestial simplicity ; and, in a word, it threw aside, or would not encumber itself with, any pro- fessions or practices which might clog the movements of a machine constructed for grasping, and crushing, and con- verting to its own use, the most substantial things of earth. Loyola seems himself, at least as early as the second stage of his religious course, to have felt the unprofit- ableness and vanity (if he did not clearly discern the utter absurdity) of ascetic extravagances. He would not, indeed, scandalize the Catholic Church by de- nouncing them, or by laying them altogether aside in his own practice; but there are indications of his secret opinion that the self-tormenting " philosophy," though it afforded a fit amusement for the crazed dwellers in cells and caves, could be no proper occupa- tion for men busied with the weighty interests of the real world. As an institutor, Loyola first bowed to his reverend predecessor — the Anchoret ; and then warily passed him by. For himself and his followers, he had high matters to transact — he had a world to vanquish, and to govern. The palHd spiritualism of the ascetics, with its vapid anilities, its meagre results, its ghost-like movings to and fro to no purpose, its mopishness, its shyness, its egotism and its self-seeking, were not qualities that could engage more than a complaisant obeisance from a mind filled with vast conceptions of a bold enterprise, and arduous labour. Loyola paid his compliments to monkery, and to its gew~gaws,. in much the same manner as that in which a monarch, fuU of state affairs, gives 14 LOYOLA, AND a half hour of heartless courtesy and ceremony to a divorced consort. Luther, in freeing himself from the ascetic spiritualism, and in loudly denouncing it as an utter folly and a per- nicious error, did so from an impulse of evangelic health. To one so robust in soul, what was this attenuated sanctity better than a tissue of cobwebs ? Loyola, from no such impulses, yet distasting the same thing, and with whom the relinquishment of it was not a mat- ter of conscience or conviction, but of policy, could, at the dictate of the same policy, continue to put it on as a garb, and to take it up as a cloak, and to speak well of it, in measured terms, to his followers. Highly characteristic is the style in which he does this. He enjoins them, on all occasions — Laudare plurimum re- ligionura status ; — but the very injunction betrays the consciousness that he and they occupied independent posi- tions, and that they were themselves exterior to the system they were thus to commend. " Always speak in lau- datory terms of this or that usage or practice." So speaks an authority that, In a perfunctory manner. Is doing an expected homage to another authority. So speaks one who is instructing his agents how to behave themselves In a foreign land. This — laudare plurimum, is a concession, made In relation to a matter that is more highly thought of by the party to whom it is rendered, than it Is by him who renders It ; and which is made for the sake of an ulterior purpose. Loyola, as the author of Jesuitism, was the mechanician, not the enthusiast: he was not the fanatic, who Is seen driving the herd of men before him with a fiery scourge ; but the master and leader of spirits, who calmly mar- shals and drills the minds he has enrolled. As he was not the promulgator of any new dogma, he did not be- come fevered by controversial heats. It was his func- HIS StSTESr. 15 tion to give a polity to the world : he could never have given it a creed. His biographers assure us that he was accustomed frequently to cast his eyes heaven-ward ; yet he was neither the mystic nor the contemplatist : — his Institute is all earthward-bent. Spiritualism would have been to him Idleness ; he could occupy himself with nothing that had no product. The depths which he fathomed were not those abysses of the moral world whereinto sombre and solitary meditation plunges ; but those near-at-hand deeps of human nature which a few minds are gifted to reach, as at a step, by intuition of the way. As our Shakespeare knew human nature to paint it truly in all its moods, so Loyola knew it to rule it absolutely in all those moods. There were special reasons, too, why Loyola should take care not to connect his Institute too intimately with the ascetic spiritualism. How far he might be dis- tinctly conscious of these reasons, which are of a kind that were little regarded in that age. If ever thought of, can- not be known : but It may well be supposed that a mind so fraught as was his with the intuitions of innate sagacity, might discern, at least dimly, that a scheme of ffovernment which was to diffuse Itself over all coun- tries, and to embrace all races of men, must hold Itself free from those modes of piety which have sprung up and flourished only In certain latitudes. Spiritualism has appeared, spontaneously, only within certain geographical limits : beyond those limits It has been an Importation — an exotic, kept alive by artificial means. It Is, or has always seemed to be, dependent upon temperature : — Farenheit must tell us where we may look for it. As there may be marked on a globe a corn-growing zone, and a vine-growing zone, so likewise is there a zone or belt of abstracted meditative pietism. Where Is it that we may be sure of finding the most 16 LOTOLA, AND luscious fruits, hanging in ripe clusters by the way -side, as common things ? It is where we shall also be pointed, by the modern devotee, to the shrines of a Benedict, a Basil, a Francis d'Assisi. Did Loyola foresee that a refined, abstemious, contemplative pietism would with difficulty be sustained in countries where ani- mal comfort can never be relinquished with impunity ? Besides, Jesuitism was intended to exist and to esta- blish itself amid the realities of common life; and it was to do this in a manner wholly unlike any thing that had been thought of or attempted by the earlier monas- tic orders, whether preaching or mendicant. Loyola well understood that this new intention involved the necessity of a new principle, and his skill is shown in sliding his Institute from off the monastic platform, insensibly, while he lodged it firmly upon broader and more solid ground. The monastic and ascetic spiri- tualism withdraws its sincere votaries from the com- pany of other men, not merely, or chiefly, because the " angelic virtue" feels itself in jeopardy while com- mingling with the laxity, the frivolity, and the corrup' tion of the open world ; but because it is itself conscious of a want of substance and reality ; and this conscious- ness becomes painful whenever solid realities surround it on every side. Spiritualism is factitious; — it is not hypocrisy, but it is spuriousness ; and nothing can be more difficult, and especially so to those who are sin- cere, than to sustain an artificial state while encom- passed by what is natural and spontaneous. The balloon collapses, in spite of eveiy effort to keep it inflated, when it is so pressed upon; the spiritualist, sensitive and apprehensive of moral annihilation, hastens back to his sodality, where he may again freely breathe in the company of those whose substance is as aerial as his own. HIS SYSTEM. 17 Although therefore Loyola must be numbered among the founders of religious orders, and although the Society of Jesus is such, as to its forms, its vows, and its profes- sions, we should go widely astray if we were to attach to that phrase ideas analogous to those that are called tip when we hear of Benedictines, Augustinians, Fran- ciscans, Dominicans'; for these were religious orders, in an entire sense ; they were so in their original purport, in their framework, and usages, and in their bearing upon the open world. T\iQjinal purpose of these societies was accomplished when piety, according to the ancient and medieval notion of Christianity, was promoted within their own circles, and was extended by their means around them. But Jesuitism would be wholly inex- plicable if it were demanded of us that we should re- gard it as mainly a religious institute, or as a scheme intended for cherishing Christian virtues and graces. It has seemed necessary thus to premise, Jirst, that the personal history of Loyola does not offer to our view (unless it be once and again indistinctly, and as by a glimpse) the man we are in search of — the tranquilly profound inventor of the Jesuit Institute: next, that this Institute, although it has been spoken of as a sort of condensed Komanism, and although in fact it has done much to conserve the Romish Church, and to extend its influence, ht^ an independent existence — is slenderly attached to it — and, as it has already once and again been detached from the Church, or ejected by it, so probably will it at length detach itself!, and will struggle for a separate existence, Lastly, the caution has been given not to confound this Society with those ancient institutes which it resembles only in exterior style, in professions, and in forms. The personal history of Don Inigo Lopez de Eecalde, of the house of Loyola, may be accepted at the hands c 18 LOYOLA, AND of the two or three contemporary writers * from whose pages it is derived, with some degree of confidence as to its authenticity, if not with an absolute assurance of its genuineness and simplicity. This biography is in itself as credible as are most of the narratives that make up the folios of the Acta Sanctorum : nay, it is more credible — or rather it is less mingled with what must be rejected — than are very many of those prolix memoirs. If Saint Ignatius had been signalised in no other way than as having shed an edifying splendour upon the thirty-first day of July, the story of his conversion, the description of his manners, and the account given of his labours as a popular teacher, might be perused with as much benefit, and with as little hesitation, as in the instance of the choicest worthies of the calendar. Although it be true that perplexity attends the en- deavour thoroughly to reconcile the Loyola of the contemporary writers with our idea of the founder and General of the order of Jesuits, this difiiculty, even though it were susceptible of no satisfactory solution, would not warrant the rejection of memoirs which, apart from any such difficulty, must undoubtedly be accepted as in the main authentic. Loyola's personal history naturally divides itself into three eras ; the first, and the most ordinary, being that of his youthful career, and which, if not wholly desti- tute of characteristic traits, differs but little from what may easily be imagined as proper to Spain, and to the times and court of Ferdinand and Isabella. The second period commences at the moment when the tumult of earthly passions, lulled by bodily sufferings, gave way to influences of another kind, and which were perma- nently superseded by deeper commotions of the soul : * See note at the end of the volume. HIS SYSTEM. 19 thence we follow him through a course of sharp but not altogether unusual spiritual conflicts, until the day, the date of which is not ascertained, when these convulsions of his individual nature were in their turn quelled or displaced by the opening before him of a vast idea — that of subjugating all souls of the human family, and which, when fully developed, quickened within him extraordinary intellectual faculties, and in the exercise of which a course presented itself leading directly to a seat of power, such as the most ambitious spirits might envy. liiigo, high-born, slenderly educated, or, as it seems, wholly untaught in letters, yet accomplished in all grace- ful and chivalrous arts, wanted no advantage that might secure to him, in ample measure, the smiles and favours which are to be won and enjoyed in courts, palaces, pavi- lions, and camps. He is described by his contemporaries as of middle stature, with an aspect full of grace and dignity ; a complexion between the fair and swarthy ; an ample and prominent forehead; an eye sparkling, and full of life ; the nose somewhat long and curved. He limped slightly, but not awkwardly, in consequence of the injury his leg had sustained in the hands of the surgeons. It is affirmed that he would never grant permission to painters or sculptors to exercise their art upon him ; and that the extant portraits and medallions were all derived from a cast taken after death. If authenticity could be attributed to a medallion, the execution of which might seem to vouch for its genuine- ness, and which accords well with the description given of their friend and master by his followers, we may assume him to have been handsome, after the Spanish type, and decisively of military mould and aspect. The air is that of the ecclesiastic, induced upon a form and temperament which was thoroughly that of the soldier. C 2 20 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. The contour, symmetrical and rotund, is expressive of a hopeful, enterprising, and chivalrous, rather than of a reflective turn. One would say that the outward life is more to this man than the inward life. The intense attitude is that of one whose own emotions and im- pressions rule his animal system, leaving him little under' the control of persons or things around him. He is self- prompted, self-possessed, sure, determined, unhesitating, firm ; but not remorseless, or inexorable. He is fertile in resources ; nor ever desponds because he has no means of help left him. He is nice in his perceptions, has a keen relish of enjoyment ; and — must it not be said ? is of a pleasure-loving constitution ? One M'ould not think him the ascetic, or the self-tormentor. He is well fleshed, and sanguineous, and is accustomed — so one might surmise —to adjust all differences between flesh and spirit in a reasonable manner. If imaginative it is only within the narrowest limits : his imagination lights up at a spark, but as it has little oil of its own, it does not burn with any rich, copious, or continuous splendour. Yet assuredly there is nothing malignant in this physiognomy : it indicates no acerbity, no sullen pride, no retention of anger. This man is too happy in himself to harbour a resentment. Thus far, then, the medallion consists with the history of " Saint Ignatius ; " but it must be confessed that if any score of portraits, unnamed, were spread on the table, and it were demanded that the founder of the order of Jesuits should be singled out from among them, several probably of that number would be selected sooner than this. If, indeed, this be the image of the author of that Institute, how shrouded was that in- telligence ; — how many fathoms deep was that mind seated, which conceived a scheme for ruling the M'orld, and which went far toward actually ruling it ! 21 CHAPTER II. lotola's eaelt years, and conversion. GuiPUSCOA, the proylnce shut in at the angle of the Bay of Biscay by an offset of the Pyrenean range, and by its continuation westward, small as it is, boasted of several ancient families whose castles decked the slopes of its mountain rampart. Among these none was more distinguished, at the close of the fifteenth century, than that of Bertram, Lord of Ognez and Loyola. Inigo, the eighth son and thirteenth child* of this count, and of his wife, Mary Saez de Balde and Ricalde, was born in the year 1491. The opening graces of bis person, and his aspiring temper, seemed to destine him to shine in courts and camps. At an early age he was sent as a page to the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, where he acquired every accomplishment that was most esteemed in such a place, although barely furnished, if at all, with the rudiments of mental culture. In this court, however, and while putting little re- straint upon the passions of youth, it is affirmed, nor should we doubt the allegation, that he stood dis- tinguished among his companions by his abstinence from profane language, by his abhorrence of it as in- dulged in by others, by a reverential behaviour toward the ministers of religion, by a contempt of sordid gains, and by his dislike of gambling. These germs of a noble * " Tuvieron estos cavalleros cinco hijas, y ocho hijos." — EiBADESBiRA. See note at the end of the volume. c 3 22 IGNATIUS LOYOLA, temper, and of moral sensitiveness, have never been wanting in the conformation of men whose after life has entitled them, in any true sense of the word, to be styled great, and Loyola, undoubtedly, has a claim, on some grounds, to this epithet. Although the grace of Heaven may often make the wicked good, yet its province is not to make the little great : those who are to be such are born, not made. Loyola, we are told, disdained to take the share due to him of the spoils of a captured town — Najara, deeming it unbecoming in a Christian and a man to defile his hands with another's goods, although taken in lawful war. Not less placable than brave, he was never retentive of injuries : — an adroit peacemaker moreover, and so well skilled, by intuitive discernment of human nature, and by precocious sagacity, in the art of arbitration, and so successful in his endeavours to bring fierce spirits to reason, that at an age to which oflftces of this kind are very seldom assigned, the manage- ment of difficult negotiations had, in several instances, been entrusted to him by public persons. It seems to have been his gift to feel his way unerringly through the intricacies of human nature, and to dive into every bosom ; and whoever possesses this intuition, comes, by consent of all, into the place of leader in his circle ; for the discerning of spirits is the foundation of power. Loyola pursued the career of pleasure and worldly ambition without check until he had completed his twenty-ninth year ; when he was snatched from that course by a hand unseen, and set forward upon another path. France and Spain were at this time again con- tending for the possession of the border provinces, and Navarre, contrary to treaties, was still held by Charles of Austria. To recover [this [ground a large EAKLY LIFE. 23 force had been sent across the boundary by Francis, with the intention of recovering Navarre for the family of Jean D'Albret. By this force Pampeluna was invested, in which a garrison, wanting in courage or in loyalty, or in both, meditated a surrender. The gallant Inigo, although not in principal command, was there present, and would fain have headed the defence of the place ; but after venting indignant reproaches to no effect upon his countrymen, he retired — with one companion, to the citadel, where he incited those who held it to maiutain their position to the last. A breach in the walls was however soon effected by the French artillery ; and while Loyola, with a few, stopped the way by their personal prowess, he was struck by a ball on the right leg, and by a splinter from the wall on the left, and fell in the breach. On this the garrison at once surrendered; but the assailants, not insensible — for Frenchmen have not often shown themselves so — to the claims of the brave, rendered every needful office of humanity to their gallant prisoner ; and they did it in a manner befitting his rank. Moreover, as it appeared that the injuries he had sustained were too serious to be speedily remedied, he was sent off, with all care, to the paternal castle, not far distant from Pampeluna, on the northern side of the mountain ridge. It was thus that Loyola, with far better fortune than often attends the wounded and vanquished soldier's lot, found himself at home, in the hands of assiduous nurses, and with every aid at hand which love and skill could furnish. But the cure of his wounds was tardy ; for the fractured bone had been hurriedly or badly set; nor, such was the opinions of the surgeons, could a perfect cure be hoped for unless violence, frightful to think of, were anew applied to the limb. This torture, how- ever, the patient endured with the calm fortitude of a c 4 24 IGNATIUS LOTOLA. soul strong in will. Nevertheless the shock, which was rendered so much the more prejudicial to the animal frame by the stern control which the mind had, at the moment, exercised over the body, seemed to threaten his life. Mortal symptoms had come on. It was the eve of SS. Peter and Paul when the gallant soldier's sorrowing friends called in the ministers of religion to perform their last offices in preparation for death. That which follows involves no miracle ; nor would it demand any special notice, except as an instance which may be noted as characteristic in the pei'sonal history of a man like Loyola. It isy in fact, one of several of the same class, occurring at intervals throughout his course, and remarkable only when regarded in connection with what might be termed the anti-supernaturalism of the Jesuit Institute, and which is its distinction, as compared with the style of the Komish Church generally, or with that of the other religious orders. A scornful exhibition of such incidents is not the mode of treatment proper to them ; for contempt solves no problem in human nature, nor can silence on such occasions be appropriate ; for not a particle of evidence, tending to clear up the perplexity that attaches to Loyola's personal history, ought to be lost sight of. Even if a " saint," in the legendary sens 3 of the phrase, he was more than a " saint " in that sense : — - he was better than a " saint," and he lived to see the unprofitableness, if not to denounce the hoUow- ness, of much which his Church has been used to com- mend. "Worthy of notice is the fact that, breathing as he did the atmosphere of a miracle-loving community, and himself — if these incidents are genuine — far from constitutionally insensible to excitements of this order, yet had recourse so sparingly to any such means of ruling the minds of men. He felt that wliile relying upon EARLY LIFE. 25 more rational modes of government, he could well dis- pense with the precarious aids of superstition. Such was his knowledge of human nature, and sucli the plastic power of his hand, that, in moulding the thou- sand hearts which his Institute was to blend into one, he felt himself exempt from the poor necessity of taking up the tools of the magician. But the patient lies at the point of death ; — the phy- sician declares him to have passed beyond the reach of human skill, unless the disorder should take a favourable turn that very night ; — the priest too has withdrawn from the chamber. Ignatius, we are told, had always cherished a specially devout regard to the Prince of the Apostles, in whose honour he had, during his yeai's of gaiety, composed hymns. In this night, and before mid- night, and while life was ebbing fast, this very Apostle — even St. Peter himself — seemed to stand before him * at the foot of the couch — or so he dreamed, and admi- nistered, as from above, that aid which earthly skill could not afford. The current turned — a life-pulse beat through every limb — and the soul, empowered so to do by Heaven's own mandate — • took possession anew of its quarters. A fresh illustration, however, was yet to be afforded of Loyola's energy of will, for as his recovery advanced, it was found that the fractured — the re-fractured bone, had so united as to present an unsightly protrusion, just where the well-turned limb should show a graceful out- line. This deformity was, in his esteem, an intolerable ill ; for what is life, with all its splendours, to one whose stocking could never be made to fit without a rumple ? Although forewarned that the removal of this bony ex- * Mafiei sr.ys, per quietem videre sibi yisus est eiindeni aposto- lum. . . . Eibadeiieira, — Apostolorum Princeps ccelitiis ad cum missus, eique visiis est. 26 IGNATIUS LOTOLA. crescence could not be effected without inflicting the most exquisite anguish, Loyola yielded himself once again to the martyrdom of a terrible operation. While his attendants fainted in witnessing the horrors of it, he, unbound, and without a groan, endured the surgeon's tools, indicating his anguish only by the tight clench of his hands. That the motive for undergoing this ^an- guish was such as is alleged, his biographer asserts — et quod me audiente narravit — ut habiles atque ele- gantes urbanas ocreas gestare posset, secari os jussit. Ignatius survived this new trial of the^ strength of his constitution ; and although this last operation had re- moved a deformity, the limb had sustained too much injury to allow him to indulge the hope of ever again shining, as heretofore, in chivalrous array, or in the shows and revelries of a court. His return to the world being thus cut oflf, his after-formed resolution to turn his eye for ever from its glare, was no doubt rendered so much the less difficult to adopt, and to adhere to. Many weeks of languishing upon his couch had however yet to be endured by Ignatius. To beguile the hours he called for some of those tales of chivalry which he had been accustomed to peruse. But none were at hand; or at any rate he had extracted the entertainment of such as the castle could furnish. Two books of devotion, both in the vernacular tongue — a Life of Christ, and some ascetic memoirs, or legends of the desert — some one of those collections — Sancto- rum Flores — which enrich Roman Catholic literature. In these compositions every thing is held to be true which is found to subserve the purpose intended, that, namely, of lulling the reason and conscience, by a gentle excitement of the fancy, and of the feelings. These books, looked into at first with listless vexa- / EARLY LIFE. 27 tion, soon set on fire the very soul of Ignatius. As every fresh page was turned, sparks fell thick, and thicker still, upon materials so combustible as were those of this soldier's nature. That greatness which the soul draws upon itself by the habitual contemplation of in- finitude — the steady purpose too, and the unconquer- able wiU, and the unearthly abstraction, and the lofty contempt of whatever the world most admires and covets — aU these rudiments of spiritual heroism won the ad- miration of a spirit like Loyola's, sensitive and generous, and now broken off by a sudden violence from the in- citements of worldly passions, although in no degree sickened of them. Then these legends, with their lavish wonders, while they kindle the imagination as ■poetry, command the feelings too, as history — as something real and true ; or they do so to those whose reason no scepticism has ever troubled; and where neither a severe good sense, nor a correct taste imposes any restraints, there is a peculiar charm derived from that quaintness of style which so easily amalgamates the elements of true sub- limity with whatever is frivolous and grotesque. In these tales the vastness of religion lends a force to what is jejune or ridiculous, and imparts an intensity to the recreation which the mind thence receives. Moreover, inasmuch as the anohoretic and monastic life has been of oriental and Egyptian origin, it draws peculiar means of fascination, from its circumstances and scenery, when brought before the imagination of the western races. All enchantments have travelled from east to west ; and entirely stripped of its oriental decora- tions, it may well be doubted if the ascetic institute would so easily have triumphed as it did in Western Europe. The sultry wilderness, bristled with horrid rock — the ardent heavens — the sepulchral cell — the solitary 28 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. palm anear it, shooting heavenward its feathery crest, and then the wilderness infested with monsters, and the r.ir peopled with spirits, good and evil, altogether show a picture which entrances the imagination, at least of those who are ignorant of what is the reality of the hermit's life in an Arabian wilderness. The " Life of Christ," which is said to have been put into the hands of Loyola at this time, along with the " Lives of the Saints," was probably one of those meagre and decorated compilation's from the Evangelists which the Church of Eome has thought it safe to afford to the laity.* Not only is this supposition the only probable one, in such a case, but it is even indicated by the paucity, or rather the narrow range, of those refer- ences to the New Testament, which occur in the writ- ings of the Jesuit Founder. The reader of the " Spiritual Exercises" is compelled to suppose that the author's acquaintance with Holy Scripture must have been extremely limited ; at least that it was so at the time when these singular compositions passed from his hand ; and we are confidently told that this was at the moment immediately following his conversion. It appears, however, to have been the " Lives of tlie Saints," rather than the " Life of Christ " that at first fired the ambition of Loyola's soul, although afterwards the simple evangelic history seems to have dislodged the legends from his mind. " Why should not I," he * The " Life of Christ" most in repute at this period was that of Ludolphus of Saxony, a monk of the fourteenth century. It was originally written in Latin, but has been translated into most of the languages of the continent. There is, in the British Museum, a Spanish black letter edition — a very literal version of the Latin, published at Aloala, in 1502-3, in 4 vols. 4to. This probably was the book put into the hands of Loyola , and indeed was so, if we may trust the Italian biographer, Bartoli. If so, a conjecture hereafter to be advanced, relative to the sources of the " Spiritual Exercises," will receive some incidental confirmation. EARLY LIFE. 29 exclaimecl, " with the help of God, emulate the holy Dominic, or the holy Francis ? " These breathings of a new ambition were however still mingled with sighs and groans, produced by the struggle of earthly pas- sions in his bosom. The bright enticements which hitherto had engaged all his thoughts and desires, con- tinued to exert their unabated influence over him ; and his Inmost soul was racked by the alternate sway of these opposite forces. It seemed as If his very spirit must have been riven by the grasp, on either hand, of mighty powers, " contrary the one to the other." But whilst thus agitated and distracted, Loyola was acquiring a species of learning, which, as the master and guide of other souls, was necessary to qualify him for his office. He learned, or he learned psychologically, if not scripturally. In the midst of these conflicts, to discriminate between the true and the false — the genuine and the spurious, among those Indistinct or disguised Influences to which the human spirit, in the present state, Is subjected, and It was thus that he became an experienced director of consciences. The " Spiritual Exercises" give proof of this practised skill, and what- ever opinions we may entertain of the general quality and tendency of Jesuitism, It ought to be acknowledged that the writings of its founder show him to have passed through the stages of a moral revolution, which Is essen- tially the same under all systems, professedly Christian. With Loyola, however, this conversion seems never to have gone forward beyond a mid-way position, and it left him therefore at a distance from the home of evan- gelic peace. He did not recognise, or he had never dis- cerned, in the Scriptures, those first truths which im- parted life and power to Luther's course, as the Reformer of Christendom. Among the musings, seemingly good, which might 30 IGNATIUS LOTOIiA. entertain his solitary hours, he did not hesitate to ascribe to an evil origin — to the suggestions of an adversary, all such as were followed by restlessness, torpor, or the weariness of a soul ill-content with itself; while he welcomed, as coming from above, those meditations which were not merely pleasant at the moment, but which, as they passed away, left the mind in the calfn hilarity of health. Thus far let that which is genuine be acknowledged as such. At the point where Loyola turns off from the path of Scriptural spirituality, the complexion of the narrative becomes at once so unlike that with which the reader of the New Testament is familiar, that the risk of confounding the one with the other is small. Whatever may be thought of Loyola's spiritual con- dition at the moment when he turned his back upon the world, yet toward the world, and in relation to its false notions, and its pernicious courses, doubtless he had chosen a better part. If still there were illusions inter- vening between himself and a pure Christianity, the illusions subsisting between him and the world were the world's illusions, not his. His impressions of things eternal were just, and they were of the deepest kind : his conscience had been awakened, his sense of individual demerit was keen and tormenting ; his self-upbraidings were in the last degree severe. He approached the throne of offended justice as a trembling culprit ; but there he undertook the desperate task of expiating the guilt of past years by bodily torments, such as the most renowned saints had themselves practised, and had ap- plauded. Among these modes, unavailing as he found them, of assuaging the anguish of his soul, and of placating the wrath of heaven, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to be per- formed barefoot, and with daily flagellations and fast- HIS CONVERSION. 31 ings, was the one which most engaged his thoughts, and he waited only to have so far recovered the use of his shattered limbs as to render such an attempt not utterly impracticable. Might not the trembling peni- tent in this manner hope to merit, at length, some tokens of the divine favour ? An error, we reckon it, to think that he could, in any such mode, blot out the records of a life of sin ; but an error, surely, less fatal than is that of those who swell such records daily, without fear ! But these deep workings of the now quickened spirit, and this anguish in the conscious- ness of -guilt, and these torturing practices of expiation, must be regarded as unintelligible phenomena if they do not, even by the very extravagance that attends them, attest the supremacy of the moral impulses of human nature. What account could be given of any such agonies of the heart, if man were not a member of a moral sys- tem ; or what would mean this dismay — this dread of an hereafter, while nature smiles around him, if he were not indeed amenable to future justice ? No inter- pretation could be put upon a course of conduct such as that of the ascetic and devotee, if man were not hasten- ing forward to the presence of the Almighty, as his Judge and Saviour ? While thus struggling with his own emotions, and digesting his plans of expiation — at midnight, and during a vigil — so he told his friends — the Virgin Mother, with the infant Jesus in her arms, effulgent in celestial majesty, presented herself before him, and, for some space of time, with incredible benignity remained in his view ! How did this vision give intensity to the desire which already was intense, to achieve his pilgrim- age to the Holy City ! But a favour so signal pro- duced more than a transient effect upon his dispositions; for it sickened him for ever of things terrestrial ; — it gave 32 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. him an abiding disrelish of every sensual enjoyment; — it deadened within his bosom all worldly ambition ; — it set him free from the enthralment of every inferior passion. The splendour of that vision seemed in a moment to efface whatever had belonged to his former consciousness. The memoirs of Loyola, composed partly in Spanish, partly in Italian, by Gonsalvo, the materials of which were furnished, it is said, by the saint himself, in a con- versation held with the writer, a year only before his death, narrate this vision in terms implying a full belief in its reality, and yet with an intimation that Loyola himself observed a modest hesitation in assuming it to have been, in any proper sense, mli-aculous. This writer, in mentioning the happy and permanent conse- quences of the vision upon the holy father's disposition, says — Ex quo existimari potest, rem illam divinltus con- tigisse, tametsi id ipse affirmare non audebat. All he would do was to assert with confidence the facts as above stated ; but to trace them to their immediate cause, he would not venture. A later biographer * omits the — non audebat. And where Loyola himself allows us to accept a nar- rative as true, yet with liberty to think of it as involving a miracle or not, we may freely do so, and, on his own showing, may stop short in the hypothesis of an illusion of the brain. But were the moral and the physical con- sequences of this vision altogether such or so permanent as he alleged them to be ? On this question we have no certain means of coming to a conclusion ; for while it would be equally unphilosophical and uncandid to assume that Loyola's religious impressions must have been altogether factitious, because our theology teaches * Ribadeneira. HIS CONVEKSION. 33 US SO to regard them, we cannot be warranted, on the other hand, in implicitly accepting them as genuine, on testimony such as that of his biographers, even if we may believe them honest. During the rest of his life, say they, as often as he cast his eyes upward to the vault of heaven, which he frequently did, all mortal interests showed themselves in their vile aspect, and he was seized with an incredibly fervent longing to reach his home above. " How vile does earth appear, while I look upon the heavens ! " Meantime Loyola gained strength, both of body and mind ; yet he still thought himself unequal to the pilgrimage he contemplated ; and he sought to divert his impatience to break away from all earthly ties, by a literary employment, of which the exploits of the saints were the subject, and in the execution of which he no doubt secured for himself some personal improvement. The precise nature of these amusements is thus de- scribed by one of the biographers: In order to aid his memory, he fairly transcribed, in a neat and hand- some volume, the most remarkable acts and sayings of Christ, of the blessed Virgin, and of the other saints : the passages relating to Christ were written in letters of gold ; those to the blessed Virgin in purple ; and the other saints in various colours. These occupations, however, and the self-denying practices to which he addicted himself, did not fail to awaken the fears of his elder brother (now become lord of the patrimonial domain) for his welfare, who, in all modes of affectionate remonstrance and of stern rebuke, laboured to bring him back to the paths of worldly am- bition and of pleasure. But from these importunities he withdrew himself on pretext of visiting his friend the Duke of Najara at Navarret ; and he left the paternal tome attended by two servants only. Having — the D 34 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. better to conceal his purpose — fulfilled the requirements of friendship in a courteous manner, he dismissed his two attendants, and, after expending a part of the money he had taken with him for his journey in pious offices, he set forth alone, upon a mule, to practise by the way, and without witnesses, those cruel austerities with which he had resolved to maltreat and vanquish the body. Thus eluding the intervention of his friends, and using such subterfuges as pious ingenuity might contrive, and the occasion demand, he determined to divert a little from the road leading to Barcelona (whence he intended to sail for the Holy Land) for the purpose of paying his devotions at a much frequented shrine of the blessed Virgin at Montserrat, four leagues from Barcelona, and where there was an establishment of Benedictine monks. The church of the Benedictine monastery, situated on Montserrat, is described by a writer of that age as resplendent throughout with gold, and stored, like a royal palace, with the most costly articles — the offerings of kings ; and its treasures and embellishments as vastly surpassing those of the celebrated church of St. James at Compostella. Before the altar of the Virgin seventy- five lamps, greater and smaller, were burning night and day. The mountain itself^ by its height, its marvellous contour, and the picturesque beauty of the scenery around it, might be regarded as one of the miracles of nature. Although a mass of solid rock, the mountain sides are beautified with a spontaneous growth of odori- ferous shrubs, and of trees rich in foliage. The position of the monastery is so elevated that the clouds often shut out from it the view of the lower world, and are outspread, as a pavement, beneath it. In the rear, jagged rocks, of great elevation, give to the mountain that appearance which its name so well indicates. These points — such they appear as seen from a distance — r HIS CONVEESIOSr. 35 offer, in fact, many level surfaces, upon which chapels and oratories, connected with the monastery, have been erected, and which are occupied by anchorets of the Benedictine order. Loyola did not doubt that a visit to this monastery would avail him much In that conflict which was still renewed, at times, within his bosom, between earthly passions and heavenly purposes. Severely had he chastised his flesh with the lash, nightly, since leaving his home ; but now he thought to obtain far more effective aids in the preservation of an Inviolate purity, by placing himself in a formal and solemn manner under the immediate guardianship of the always-virgin Mother; and the more confidently did he seek this powerful aid against the wiles of the inward enemy, encouraged and incited as he had so lately been by her manifested good will toward himself. To "the most blessed Virgin," therefore, he tendered an irrevocable vow of chastity. That this consecration, and this immolation of himself, the offering of a devoted heart, was graciously accepted at his hand, he had this evidence. Inasmuch as from that moment, and onward to the end of his course, Ignatius, " through the Inter- cession of the Virgin," lived wholly exempt from the assaults of earthly desire ; and even from every move- ment of the soul which might trouble his peace. But how dangerous and how diflicult is the course of those who attempt to tread the path of " Christian philosophy " without the help of a spiritual director and master, let all learn from what befel the great Ignatius himself about this time ! The catholic zeal of Ferdinand had not as yet succeeded in sweeping the Spanish soil clean of Moorish abominations ; for even In his own provinces, and on every side, might still be seen, not the vestiges merely of Mahometan misbelief, but the per- 36 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. sons also of many who, as confomiing Moriscoes, reeked with that poison. Into the company of one such "miscreant" the young convert happened to fall on his road ; and when the customary trivialities had given way to more serious discourse, the gravest of questions touching the blessed Virgin came to be discussed. The two travellers proceed from the language of courteous debate to that of vehement controversy and objurgation; the Moor admitting a fragment only of the orthodox belief on this point, Ignatius strenuously maintaining the entire faith of the church. In vain were reasons urged, in vain was the light of truth presented to the eyes of the Impious man, who at length, with fierce impatience, dashing his spurs into the sides of his beast, left his antagonist behind, in all the fervour of the hottest re- sentment. The man was gone past hope of conversion ! Loyola's impulse was to push forward, and plunge a dagger into the heart of one who, with polluted lips, had dared to derogate from the honour of the Queen of Angels ! How should he decide between the promptings of the soldier-blood which throbbed in his veins, and the gentler motives of piety ? But did not these very motives demand that he should inflict a summary ven- geance upon this servant of the devil ? Ought he to leave unpunished blasphemies such as these ? From this perplexity he relieved himself by appealing to a guidance which he thought might more safely be followed than his own judgment. The Moor having passed forward beyond a spot where two roads met, Loyola threw the reins on the neck of his mule, resolving to abide by the choice which his beast should make for him —7- between the purposes of vengeance, and the misgiv- ings of a wavering zeal. Should the mule, of its own accord, take the road — a broad road — on which the Saracen had ga,lloped forward, he would then feel him- HIS CONVEESION. 37 self to be heaven-commissioned to follow him, and to bury a dagger — pugio fidei — In his body ; but if the other and the less open road were taken, then he would content himself, short of vengeance. The mule quietly trotted forward upon this rugged but better path ; and the saint's biographers, who are not less wise than was their master's mule, congratulate the Society upon the occasion of his escape from blood-guiltiness. Ignatius, thus tranquillised in spirit by the happy option of his beast, pressed forward toward Montserrat, and, entering a village near it, he made sundry pur- chases in preparation for his Intended pilgrimage. These • consisted of a long hempen cloak of the most rugged, texture, a tunic, a rope for a girdle, shoes of matted Spanish broom, a pilgrim's staff turned at the end, and- a drinking bowl. These articles he attached to the pommel of his saddle, whence they hung, as no very ornamental appendage to his equipment. Ignatius has now fairly turned his back upon the world, and has set forward upon the arduous path which Is said to lead direct from earth heavenward. He enters the church of the monastery, and there devoutly salutes the present divinity. His next business Is to set about an ample confession of the sins of his past life — a recital of which, from his written memoranda, occupied the hours of three entire days. Moreover, to the father who lent his ears to this confession, he opened the hitherto concealed purposes of his soul, as to his future course, in adopting the practices of the most renowned of the saints. He next surrendered the remaining con- tents of his purse to the use of the poor — bestowed upon a ragged mendicant, under favour of the night, the costly garb he had lately worn; and with eager haste took to himself the pilgrim gear which he had just provided. His right foot being still in a swollen state, D 3 38 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. he indulged with a shoe ; the left was bare, and his head also. Too many, as he knew, were ready to be " philoso- phers" so far as to the squalid garb, and no further; — too many found it easier to change a cloak than to trans-. mute the soul. Ignatius, therefore, dreading for him- self any such pretences, gave all diligence to the care of his spirit, so that the habiliments of poverty and ab- negation should truly symbolise the condition of the inner man. Moreover, as it was the usage with those who were about to enter any order of knighthood to pass one entire night, armed, in a church, he resolved, in his own case, to adopt this practice on the occasion of his formally dedicating himself to the Christian warfare.. Thus minded, and having suspended his sword and dagger in the church, he spent the whole night in front of the altar of the most holy Virgin — now standing — now on his knees, with all humility imploring pardon for his past offences — devoting himself to the divine service, and not ceasing especially, with earnest suppli- cation, to propitiate " the blessed mother of God." It was thus, in the year 1522, the eve of the An- nunciation, that Ignatius consecrated himself to the Christian warfare ; and the coincidence of time has not escaped the notice of his biographers, that nearly at the same moment when this holy man was devoting body and soul, under the auspices of the Virgin, to the ser- vice of Grod and of mankind, that " execrable heretic Luther," summoned to the diet of Worms by the Em- peror Charles V., enounced the poison of his opinions, and with all insolence proclaimed war against the apostolic chair, and impugned every catholic verity. Thufe'does it appear, say they — and the allegation will be assented to on the opposite side, if only a transposi- HIS CONVEKSION. 39 tion of names be permitted — thus does it appear that while Satan, on the one side, was sending forth his chosen champion, Christ also took care to furnish, and to bring forward, his own servant for the defence of the truth. How cheaply may such assumptions be advanced, and how easy a procedure is it for mortals to interpret, each in his own sense, Heaven's government of the world ! A mode of argument, if argument it might be called, which costs so little, and which tells with as much eifect on the one side as it does on the other, might well be dis- pensed with on both sides. More to the purpose might it be to advert, in this instance, to what is matter of fact, not of hypothesis. Certain it is, then, that at the same moment, two men, whose influence has been co-extensive and permanent, present themselves on the stage of European affairs, and each of them formally or virtually professes to be "sent of God" for the restoration or the maintenance of the most momentous truths. There is however a circumstance attaching to the ministry of each which cannot be regarded as of no significance, bearing, as it does, upon their several pretensions. It is this, that while one of these professed " servants of Christ" declares his willingness to stand or fall by Christ's own word, the other makes no such appeal to the authority of Scripture ; but, instead of doing so, sets forward on his course as the champion of Mary, placing himself under her guardianship, and looking to her for grace and help. Presenting themselves therefore under these conditions, undoubtedly Luther must be con- demned if the rule to which he himself appeals con- demns him ; but Loyola's divine legation falls if Mary be not in truth the arbitress of human destinies, and the source of grace to the world. Instead, however, of staking a great argument upon D 4 40 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. contrasts of this sort, or attempting to hinge a contro- versy upon an antithesis, a less precarious method of reaching a sound conclusion in an instance such as this is — putting aside entirely all mental reference to Loyola's illustrious contemporary — to pursue his own history ; the incidents and the characteristics of which will not fail, taken altogether and calmly considered, to carry home to sound minds a conviction, not merely as to his personal merits, but as to the quality and ten- dency of his doctrine and polity. The young and handsome Spanish gentleman, clad in sumptuous attire, his copious locks sedulously arranged according to the fashion of the time, and himself well mounted, had been seen ascending the heights toward Montserrat ; yet, how incongruous are the appendages of his equipment, for there are strung from the pommel of his saddle, as if he had spoiled some luckless palmer on the roa.d, the coarse cloak, the shoes, the staff, the girdle, the bowl of a pilgrim ! But, after a little while, the same graceful form, if indeed it "could have been recognised as the same, might be met upon the road disguised beneath these uncouth pilgrim accoutrements ; — painfully limping — one foot naked, the other swol- len and clouted, his head bare, his hair matted and foul, his beard rough, his nails grown like eagle's claws, his visage sunken and squalid ! A pestilence was then raging at Barcelona, and Loyola turned aside until it should abate, to Manresa, a small town about nine miles from Montserrat, and where, each day, he begged a morsel of bread from door to door. Three times every day he smartly (qu^m acerrime) chastised his bare shoulders with the lash ; thrice every day he attended prayers at church, besides seven hours of private de- votion ; and every week he confessed, and received the sacrament. In this discipline of suffering and humilia- HIS CONVERSrOX. 41 tion he was becoming acquainted, we are told, with the rudiments of the Christian life. It was not long, however, before the real miseries of the condition to which he had thus reduced himself — the revolting humiliations to which he found himself daily exposed, and the utter wretchedness of beggary to those who have not been bred to the profession, produced its natural effect upon a spirit like that of Ignatius ; for, at the very same moment when his con- stitutional enthusiasm had been chilled down to the lowest temperature by bodily suffering, and by the sense of shame, that keen perception, and that correctness of the reasoning faculty, which undoubtedly distinguished him, woke up, and he began (at the Instigation of the devil, we are told) severely to question himself as to the course he had adopted. " Wretched man ! what has impelled thee to abandon home, kindred, noble friends, every thing, and, thus miserably bedight, to wander up and down, petitioning for sustenance, and become the companion of the very lowest of the people?" These thoughts, and more of the same sort, which shook his soul, he however assigned to their true source, and gained relief from them by renewed assiduity in his religious observances, and by surrendering himself so much the more to the humiliations he had chosen. But, on this side again, the tempter, according to his wonted wiles with the inexperienced, incited the novice to practise such extremities of mortification as should, by their weakening influence, both upon body and mind, issue in an abandonment altogether of the peni- tential and ascetic course. Furthermore he was tried by a frequent, sudden, and unaccountable loss of all the comfort and joy which heretofore he had never failed to derive from the exercises of devotion ; neither prayers nor psalms, nor any of the solemnities of the 42 IGNATIUS LOTOLA. church, brought him any solace. In his perplexity he began to doubt if the elaborate three days' confession of the sins of his life, which he had lately effected, had indeed been complete. The black catalogue of crimes was perhaps wanting in some one particular, on behalf of which the wrath of Heaven continued to follow him. The adversary took terrible advantage against him, of this suspicion. Day and night he wept ; he went over, again and again, the ground of his late confession ; and as one who has dropped an invaluable jewel on his way, turns back, and with trembling diligence scrutinises every inch of the ground he has trodden, and renews the desperate search from day to day, so did Ignatius re- trace the path of his past life, even up to the commence- ment of his moral consciousness, anxiously searching among the almost effaced impressions of memory for — the lost crime ! To think too much of his sins was not Loyola's mistake ; but it was his misfortune to know so little as he knew of the only mode of release from the anguish of an awakened conscience. A black despair seized him in the midst of this spiritual wretchedness; and the thought even of self- destruction crossed his mind. At that time he occupied a cell in a convent of the Dominicans, from the window of which he had been impelled to throw himself. He was however withheld from this purpose by the divine mercy ; but he resolved, with the hope of vanquishing or of placating the divine justice, to abstain absolutely from all food, until he should win back the peace and joy that had thus left him. Intermitting no sacred services and no penances, he fasted a day — and two days — and three — and four — nay, an entire week ; and he would have persisted in his resolution had not the priest, his confessor, and who had already sounded the depths of his heart, interposed, and straitly commanded HIS CONVEESION. 43 him to abandon so presumptuous an endeavour as that of contending with the Almighty : in fact he threatened him with a denial of the communion, should he per- sist. Alarmed by a threat so terrific, he took food there- fore ; and, for a time, regained some tranquillity. Yet speedily he relapsed into the same condition of in- ward distress, and was tempted at once to renounce his ascetic purposes, and to return to the world and to its enjoyments. With this temptation also he grappled successfully ; and at length, and as if by a convulsive plunge, he extricated himself at once, and for ever, from these dangerous entanglements. This critical turn in Loyola's religious course deserves a moment's attention ; and the more so because it may fairly be regarded as indicative of that energy of the intellectual faculty, and of that supremacy of practical good sense, which are so clearly manifested in his after-course. At this turn, and^ for an instant, the, founder of the Society seems to come forward, although we presently afterwards quite lose sight of him. He suddenly came to the conclusion that the " mystery of confession," attended to in the manner and for the purposes for which he had used it, so far from having been beneficial to him, had been of ill effect. The divine mercy, interposing for his deliver- ance, had brought him to see — and to see clearly — that all this anguish of mind, and all this tormenting excitement, and all these gloomy suspicions, were from "the adversary" — the evil spirit. At once therefore, and without any further hesitation, he resolved to con- sign the entire delinquencies of his past life to perpetual oblivion. In this way not only did he himself obtain relief from his late wretchedness, but he became qua- lified also to counsel and to help others who, in like manner, should be tempted. 44 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Loyola's confessor, as we have already said, had, in a prudent use of his spiritual authority, forbidden his persistence in the fast, by means of which he had pre- sumptuously thought to vanquish the Almighty ; and this father had also judiciously advised him to relinquish the search for forgotten oifences, and to content him- self with the ample confession which he had already made. But it was his own individual energy that at length prompted him to take a course which his church would not have recommended. It is thus that minds of high intensity always take their own counsel, at the most critical moments. And so again — if we follow Gonsalvo — the briefest, but, as it appears, the most trustworthy, of the contemporary biographers — Loyola exhibited the vigour of his understanding in an instance in which the mere visionary would otherwise have decided. Even at this early stage of his course he had commenced that care of souls which afterwards em- ployed so much of his time : many resorted to him daily, seeking spiritual aid. This labour of charity, to which the later hours of the day were devoted, would not fail to suggest many fresh subjects of meditation, and to occasion some excitement of the animal spirits ; and the consequence was that when, at length, he betook himself to his couch, sleep was driven away by spiritual exaltations, and by illuminations, and by consolations, the most peculiar. Finding himself thus deprived of a large portion of the time — not too much for the welfare of the body — which, on due consideration, he had set apart for the purpose, and considering that the whole of his time was in fact given to the service of God, and to the edification of his neighbour, he began to question whether these comforts and these illuminations were indeed from the good Spirit, or were not rather tempta- tions; and forthwith, and on the ground of this doubt. HIS CONVEESION. 45 he determined to reject and exclude all sucli invasions of his allotted hours of repose. Sleep he would, when sleep was the proper business of the hour. The saint having thus, by a convulsive effort, Sis- engaged himself from the load of his past sins, and freed himself also from many specious temptations, made rapid advancements in virtue and spiritual under- standing. Xor was this all ; for about this time, as we are assured, certain marvellous revelations were granted to him, which, if the representations of some of his biographers are to be received, must have been in the strictest sense supernatural. It is said that, suddenly, and while reciting the office of the Virgin, a light shone around him, in the midst of tlie effulgence of which he saw a triangular figure, symbolising the sacred mystery of the Trinity. This was not the miracle ; but it is added that, deeply moved by this vision, and in inter- vals of fits of sobbing, he spoke — continuously, pro- foundly, and perspicuously, upon the most arduous of all theological subjects ! Nor was this all ; for although, at this time, he could barely profess himself master of the arts of writing and reading, he actually com- posed a treatise upon the Trinity, occupying many pages (it is said twenty-four) — unfortunately for sacred science, the manuscript has perished — and which dis- plaj'ed an intelligence and a spiritual discernment far surpassing the unassisted powers even of the most ac- complished and best furnished minds. In fact, the treatise thus spontaneously produced by an uninstructed cavalier is declared to have been an inspired work. It should be said that Gonsalvo, who professes to have derived his account from Loyola's own lips, makes no mention of this treatise ; nor does he support the other and more prolix narratives, as to what is said to have followed. 46 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. It is aflSrmed that, at another time, a revelation was made to him of the deepest secrets of nature; or, at least, of those abstruse parts of philosophy with which ordinary minds become acquainted only by means of painful and long-continued studies. All science, sacred and secular, was thus imparted to the founder of the Society of Jesus, on the easy terms of seeing a vision ! What- ever might be the advantage permanently derived by Loyola from these miraculous communications, it is certain that they did not, in his own opinion, supersede the necessity of his undergoing a course of elementary and college education, and which to him was in an extreme degree irksome and difficult. It may seem strange that the saint's over-eager eulogists should not see that, while their master's true reputation is much enhanced by the fact of his compelling himself, at the age of thirty, first to learn his grammar among boys, and afterwards to pass through a course of study at two universities, it is only damaged, or is brought altogether under suspicion, by their inventing for his glory this narrative of wonders. Loyola was indeed an extraor- dinary — if not a great man ; and we must persist in thinking him such, spite of his admirers.* We reach now a point In Loyola's course, at which again a glimpse of what we ought to find in the history of such a man presents itself. Already it has been mentioned that he early disengaged himself from the * In place of the more highly elaborated narratives of the con- temporary and succeeding Jesuit -writers, Gonsalvo thus suc- cinctly mentions his master's supernatural initiation in natural philosophy. " Alio tempore objectus est ejus menti, magna cum spiritus alacritate, modus, quo mundum Deus condidit. Sibi autem videre videbatur rem quamdam albam, ex qua nonnuUi radii egrediebantur, et ex qua Deus lumen emittebat. Ipse tamen neque haec satis explicare poterat, neque meminisse earum illustra- tionum, quas turn in ejus animum Deus imprimebat." — Cap. iii. HIS CONVEKSION. 47 cobweb entanglements of the ascetic life. Austere practices be did indeed maintain ; but a mere ascetic he could not be ; no such style of piety could he adopt, as his end and aim ; he felt that he had a vocation which could not be followed in the cell or the wilderness, and that he was to plough for himself a track right across the open field of the world's affairs. He could compel him- self to fast, after the most severe manner, as often as he thought it good so to afflict himself; and a Cossack, also, can sustain hunger as long ; but both have work to do, which cannot be done upon a diet of lettuces and water. There was, however, one gift or grace to which the highest importance has always been attached by those who have practised and applauded the " angelic hfe." This is what is termed " the spirit of solitude," — a temper, not merely recoiling from free intercourse with the world, and impelling its possessor to hide him- self from the converse of other men, but throwing him always, with an intensity of regard, upon his individual spiritual well-being. Those most eminently endowed with the spirit of solitude might take it as their motto, — " this one thing I do, namely, care for my own soul." But Loyola's soul was of larger compass, and it burned with an expansive zeal ; and he could think of himself only as the servant of others — as the guide of souls — as the church's champion — as the apostle of the faith. In a word, he rejected this specious selfishness — this " spirit of solitude ;" or he left its satisfactions and its honours to others. To propagate the Christian doc- trine in aU lands — to win souls, and to govern them, was his calling, and he pursued it with undiverted energy ; and in the pursuit of it he encountered, and surmounted, obstacles the most formidable. It is now, therefore, that we meet for a moment the man we are in search of. 48 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. although we are so soon again to lose sight of him ; or he is snatched from our view by his biographers. Notwithstanding the care he had taken to conceal the austerities he pr'actised, and to disguise what related to his origin and early history, it had at length got abroad that a " saint" was about, and moreover that this emi- nent devotee was member of a noble house, and had played a part at the court. Speedily, therefore, he be- came the object of curiosity to persons of all classes, who crowded around him on various pretexts; some from frivolous motives ; but more with a sincere wish to obtain for themselves the benefit of his admonitions and advice in spiritual matters. To these, how low soever in their condition, or de- graded in their habits, he gave sedulous attention — labouring if, by any means, he might join them to the Lord — and nothing dismayed by the extreme squalor of their persons, or their inveterate filth. His first care — and let us note a circumstance so characteristic, when compared with that relish of filth which the most noted of the ancient ascetics professed — the first care of Ignatius, we are told, was to induce his dirty visitants to put away from themselves a portion, at least, of these adjuncts of misery — to wash, and to adjust their tatters in the best manner they could. This done, he applied himself to the cure of the inner man, and aware as he now was — for he had learned it in his own experience — of the difficulty of the task which had thus come upon him, he did not fail earnestly to entreat the divine aid — that aid to which he owed his own conversion, its progress, and the happy issue, at last, of the storms and darkness, and multiform tempta- tions, through which he had passed. It was then that, revolving within himself, as well what he had learned directly from Heaven, as what his HIS CONVERSION. 49 experience had taught him, he was led to digest, and to commit to paper, various fruitful methods of meditation and of prayer, together with certain excellent and wholesome precepts, which, when duly compiled, made up that immortal book — the " Spiritual Exercises ! " It will be convenient to defer, for a little, that analysis of this corner-stone of the Jesuit Institute which it is our purpose to attempt, and at present to pursue the thread of Loyola's personal history. If the fact affirmed by his biographers — namely, that the book of the Spiritual Exercises was indeed composed by him, and at this time — that is to say, almost at the moment after his own conversion had been consummated — if this could be placed beyond doubt, it must be regarded as presenting an extraordinary instance of sudden ma- turity of the intellect. A parallel instance can scarcely be cited of a literary production so wholly unlike what might have been looked for from the mind whence it came : — it might be likened to one of those experiments of the chemist who, by adding a few drops from his phial, converts, in the twinkling of an eye, a sparkling fluid into an opake substance. The hot-brained soldier devotee, who is madman enough, not merely to leave his home, but to deck himself in rags, and to beg his bread superfluously from door to door — this same devotee, whom we find at the river's side, becoming, in a trance, a profound theo- logian, and an accomplished philosopher amid the blaze of a vision ! — this man, within the compass of a few weeks, writes a book which, whatever opinion we may be in- clined to form of it at a cursory glance, has proved its adaptation to the human mind, for effecting the purposes it intends, through the course of three centuries ; and it has done so, on the largest scale. This book, the work of one whom, as we first catch a glimpse of him, we note 50 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. as a half-crazed fanatic, and to whom, Avithout a scruple, we should apply the milder epithet enthusiast, — contains scarcely any trace of enthusiasm, and none of fanaticism; nor does it bear, on its face, anything of that patchwork style of rhapsody, inanity, and audacity, which one should confidently look for, in such a case ! It is acknowledged that the " Spiritual Exercises " underwent several careful revisions at later periods, and before the time when the book was submitted to the judgment of the Eoman pontiff. To what extent its very substance and quality were altered in those revisions, cannot be ascertained. Moreover, during the interval between the first composition and the time when it was authoritatively given to the world, it had been held by the author under constant correction, and had received, piece by piece, many additions. Meanwhile Loyola was himself acquiring skill, as a practitioner, in the cure and treatment of souls ; and for the purpose at once of rendering service to as many as possible, and of enlarging his own knowledge of men and of human nature, he not only received in his cell, with benignity, all who visited him, but occa- sionally accepted invitations to dinner at the tables of the optilent, where, forgetful of ascetic squeamishness, but not of his high purpose, he took occasion, from the turn of conversation, to requite those who had spread before him a feast of things perishable, by opening before them the banquet of things eternal. Many there were whom, in this manner, he snatched, it is said, from the way that is broad and easy, and induced to set out upon that which is narrow and difficult. The Loyola of Jesuitism now seems to be coming forward ; at least we see one whose energy carried him instinctively away from what was inane or unproductive, and bore him forward toward whatever was practical and HIS CONVERSION. 51 useful ; — a man -whose reason was not only uppermost, but strong enough to control an ardent temperament, to keep in check very vehement instincts, and to take and to hold the mastery over a will of giant forced But those labours of charity with which lie had burdened himself were too great for his strength, and especially as conjoined still with too much austerity in his mode of life : at least his biographers affirm that he did thus continue to afflict the body. He fell ill of a fever, and was despaired of; but recovered, and seems to have become sensible that vigils and severities may be carried too far. He relaxed therefore ; — he consented to wear shoes ; he covered his head abroad, and took to himself, as winter approached, a cloak of thicker fabric. While lying upon his pallet, Ignatius had employed himself in effecting an anxious scrutiny of his conscience, where he discovered much cause of uneasiness, and en- countered the wily adversary anew ; but from this trial he came forth at length, strengthened in the wise and characteristic purpose to dismiss, on every occasion here- after, all profitless musings upon the good and evil that might be contending for mastery within the home of his own bosom, and to give himself, without distraction, to those labours by which the welfare of other souls and the glory of Grod might best be promoted. 52 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. CHAPTER III. Loyola's attempt to convert the Mahometan woeld, and the faltueb of the enteepeise. ^ Loyola had bound himself by a solemn oath to visit the Holy Landj couching within the simple ardour of a pilgrim the higher purposes and the zeal of an iipostle. Towards his friends, who earnestly laboured to dissuade him from a journey then so peculiarly perilous, and the more so on account of his feeble health, he main- tained an entire reserve as to his more lofty inten- tion, and professed only — what was so far true — the passionate desire he felt to pay his devotions on the sacred spots. The motives of common prudence they fortified by appealing to his sense of responsibility to- ward the many souls that had now come under his care. They did not understand that, to a mind such as his, the " something beyond " must always outweigh whatever attaches only to the present time, and to the things nearest at hand. At the least, said they, let him seek a companion on whose help and counsel he might lean in time of need ! Many such there were who would willingly attend him, and some of these possessed that which he did not pretend to — an acquaintance with the popular dialects of the East, and who had at their com- mand also the Latin and Italian languages, of which he was wholly ignorant. But on this ground again Loyola's prudent friends misunderstood the order of mind they had to do with. His zeal was of a sort that would have lost its in- tensity, or its inflation, if he had thrown himself at all HIS FIRST ENTERPRISE. 53 upon the guidance of reason, or had allowed himself to lean upon any support other than that of a blind impulse. He must go, spite of all risks, and go in destitution of all natural means. He broke himself away, therefore, from the well-meant importunities of his friends, and, in the face of every suggestion of common sense, prepared himself for his journey. And in what consisted this preparation? — in a determination to dispense with every aid of an earthly kind ! " The Christian virtues," said he, " are not merely faith and charity, but hope also ; " but if he provided himself with a purse, or if he took a companion, he should at once impair the integrity of his faith, and renounce his hope. He had spent nearly a year at Manresa, employed in carrying forward the work of his own conversion, in guiding the souls of others on the same course, and in composing, at least as to its rudiments, the book of Spiritual Exercises. During these months, as he him- self reported to his friend and disciple Gonsalvo, he had been favoured with many extraordinary revelations; sometimes, to the eye of the mind, had appeared the humanity of the Lord, not indeed in the distinctness and proportion of its members, but as an undefined resplen- dence. Twenty times, or even forty, this might bave happened to him at Manresa. In a similar manner the blessed Virgin once and again revealed herself to him ; and from these visions he obtained so clear and thorough a perception and persuasion of the great mysteries of the faith, that, even apart from any testimony of Scrip- ture thereto relating, he could have suffered martyrdom in defence of them ! — a perilous confidence surely in visions, as superseding the testimony of Scripture, and especially when, according to his own account, he was frequently visited by counterfeit visions, hardly to be discriminated from the genuine ! He assures us, how- K 3 54 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. ever, that he could always distinguish between the true celestial splendour, and the glitter of a demoniacal ap- pearance, and that the latter he was accustomed to drive away by means of certain passes of his walking-stick ! It was in the spring of the year 1523 that Loyola, to the unspeakable grief of all, left Manresa, on his way to Barcelona, intending there to take ship for Italy. In a saint story of the vulgar stamp we take no notice of the folly (or worse) of the man who, after flinging away from him a well-furnished purse, and which was his own absolutely, goes a-begging for what, the next hour, he finds he cannot dispense with — a morsel of bread ! . This species of absurdity runs through such memoirs of sanctity. But how are we to deal with the same folly when it meets us in the life of a man like Loyola? Absurdity does not characterise his writings; — is it then chargeable entire upon the writers of his life ? We might think so as to some of these instances, but not as to all. The master of a vessel shortly to sail for Italy, agreed to give him his passage, but required that he should bring on board a quantity of biscuit, sufficient for his sustenance during the passage. This "hard con- dition" he accepted, and proceeded to beg from door to door the requisite store of provisions, and this he did although his purse still contained some gold pieces which, just before sailing, he deposited on a settle near to where the vessel was moored. Ignatius landed at Gaeta, after a stormy passage of five days, whence he proceeded on foot to Home, worn out with fatigue and hunger; for the terror of the pestilence then raging had shut up the usual sources of charity. He arrived on Palm Sunday, and having visited with pious reverence the holy places, he kissed the feet of Adrian VI.* At Rome he found some Spanish gentlemen, to whom he was known, and who ♦ Or of Clement VII. HIS FIRST ENTERPEISE. 55 repeated the remonstrances of his friends at Barcelona, endeavouring, if possible, to turn him from his purpose. " The Turks," said they, " had just taken Rhodes," news which spread dismay through Italy, and which event could not but render a voyage through those seas ten-fold more perilous than usually it was ! Nothing would avail. If it must be so, then let him go sufficiently provided with money for the journey — at least with enough to pay his passage from Venice to Palestine ; for even should he succeed in begging his way from Rome to Venice, could he imagine that, unknown and a stranger, he should be taken on board a vessel gratuitously, and for so long a voyage ? At length he so far yielded as to accept some gold pieces, with which burdened, much rather than furnished, he set out ; but he had not pro- ceeded far before, in revolving the whole matter carefully, he heavily accused himself of having, by this compliance, violated the vow of his profession, and renounced his trust in God. At the instant he was near to castina: away indignantly the whole that he had received ; but his better reflections told him that this would be an act of ingratitude to God, as well as wasteful ; and he re- solved to bestow it, little by little, upon any poor he might meet on his way. How worthy of notice in the history of such a man is this curious process of alms- giving, blended with mendicancy ! One mile on this side a village, perhaps, Ignatius finds a tattered wretch, who can scarcely believe his eyes in receiving from one habited like himself, and emaciate with want, a gold c( in ! The donor rejects the overflowing gratitude of his poor brother, then limps on — exhausted ; enters the village, and there, and while other gold pieces are still weighing heavy in his purse, he humbly craves a morsel of bread from door to door ! Whether Ignatius Loyola actually perpetrated any such folly cannot be certainly E 4 56 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. known, nor should it be supposed, did not the most au- thentic of his biographers seem to imply it as a fact ; but even if it be so, no judicious writer would now make a boast of instances of infatuation such as these ? A dire pestilence, as we have said, ravaged Italy at that time; and guards, placed at the gates of all cities and towns, sternly denied admittance to wayfaring folk, like Ignatius, open as were such to the reasonable suspicion of being the carriers of infection. He, wasted, wan— his complexion squalid, his eyes sunken, his attire foul — was driven away from the door of inns, and compelled to lodge abroad ; and was gazed at with dismay as he passed along the highways. He knew not a word of the language of the country through which he passed, and nothing of the roads. He was compelled, also, by his lameness, to drop behind the company of travellers to which he had joined himself. Finding that the utmost caution was used at Venice in excluding strangers coming from the south, and who carried no bill of health, Ignatius, who had none, turning aside, reached Padova, and from that town got admittance readily into Venice. There, however, no refuge was at his command ; he would not introduce himself to the Spanish legation, and, having learned so to rest, threw his wearied limbs for the night upon a vacant space in the portico of St. Mark's ; and by day he begged his bread. It is said that a noble senator, near to whose palace the holy man lay stretched on the cold pavement, was suddenly awakened by a voice from Heaven, telling him that, while he lay enclosed with sumptuous draperies, a servant of God, a pilgrim, lay abroad, not far from his door, poor, and destitute of aid and solace. In alarm and horror this senator leapt from his couch — went forth, sought for, and soon found Ignatius — HIS FIEST ENTERPRISE. 57 brought him home and entertained him with high re- spect. The next day, howeverj he withdrew himself from these too sumptuous hospitalities, and, having met with an old friend from the Asturias, betook himself to quarters where he could be more at ease. Gladly would his host, edified by his pious deport- ment and his brief yet pertinent discourse, have detained him as his guest ; but as this could not be, he obtained for him the favour of a passage in a vessel about to sail with official persons destined for Cyprus. Many pilgrims had come to Venice, intending thence to pro- ceed to Palestine ; but the greater part relinquished their intention on hearing of the capture of Rhodes by the Turks. Not so Ignatius ; nor was he deterred from embarking, even by a serious illness under which he laboured at the very moment when the ship was about to sail. Those around him asked the physician if the holy pilgrim might safely go on board. Yes, re- plied he, if he there seeks a grave ! But it turned out otherwise, and a timely sickness did more for him than the physician whose prognostics he disappointed, and he presently regained his usual health. Adventures not important marked his transit from Italy to Joppa. During the course of it, and it appears to have occupied two months, Loyola himself reports that the Lord often appeared to him, as heretofore, in an indistinct mode. It was on the fourth day of Sep- tember, in the year 1523, that he set foot within the Holy City. The region round about Jerusalem has of late been set before English eyes so amply, and with so much particularity of description, and with such sumptuous- ness of illustration, that it has become an easy effort of imagination to convey oneself thither, and to fancy oneself to belong to the train of pilgrims, halting in the 58 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. valley beyond Kuryet-el-Enab, alighting from their beasts, each surrendering himself, for some minutes, to a death-like stillness of expectation, and then pressing forward, as does the camel of the desert to a well at hand, toward the brow whence first the eye may feast itself upon the prospect of the Holy City ! Thus did Loyola, and at a time when the many and real perils of a pilgrimage served to add a deep intensity to en- thusiasm; thus did he kneel, and thus recollect him- self, and rush onward, and thus gaily exult, when at last that sombre length of wall, wanting as it is in every recommendation but such as the pilgrim's sou] supplies, stretched itself along the opposing height before him ! There can be no doubt that, on every holy, and on many an unholy spot, Loyola drank brim-full cups of that devout intoxication which is there offered to the lips of pilgrims. And yet, while revelling in these dcr lights, he did not lose sight of his higher purpose ; for he was not the man to forget, or to be beguiled of, a great intention, by mere gratifications, even of the purest kind. Those around him might witness his raptures as a pilgrim, but none knew or suspected that the will and resolution of an apostle were couched within that form of devout ecstacy. With an unfeigned de- light he entertained those recollections of the past which the " holy spots " so vividly recalled ; but then it was the future — it was his own vocation — that mainly employed his thoughts. What he mused upon as he paced the narrow streets of Jerusalem — as one of a train of mindless, purposeless pilgrims — was the restoration, by his means, of the schismatic Greek communion to the true church, and the conversion of the millions of Mahomet's followers. Having, during the few days allotted, as its stint, to each pilgrim group, satiated his devotional appetite, HIS riEST ENTERPRISE. 59 Loyola, ^Yh^le his companions were preparing themselves to depart, and were filling their pouches with the dear- bought memorials of their journey — the wares of the Holy City,j was devising means for separating him- self from the band in the muster-roll of which his name was inscribed, and thus for protracting indefinitely his stay in Palestine. This purpose, however, was frustrated ; — shall we ask if it has been well for the world that, at this point of his course, his zeal met a rebufi^, and that he was compelled to retrace his steps westward ? In the hope of effecting his purpose, he first addressed himself to the superior of the Franciscan convent, men- tioning only a half of his purpose, and the unimportant half, namely, to abide in the Holy City. The good man seemed to listen with favour to his petition ; but said the point must be referred to the Provincial, who was then at Bethlehem. This high functionary speedily returned, and we may easily believe that, in his post, he had had to do often enough with bold and sturdy devotees — men whose aspect and tone declared that they were used to yield themselves to their personal im- pulses uncontrolled. The prudent and experienced Pro- vincial discerned, probably, in Loyola's style and manner, quite enough of the indications of resolute self-will, to determine him not to permit his continued sojourn at Jerusalem, or anywhere else within his jurisdiction. He, however, on the contrary, had come before the Provin- cial in the confident expectation of a decision favourable to his wishes. But it was no such thing : the dignitary had already made up his mind, as to the pilgrim's peti- tion ; and although he received and conversed with him courteously, his refusal was peremptory. Not an hour's delay beyond the time when the cavalcade was to pass out of the Jafia gate, could be granted him ! " I have 60 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. heard," said he, " of your pious desire to remain in the Holy Land, and I have carefully considered the case. In truth, very many, like yourself, have desired the same thing, and the experiment has often been tried. Of those who have stayed, many have perished among the infidels ; and more than a few, having been made captives, have thrown upon the Eranciscans the burden- some obligation of redeeming them; no trifling affair this ! therefore my decision is, that you prepare your- self to depart with the other pilgrims to-morrow." But Loyola would listen to no denial; his resolution was fixed not less absolutely than that of the Provincial, nor could any considerations of personal safety divert him from it ; — nothing, in short, but a clear case of obligation to submit to a competent authority. " Oh, well," said the Provincial, " I have authority from the apostolic see to send away, or to retain, whomsoever I think fit, and at my own pleasure. Nay, this is not all, for I have power to pronounce excommunication upon any one who may refuse obedience ; and so in this case have I decided, namely, that it will not be well for you to remain in the Holy Land ! " The Provincial was proceeding to exhibit the pontifical letters-patent, grant- ing him the power of excommunication. Loyola said it was needless so to do ; and, seeing the case stood as it did, he should yield. Thus minded, he returned to his place ; but at this very moment, and when no time was to be lost, unless he would incur the utmost risk, a sudden desire seized him to revisit the Mount of Olives before he departed — seeing that the will of God did not permit him to stay — and once again to inspect the vestiges of our Lord's feet upon the rock, whence he ascended to heaven Off he set, giving notice of his intention to no one, and taking with him no guide — for a pilgrim to do which is HIS FIRST ENTERPRISE. 61 in the last degree dangerous, the Turks being wont to despatch, without remorse, any solitary stragglers who may fall in their way. The door-keepers of the Church of the Ascension he bribed to let him pass, by the gift of his pen-knife. Having there paid his devotions with much comfort, a new wish urged him to go on to Beth- phage. While there it occurred to him that he had not, with sufficient care, noted the position of the foot-marks on the rock, so as to be able to determine toward which quarter of the heavens our Lord turned his face in ascending. To gain admittance a second time cost him his scissors ! Meanwhile there was a hue and cry to find the stray pilgrim, who had not answered to his name when the muster-roll was read, at the moment of setting out. An officer of the convent met him on his descent from the Mount of Olives, and, with threats and violence, dragged^him forward ; he, not resisting, went on, and, as he went, was solaced by that divine apparition which had so often before sustained his faith in moments of fear and suffering. Thus rebuffed, Loyola turned his back upon the Holy Land — upon the schismatic Greek communion — not by him to be reconciled to the true church, and upon several hundred millions of the followers of Ma- homet — not by him to be converted! He reached Venice early in the year 1524, but not without miracu- lous escapes. A difficult task it is to cull from the heap, those genuine anecdotes which might serve to throw light upon Loyola's personal character, and to reject those copious decorations which not merely over- load the story, but convey a false impression of the inan. The picture which shows the holy pilgrim safely setting foot again upon the shores of Italy, exhibits, in each of its corners a shipwreck, and " all on board, crew 62 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. and passengers, perishing ! " The commander of one of these lost barks had refused to take Loyola on board, unprovided, as he was, with money to pay the passage. " But he is a holy man," said his companions. " If as holy as St. James, he may get across the sea in the same manner as he." The saint's equipments at this time were as bare as his purse was light ; and we are told that the winter was unusually rigorous. An open corslet, slashed in the sleeves, a scanty cloak, breeches reaching only to the knees, and his legs quite bare. Happily his vow to visit the Holy Land bare-foot, did not include any con- ditions as to his return — a ref.urn not having come within his purpose — and therefore it was with a clear conscience that, when compelled to return, he could allow himself the luxury of shoes. The voyage from Cyprus had consumed more than two months. At Venice he was again kindly entertained by the Spaniard who had received him under his roof before his departure for Palestine : and by the same friend he was re-clad, and supplied with money for his home- ward journey. Acquiescing, as he did, in the divine will, so clearly indicated, which forbad his attempting any good work in the East, he now revolved his future course, and anxiously considered to what field of labour he should direct himself. His decision shows us some- thing of the man we are in quest of. He determined to return to Barcelona, and there to apply to those studies which would qualify him the better for taking the care cf souls. He left Venice, therefore, on his way to Genoa. At Ferrara, having bestowed an alms upon a mendicant, he was soon surrounded by a swarm, among whom he distributed the entire contents of his purse, and thus, with his journey in prospect, reduced himself instantly to the necessity of begging his daily bread ! Curious HIS FIRST ENTERPRISE. 63 illustration of the alternate sway of reason, and of non- reason, within a vigorous mind ! Might not the gold pieces he had been furnished with, have been well em- ployed in furtherance of the very intention of his return to Barcelona ? If we might here pause a moment to find fault with the religious system under which Loyola had been trained, it must be on the ground, not so much of its feeding the vulgar with childish illusions, as of its shedding absurdity — which it has always done — into the best constructed minds, so that moral grandeur and puerility, sublimity and nonsense, walk on either hand of each of the church's heroes. On his onward way Loyola passed alternately the lines of the hostile armies of France and of the Empire. By his countrymen in arms, whom he encountered, he was urged to betake himself to a safer line of road ; but he rejected their advice, for it was plainly reasonable, and persisted in continuing a route whereon ill-treat- ment or death was sure to meet him ; and so it presently happened ; for he was apprehended as a spy, was griev- ously maltreated, and hardly suffered to proceed. The circumstances, if we may suppose them to be truly re- ported, are characteristic : — After having been strictly searched by the guard, on the supposition of his being the bearer of letters to the enemy, he was carried before the officer in command of a fortified place ; and is it not a disciple of George Fox whom we there find undergoing examination before a justice of the peace ? It had been, we are told, the cus- tom of the holy pilgrim, with whomsoever he might hold converse, and whatever might be their degree, to drop all designations of rank, of office, or of honour, as reputed among men, and to content himself with the simple pronoun, " Ye." The conscience of our Ignatius allows him to use, if not a " My lord," an adulatory 64 IGNATIUS LOYOLA.' plural in place of a singular : — he can say Vos, for TtT ! He piously believed that he thus conformed himself to the style of " Christ, and the Apostles." But how so, we might well ask, when we find that apostle who had most to do with the world, and who understood its re- quirements best, and who, at the same time, was in- ferior to none of the twelve in knowing " the mind of Christ," still used on all occasions, and even when the honorary designation sounded like a satire upon the person, every customary appellative of courtesy ? But our Ignatius is waiting to be led before the pre- fect. "We have mentioned what his manner of speech had hitherto been. On his way from the guard-house to the hall, the thought had presented itself — not sug- gested, we are told, by any movement of fear — that, in this instance, he would hold apostolic simplicity in abeyance, and address the person in authority by his title of office. This suggestion, however, he quickly perceived to be a temptation, and, as such, he dismissed it. " No," said he, to himself, " I will neither call him ' my lord,' nor bend the knee in his presence, nor put off my bonnet." After some delay he is brought forward. Not a movement or gesture of civility does he vouchsafe. A few brief words, with a sufficiently long interval be- tween each clause, is all the communication he deigns to make. The prefect, who, no doubt, had business enough upon his hands that morning, takes him for a fool, or a madman. " Give him," says he to the guard, " what belongs to him (his garments, of which he had been stripped), and send him off." The prefect was quite wrong in taking Loyola for either fool or mad- man, in the ordinary sense of the terms ; for his; ab- surdity sprang from a folly and from an insanity of that kind into which no actual fool or madman ever falls. HIS FIRST ENTERPRISE. 65 We need not follow the track of unimportant and not significant incidents that attended his onward journey; and may well omit, also, the highly decorated adven- tures introduced by some of the biographers. He reaches Genoa ; — by the good offices of a countryman, he is there put on board a vessel sailing for Barcelona, and which narrowly escapes capture by the noted Andrea Doria, and he safely sets foot again upon Spanish ground. 66 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. CHAPTER IV. LOYOLA, IN PREPAKATION FOR THE WORK TO WHICH HE DEVOTES HIMSELF, GOES TO SCHOOL AT BAECSLONA, AND ELSEWHEKE. At . Barcelona, and during his former sojourn there, Loyola had gained the good-will of a devout lady, named Isabel Rosella, to whom now, on his return, he communi- cated his design of going through a course of elementary instruction, the better to fit him for the work to which he wished to devote himself — namely, the care of souls. This lady and patron, along with a schoolmaster of the city, named Ardebal, highly approved his plan, and the latter benevolently undertook to direct his studies without fee ; while the former pledged herself to supply the means of his support. Thus confirmed in his pur- pose, and thus assisted, he took his Latin grammar in hand. His first impulse had been (so it is affirmed) to intro- duce himself into some religious house, where discipline was at the lowest ebb, and where disorders were flagrant; and when he had thus lodged himself at the very centre of corruption, to apply himself to the task of bringing back the community to virtue, to piety, and to the rule of its founder. But after much prayer, with fasting, he believed himself to be divinely moved to reject a design apparently so commendable ; and the alleged ground of this decision should be noted. He would not shut himself up within the narrow precincts of any one community ; he would not restrict the field of those HIS EliEMENTAET STUDIES. 67 energies which were struggling in his bosom, and for the exercise of which the world was not too wide a sphere. Kesolutely, therefore, he now addressed himself to his task ; and how arduous and how repulsive must have been the daily effort of acquiring the very rudiments of learning to a man trained as he had been, and now past his thirtieth year ! And yet this mere difficulty of learn- ing was not the only trial of constancy which he had to encounter, for so fixed had the devotional habits of his mind now become, and with such impetus and velocity did his thoughts rush forward in the channel of the pious affections, that, as often as, in the declension of nouns, or the conjugation of verbs, the words were such as to suggest ideas of religion, his whole soul was on the wing ; — grammar — teacher — • all was forgotten, and whatever he might already have learned was clean erased from his memory : every thing was to be com- menced afresh I Of this new perplexity the tempter took advantage, using the lure of things sacred for the very purpose of diverting Ignatius from his studies, and sometimes even giving him sudden insights of the mys- teries of faith ! He however discerned this artifice, learned how to baffle the adversary on his own ground, and thus acquired a species of skill of which he after- wards often availed himself, to the great benefit of the many souls that came under his care. Ifear to the school which he attended there was a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, where, after having duly poured forth his petitions to God and the Virgin, he opened all his mind and purpose to his friend and master Ardebal; he professed anew and more explicitly his determination to persist in his studies through two years, or longer if needful, and to yield himself, without distinction, to every task, and to submit to every chastisement, which, according to the T 2 68 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. usage of the school, would be inflicted upon boys not making more progress than himself. This professiouj made in all sincerity by Loyola, was accepted, and, it is affirmed, was acted upon by his master ; and it has been thought an edifying device to place before the world, some touching representations of the scene, when the great founder submissively, and with tears, was yielding his adult person to a smart infliction, administered by his faithfully wrathful pedagogue ! " Saint Ignatius, whipped at school ! " About this time, finding his constitutional habit improved, he entered anew upon some practices of mortification which he had found it prudent or neces- sary to relinquish. For instance, the wearing of shoes had become Indispensable to him on account of his susceptibility to damps and chills. Now, however, a harsher treatment of the body was practicable ; he there* fore bored a hole in the sole of each shoe, which every day he enlarged a little, until at length every thing but the upper leathers was gone. How can we enough admire this mingling of mortification and of prudence ! To have waited the operation of wear-and-tear would have been too tardy a course; and to have removed the soles at once, too hazardous ; moreover, by retain- ing the upper leather, which was but a sorry comfort to the flesh, he avoided the ostentation of going barefoot : none perhaps took notice of his want of soles, unless it were those Avho might too curiously observe him as he knelt at church. At this time it had been recommended to Ignatius, as the best means of acquiring an elegant Latin style, carefully to peruse Erasmus's " Christian Soldier's Manual." He took it up, therefore, for this purpose, but had not advanced far before he found that it chilled the fervour of his soul ; and on this account he did not HIS ELEMENTARY STUDIES. 69 hesitate to cast it from him. Never again would he look into this book himself, and years afterwards, when General of his order, he strictly forbade the reading of any of the works of that writer within the Society. Not that he imputed to his pages the poison of heresy ; but he apprehended that the blandishments of the style — the sarcastic vein, and the flowing eloquence — would beguile souls from their simplicity. It was quite other- wise with the " De Imitatione " of Thomas k Kempis, which he read and studied with the liveliest pleasure, and the highest advantage. In fact, his admirers have said of him that he himself became a perfect exemplifi- cation, or living exhibition, of the golden precepts of that unequalled book. At length, and having made some little progress in the acquisition of the Latin language, he bid adieu to his kind preceptor Ardebal, and to his friend and patroness Isabel Eosella; and, with the view of prose- cuting the higher branches of study to more advantage than he could at Barcelona, he resolved to proceed to the university of Alcala*, where he arrived in the year 1526. Entering the common hall with some who had joined themselves to him, and proposing to sustain himself by the casual alms of the charitable, he applied himself, with great but indiscriminate ardour, to every thing at once, and thus rather burdened and perplexed his facul- ties, than made solid progress in learning. Moreover his strength was often exhausted, and his time consumed, in the perpetual labour of providing, by mendication, not merely for his own wants, but for those of his companions in study and in poverty, and who had too easily learned to depend upon his greater success and assiduity in collecting alms. Nor was this the only hindrance which came in the way of his advancement, * Complutum, founded by Ximenes. F 3 70 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. for his zeal for the recovery of wandering souls to the worship and service of God could not be repressed ; — in college halls, in the streets and lanes of the city, and wherever he found any, of whatever class or age, who would listen to him, he ceased not to hold discourse with them, as heretofore at Manresa, and not without remark- able success. This course, however, attracted too much notoriety, and drew upon him various sinister suspicions ; nor was this surprising at a time when, throughout Spain, as elsewhere, the venom of " German heresy " was carried about by the bold and industrious "agents of Satan." Was it not probable, said some, that this rest- less man — everywhere preaching in the streets, and whis- pering in the ears of the people— was himself a Lu- theran, or a sorcerer, or a something not less pestiferous ? The hearts of men, it was manifest, were dangerously swayed by the discourses of this Ignatius. A report of what was going on at length reached the holy office at Toledo, and the holy inquisitors hastened to Alcala, where, after having informed themselves, in their ac- customed modes, of the whole matter, they felt satisfied that there was no real cause of alarm ; and in taking their departure they commended Ignatius and his com- panions to the vigilant regards of the vicar-archbishopv who, after a renewed inquiry, and a close conversation with him, waS content with insisting only on this pre- cautionary measure, namely, that Loyola and his com- panions, instead of habiting themselves in precisely the same mode — in cloaks of undyed wool — should assume different colours, lest the uniformity of their attire should suggest the idea of their being the originators of a sect, or of their attempting, without authority, to found an order. Loyola, always forward "to obey magistrates" (when they did not attempt to thwart his fixed pur- poses) yielded at once to this reasonable injunction. HIS ELEMENTAET STUDIES. 71 New suspicions were, however, perpetually springing up, and bringing him into jeopardy. His destitute condition at Alcala had moved the pity of some who obtained for him a lodgment within the precincts of an hospital. Here he had passed four months, when one morning a sergeant met him at the door, and led him away to jail -^ no cause assigned. Here he remained some while, free access to him being allowed; and during this time he administered counsel, in his usual mode, to all who sought it, aud to many he delivered suitable portions of the " Spiritual Exercises." Advo- cates offered him their services to procure his liberation ; but he chose rather to wait passively the course of things. " He for love of whom I am come hither, will lead me hence when it shall please Him ; " — such was his reply to a noble lady who would fain have used her influence on his behalf. At length the vicar-general of Alcala, John Rodri- quez Figueroa, under whose eye the officers of the Inquisition had left Loyola, visited and questioned him. 1' Do you know anything of two ladies, mother and daughter, both widows, and the younger very hand- some ?" — " Yes, truly." " Know you anything of their departure from Alqala ? Did you know of their intention to leave their homes ? " — " Solemnly, and by my vow, I knew it not." " But it is on account of these ladies that you have been thrown into prison." Loyola, in fact, had endeavoured to repress the irregular zeal of these ladies, and it seems that they had set out on a wild errand, contrary to his advice, or at least without his immediate cognisance. " Women," we are told, " carry everything to ex- tremes, and the ladies of Spain especially." Be this as it may, it appears that this mother and daughter had so profited by Loyola's instructions, that their religious F 4 72 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. zeal could brook no restraints — could listen to no ad- monitions of prudence, not even from tbe lips of their admired teacher ! Already they had performed one pilgrimage on foot ; and now they had resolved to set out in the same manner, and to beg their bread from town to town throughout Spain, visiting every hos- pital, and ministering to the sick in each. In vain did Loyola, who knew well what must be the risks of such an enterprise to such persons, remind them that there were sick poor enough in Alcala to employ all their time. This was nothing ; — there would have been no ro- mance in doing good so near at home. At first, indeed, they yielded obedience to their teacher, or were awed by that tone of authority which belonged to the embryo General of the Society of Jesus. But at length the charms of this ramble of mercy prevailed over all con- trary motives, and they absconded. The ecclesiastic who was their guardian, knowing who it was that had at the first turned the heads of his wards, applied to the vicar-general, and obtained Loyola's arrest. Six weeks had elapsed since his commitment to prison, when the ladies-errant returned to their home, and, as their testimony accorded with Loyola's aflBrma- tions, he was set at liberty ; yet subject to a condition with which he could not comply — namely, that he should abstain from all endeavours to instruct others, until he should himself have become quahfied to do so with good effect, by completing his four years of study. How could he consent to postpone so long all endea- vours to reclaim souls,, and on the sole ground of his unfinished education ? He left the prison in perplexity, resolving to depart from Alcala, and to submit himself to the advice (or at least to ash the advice) of some dig-r nitary more indulgent than the vicar-general Figueroa. " We should not," said this ecclesiastic, " have made HIS ELEMENTARY STUDIES. 73 SO much of what you do, if your discourses with the people had savoured rather less of novelty." " Novelty ! " exclaimed Ignatius, gravely, " I did not understand that for Christians to speak one to another, concerning Jesus Christ, was a new thing." Don Alphonso de Fonseca, archbishop of Toledo, received Loyola courteously, and finding that he wished to proceed to Salamanca, favoured this intention, gave him introductions, and replenished his purse with four gold pieces. He therefore set forward, with his com- panions, on his way thither. Yet neither at this place did repose await him. The same course of conduct — the same boldness and assiduity in addressing persons of every rank, and exhorting them to repentance and piety, drew upon him again the eyes of the profane and the envious, and rendered him the object of curiosity throughout the city. A strange sight indeed it was to see a band of laymen, in the garb of poor students of Alcala — for thus they had been compelled to attire themselves by their friends there — discharging, openly and boldly, a sort of apostolic and pastoral function, and drawing even priests within their influence ! Ad- mired, followed, suspected, inveighed against, this band of itinerants became the subject of secret and anxious consultations within ecclesiastical precincts. The Do- minicans especially, who had a noted establishment at Salamanca — the monastery of St. Stephen — thought themselves called upon, although without any authority, to search this novelty to its rudiments. Ignatius, un- apprised of this intention had, in all simplicity, chosen a confessor from this very house. This circumstance having been made known to the principals, Ignatius was perfidiously invited to dine at the convent the next Sunday, with his friend Calistus. Advertised that he was likely to undergo a rigorous examination, he never- 74 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. theless fearlessly kept the appointment, and went, he and his companion. Dinner ended, the vicar — in the absence of the prior — courteously leads both his guests, with the confessor and another .brother, to a cell, apart. Each takes his seat, and a colloquy passes within the walls of this cell which is curiously analogous to those that, so often since, have had place in Protestant countries, when lay street-preachers have been called before " the beilch." If in this instance we may rely upon our reporters, the substance of the interrogations, and of the answers, was as follows : — The vicar, looking at Ignatius with a bland smile, expressed the pleasure he felt in thinking of the course of those who, after the manner of the Apostles, went about among the people, inciting them to the worship of God, and the practice of pieity ; nevertheless he earnestly wished to know with what preparation of learning they had attempted so serious a task. Igna- tius ingenuously acknowledged the simple fact — that he and his companions were very slenderly furnished in this way. " How is it, then," said the vicar, " that you, destitute as you are of learning, should go about/ holding discourse with the people upon things divine?" " Nay," replied Ignatius, " we do not preach ; but only as occasion offers, and on the ground of equality with those who are willing to listen to us, and in col- loquial style, we speak of the beauty of virtue, and of the deformity of vice, and exhort men to hate the one, and to love the other." " But apart from a due amount of human learning, which must be either acquired in the ordinary mode, from tutors and from books, ot must be divinely conveyed to the mind by the Holy Spirit — apart from this preparation, no man can pro- perly handle subjects of this sort ; and yet you, as you openly acknowledge, have not given yourselyes, with HIS ELEMENTARY STUDIES. 75 any sufficient assiduity, either to books or to teachers ; it follows, then, necessarily, that this species of learning must have been immediately conveyed to you by the Holy Spirit. Give us, therefore, if you please, some information on this point." Ignatius, perceiving the intention of the vicar to hold him to a dilemma, hesitated awhile; but the vicar persisting in pressing for a reply to a question so plain, he at length openly said that he had nothing further to state, unless it were to those who might be duly authorised so to Interrogate him. " Oh ! Is it come to that?" exclaimed the vicar, "is it so that, at a time when new sects of Impostors are every day making their appearance, and are leading multitudes astray, and when the errors of Erasmus and others are spreading on every side, that you, when questioned concerning your doctrine, equivocate and evade a direct reply ? But I will see to it that you shall give us an answer." Three days they were detained within the walls of the monas- tery, yet not unkindly treated by the brethren, with whom they held free intercourse, and among whom a division took place In their favour. On the fourth day they were visited by the notary, who led them away, and lodged them, not in a dungeon, under ground, but in a sort of out-house, where they fared even worse : it was a decayed structure, with heaps of rubbish, the smells from which were pesti- lential. The two friends were fastened, leg to leg, with an iron chain — nor was it possible for them to take rest. They spent the night In singing psalms. £ut the imprisonment of Ignatius and his companion quickly became noised through the city, and the next day not a few of the most considerable persons of Sala- manca visited them, bringing for their relief coverlets, mattresses, and provisions. The severity of their treat- 76 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. ment, too, was somewhat relaxed ; aud as at Alcala, so now at Salamanca, Ignatius was resorted to by multitudes to whom, with wonderful calmness, he discoursed on such topics as the contempt of things earthly, the last judgment, and the eternal rewards and punishments that were to follow. " Is not this imprisonment grievous to you?" said a compassionate visitant — Francis Men- doza, "and these chains, too?" " There are not in Salamanca," replied Ignatius, " stocks or handcuffs so many as that I would not gladly endure them all, and more, for Christ's sake." At length he and his companion underwent strict, varied, and separate examinations, by the ecclesiastical authorities of Salamanca. One of them had heard of the Book of Spiritual Exercises, and asked that it should be produced: it was at once surrendered, and the names of his other associates, and the places of their abode, were given in. These were arrested, and confined separately. The book was submitted to the examination of three doctors in theology. At this point of time an incident occurred (so say our au- thorities, but not the most trustworthy of them) which tended greatly to set the characters of Loyola and his comrades in an advantageous light. By some strange negligence of the keepers all the prisoners save these, breaking from their confinements, eifected their escape. He and his friend — although they were free to de- part with the others — were found in their cells the following morning, scorning to elude the authorities. Much admiration, and a more lenient treatment, were the consequence of this event. In the end, the result of often-repeated interrogations, and of a careful perusal of the Exercises, was a feeling of amazement on the part of the examiners, and which was increased vastly when, certain questions among the most abstruse and per- HIS ELEMENTAEY STUDIES. 77 plexing in theology being propounded to Ignatius, he answered each with admirable address; and moreover solved a knotty point in the canon law precisely in accordance with the decision of the doctors, of which he had known nothing. At length, and after more than three weeks' im- prisonment, Ignatius and his friends are brought into court to hear their sentence. This was, that they were declared innocent of heretical pravity, and that they should be left at liberty to instruct the common people, as before; but nevertheless that they should not pre- sume, until after four years' attendance upon the theo- logical class, to advance any opinion upon that most difficult of all questions which serves to distinguish between mortal and venial offences — questions to which an approach seemed to be made in a certain part of the Spiritual Exercises. This sentence, in the opinion of the judges, was nothing less than an honour- able acquittal. Ignatius, however, sustained as he was by his firm consciousness of being altogether in the right, vehemently resented the restraint thus laid upon him, and complained that, after by these doctors and rulers he had been pronounced free, in speech and writing, from all taint and suspicion of false doctrine, silence should nevertheless be enjoined him upon a point so prominent and so essential ; and that thus his labours, for the conversion and instruction of men, should In a manner be prohibited. Already he had harboured a design which this re- strictive sentence induced him at once to adopt ; and now finding that, throughout Spain, obstacles of this same kind were likely to be thrown in the way of his evangelic labours, he determined to repair to the University of Paris, there to complete his academic course, or rather to commence it, for as yet he had 78 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. made but little progress. In addition to the high celebrity of that seat of learning at this time, a motive with Loyola for going thither was, the consideration that his ignorance of the language of the country would necessarily exempt him from those labours which here- tofore had so much interfered with his studies. Nor did he doubt that at Paris — the centre of the intel- lectual energies of Christendom — he should form ac- quaintance with some whom he might induce to assist him in giving effect to the institute he had devised. The companions whom Ignatius had gathered around him in Spain — perhaps the risks they had so lately incurred had cooled their zeal — were little inclined to accompany him on a journey so long and so perilous as that which he now proposed for himself. By consent of all he was to go forward alone, and to summon them to follow him if he, should find all things favouring such a course ; or, if not, they were to await severally some future day when they might re-assemble under happier auspices. Many, but fruitless, were the entreaties of Loyola's friends — r and some of them persons of rank ■ — not to abandon them. Disregarding all, he starts oh his way to Barcelona, on foot, and driving before him an ass, fur- nished with panniers, which contained his college books. Among his warm friends at Barcelona his constancy encountered a new and more severe trial, for they, with the most urgent entreaties, sustained by vaUd reasons, sought to turn him from a purpose so fraught with perils in the execution. War raging at that time between Spain and France, the border provinces, on both sides, swarmed with freebooters of the most ferocious sort, by whose hands many had already fallen. These representations, just as they were, could not be listened to by Ignatius; nevertheless it had HIS ELEMENTARY STUDIES. 79 not been quite in vain that he had traversed lands and seas as far as to the Holy City and back, with a purse emptied by himself at starting. His native sense had now taught him to judge better between the claims of faith and of reason ; and he accepted from his friends as well money, as letters of credit, to an extent suificient both to defray the expenses of his journey, and to pro- vide him with things indispensable when he should reach Paris. Here, then, is the founder of the Society a step further advanced in that course of individual development which was at length to bring the intel- lectual faculty into a commanding position, as related to his moral and religious impulses. Not only has he, after making full trial of the special difficulties which a man of his years must encounter in such a course, resolved anew to possess himself of the aids of human learning, but, abandoning the crazy purpose of absolute poverty and way-side begging, he now sets out with a purse reasonably furnished in his girdle ; and beyond this, and in further abjuration of the principle of throwing away ordinary means of support in order to live by miracle, he carries letters, such as the men of this world would furnish themselves with, in similar circumstances ! And see him urging the sluggish paces of his beast, the back of which is loaded with human learning! Loyola's enthusiasm is pushed off, inch by inch, from the place of power within his mind. He set out in the depth of a severe winter alone, on foot, and without a guide. It was in the first days of the year 1528 that he left Barcelona, and he reached Paris in the beginning of February, Finding that his former studies had been well-nigh fruitless, he now resolved to devote himself, without distraction, to the one object he had in view. He had at length learned, and he ingenuously acknowledged the fact. 80 IGNATIUS' LOYOLA. that the human mind — certainly his own could not, with advantage be distracted by divers and incompatible purposes. He entered himself a scholar at Montague College ; and although of adult years, yet he placed himself among boys, with them to acquire — as if his past acquirements were to be accounted as of no value — > the very rudiments of learning. He even diminished those exercises of piety and of personal discipline in which heretofore he had consumed a large portion of his time ; holding nevertheless to his usage of hearing mass daily, of communicating once a week, and of going through with his own method of spiritual exeri cise — taking the occasion, twice every day, to compare himself, as to his religious condition and conduct — day with day — week with week — month with month ; noting faithfully every indication either of progress or of decline. Although he did not absolutely abstain from his accustomed labours for the spiritual good of others, he brought all such occupations within very narrow limits. Loyola had lodged the money he brought with him in the hands of a faithless Spaniard, the sharer of his lodgings, from whom, when he needed it, he could ob- tain nothing. He was thus again suddenly reduced to the cruel necessity of subsisting, from day to day, upon casual alms — a mode of living which he had found to be wholly incompatible with his advancement in learn- ing. At length, however, he obtained admission into the hospital of St. James ; but this was at a distance from college, and moreover the regulations of the hospital and of the university were incompatible, inas- much as, from the former, no egress was permitted before sunrise, and no admittance after sunset; but at college the classes were opened before day-break, HIS COLLEGE COUKSE. 81 and were not closed until after sunset. Much time, therefore, was lost to him from the hours of every day. After resorting to various expedients with the hope of remedying these inconveniences, he at length, and on the suggestion of his Spanish friends, repaired several times during the recesses to Belgium, and afterwards to England, where he found wealthy Spanish merchants, M'hose annual liberality enabled him to complete the period of his college course without distraction. He had now completed his humanity course, and also in the next three years he had studied philosophy with great credit, in which he took his degree. He attended, moreover, a course of theology with the Do- minicans, and was reported to have become thoroughly qualified to hold discourse, and to instruct others in the mysteries of the faith. The habit of his mind, and its tendency toward absolutism, is well indicated by what he tells us was the method he employed for the better securing, on his own part, an instantaneous and un- questioning compliance with the commands of his col- lege preceptor, or with the instructions conveyed to him by others in subordinate positions. The head master he brought himself to think of as Christ ; while to others, severally, he assigned the names of the apostles — mentally calling one Peter, another John, another Paul. Thus he broke down within himself the principle of self-will, by a quaintly imagined fiction, which lent the force and sanction of Heaven to every syllable that might be uttered either by his instructors or his companions. ' His scholastic course being thus far concluded, Loyola began to resume his former practices of promiscuous teaching and exhortation, as opportunity presented itself. These labours, carried on in that earnest manner which was his characteristic, and with that success which G 82 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. such earnestness always ensures, quickly drew attention, and as soon excited active jealousies. The instance of three young Spaniards whom he had induced to distribute all their means of subsistence among the poor, and then to live by alms, as he himself did, made their friends his determined enemies, and in consequence he was reported to the inquisitor — Matthew Ori, who, as a delegate of the holy office, exercised his functions in France, by the leave or connivance of the government. This sort of extension of the powers of .the Inquisition beyond the limits of the countries wherein its existence was legally recognised, had obtained in France, although at times it had been in abeyance, or had been withdrawn, in deference to the wishes of the monarch, or to the known feeling of the Gallican church. Before this functionary Loyola was cited to appear. Meantime it had happened that the Spaniard who had absconded with the funds entrusted to him, wrote from Rouen, declaring himself to be lying ill, and in the most extreme destitution. Loyola did not hesitate a moment in setting out to administer relief to his faith- less countryman. We are assured that he set out to do so without taking food, and barefoot also; hoping, as it seems, by this supererogatory severity, to obtain grace from Heaven for the offending object of his journey. Thus fasting, and barefoot, and in alterna- tions of spiritual depression and exultation, he reached Rouen, and there having begged alms in behalf of his destitute comrade, sent him forward by ship to Spain. On his return to Paris he waited upon the inquisitor; but was presently discharged. Loyola's turn of mind being altogether practical and ethical, not theoretic, or logical, or intellectual, and therefore not inclining him, in any degree, to call in question the dogmas of the church, or to excite inquiry concerning them in the HIS COLLEGE COURSE. 83 minds of others, he found it easy to satisfy the eccle- siastical authorities before which he was so often cited, as to his unqualified and vmquestioning adherence to the faith and teaching of the church on all those points which had then come to be distinctive of orthodoxy and of heresy. Loyola believed with the church — point for point, and without a scruple, or a shadow of dissent. It was not, however, so easy for him to avoid exciting the jealousies of the college authorities by the extraor- dinary influence which he had acquired over the minds of young persons. It would be a hopeless task, with no evidence before us but such as Loyola's biographers think fit to furnish, to attempt to balance the account between him and his adversaries on this ground, or to decide how far the indiscretions of his zeal might have given them fair occasion against him. It is not easy even to determine whether the narratives of these con- tests, and of the saint's sufferings, escapes, and triumphs, are at all authentic. Some of these stories carry upon lihem a very suspicious aspect ; and we should be inclined to consider those of them which Gonsalvo passes over in silence, or to which he makes only a passing allusion, as, at the best, apocryphal. Lo^'ola himself, we may safely conclude, either knew nothing of such incidents, or he thought that they formed no edifying portion of his personal history ; and if so, we ought to regard him as a better judge than his overweening friends could be, of what was fitting to be told of him. Of this sort is the story of his having been adjudged to receive in the college hall a public and infamous chas- tisement, as a corrupter of youth — of his willingness to undergo this undeserved punishment, regarding it merely as a means of promoting his individual advancement in Christian mortification — of his scruple, on the gi'ound 84 IGKATIUS liOTOLA. of the ill-influence it might have on the minds of those for whose spiritual welfare he was concerned — of his ingenuous statement of their " case of conscience " to his superior, and of his consequent triumph and public recognition as " a saint." Among those youths who had frequented his society, and submitted themselves to his direction, several had, after a while, turned aside, addicting themselves to courses of worldly ambition or of pleasure; and of these, several instances are cited, showing how the apostates were followed by the anger of Heaven till they miserably perished. But Loyola had now learned more caution in the choice of friends ; and he was one to turn to the best practical account every instance of disappointment. Having completed his course of study, and believing himself called of God to attempt great things, he looked around in search of those who should be his companions and coadjutors ; and his choice seems to have been in each instance fortunate. HIS EAKLT COMPANIONS. 85 CHAPTER V. Loyola's colleagues, and the bikth of the society. Loyola had, as we have said, given evidence of the strength of his will in carrying forward, through a period of six years, the plan he had formed for his personal improvement ; and the necessities he had sub- mitted to during these years of study, severe as they were, had probably tried his constancy not nearly so much as did the repugnance of his own mind to occu- pations that were purely intellectual. A conquest of the animal nature is what many have been equal to ; but to contravene the mental bias, and to control the tastes, is a victory which very few ever achieve. In this instance it appeared that the man who was born to govern others, established his title to do so by first showing that he could absolutely govern himself, and that he could do so on ground the most difficult. This faculty of governing others, and this fascina- tion, which gave him the ascendency over minds much superior in intelligence and in accomplishments to his own, undoubtedly belonged to him in an eminent degree. It is certain that he knew how to draw around himself persons of rank and education, as well as the vulgar. There was a charm in his personal appearance and demeanour ; there was an animation and a fire, 'sub- dued by humility and suavity ; and, more than all, there was an undeviating intensity of movement, directed toward a high-raised object, which drew all sensitive G 3 86 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. minds into his wake. Perhaps the secret of that in- fluence which is acquired here and there by a gifted mind over multitudes, results chiefly from the very power of a steady and rapid movement to impart move-"" ment to others. In the company of persons of rank (we are told) Loyola had an insinuating manner, which won and which secured to him their favour and friendship. His equals he led forward in his own track, by a graceful facility, and an avoidance of all assumption of superi- ority ; while the ignorant and the needy he commanded by a native air of authority, by his unwearied labours for their good, by his patience towards them in their perversities, and by a species of benevolent dissimula- tion, of which he was master, and which he could j)ractise whenever necessary. How far this skill in the management of human nature approached the limits of guilefulness, or how far it outstepped the boundaries which a high integrity and a Christian simplicity must observe, cannot be known. Multitudes, we are assured, had Loyola converted from the path of sin ; and more than a few from the paths of heresy. At the time of which we are speaking "the plague of Lutheranism" was rapidly spreading on all sides ; but, by timely admonition, and suitable re- monstrances, he had induced many of the infected to pre- sent themselves before the inquisitorial tribunals, and to reconcile themselves to the Catholic Church. His suc- cess in these labours had of late been much promoted by the aid he received from several accomplished and devoted young men, whom he had attached to himself, and who were willing to act under his direction, and to yield submission to him as their spiritual chief. From the moment when we find Loyola thus surrounded by disciples and coadjutors, while we must do him so much HIS EARLY COMPANIONS. 87 the more honour, as being the master mind among minds of no common order, it becomes difficult or quite im- practicable thenceforward to assign him his individual share in the united labours of the company. Great reason is there to believe, that to the superior intelli- gence of two or three of the distinguished men whose names are henceforward to be associated with his own, he was indebted for the more profound provisions of that code which has given permanence and efficiency to the order of Jesuits. From this time onward, therefore, we are contemplating the concerted movement of a cluster of minds, and can claim for Loyola only in par- ticular instances, what undoubtedly belongs to him. The first on the list of these founders of Jesuitism is Peter Faber, a Savoyard. He was of humble origin, but had acquired the rudiments at least of learning in early life. It was his thirst for knowledge that had brought him where Loyola made that acquaintance ■with him, which ripened quickly into an intimate friendship. This young man, in fact, placed himself in the hands of "his Ignatius" as a skilful and ex- perienced physician of souls. Readily he consented to pass through the discipline of the Spiritual Exercises, such as then it was. In truth, it appears that Loyola, from the first, exacted this act of compliance from each of his associates. Faber's case was one of many in dealing with which his friend seems to have exercised as much discretion as might consist with his adherence to a wrong principle — the great practical error of his church. In boyhood — • perhaps it might have been in childhood, and during a season of religious fervour, such as frequently marks the first developments of the moral life in those who afterwards become remarkable for the depth and intensity of their piety — in such a season, Faber, knowing nothing of what an engagement 88 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. of this kind involved, and ignorant of himself and of every thing but the merely exterior import of his vow, had, by a s.olemn oath, devoted himself to perpetual chastity ; and probably this mischievous prank had been sanctioned and applauded by those about him ! But the ill consequences of this act broke out within him in their season ; and he awoke too late to a consciousness — not indeed of his error — but of his misery. None were at hand to give him that simple advice which virtue and Christianity would at once have offered ; and, from his friend, Ignatius, he received the soundest sort of treat- ment which the ascetic quackery has at its command. Tormented by nature, and by his vow, the youth would have rushed into the desert, vainly supposing that he might leave the combatants behind him. His friend said no — you wiU there find no relief : — remember the in- stance of. that great saint, Jerome, who complains that, in the very heart of the desert of Judeea, he found himself surrounded with the meretricious allurements of Rome ! You will carry your enemy with you : do not suppose that the most extreme austerities will alone avail to give you relief! Men reduced to mere shadows or skeletons, by fasting and watching, have confessed that these severities had been, in their case, wholly unavailing. We are told that Loyola completely succeeded in imparting peace of mind to his young friend ; but it is far from easy to understand the precise means which he put in practice for this purpose. "We may however safely conclude that, of whatever kind Loyola's curative devices might be, the cure he effected^ so far as a cure was effected — was brought about mainly by the mere sympathy and contact of intense religious feeling, aided, no doubt, by the gradual unfolding of those vast designs which Loyola was then digesting. A glimpse, HIS EARLY COMPANIONS. 89 from time to time afforded, of that unbounded empire of which he had conceived the idea — quickening an ambition altogether in harmony with Faber's state of mind, would avail infinitely more for his deliverance from the thrall of his bosom enemy than fastings, or the scourge ; or than Loyola's very choicest samples of spiritual advice. In noble natures, a noble passion readily masters an ignoble. He found a very different subject in the youth who next came within his influence — we should scarcely say came under his influence ; for the high-spirited and heroic Francis Xavier seems to have held an indepen- dent course, almost from the first period of his associating himself with Loyola. His was a mind, and his a moral power, which could not permanently adapt itself to a subordinate position. Xavier, named, as he must be, among the founders of Jesuitism, has a history of his own, and we must follow him to India to contemplate so signal an instance of religious energy and grandeur. He was of a noble Asturian family ; — robust in per- son, handsome, accomplished, learned, and covered with academic honours at the time when he fell into the company, or attracted the eye of, Loyola. Francis Xavier was high game in Loyola's view, and he suc- ceeded in attaching, we do not say snaring, him;, and yet it seems to have been by adulation, at first, that he achieved his conquest. But, inasmuch as this remark- able man has had little more to do with the Society than to lend it the credit of his great name, and to shed upon its early history the splendour of his virtues, and as it would be an error to think of him as, in any intimate sense, a Jesuit, it is enough here to name him as one of Loyola's first converts and companions. James Laynez, a native of New Castile, and who succeeded Loyola in the generalship of the Society, is 90 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. the next to be named in this enumeration of its founders. To him, it is probable, are to be assigned the more astute portions of the Constitutions ; and, perhaps, it was from him that the Society received the very charac' ter which the term Jesuitism has come popularly to represent. He is reputed to have entered his twenty- second year when he became acquainted with Loyola, His course of study he had pursued with high credit at Alcala, where he had heard the fame of the extraordi- nary saint, to whom now he made himself known. He had come to Paris for the purpose of making further proficiency in philosophy, along with a youth from Toledo — Alphonso Salmeron, accomplished as himself, and like-minded. Both, at the first interview, and as if by inspiration, surrendered themselves to the guidance of their new friend — underwent the ini- tiating discipline of the Spiritual Exercises, and came forth from the process fired with zeal, to carry forward the apostolic intentions of their master. Each ac- cession of this sort greatly enhanced Loyola's reputation, and extended his influence, and thus rendered his next conquest so much the more easy. The next to be mentioned of these conquests, although important in its consequences, was effected under differ- ent circumstances. A young Spaniard, named Nicholas Alphonso, and surnamed Bobadilla, from the place of his birth, having failed to maintain himself at Valla- dolid, as a teacher, had made his way to Paris, where, in the extremity of indigence, he had sought relief from his countryman — Loyola, who, finding him endowed with extraordinary intelligence, had won him over to the spiritual life, and had at length enrolled him among his colleagues. It was, no doubt, to this skill in the dis- cernment of natural gifts, that Loyola owed much of his success. HIS EAKLY COMPANIONS. 91 The sixth of this band of disciples was a young Por- tuguese, named Simon Eodriquez d'Arevedo, of good family, handsome person, and of great intelligence. He had been maintained at college by the king of Portugal. He had early formed acquaintance with Loyola, at Paris ; but did not, till a later time, yield himself to his influ- ence. A rare, or, as it is termed, an " angelic purity," was his distinction, by gift of nature ; and, from his earliest years, he had indicated that the service of the church was to be his vocation. He had, like Loyola, ardently desired to attempt the conversion of Infidels in the East, and would probably have set out on that errand, had not his friend explained to him at once the difficulties he had himself encountered in Palestine, and opened before him a wide field of labour — shall we say an ample scope — for his ambition, nearer home. It was at a later time that to these were added, others whose names stand prominent among the founders of the Society. They were Claude le Jay, a Savoyard ; John Codure, and Pasquier Brouet, of PIcardy. It was not to all alike, or not to all with the same in- genuousness, that Loyola had opened his bosom. His great Idea, even if well defined in his own thoughts, had been but dimly revealed to the favoured two — Laynez and Faber. To all, however, he had imparted a portion of Ms own spiritual intensity. All were taught to be- lieve that they were called of Heaven, in a special and peculiar sense, to carry forward a great work ; and all (and each in proportion to the vagueness of his own idea concerning it) felt as men do when a high destiny is gradually unfolding itself before them. Moreover, as they thought their OAvn vocation to be of God, so did they regard the supremacy of their chief as of divine appointment. Loyola well remembered the fickleness of his first 92 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. companions, most of whom had turned aside quickly — loving this present life, like Demas. Of his present companions he thought better ; but he contemplated for them a step which should cut off their retreat, and fen- der their advance necessary. Some of the set had not yet completed their college course, and therefore it was unavoidable to postpone, for a time, the adoption of any measures that might be incompatible with the prosecu- tion of their studies. Meanwhile it was undesirable to leave them exposed to the seductions of the world, or to any vacillations of purpose : — the present purpose of each was to be fixed by an irrevocable obligation. The succinctness in some instances, and sometimes the absolute silence, of the writer who received the materials of his Memoir from his master's lips, compels us often, and on the most memorable occasions, to derive our information from those whose style indicates a pur- pose, and a forethought of consequences, in whatever they relate. It is thus in what belongs to the formal origination of the Society. It was, we are told, in a sepulchral chapel or crypt of the church of Montmartre, rendered illustrious as the scene of the decapitation of St. Dionysius — the apostle of France — that the disciples, with their master, were assembled. And it was appropriately on the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin that this solemn dedica- tion of themselves to the service of the Saviour took place, and that the favour of " Mary, the Queen of Virgins, should thus be claimed as the protectress of an order which makes profession of angelic purity." One of the company, Faber, had taken priest's orders, and from his hands the rest received " the body of our Lord," after which, and under the direction of Loyola, they bound themselves by a solemn oath which, in its terms, included what was general — namely, a profession BIRTH OF THE SOCIETY. 93 of poverty, renunciation of the world, and absolute devotion to the service of God, and the good of souls j and also some special or convertible conditions — namely, to attempt a mission to Palestine ; or, should they be frustrated in that design, to throw themselves at the feet of the sovereign Pontiff, without reservation, stipu- lation, or condition of any kind, offering to undertake any service which he, the vicar of Christ, should appoint them to. This vow, the rudiment of that by which afterwards every " professed " Jesuit bound himself, was taken by these founders of the Society, August 15th, in the year 1534. For completing the academic course of those of the company who had but lately matriculated, a term of nearly three years was allowed ; and it was formally agreed that, in January of the year 1537, they should again assemble, for the purpose of giving effect to their present intentions, in the mode which should then appear the most advisable. During this interval of time, each engaged, annually, and on the day of the same festival, to renew his solemn oath. Meanwhile, and constantly, each was to adhere to those practices. of devotion which Loyola had prescribed, and from which no departure, in the smallest particular, was to be allowed. On frequent and stated occasions they met, mutually advised each other, and celebrated a sort of love-feast, in imitation of the primitive Agapae. He himself watched for their souls with incessant care, spending entire days in a cavern at Montmartre, where, subjecting himself to extraordinary austerities, he travailed in spirit for his friends. At the same time he found much occupation, we are told, in labouring to recover from perdition a multitude of souls that had been led astray by the audacious fol- lowers of Luther and Calvin. Favoured or screened 94 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. by some Illustrious persons at court, these seducers had proclaimed their blasphemies aloud, even in Paris itself. With incredible assiduity he followed the steps of these " emissaries of Satan," and his endeavours were success- ful with more than a few, whom he led into the presence of the inquisitors, there to eifect their reconciliation to the church. These various labours, however, together with a re- newal of his ascetic practices, seriously impaired the health of Loyola, and brought upon him anew some of those maladies of the stomach under which, years be- fore, he had severely suffered. His physicians were baffled, and could advise nothing but a return to his native air. Reluctantly he consented to abandon his companions, and to relinquish his labours among the people ; but at length he consented so to do, the more readily inasmuch as this journey might give him oppor- tunity to seek out, and perhaps to restore to piety, some of his former associates. Another motive also, incidentally alluded to by his biographers. Influenced his determination, and probably it had more to do with this decision than they are will- ing to suppose; we might even conjecture that it con- stituted the principal reason of his return to Spain. Would it be uncharitable to surmise that the sagacious Loyola, understanding human nature so well as he did, and confiding in it so little, employed his physician's opinion as the screen of his own previously formed purpose ? Several of his associates, that is to say, those of them who were his countrymen, had temporal interests pend- ing in their native country, which demanded some attention from them, previously to their absolute renun- ciation of all earthly ties. It seemed to be their duty to return to their homes, severally, for a time, there .to wind BIRTH OP THE SOCIETY. 95 up their worldly aifairs, and to bid adieu to their relatives. But yet for them to do so could not but be regarded as a perilous experiment. Loyola, if he did not mistrust his friends, naturally feared what the consequence of such a visit might be with some of them. While there- fore they should prosecute their studies, and give atten- tion to their religious duties, he offered them his services, as their agent in duly administering their worldly effects, and in thus sparing them all the distraction of mind, and the loss of time, as well as the moral risks, which a return to their homes must have involved. Thus it was, as we conjecture, that Loyola thought ; and in fact he did thus step in between his friends and the perils they would otherwise have encountered. It was particularly in behalf of his three countrymen, Xavler, Salmeron, and Lainez, that he undertook this journey. Faber, the only priest among them, he constituted his representative, and master of the company during his absence. Previously, however, to his leaving Paris, he thought it due to his position, as being now the acknowledged chief of a society, to obtain from the inquisitor, before whom he had already appeared, a formal and officially signed approbation of his doctrine, and especially of his Book of Spiritual Exercises. This approval was readily granted by his friend the inquisitor, Matthew Orl, who accompanied this exculpatory document with a profusion of eulogiums. Loyola by these means silenced his calumniators, and set out on his return to Spain with a reputation for orthodoxy, signed and sealed by the "Holy Office." Cordially might we wish that this great man's reputation for Christian simplicity — just at this point of his history — could so be established as that it would stand fair in the eyes of a holier tribunal than that of the Inquisition ; we mean a truth-loving age 96 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. like the present ! This should be remembered, that a large proportion of the incidents of Loyola's life, from the time when he stood before the world as the head of an Order, are taken from the acts of his canonization ; that is to say, from the eagerly sought- for testimony of persons glad to contribute each his quota of marvels toward making up the fame of so illustrious a saint. If the facts were indeed just what they seem to be as related by the Jesuit writers, how miserable a farce was it for a man when within a half hour's walk of his paternal castle, which he is implored to enter, and to call his own — for a man, who at the very moment is followed by admiring crowds, and has been 'met by a procession of dignitaries and magistrates — for a man just in this position of honour and of superfluity, to go hobbling through a village, begging a morsel of bread at each cottage door ! What can we say to instances of gigantic nonsense such as this ; or to whom is it to be attributed ? not, we are fain to believe, not to Igna- tius Loyola. We must not think it possible that the factitious religious system which had given him his training, could so far have debauched the reason of a man like the founder of the order of Jesuits, as that he should make himself the hero of a performance com- bining so much of folly, of jugglery, and of something akin to plunder. Mounted on a serviceable pony, which had been purchased for him by his friends, Loyola had set for- ward on his journey toward the Pyrenean boundary. As he crossed the range, and began to descend toward the valleys of Guipuscoa, he breathed health again. He turned however from the high road which led directly toward the castle and domains of his brother, and be- took himself to a less frequented mountain path. But on this road — his coming having been noised about — he was HIS RETURN TO SPAIN. 97 met by messengers, sent forward by his brother, to con- duct him to the family home. This invitation he sternly declined ; and instead, sought shelter in an hos- pital near at hand, whence, we are assured, he issued daily to beg alms in the town. It is affirmed that he held to this course for three months, occupying a pauper's berth at the hospital of St. Magdalen, distri- buting among its inmates the sumptuous fare sent him daily from the castle, and sustaining himself wholly by the contributions of the "charitable" — that is to say, of his brother's poor tenants and dependants, who, not ignorant of this mendicant's quality and position, duly played their part — crust in hand — in this burlesque of " holy poverty." He was not however idle during this time ; but, on the contrary, received all comers at the hospital, visited from house to house, preached In churches and by the wayside — the eager crowds climbing the trees to catch his words. But he could not confine himself to these easier labours. Enjoying as he did in this neighbour- hood a double Influence, that, namely, attaching to him as a noted saint, and that of which he could not despoil himself as member of the first family in the country, he felt himself to be in a position whence he might not merely propound, but might carry, difficult measures of reform- The loose manners of the clergy, and the pre- valence among them of concubinage, called for rebuke, and he administered it even in the instance of digni- taries ; nor did he hesitate to get enforced an obsolete law, inflicting a public whipping upon any woman who should usurp the costume of a lawful wife. The due care of the poor he enjoined also ; and he established the custom of sounding for prayers three times in the day. These reforms he effected with the greater ease by means of the extreme severity of the penances to II 98 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. which, at this time, and no doubt with a perfect under- standing of the popular mind, he subjected himself. Fastings, flagellations, an iron girdle, and a bristly- rough shirt, submitted to by the saint, and spoken of on all sides, made erery word he uttered a law, and efiec- tively suppressed the murmurs of the pampered victims of these stern measures of reform. How could a sleek priest, or a burly monk dare to whisper a remonstrance, when the reprover of their evil courses was seen going in and out among the people — a cheerful martyr to so many voluntary tortures ? The time was come, however, in which he should proceed to acquit himself of the secular oflSces he had undertaken in behalf of his friends and countrymen at Paris. He set out, therefore, attended to the borders of the province by his brother and a retinue ; but thence proceeded on foot, unattended, and without purse, making his way first to Pampeluna, thence to San- guesa, to Toledo and back to Tudela — to each of which places the interests of his friends called him ; — and then to Valencia, purposing there to get a passage to Genoa. But in pursuing this route he did not fail to make inquiry concerning his early associates, whom, years before, he had left to the strength of their own resolves. Most of them, he learned, had fallen away from their profession, their religious ardour having' soon been exhausted. One of them, a Frenchman, had secured his perseverance in virtue by entering a monastery. Callistus was gone to India, in quest of wealth. Cazeres had abandoned himself to a life of ease and pleasure among his kindred. Artiaga, having pursued a course of ambition in the church, had obtained a bishoprick ; but had speedily met an untimely end — poisoned by his own mistake. Loyola, praying for the restoration of those who survived, and for the souls of the departed^ would not spend his time in any endeavours to seek HIS VISIT TO ITALY. 99 them out, or in attempting their conversion. A more promising course had now opened itself before him, and he hastened onward, to make proof of it. Loyola's friends — for friends he found at Valencia — would fain have prevented his incurring the risks of a voyage at a time when that terror of the Mediterranean, Barbarossa, with his fleet galleys, held the sea almost as his undisputed domain. The saint, however, was not to be so turned from his purpose ; — he embarked, en- countered "the most violent of all recorded tempests," and set foot on the shores of Italy only to meet there new perils. Thus it is that the margin of this eminent man's history is, on every inch of it, decorated in the manner that has been thought to be the most appro- priate to the life of so great a saint ; — " Atque tanta maris incommoda, non san^ levins terrestris itineris dis- crimen excepit." That is to say — the illustrious founder of the order of Jesuits must not be allowed to pass from point to point of his course, with less of epic accom-r paniment than befits the hero of an Odyssey, or of an JEneid ! How refreshing, in the perusal of such a man's personal history, would be a little of the ordinary course of things ! How gladly should one rest, here and there, content amid those commonplace realities with which truth is ordinarily conversant ! How would attention be quickened by an admixture of this — the commonplace of real life, instead of that, than which nothing is more wearisome — the commonplace of the miraculous ! Romish writers too often want the good taste and the soundness of judgment which would teach them, when their subject furnishes them with the solid materials of moral and intellectual greatness, to be therewith satisfied. It seems, with these writers- one and all — as if they could never recognise a hero of their own — if they met him out of hia finery. H 2 100 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Of what magnitude Loyola's actual perils and suffer- ings in travel were, we may safely form an opinion, when we are assured by his friend, Gonsalvo, that the following was regarded, by himself, as the most extreme of any which it had been his lot to encounter : these are the very words — "Atque hie maximus fuit omnium labo- rum corporalium quos unquam expertus est ! " In his way from Genoa to Bologna he travelled alone and In ignorance of the road ; and thus it happened that he took a path across the Apennines, which, though at the com- mencement it appeared accessible, soon became narrow and difficult, until at length it presented a pass whence, as it seemed, he could not extricate himself in either direction. A rough ledge of rock was his only footing, and this impending over a rapid stream, far below. Nothing could he do but crawl forwards on hands and knees, catching at each projecting point, and holding by any fibre that hung from the crevices ; and thus it was that he passed through " the greatest of all those bodily labours which at any time he had encountered ! " Yet the destined trial of his patience was not complete ; for just as he was entering Bologna, his foot slipped in crossing the bridge; headlong he tumbled. into a stagnant ditch, and in emerging, covered with mud and filth, heard him- self greeted with shouts of laughter by the crowd about the gates. At Bologna, to its eternal disgrace, the founder of the Jesuit order, in vain asked alms from street to street ; not a farthing did he obtain ! Sick and in des- titution he at length betook himself to the Spanish col- lege in that city. (Why not resort thither at the first?) From Bologna, after a while, he proceeded on his des- tined way toward Venice ; where, as had been agreed, he was to meet his colleagues from France. While awaiting there their arrival, toward the close of the year 1535j he employed himself in his customary manner, HIS VISIT TO ITALY, 101 teaching and preaching wherever opportunity presented Itself. Signal success attended these evangelic labours, and several persons of distinction were, at this time, won by him to a life of piety. Among these converts at Venice, was a noble Spa- niard of Cordova named Hozez, who had taken his bachelor's degree in theology, and had moreover armed himself against the perils of the times by a fixed hatred of the German novelties. Already he had heard of Loyola as an eminent preacher, and as a master in the spiritual life ; but the whisper had reached him of his having come under suspicion of heresy once and again, and that this had occurred as well in France as in Spain. Hozez, therefore, approached this noted teacher with an excited feeling of mingled admiration and distrust. To protect himself against any lurking infection of heresy, he carried about him, in his preliminary interviews with his countryman, certain books of piety, and summaries of orthodox doctrine, as standards to which he might, in each instance of doubt, appeal. He soon however found, or felt, that his alarms were groundless, and his precautions uncalled for. A genuine orthodoxy breathed itself from the lips of his new friend ; and as to the Spiritual Exercises, the whole tenor of them was in har- mony with the doctrine and usage of the Church. "An implicit submission to the decisions of the Church is," said Ignatius to his noble disciple, " a Christian's first duty. Nothing that has been authorized by the Church is to be called in question. Whatever she has approved we are not merely to accept as true and good, for ourselves, but are to be ready to defend with our utmost zeal and ability. We are to conform ourselves to the ordinances of our ecclesiastical superiors, even although their own lives should not be as edifying as we might wish. Never are we to indulge in invectives against such dignitaries. H 3 102 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. As to the ancient Fathers of the Church, it was their office principally to stir up devout affections in the minds of men : but it was the office of the doctors of a later time, and especially of Saint Thomas, to digest, definitely to expound, and authoritatively to teach, the Christian doctrine. It is therefore to the writings of these great and holy men, and to those of the last- mentioned particularly, that an appeal is to be made on points of belief; and it must be from these arsenals that we are to draw our weapons, when called to contend with heretics." It was thus, and with many exhortations breathing the same spirit, that the Master succeeded in thoroughly dispelling the misgivings of the disciple, who, after a short period of uncertainty, surrendered himself un- reservedly to his guidance in matters both of belief and practice. This, and many similar successes among persons of note at Venice, did not fail to awaken, as heretofore, the jealousies and alarms of ecclesiastical dignitaries, Loyola was therefore cited anew to render an account of his life and doctrine. " Was it true that he- had been burned in effigy in some towns of Spain, as well as at Paris?" Again, however, as on other occasions, this most catholic of agitators found it easy to clear himself of every suspicion of hetero- doxy; and he obtained a decision so decisively in his favour as served greatly to enhance the influence he already possessed over the minds of his followers, and among the people. It was about the same time that he formed an inti- macy with some persons of importance, whose knowledge of him, and whose opinion of his piety and ability, had much effect afterwards in promoting the formatiou, and in facilitating the movements of the Order, when it was to be publicly recognised. Among these persons the most remarkable was the noted Caraffa, afterwards HIS YISIT TO ITALT. 103 Paul IV. This intimacy moreover gave rise to the idea, at first generally prevalent, that the Jesuits were of the order of Theatines, to which Caraffa had attached himself. It was in the early days of the year 1537, that Loyola's companions — the Fathers of the Society, arrived from Paris, at Venice, and there, in undiminished fervour of spirit, joyfully greeted their chief and teacher. They had taken their course through France, Ger- many, and Switzerland, staif in hand, their. books of piety in knapsacks on their shoulders,, each with his chaplet of beads round his neck, as sign of his professiouj and most necessary in traversing countries pervaded by heresy. As they went they begged their bread. The three who were in priests' orders administered the com- munion daily to their companions, and the company diverted the toils and suiFerings of the journey by sing- ing psalms, or by pious discourse. War was raging on every side of their route ; and — worse than this — Satan, triumphant in the persons of Lutherans, and of the deluded followers of the Swiss heresiarchs, beset their way with perils, visible and invisible. The nine companions, now joined by the late con- vert, Hozez, and with Ignatius at their head, consti- tuted the Society at the moment when it was re- organised at Venice. These distributed themselves among the hospitals of the city, where they gave their free services to the sick and poor. After a time thus spent, and during which, it is probable, the inten- tion of the new order was more fully expounded by Loyola to his companions than heretofore it had been, and the rules of the Society digested and assented to, — it was felt that a decisive step must be taken in furtherance of the work to which they had dedicated their lives. Already the devotedness of their behaviour, H 4 104 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. their assiduity in labours of charity, even the most humiliating and revolting, as well as the singular energy and intelligence which marked their public and private discourses, had attracted universal attention. Persons of all ranks flocked around them, in admiration of their piety, and eager to profit by their advices and exhortations. "Well they understood — and their Chief especially un- derstood it — that this notoriety, and this high repute, they could not long enjoy, unprotected as they were, exempt from calumny, or even from active hostility. Undoubtedly a storm would soon gather around them, and might burst upon their heads. To prevent this anticipated mischief, and at the same time to obtain, in behalf of the infant society, the highest sanction, it was resolved that they should present themselves before the sovereign pontiff, Paul III., proffering to the apostolic see, themselves, without conditions ; — their bodies, souls, and utmost services, to be disposed of for the good of the Church, in whatever manner should be judged the most conducive to that end. Simply to obtain the apostolic permission and benediction for their proposed journey to Palestine, was the immediate object of their suit at Rome. It is noticeable that, on this critical and momentous occasion, Loyola declined to accompany his colleagues — declined to show himself at E-ome, as chief or founder of the new society. He instructed and sent forward his friends, while he himself remained at Venice, to await the issue of their mission. The motives of this back- wardness are not conspicuous, or are not authentically known. Ostensibly — but this could not be the true or principal reason — Loyola staid at Venice to make the arrangements requisite for the voyage to the East ; but undoubtedly some one of the party could, as well as the chief, have taken charge of a function such as this. HIS VISIT TO ITALY. 105 It Is said that Loyola Lad lately become personally obnoxious to his early friend Caraffa, created cardinal by Paul III., and who might have opposed himself to the company, had it been headed by him. Yet this band of suppliants commanded at this time the zealous good offices of one whose influence at the Court of Home was second perhaps to that of few : this was Peter Oi-tiz, a Spanish ecclesiastic^ who, at Paris, had formed an intimacy with Loyola, and who held him in the highest esteem. At this time he represented the Emperor Charles, in behalf of his sister Catherine of Arragon, the validity of whose marriage he maintained. The most favourable impressions of the company, and of sevei'al of the individuals composing it, were con- veyed by Ortiz to the pontiff; and it was perhaps to this auspicious introduction that the Society owed, in measure, the favours, so many and so signal, which, in the lapse of years, it received from the hands of this pope: not improbably, the Spanish procurator inti- mated to him something concerning the rank and high connexions of two or three of those in whose behalf he thus interposed. This accomplished pontiff — Alexander Farnese — thorough man of the world as he was, and the as- sociate of scholars and philosophers, understood too well on what foundations the papal power rested, to discourage any who professed their readiness to spend their lives in strengthening and extending the base- ment of the Church. And at this particular juncture, especially, there was no extravagance of zeal, how much soever it might amuse himself or his table companions, which he would fail to promote — even at the cost of a few crowns, and an apostolic benediction — if it seemed adapted to the purpose of lending aid in the doubtful conflict at that time raging between the Church and its 106 IGNATIUS XOYOLA. assailants in Northern Europe. The Fathers of the ■Society were invited to take their part in those learned discussions in listening to which his holiness was accus- tomed to amuse his leisure hours ; and these conversa- tions afforded them a very favourable opportunity for giving proof of their accomplishments and intelligence, Nothing better could have been wished for by them- selves ; and the pope and his friends quickly understood that this band could not be held in contempt on any ground except that of their sincere religious^belief, and of their self-denying zeal. In learning, acuteness, and even in wit, these simple souls were quite on a level with the accomplished voluptuaries of the papal court. In a word, their svdt'was granted — the benediction they implored was bestowed — gold, which they did ^ot ask, was lavished upon them — dispensations were given for thej juniors to receive priests' orders prematurely ; and all the licence needed for converting Turks and heretics — the wide world over, was allowed them. It vras no doubt with much edification that the pope and his friends soon afterwards learned that these men, as well bom and as well bred as themselves, had reserved so much only of the money they had received as would be required to pay their passage to the Holy Land ; and that, leaving the surplus in the hands of those who were to employ it for charitable purposes, they had gone forth from Rome as destitute as when they entered it ; and that they had actually begged their bread in the streets as they were quitting the city ! It is thus not unfrequently that the utter folly of a sensual and atheistic course of life is set in strong relief before uSj when it happens to be contrasted with some wild ex- travagance of zeal which, how inordinate soever it may be, we must, nevertheless, confess to be wise and good when brought into such a point of comparison. HIS TISIT TO ITALY. lOt The Fathers, in three companies, made their way back to Venice in the same plight in which they came — hardly bestead, and hungry. On rejoining their master, he, and those of them who still were laics, received priests' orders from the nuncio there. They more- over renewed their solemn engagements toward each other, and afresh dedicated themselves to the service of God, of the Church, and of mankind everywhere. War still raged between the Venetians and the Turks, nor was it possible to obtain, by any means, a passage to the shores of Palestine. Nevertheless, that there might be no ground hereafter for reproaches of conscience, the' party resolved to await in the neigh- bourhood of Venice the expiration of the year which their vow embraced ; so that if, contrary to all proba- bility, the war should be brought to a speedy conclusion, they might instantly re-assemble, and snatch at any favourable opportunity for accomplishing their original purpose. . Meanwhile, in this crowded and voluptuous city, and in the surrounding territory, men so minded as were these fathers could not want a field of labour. They went forth, therefore, to their work, three and three; Loyola taking as his companions, as before, Lainez and Faber ; and it is these who should be regarded as, in a strict sense, the authors of the Jesuit institute. It was at this time, no doubt, beneath the bare shelter of a hovel's crazy roof, and often in want of food> and worn with toil, as street preachers, that these extraordinary men, throwing into a common stock their individual gifts, digested, in loving concert, the rules of the Society, so far as it is constituted by written precepts ; and more than this — brought vividly before their own minds those unwritten principles which, from the first, have been to it a secret soul and mind — a code not written 108 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. upon paper, but deep cut upon the fleshy tablet of every Jesuit's heart. Loyola, Laiuez, and Faber, quitting Venice, betook themselves to the neighbouring town, Vicenza. In a neglected and miserable suburb of this 2)lace they found a deserted building — open to the blasts of heaven — open to any rude intruder ; for it had neither door nor window ! This was the place of their conclave, and their only home : in the most sheltered corner of it they slept upon a bundle of straw or stubble, collected by themselves. But here the hubbub of the town was not heard; and here — or at least during the hours of darkness — the solace of prayer and meditation might be enjoyed without disturbance; and here, at midnight, none making them afraid, the soul-kindling psalm might be recited, and the hymn, lifting the thoughts toward the world of triumphant harmony, might loudly be sung ! Happy inmates of this hovel — happy, we say again, and say it with emphasis, after looking into the flittering palaces of Venice : happy its inmates ; and ■wise too — if man be immortal ! The plan adopted, after a preliminary season of prayer, was for two to go forth daily into the town, there to ask alms, and to exercise their evangelic functions among the people, while one remained at home — if home it might be called, to guard their little stock of books and utensils, and to prepare food for sup- per, if food were in store. It was Ignatius, we are told, who most often took upon himself this domestic charge ; and it is said that the reason for his doing so — ^ out of his turn — was his labouring under a complaint in the eyes, brought on by excessive weeping ! an am- biguous explanation, we must think it, of an ambiguous course of conduct. Forty days having been spent] in penitential exer- HIS ITINEEANT LABOURS. 109 cises, and a colleague having joined them, the fathers entered upon a course of labours the most arduous. Not one of them possessed a fluent and colloquial com- mand of the Italian language — a language which is so difficult an instrument in the hands of those who are imperfectly acquainted with its refinements. Forth they went, however, as street preachers. A stone, at the corner of a house, or a stool, borrowed from a shop, was pulpit enough. The preacher, occupying some such position, waved his bonnet over his head, and in a loud voice summoned the people to attend. Wan and wasted was his countenance — his eyes deep sunken, his attire worn, and in ill trim. At first mistaken for a quacky the gathering crowd was soon subdued to quietness and solemnity by the awe-inspiring tones of the speaker's voice, and its attention fixed by the weight of the sub- ject-matter of his discourse, by the intensity of his man- ner, by the fearful energy of his gesticulations, and by the majesty of that appeal to the conscience, which those are best able to make whose thorough conviction of the truth and importance of Avhat they aflSrm is recommended to the hearer by that dignity and self- possession which belongs to men who are well educated and well bred. A similar advantage — let it be called adventitious and non-essential, and yet real — attached to the open-air preachings of the founders of Methodism^ In this instance, however, it is not a John or a Samuel Wesley to whom we are listening, and yet the story is substantially the same (as were the topics). On the skirts of the crowd in the streets and squares of Vicenza, and of the neighbouring towns and cities, there were usually seen some who came up to mock the speaker and to disturb the congregation ; but who, after venting for a few minutes their ribaldry and profane jests, Avere suddenly smitten by a word catching their unwilling ears. The countenance falls — the straggler stands per- 110 IGNATIUS LOTOLA. plexed — pushes forward toward the speaker — listens breathless — melts ■ — and perhaps, with a loud voice, interrupted by sobs, confesses himself conscience-smitten and vanquished! Such conquests not unfrequently gladdened, we are told, the labours of these evangelists ; and it is quite credible that it was so ; for similar suc- cesses have ever rewarded the labours of apostolic preachers of every church, and of whatever school in theology. The Fathers, when not abroad, preaching and teach- ing, were resorted to by many of these converts, to whom they gave sedulous attention. Some brief hours of rest excepted, they employed themselves in these la- bours early and late. Their devotedness, their cheerful endurance of privations, their humility, fervour, and especially their well sustained personal behaviour, pro- duced an impression, of the most powerful kind, upon persons of all classes; and they quickly became the objects of general affection and reverence. In conse- quence of this change in their favour, their personal comfort was henceforward religiously attended to by devout persons, so that instead of the fragments of mouldy bread, which, for weeks, had constituted almost their only fare, they were now regularly and copiously supplied with the best provisions. At the same time, it is said, and we take it on the authority of Loyola's own narrations, that he was favoured, not merely with spiri- tual consolations of the most peculiar kind, but with visions or visitations, supernatural, such as he had not been wont to experience since the time of his retreat in the cavern at Manresa. A critical epoch in his per- sonal history is now before us ; and any one must feel it to be such who, sincerely wishing to render justice to the founder of Jesuitism, must yet reserve his faith in what is professedly supernatural, for narratives that stand quite exempt from colourable suspicion. EARLY TIME OF THE SOCIETT. Ill CHAPTER VI. LOTOLAS ELECTION TO THE GENERALSHIP OF THE SOCIETY. The eleven companions hadj at this time, drawn to- gether at Vicenza, where they had made a greater im- pression upon the popular mind than elsewhere, and whence they had made excursions to the neighbouring towns — to preach, and — although it does not appear why this should have been necessary — to beg. The time had now nearly expired to which their vow extended, in relation to Palestine; no prospect, how- ever, of their finding it practicable to undertake the voyage had presented itself, in the interval, or was now apparent. The Fathers therefore would quickly find themselves released in conscience from that particular obligation, and might hold themselves free — no doubt much to their inward satisfaction — to prosecute those more vast schemes of spiritual agency which, lately, had been opened to their view. Loyola himself, it is pro- bable, had willingly, and perhaps not very slowly, relinquished a vague ambition to convert a world of Mahometan misbelievers, in favour of that far better defined, as well as more practicable, plan which the Jesuit institute embodied, and which, while it did indeed embrace the conversion of Turks and pagans, held mainly to the purpose of erecting a ghostly empire over the entire area of Christendom. 112 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. On this ground the Fathers deliberated at VIcenza ; and it was here decided that the preliminary step should forthwith be taken. This preliminary measure was, to make a new proffer of themselves, and of their services, to the apostolic see, -which should be invited to accept, as an unconditional oblation, the bodies and souls, the well-being, and the energies of this band, to be disposed of in the most absolute manner, and for the promotion and upholding of the authority of the church. This time it was Loyola himself, with his chosen colleagues, Faber and Lainez, that undertook the mission to Home ; while the eight were to disperse themselves throughout northern Italy, and especially to gain a foot- ing, if they could, and to acquire influence at those seats of learning, where the youth of Italy were to be met with; such as Padua-, Ferrara, Bologna, Sienna, and Vicenza. Surprising effects resulted, it is said, from these labours; but we turn toward the three fathers, Ignatius, Lainez, and Faber, who are now making their way on foot to Home. If Loyola's course of secular study, and if his various engagements as evangelist, and as chief of a society, had at all chilled his devotional ardour, or had drawn his thoughts away from the unseen world, this fervour, and this upward direction of the mind, now returned to him in full force : we are assured that, on this pilgrimage, and " through favour of the Virgin," his days and nights were passed in a sort of continuous ecstasy. As they drew toward the city, and while upon the Sienna road, he turned aside to a chapel, then in a ruinous condition, and which he entered alone. Here ecstasy became more ecstatic still ; and, in a trance, he believed himself very distinctly to see Him whom, as Holy Scripture affirms, " no man hath seen at any time." By the side of this vision of the invisible, appeared Jesus, bearing a huge EARLY TISIB OP THE SOCIETY. 113 cross. The Father presents Ignatius to the Son, who utters the words, so full of meaning, " I will be favour- able to you at Rome." It is no agreeable task thus to compromise the awful realities of religion, and thus to perplex the distinctions which a religious mind wishes to observe between truth and illusion ; yet it seems inevitable to narrate that which comes before us, as an integral and important portion of the history we have to do with. And yet, incidents such as these, while they will be very far from availing to bring us over as converts to the system which they are supposed supernaturally to authenticate, need not generate any extreme revulsion of feeling in an opposite direction. Good men, ill-trained, or trained under a system which, to so great an extent, is factitious, de- mand from us often, we do not say that which an en- lightened Christian charity does not include, but a something which is logically distinguishable from it; we mean a philosophic habit of mind, accustomed to deal with human nature, and with its wonderful inconsist- encies, on the broadest principles. Some diversities of language present themselves in the narratives that have come down to us of this vision. In that which, perhaps, is worthy of the most regard, the phraseology is such as to suggest the belief that its exact meaning should not easily be gathered from the words. Loyola had asked of the Blessed Virgin — ut eum cum filio suo poneret ; and during this trance this request, whatever it might mean, was manifestly granted. # * Ita animum suum moveri mutarique sensit, tamque manifeste vidit, quod eum Deus Pater cum Christo Filio suo poneret, xit de eo dubitare non auderet, quin eum Deus Pater cum Filio suo poneret. I 114 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. From this vision, and from the memorable words — ^ Ego Yobis Komae propitius ero, the Society may be said to have taken its formal commencement, and to have drawn its appellation. Henceforward it was " the Society of Jesus ; " — for its founder, introduced to the Son of God by the Eternal Father, had been orally assured of the divine favour — favour consequent upon his present visit to Rome. Here, then, we have exposed to our view the inner economy, or divine machinery, of , the Jesuit Institute. The Mother of God is the primary mediatrix; the Father, at her intercession, obtains for the founder an auspicious audience of the Son; and the Son authenticates the use to be made of His name in this instance ; and so it is that the inchoate order is to be — " The Society of Jesus ! " An inquiry, to which, in fact, no certain reply could be given, obtrudes itself upon the mind on an occasion like this, namely. How far the infidelity and atheism Avhich pervaded Europe in the next and the following century sprung directly out of profanations such as this ? Merely to narrate them, and to do so in the briefest manner, does violence to every genuine sentiment of piety. What must have been the effect produced upon frivolous and sceptical tempers, when, with sedulous art, such things were put forward as solemn verities not to be distinguished from the primary truths of religion, and entitled to the same reverential regard in our minds ! Loyola, although thus warranted, as he thought, in assuming for his order so peculiar and exclusive a desig- nation, used a discreet reserve at the first, in bringing it forward, lest he should wound the self-love of rival bodies, or seem to be challenging for his company a superiority over other religious orders. So much caution as this his past experience would naturally suggest to EARLY TIME OF THE SOCIETY. 115 him; and that he felt the need of it is indicated hy what he is reported to have said as he entered Rome, Although the words so recently pronounced still sounded in his ears — Ego vobis E,omse propitius ero, yet, as he set foot within the city, he turned to his companions and said, with a solemn significance of tone, " I see the windows shut," — meaning that they should there meet much opposition, and find occasion for the exercise of prudence and of a patient endurance of suf- ferings : — of prudence, not less than of patience. But while care was to be taken not to draw toward themselves the envious or suspicious regards of the reli- gious orders, or of ecclesiastical potentates, there was even a more urgent need of discretion in avoiding those occa- sions of scandal which might spring from their under- taking the cure of the souls of the other sex. Into what jeopardy of their saintly reputation had certain eminent men fallen in this very manner ; and how narrowly had they escaped the heaviest imputations ! The Fathers were not to take upon themselves the office of confessors to women — nisi essent admodum illustres. That the risk must necessarily be less, or that there would be none, in the instance of ladies of high rank, is not con- spicuously certain ; but if not, what were those special motives which should warrant the Fathers in incurring this peril in such cases ? Mere Christian charity would undoubtedly impel a man to meet danger for the wel- fare of the soul of a poor sempstress, as readily as for that of a duchess, or the mistress of a monarch. If therefore the peril is to be braved in the one case which ought to be evaded in the other, there must be present some motive of which Christian charity knows nothing. So acutely alive was Loyola to the evils that might spring to his order from this source, that we find him at a later period not merely rebutting ladies — admodum 1 2 116 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. iUustres, but bearding the pope and the cardinals, and glaringly contravening his own vow of unconditional obedience to the vicar of Christ, rather than give way to the solicitations of fair and noble penitents. Soon after the arrival of the three — Loyola, Faber, and Lainez — at Eome, in the year 1537, they obtained an audience of the pope, -who welcomed their return, and anew gave his sanction to their endeavours. Faber and Lainez received appointments as theological professors in the Gymnasium; while Loyola addressed himself wholly to the care of souls, and to the reform of abuses. To several persons of distinction, and to some dignitaries of the Church, he administered the discipline of the Spiritual Exercises — they, for this purpose, withdrawing to solitudes in the neighbourhood of KomCj where they were daily conversed with and instructed by himself. At the same time he laboured in hospitals, schools, and private houses, to induce repentance aind to cherish the languishing piety of those who would listen to him. Among such, and who fully surrendered their souls to his guidance, were — the Spanish procurator, already mentioned — Peter Ortiz, and Cardinal Gaspar Contarini, both of whom w«re led by him into a course of fervent devotion, in which they persisted, and who moreover continued to use their powerful influence in favour of the infant society. The pulpits of many of the churches in the several cities where the fathers had stationed themselves, and some In Home, had been opened to their use, and the energy and the freshness of their eloquence affected the popular mind In an extraordinary manner ; sometimes, indeed, they brought upon themselves violent oppo- sition ; but In more frequent Instances their zeal and patient assiduity triumphing over prejudice, jealousy, ecclesiastical Inertness, and voluptuousness, the tide of EAELY TIME OP THE SOCIETY. 117 feeling set in with this new impulse, and a commence- ment was effectively made of that Catholic revival which spread itself throughout southern Europe — turned back the Eeformation-wave — saved the papacy, and secured for Christendom the still-needed antagonist influences of the Romish and of the Eeformed systems of doctrine, worship, and polity. At Eome, Loyola, by his personal exertions, effected great reforms in liturgical services — induced a more frequent and more devout attention to the sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist — established and pro- moted the catechetical instruction of youth ; and, in a word, restored to E-omanism much of its vitality. The author and mover of so much healthful change did not escape the persecutions that are the lot of re- formers. Such trials Loyola encountered, and he passed through them triumphantly ; — so we are assured ; but in listening to the Jesuit writers, when telling their own story, where the credit of the order and the reputation of its founder are deeply implicated, it is with reserva- tion that we follow them. So fearful a storm — yet a storm long before descried, it is said, by Loyola — fell suddenly upon him and his colleagues, that it seemed as if the infant society could by no means resist the impetuous torrent that assailed it. The populace, as well as persons in authority, sud- denly gave heed to rumours the most startling which came in at once from Spain, from France, and from the north of Italy, and the purport of which Avas to throw upon the Fathers the most grievous imputations, affect- ing their personal character as well as their doctrine. These men were reported to be heretics, Lutherans in disguise, seducers of youth, and men of flagitious life. The author or secret mover of this assault is said to have been a Piedmontese monk, of the Augustiniari 118 IGNATIUS LOTOLA.' order, himself a secret favourer of the Lutheran heresy, and "a tool of Satan," and who at last, throwing off the mask, avowed himself a Lutheran. This man, for the purpose of diverting from himself the suspicions of which his mode of preaching had made him the object at Rome, raised this outcry against Loyola and his companions, affirming of them slanderously and falsely what was quite true as to himself. The pope and the court, having been for some time absent from Rome, this disguised heresiarch had seized the opportunity for gaining the ear of the populace, by inveighing against the vices of ecclesiastics, and insinu- ating opinions to which he gave a colour of truth by citations from scripture, and the early fathers. Two of Loyola's colleagues, Salmeronand Lainez, who, in their passage through Germany, had become skilled in de- tecting Lutheran pravity, were deputed to listen to this noisy preacher : they did so, and reported that the auda- cious man was, under some disguise of terms, broaching rank Lutheranism in the very heart of Rome ! Loyola, however, determined to treat the heresiarch courteously, and therefore sent him privately an admonition to ab- stain from a course which occasioned so much scandal, and which could not but afflict Catholic ears. The preacher took fire at this remonstrance, and openly at- tacked those who had dared thus to rebuke him. Thus attacked, Loyola and his colleagues, on their side, loudly maintained the great points of Catholic doctrine, impugned by this preacher, such as the merit and necessity of good works — the validity of religious vows, and the supreme authority of the church ; and id consequence it became extremely difficult on his part to ward off" the imputation of Lutheranism, or to make it appear that he was anything else than a self-condemned heretic. He however so far commanded the popular EARLY. TIME OF THE SOCIETY. 119 mind that he maintained his reputation and his Influence, and actually succeeded in rendering his accusers the objects of almost universal suspicion or hatred. Their powerful friends forsook them — all stood aloof — or all but a Spaniard, named Garzonio, who, having lodged Loyola and some of his companions under his roof, knew well their soundness in the faith, and their personal piety. Through his timely intervention the cardinal- dean of the sacred college was induced to inform him-^ self, by a personal interview, of their doctrine and life. . This dignitary was satisfied, and more than satisfied, of the innocence and piety of the fathers. Nevertheless Loyola, looking far forward, and knowing well what detriment to his order might arise, in remote quarters, from slanders not authoritatively refuted and disallowed, demanded to be confronted with his accusers before the ecclesiastical authorities. He would be content with no vague or irregular expression of approval — he would accept no half acquittal. He sought, and at length ob- tained, an official exculpation in the amplest terms, with an acknowledgment of his orthodoxy on the part of the highest authority on earth, and this was granted under circumstances that gave it universal notoriety. In court the principal witness was confounded by proof, under his own hand, of the falseness of the alle- gations he had advanced, and at the same time testimo- nials from the highest quarters, in favour of the Fathers, severally and individually, arrived opportunely ; in a word, the Society, in this early and signal instance, triumphed over its assailants; and thenceforward it occupied a position the most lofty and commanding in the view of the Catholic world. Loyola and his col- leagues saw the ruin of their adversaries ; two of whom, falling into the hands of the inquisitors, were burned as heretics. t 4 120 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. The time was now come for effecting a permanent organisation of the Society, and for installing a chief at / its head. With these purposes in view, Loyola summoned his colleagues to Rome, from the cities of Italy where they were severally labouring. The Fathers being assembled*, he commended to them anew the proposal which they had already accepted, but which he seemed anxious to fix irrevocably upon tlieir consciences, by often repeated challenges of the most solemn kind. To impart the more solemnity to this repetition of their mutual engagements, and to preclude, by all means, the possibility of retractation, he advised that several days should be devoted to preliminary prayer and fasting, during which season each should, with an absolute surr render of himself to the will of God, await passively the manifestation of that will. " Heaven," said Loyola to his companion, " Heaven has forbidden Palestine to our zeal; — nevertheless that zeal burns with increasing intensity, from day to day. Should we not hence infer that God has called us — not indeed to undertake the conversion of one nation, or of a country, but of all the people, and of all the kingdoms of the world ? " Such was the founder's profession, and such the limits of his ambition ! The spiritual mechanism which he had devised, and which he was now putting in movement, intends nothing that is partial or circumscribed: its very purport is universality ; it is absolutism carried out until it has embraced the human family, and has brought every human spirit into its toils. But so small a band could hope for no success that * The meeting now spoken of appears to have taken place during Lent of the year 1538 ; but it was not until two years later that the Society obtained a formal ecclesiastical recognition by the bull of Paul III. EAELT TIME OF THE SOCIETT. 121 should be indicative of an ultimate triumph, unless they would surrender themselves individually to a common will, which should be, to each of them, as the will of God, articulately pronounced. After renewing there- fore the vows of poverty, of chastity, and of uncon- ditional obedience to the pope, the Fathers assented to the proposal that one of their number should, by the suffrages of all, be constituted the superior, or general of the order, and as such be invested with an authority as absolute as it was possible for man to exercise, or for men to submit to ! Yet to whose hands should be assigned — and for life — this irresponsible power over the bodies, souls, and understandings of his companions ? It had not been until after a lengthened preparation of fasting, prayer, and night-watching, that a resolution so appalling had been formed. Yet it was easier to consent to the proposal, abstractedly placed before them, than to yield themselves to all its undefined and irrevocable consequences when the awful surrender of what is most precious to man — his individuality — was to be made; not to a chief — unnamed; but to this or that one among themselves. To whose hands could the ten consign the irresponsible disposal of their souls and bodies ? They had, however, already advanced too far to recede : they had, as they believed, in humble imita- tion of Christ the Lord, offered themselves as a living sacrifice to God — so far as concerned the body — by the vow of poverty, and the vow of chastity : — they had thus immolated the flesh, and had reserved to themselves nothing of worldly possessions, nothing of earthly solaces ; — all had been laid upon the altar : they had moreover professed their willingness to deposit there their very souls. The vow of unconditional obedience, as thus understood, was a- holocaust of the immortal well- being. Each now, as an offering acceptable to God, 122 IGNATIUS LOTOLA. was to pawn his interest in time and eternity, putting the pledge into the hands of one to be chosen by them- selves. It was debated whether this absolute power should be conferred upon the holder of it for life, or for a term of years only ; and whether in the fullest sense it should be without conditions, or whether it should be limited by constitutional forms. At length, however, the election of a general for life was assented to ; and especially for this reason — and it is well to note it — That the new society had been devised and formed for the very purpose of carrying forward vast designs, which must deinand a long course of years for their de- velopment and execution ; and that no one who must look forwai'd to the probable termination of his general- ship, at the expiration of a few years, could be expected to undertake, or to prosecute with energy, any such farr reaching projects. On the contrary, he should be allowed to believe that the limits of life alone need bp thought of as bounding his holy ambition. Provisions were however made, as we shall hereafter see, for holding some sort of control over the individual to whom so much power was to be intrusted. The actual election of Loyola to the generalship, did not formally take place until after the time when the order had re- ceived pontifical authentication. Meantime all im- plicitly regarded him as their master ; from him ema^ nated the acts of the body ; and to him was assigned the task — aided by Lainez — of preparing what should be the constitutions of the society. During the interval between the concerted organ- ization of the order, and the formal recognition of Loyola as the general, he found several occasions highly favourable for extending and for enhancing his influence, as well among the common people, as among ecclesiastical dignitaries. One such oppor- EARLY TIME OF THE gOCIETT. 123 tumty was afforded, soon after the above-mentioned exculpation of the Fathers, by the occurrence of a famine, during an unusually severe winter. The streets of Home presented the spectacle of hundreds of half- naked and starving wretchesj who fruitlessly implored aid, or who silently expired unaided. Loyola and his colleagues, themselves subsisting from day to day on alms, felt often — we are told — the nip of hunger, yet they needed no incitement which these scenes of woe did not spontaneously supply. They were at once alive to the claims of humanity, and to the requirements of Christian duty. They begged for the perishing — ' took them to such shelter as was at their command — carefully and tenderly ministered to the sick — and withal, used the advantage which these offices of kind- ness afforded them, for purposes of religious instruction. Hundreds, rescued from death through cold and hunger, were thus brought to repentance on the path which the church prescribes, A great impression in favour of the Jesuit fathers was made upon all classes by this course of conduct. In humanity, self-denying assiduity, and Christian zeal, they had immeasurably surpassed any who might have pretended rivalry with them. It was now, therefore, that Loyola sought from the pontiff that formal recognition which his personal as^ gurances of regard and approval seemed to show he could not refuse. Paul III. was, however, cautious in this instance, and seemed unwilling to commit himself and the church, at this critical moment, except so far as he knew himself to be supported by the feeling and opinion of those of the cardinals whom he most regarded. He referred Loyola's petition to three of them. The first of these was Barthelemi Guidiccioni, who had often declared himself to be decisively opposed to the mul- tiplication of religious orders. The church, he thought. 124 IGNATIUS liOTOLA. had too many of these excrescences already ; and instead of adding another to the number, he would gladly have reduced them all to four. His two colleagues were easily induced to concur with him in this opinion ; and thus it appeared as if the infant societyj notwithstanding the advances it had lately made in securing, the good opinion of persons of high rank, as well as in winning popular applause, was little likely to receive what was indispensable to its permanent establishment-^ a papal bull in its favour. Personally, however, the pope did not conceal his cordial feeling toward Loyola and his companions : he seems to have perceived clearly that these men, resolute in their punctilious adherence to the doctrine and ritual of the church, and committed by the most solemn en- gagements to its service — deep-purposed as they were, full of a well-governed energy, resolute in the per- formance of the most arduous duties, and, moreoverj highly accomplished in secular and sacred learning, were the very instruments which the church had need of in this crisis of its fate. Northern Europe was irrecoverably lost — Germany and Switzerland were held to Catho- licism at points only ; while France and northern Italy were listening to the seductions of heresy. — Scarcely could it be said, even of Spain, that it was clear of the same infection. The church ought, then, at such a moment, to embrace cordially, and by all means to favour, the efforts of men like Loyola and his dis- tinguished companions. It was with this feeling that Paul III., while held back by his advisers from the course he would have adopted, went as far as he could in promoting and ex- tending the influence of the Society. At the same moment application had been made, on the part of several potentates, for the. services of the Fathers, who EARLY- TIMK OF THE SOCIETY. 125 had already gained a high reputation at the courts near to which they had exercised their ministry. It was seen and understood by princes that these were the men — and these almost alone — to whom might be con- fided those arduous tasks which the perils of the times continually presented : none so well furnished as these fathers — none so self-denying and laborious — none so uncompromising in the maintenance of their prin- ciples. They were therefore despatched, in various directions, and with the papal sanction, to undertake offices, more or less spiritual, and in some instances purely secular. It was thus that a commencement was made in that course, which has thrown unlimited power into the hands of the Society, and which again has brought upon it suspicion, hatred, and reiterated ruin. But the most noted of these appointments was that which, in sending, as by an accident, Francis Xavier to India, detached from the Jesuit Society the man who, had he remained at home, must have imparted his own character to its constitutions, and have guided its move- ments, and who probably would have dislodged Loyola from the generalship, and have held Lainez and Faber in a subordinate position. Not merely did Xavier's de- parture allow Jesuitism to take its form from the hand of these three, but it conferred upon the Society, from a very early date, the incalculable advantage of that re- flected power and reputation which the Indian misssion secured for it. Xavier's apostleship in the East, with its real and with its romantic and exaggerated glories, was a fund, upon which the Society at home allowed itself to draw without limit. If it be admitted that Xavier effected something real for Christianity in pagan India, it may be affirmed that he accomplished, at the same time, though Indirectly, far more for Jesuitism throughout Europe. This course of events, so signal in 126 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. its consequences, as favouring the development and rapid extension of the Jesuit scheme throughout Chris- tendom,'^and which yet could not be attributed to any forethought or machination on the part of Loyola, ig "well deserving of a distinct notice. , The train of circumstances, as related and affirmed by the Jesuit Avriters, excludes the supposition of its taking its rise in any plot or intention. John III. of Portugal — a religious prince — had long entertained the project of stretching the empire of the church over those regions which his valiant and enterprising people were subjecting to his secular sway. In modern phraseology, he piously desired to consecrate his military triumphs in the East, by spreading the gospel among the subjugated heathen. His royal wish and intention had become known to Loyola's friend Govea, who wrote to him from Paris on the subject. This letter was as a spark at contact with which Loyola's zeal burst forth in a flame. He replied^ however, that as he and his companions had now solemnly surrendered themselves to the absolute and unconditional disposal of the vicar of Christ, they could attempt nothing spontaneously. It is easy to imagine how speedily this declaration, conveyed to Govea, would produce its effect, would come round to its destination, and would assume the form of a pontifical injunction, addressed to Loyola, to despatch some of the Fathers to the court of John, there to await the pleasure of so religious a prince. Six missionaries had been asked for, Loyola, with the consent of the pope, assigned two — Eodriquez and Bobadilla — to this service. The latter however falling ill — so it is affirmed — Francis Xavier was appointed in his place, Xavier, it is said, leaped for joy when summoned, at a moment, to set out toward Portugal, with commission — to convert India to the Christian faith ! A few hours sufficed for his pre* KARLY TIME OF THE SOCIETY. 127 parations : by noon of the next day he had sewed the tatters of his attire with his own hand, had packed his bundle, had bid adieu to his friends, and was forward on the road to Lisbon. Upon this desperate enterprise he set forward with his eye steadily fixed npon objects far more remote and more dazzling than the sunny plains of Hindostan. The immeasurable difficulty of his mis- sion was to him its excitement ; its dangers brightened in his view into martyrdom — its toils were to be his ease — its privations his solace, and despair the aliment of his hope. But at this initial point of his course we must take leave of Francis Xavier — the prince of missionaries. Bobadilla, with Loyola's consent, remained in Portugal, where his zeal found scope enough. At length, but it does not appear in what manner this change of opinion had been brought about. Cardinal Guidicciani professed himself favourable to the suit of Loyola; probably an enhanced conviction that the Komish hierarchy was encountering a peril which called for extra- ordinary measures, and that the new order was likely to meet the occasion, had prevailed over considerations less urgent and of a more general kind. This opponent gained, no obstacle remained to be overcome. On the 3rd of October, 1640 (or 27th September), was issued the bull which gave ecclesiastical existence to the new order, under the name of The Company of Jesus. At the first the Society was forbidden to admit more than sixty pro-« fessed members; but, three years later, another bull removed entirely this restriction. The time was now come when the decisive step must be taken which should enable the new institute to realise its intention — which should rendei* Jesuitism — Jesuitism indeed. This was the election of a chief individually, who thenceforward should be absolute lord of the bodies and souls, the will and well-being, of all 128 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. the members. Until this election should be made and ratified, the society was a project only ; it would then become a dread reality. Those of the Fathers who could leave their functions at foreign courts — and these were three only — were summoned to Rome ; those who could not attend there, sent forward their votes. But in what manner are we to deal with the account that is presented to us of that which took place on this occasion ? How is it to be made to consist either with the straightforwardness and sim- plicity of intention that are the characteristics of great and noble natures ; or how with those maxims of guilelessness which Christianity so much approves? The problem admits of only a partial and unsatisfactory solution ; nor can we advance even so far as this, unless we make a very large allowance in favour of Loyola, personally, on the ground of the ill-influence of the system within which he had received his moral and religious training. A principle of factitiousness is deep- seated in the Eomish scheme of sanctity. It is a. false- ness which it inherited from the church-asceticism of an earlier age. Whenever extravagance and exaggeration come to be generally practised, and to be universally admired, pretension and spuriousness are sure to follow, and to become a plague-spot upon the garment of sanc- tity. Under such a system, when time has fixed upon it its characteristics, while there will always be many truly sincere and honest men, yet nothing will exist that is in itself thoroughly sincere and honest. Loyola, in the instance before us, conducted himself after the fashion of his church : this must be his apology. It was he, unquestionably, who had conceived the primary idea of the society. He was author of the book which constitutes its germ and law — the Spiritual Exercises : he had been principal in digesting the consti* HIS ELECTION. 129 tutions, or actual code, of the Society. It was he, indivi- dually, whom the others had always regarded as their leader and teacher. His influence, personally, was the cement which held the parts in union. It was Loyola who, while his colleagues dispersed themselves through- out Europe, remained at Rome, there to manage the common interests of all, and to carry forward those negotiations with the papal covirt which were of vital importance, and of the highest difficulty. In a word, it was he who had convoked this meeting to elect a chief, and who asked the proxies of the absent. Are we then to believe that this bold spirit — this far-seeing mind, this astute, inventive, and politic Ignatius, born to rule other minds, and able always to subjugate his own will — that this contriver of a despotism, after having carried the principle of unconditional obedience — after having won the consent of his companions to the pro- posal that their master should be their master for life — are we to believe that he had never imagined it as probable, much less wished, that the choice of his compeers should fall upon himself, or that he had peremptorily resolved, in such a case, to reject the proffered sovereignty ? Surely those writers, the cham- pions of the Society, use us cruelly who demand that we should believe so much as this. Le Jay, Brouet, Lainez, and Loyola were those who personally appeared on this occasion. The absent members sent their votes in sealed letters. Three days having been passed in prayer and silence, the four as- sembled on the fourth day, when the votes were ascer- tained. — All but Loyola's own were in his favour ; he voted for the one who should carry the majority of votes. Loyola, we are told, was in an equal degree distressed and amazed in discovering what was the mind of his colleagues. He, indeed, to be general of the Society of K 130 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Jesiis! — how strange and preposterous a supposition! Positively he could think of no such thing. What a life had he led Taefore his conversion ! How abounding in weaknesses had been his course since ! How could he aspire to rule others, who so poorly could rule himself f Days of prayer must yet be devoted to the purpose 6f im- ploring the divine aid, in directing the minds of all toward one who should indeed be qualified for so arduous an office. At the end of this term Loyola was a second time elected, and again refused to comply with the wishes of his friends. He would barely admit their importunities ; they could scarcely bring themselves to listen to his contrary reasons. Time passed on, and there seemed a danger lest the Society should go adrift upon the rocks, even in its first attempt to reach deep water. At length Loyola agreed to submit himself to the direc- tion of his confessor. He might thus, perhaps, find it possible to thrust himself through his scruples by the loophole of passive obedience, for he already held him- self bound to comply with the injunctions of his spiritual guide, be they what they might. This good man, therefore — a Father Theodosius of the communion of Minor Brethren — is constituted ar- biter of the destinies of the Society of Jesus. To his ear Loyola confides all the reasons, irresistible as they were, which forbade his compliance with the will of his friends. The confessor listens patiently to the long argument, but sets the whole of it at nought. In a word, he declares that Loyola, in declining the proffered general- ship, is fighting against God. Further resistance would have been a flagrant impiety, and he, in making himself master of the bodies and souls — the mind and con- science — of all who should yield themselves to his hand, contrives, by an easy artifice, to preserve a spurious modesty from violation. HIS ELECTION". 131 The installation of the General was carried forward in a course of services held in the seven principal churches of Komej and with extraordinary solemnity in the church of St. Paul, without the city, April 23. 1541. On this occasion the vows of perpetual poverty, chastity, and obedience were renewed before the altar of the Virgin, where Loyola administered the communion to his brethren, they having vowed ab- solute obedience to him, and he the same to the pope. That this formal inauguration of the Society took place before the altar of the Virgin, and was sanctioned by a solemn appeal to her as its patron divinity, is a circumstance that might easily pass unnoticed. The same appeal had frequently been made on previous occasions — in truth upon every signal occasion. Je- suitism is " our lady's institute," and with the worship of the Virgin the order is inextricably connected. In various instances Loyola proved himself to be gifted with a far-reaching sagacity ; but it does not appear that he had allowed himself to anticipate a time when the maintenance throughout Europe of a superstition so recent in its rise, and so palpably idolatrous, should no longer be possible. It is not easy to imagine what shift the Society will have recourse to when, in all countries that are ploughed by the railway — the foe of every local absurdity — men in very shame, and the priest not less eager to do so than the layman, shall remove from churches and from the comers of streets the trinket-bedizened doll to which, so long as it stands there, they must pay a degrading obeisance. X S 132 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. CHAPTER VII. Loyola's goveknjient of the sociext. " Loyola commenced his administration as General of the Company of Jesus, by establishing the most exact order in its house — the conventual house which was now to be the centre of government to the Society. He him- self excelled as an economist. This faculty and accom- plishment has been a characteristic of most founders of orders, and chiefs of sects. In this preliminary and im- portant labour he was assisted by an able coadjutor — Peter Codasius, an ecclesiastic, and an officer of the papal court, who, having become the disciple of Loyola, had abandoned his preferments and appointments, and devoting himself entirely to the duties with which he charged himself, as administrator of the secular interests of the Society, acted as almoner, purveyor, and stew- ard of the house of residence. It was moreover, by his means, that the first church was erected which the Society could call its own, and which was solemnly dedicated to the Virgin. In carrying forward those domestic arrangements, which seemed essential to the welfare of the community, Loyola not merely allotted to each his duty, but he set an example of humility and obedience by sometimes personally discharging menial offices in the kitchen. The General himself might, at times, be seen busy and reeking in the scullion's place ! In a word, he showed to all what was his understanding of the doctrine he tauo-ht HIS GOVERNMENT OF THE SOCIETY. 133 — that a perfect charity inchides all virtues, and espe- cially the virtue of absolute submissiveness, and an in- difference to humiliations the most extreme. Love resents nothing but pride, impatience, or selfishness. Peace therefore reigned in a house thus governed ; the General exhibiting consummate skill in the treatment of all tempers, and mingling firmness and force with suavity and affection in a manner which no hearts could resist. Meantime those offices which were more purely spi- ritual occupied the greater part of his time. Privately he was resorted to by multitudes, seeking his aid as a skilful physician of souls ; and often were diflScuIt cases of obduracy and of moral depravity brought to him by parents and guardians : moreover, he was very fre- quently called upon to restore to soundness in the faith those who had became tainted with the epidemic heresies of the times. As a preacher also he laboured incessantly, and with great effect ; and this notwithstanding his deficiencies as an orator, and the extreme rudeness of his style and articulation in using the Italian language. But in a mode more direct than that of nicely modulated tones, or of phrases classically correct, Loyola brouglit the souls of his hearers into close contact with his own. Perhaps even when the general purport or drift only of his discourse was understood by them — when his foreign accent, and his utterly mischosen idioms hung as a veil between the preacher's mind and the minds of the hearers, the effulgence of the soul beamed with scarcely diminished brightness through that medium, and con- veyed heaven's fire from the one heart to the hearts of all. Thus perhaps it had been with him whose "bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible." Loyola's hearers, if they but half caught the logic of his K 3 134 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. periods, caught entire the solemn intensity of his per,- suasion, that the "things unseen and eternal" are real and true. Preaching produces like effects as often as it is prompted by a like full conviction. This " methodist" of Catholicism at Kome and in the sixteenth century might have been found fault with as the author of irregularities precisely similar to those which have marked the course of like-minded preachers in modern times, and among ourselves. But the Church of B/Ome has never been jealous of disorders that did not seem to threaten her own authority. Protestant churches, on the contrary, have lost ground among the people, and have foregone their prerogatives, by indulg-r ing a fastidious repugnance toward whatever revolted an aristocratic taste in matters of religion. Protestant churches have grudged salvation when dealt out to the people in their own style. Kome has been far less nice. When Loyola commenced his sermon, a breathless silence reigned through the church ; as he went on there was perceptible a pressure toward the pulpit; sighs soon became audible on every side ; then these sighs swelled into sobs, and sobs into groans. Some fell on the pavement as if lifeless. Once and again an obdurate oifender — hitherto obdurate — pushed for^ ward, threw himself at the feet of the preacher as he left the pulpit, and with convulsive struggles made a loud confession of his crimes. Men from every class of society, and not exclusive of dignified ecclesiastics, were numbered among these conquests of preaching in earnest. The pontifical restriction above referred to, and which had confined the Society to sixty members, having been withdrawn, through Loyola's importunities, ac- cessions were made to it perpetually. Moreover the fame of these Fathers spread as in a moment throughout PBOGEESS OF THE SOCIETY. 135 Catholic Europe. It was said everywhere that, what- ever might be the function with which these devoted men charged themselves — and whether spiritual or secular, they were always successful — they failed in nothing ; they went beyond their engagements ; they were trustworthy agents ; they were prudent and safe advisers ; they taught children with the happiest effect; they instructed princes for peace or war. At an early time, therefore, after the formal establish>- ment of the order, schools, colleges, the consciences of statesmen, and the closets of kings, were placed at the disposal of the General. Deputations reached Rome from remote quarters, the object of which was to obtain the aid of one or more of the Fathers in some service of peculiar difficulty. These requisitions, which the General could accede to only with a sort of parsimony that enhanced the value of his compliance, opened an easy road to the Society in whichsoever direction he might wish it to advance, .Houses of the order were established in different coun- tries — in fact wherever it was thought advantageous to gain a footing for it. Every such house became, of course, a centre of extensive influence, and drew toward itself a multitude of candidates for membership, among whom the General, constantly and exactly informed as ke was of the qualifications and dispositions of every aspirant, might freely select those whom he deemed the most likely to serve the Society in its own manner, and on its own terms. It was in this mode, and by this means chiefly, that the Jesuit order secured its early and unexampled successes. Houses of the Order of Jesus had, within a few years, been founded and placed upon a firm basis in different parts of Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, Sicily, and India ; and in a short time the General held K 4 136 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. in his hand the wires of a machine moving with little friction and no noiae, and which stretched itself nearly- over the entire area then covered by the Romish Church, and at some points it extended beyond that limit. It was a machine that was new in its con- trivance, fresh as to its materials, close in its fittings, nowhere worn, and which was kept in motion by the volitions of a single mind. Loyola's utmost ambition^no w seemed likely to be realised ; his power over the spirits of men was rapidly surpassing and supplanting that of the head of the church : if Pharaoh still sat on the throne, it was Joseph who administered the affairs of the kingdom. We are compelled to seek within the Jesuit Institute itself for the causes of that failure which has belied the omens of so auspicious a commencement. Provincials having been appointed in all Catholic countries, through whom the General kept himself con- scious of whatever concerned the interests of the Church and the Oi'der throughout Europe — for these provin- cials employed their emissaries in all directions — he himself, in virtue of his position as head of a religious order, took a seat in ecclesiastical council chambers, and was always cognisant of whatever was propounded, or decreed, with a view to the spread and maintenance of the Romish faith. Within the city itself Loyola not merely laboured as a preacher and pastor, but promoted various reforms, municipal and ecclesiastical, and founded several chari- table institutions. These endeavours to do good exhibit, with a sort of alternation, the predominance, in his mind, of an eager overweening zeal, and of great natural saga- city. His early course had shown this same reaction — this oscillation, produced between the vehemence of his emotions on the one side, and the clearness and energy of his understanding on the other. HIS ADMINISTRATION. 137 The almost universal practice of dissolute persons in deferring confession to the last hour, when the sincerity of repentance could not be proved, gave him great un- easiness ; and with the hope of inducing such persons to " repent" a little earlier, he obtained leave to revive and to enforce an obsolete decretal, forbidding the attendance of a physician until the priest had duly confessed and ab- solved the sick. The fatal consequences, and indeed the utter impracticability, of such a regulation soon became manifest, and some relaxation of so barbarous a law was called for and permitted. Twice the sick might be visited, unconfessed — but not a third time. At his instance also regulations were adopted, fixvour- ing, as he imagined, what has been called — "the con- version of the Jews," very many of whom were at that time resident at Home. The means resorted to were as efficacious as such means have usually proved, in other hands, when employed with the same charitable intention, of leaving a side door ajar into the church from the synagogue. In each instance in which we find Loyola enacting regulations, or founding establishments for the benefit of women, there is apparent in the course he takes a sound discretion, and a peculiar firmness of purpose. These instances exhibit a fixed unity of principle, and we may safely infer from the facts that he had deliberately fore- cast the occasions that were likely to present themselves in carrying forward his great design ; and that he had digested, with due care, the measures which he should adopt as often as such instances occurred. He had played his part as a man of the world long enough to rid himself of those illusions which might have misled a cell-bred religious legislator. Loyola well knew man- kind, and he knew womankind; and again he knew mankind in this relationship: his conduct in all in- 138 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. stances therewith connected shows, not merely (as we should undoubtedly assume) that the holy Ignatius was master always of the gallant Loyola, but what is far more — that the politic and clear-sighted Loyola had gained an habitual ascendancy over Ignatius — the em- passioned devotee. Houses of refuge had hitherto been open for female penitents only on the condition that those who aban-: doned a vicious course should renounce, not vice merely, but the world, and should thenceforward bury them-? selves in a convent. Loyola, with a wise forbearance, opened the doors of the penitentiary which he established to all who desired to reform their lives, with liberty of return to the world and to their families. There was yet a point which, in his view, touched vitally the interests, the influence, and the perpetuity of his order, and it was brought before him in an urgent manner by circumstances occurring not long after the time of his formal entrance upon his functions as General of the Society. At the time of his departure from Spain to pursue his studies at Paris, he had accepted a purse, as we have already said, from a noble matron of Barcelona, named Isabel Eosella. This lady had reached mar ture age at that time, but was perhaps of ardent temperr ament ; and she had continued to regard her saintly countryman with feelings of profound admiration. At the time of which we are now speaking, and which must have been nearly twenty years after the period of her early acquaintance with him, the new order, spoken of with wonder throughout Europe, had, as was natural, attracted peculiar regard in Spain. The lady Eosella was not likely to listen with indifference to reports concerning the sanctity and far-spreading influr ence of the man whom she had befriended. Her resor HIS ADMINISTRATION. 139 lution was quickly formed, and as speedily followed up, to'repair to Kome. She was accompanied, or was joined there, by two pious ladies, who determined to risk them- selves with her in this religious adventure. It was with grateful courtesy that Loyola welcomed the lady to whose benevolence he had been so much indebted in years gone by ; but she now asked in return more than he could, in conscience, grant. At first, indeed, he yielded so far to her importunities as to undertake in some sort the spiritual oversight of the three ladies who had resolved to retire from the world, and to devote themselves to a religious life in immediate connexion with the Society. Yery quickly, however, he repented of this compliance. The control and direction of three women gave him, he said, more trouble than the government of a society which had now spread itself over the surface of Europe. Daily, and oftentimes in a day, was he summoned by these ladies to resolve their scruples, to listen to their petulant complaints; sometimes even to dissipate their mutual jealousies, and to give some sort of reply to a hundred inane questions. But this was not all. He could not doubt that, instead of a devout three, a not less devout nine would ere long make similar demands upon his skill and time, and that this nine would draw to itself other nines, until a spacious house would not hold them all. Besides, what might take place at Rome would surely and soon be imitated in all places where the Society had established itself; and, as an inevitable consequence, its member^ diverted from the great purposes to which they had dedicated themselves, would become — what so many of the existing orders had become — triflers at the best, or causes of scandal in the eyes of the world. But the lady Rosella was not to be easily shaken off. The 140 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. General declared that he found himself already over- burdened with cares : it was impossible for him to pay due attention to the spiritual welfare of herself and her companions : his health too was infirm, and his mind oppressed. She would listen to no excuses ; she had come to Eome for the very purpose of spending her remaining years in religious exercises, under his auspices; she reminded him of her claims upon his gratitude ; — hard lot of the woman who, whatever may be her suit, is driven to have recourse to this plea, fatal as it is to her wishes when so employed ! Loyola showed himself inflexible: the lady therefore turned away from him to meditate other means of accomplishing her purpose. She had connections at the papal court, and through these channels she at length won the ear of the sovereign pontiff, and so far prevailed with him as to induce him to challenge the General's professed implicit obedience, and he was commanded to undertake the spiritual care of Rosella and her companions. He meekly complied, for the moment ; but Ignatius Loyola was not the man to be so easily thrown out of the course which he had chosen for himself. He first armed himself for the occasion by fasting and prayer ; and then, with the humblest and most fervent entreaties, approached the foot of the pope ; there he so pleaded his cause, and so represented the ruinous con- sequences that impended over the Society, as to convince the Holy Father that the injunction which he had just issued must be withdrawn. It was withdrawn, and the Jesuits were formally excused from the obligation ta direct or to govern communities of women, while still free to take upon themselves the function of confessors in individual cases, and where the reasons for so doing should be sufficient. The Society attributes its preser- vation and its successes, in no small degree, to the ; HIS ADMINISTBATION. 141 exemption thus obtained from a not merely burdensome, but perilous line of duty. A new and more serious danger soon presented itself, and one from which Loyola's utmost exertions hardly availed to rescue the Society. This arose from the proffer of high ecclesiastical dignities to the more noted of the Fathers, on the part of several Catholic princes. The clear-sighted General Instantly perceived that, If once one of his colleagues was allowed to accept a bishopric, and if such preferment was seen to be the reward of eminent ability, of high accomplishments, and of exalted piety, he should no longer hold in his hand the hearts, or command the services, of any In whose bosoms there lingered a sparlc of worldly ambition. In a word, the Society would Instantly come to be regarded by those within It, and by those without it, as a broad road-way to mitres and emoluments ; and then It must quickly cease, not merely to fulfil its high Intention, but must cease even to subserve this lower purpose. With the whole energy of his soul, therefore, did Loyola oppose himself to the first instance of an offered episcopate. Yet it was no easy matter to resist the bursting open of a door at which kings and their courts were thun- dering to gain admission. The more Intelligent of the Catholic princes had at length fully convinced them- selves that the perils of the times demanded a new system to be pursued in the bestowment of church preferments. Men of another stamp than heretofore must now be sought for and secured wherever they might be found, and promoted to the highest dignities, notwithstanding the murmurs and envy of disappointed sycophants. It was a season In which, whatever was unreal. Inert, Inept, must be set aside, and the vacancy filled by those whose qualities and accomplishments the mass of the people would accept as the fit accompaniments 142 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. of high rank in the church. Lntheranism and Calvinism must be refuted and withstood, not so much by the stern measures with which the holy oflSce charged itself, as by the natural and kindly influence of the learning, assiduity, disinterestedness, self-denial, and irreproachable personal virtue of the men who were to represent and sustain the Eomish faith and worship. But to find such men in the bosom of the Church, at that time, was in the ex- tremest degree difficult. The new order of Jesuits alone possessed such men, and it was within its pale only that they could be met with. Several of the Fathers had already established themselves in the high regard of the princes with whom they had to do. The first instance in which this difficulty presented itself was that which occurred when Ferdinand, king of the Komans, offered the bishopric of Trieste to Claude le Jay. Now therefore was to be decided the question whether henceforward men of mixed motives or of sinister .intentions should be tempted to simulate Jesuit- like devotedness, as a means of reaching their selfish ends, and whether the Fathers who had won for them- selves an unbounded influence over the mass of the people, as preachers of Christian heroism, and by prac- tising the contempt of ease, honour, and wealth, should forfeit all, as in a moment, by showing that them- selves, whenever they could do so, were willing enough to take a seat among princes, where they might fare sumptuously every day. Loyola instantly resolved that this question should be determined in his own manner. Yet all were against him — kings, cardinals, the pope himself, along with every subordinate of the papal court — all — save his colleagues, if indeed they were, all of them, thoroughly of his mind. He was borne forward, howevei', not merely by the natural force of a will of extraordinary tenacity, but by a clear. HIS ADMINISTRATION. 143 undisturbed, intellectual grasp of the simple idea of a purely spiritual and universal monarchy. This idea he had pursued from almost the first steps of his religious course ; — he had at length overtaken it ; — he had fully made it his own ; — he had considered and ma- tured whatever bore upon the realisation of it, and, in reliance upon the divine aid, he now proposed to carry it safe in his arms through these new perils. Le Jay had resolutely refused the proffered dignity ; but Ferdinand, giving little heed to what he perhaps regarded as an assumed reluctance, appealed to the pope, urging his cause with arguments which appeared to be of irresistible force. The pope yielded to these per- suasions, and the cardinals unanimously gave their approval of Le Jay's election to the bishopric, — some not unwilling to find an occasion for doing king Ferdinand a pleasure, others influenced by the ob- vious and legitimate reason that a man so eminent should be placed in a position where, for the interests of the Church, the highest qualifications were called for. Some, perhaps, who had never been cordially affected toward the new order, saw as clearly as did the General, what would be the effect upon its interests of the proposed elevation of one of the Society, and there- fore desired, in this indirect but effectual manner, to bring about its ruin. Loyola now felt that his mighty scheme had reached a moment when its fate must be decided ; and he saw that all influences were against him. He sought an interview with his holiness, and spread before him those reasons which in fact were valid, and which should at once have been yielded to, if indeed it was intended to perpetuate, for the good of the Church at large, the inestimable benefits which the Jesuits were seen to be securing for it. It could not be doubted that the spirit 144 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. of this Institution would be at once broken up, and the whole Intensity of its energies relaxed, if only in a single instance a bishopric were accepted, as a reward of his merits, by a Jesuit Father. The pope, however, continued to be unmoved by these representations, either because he was incapable of perceiving the truth and importance of them, or because he was not in a position to thwart the vehemently-urged wishes of Ferdinand. In this emergency the General took the course which the confessors of princes are likely to take, as often as their necessities may seem to require. He applied him- self to Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma, who had already shown favour to the Society, and had named Loyola as her confessor. By her intervention some delay in effecting the investiture of Le Jay was obtained, and the General employed the interval of time In urging his reasons upon Ferdinand. This prince was at length convinced that, to persist, would be un- wise ; abandoning his project, the court of Rome yielded of course, and thus a peril the most extreme was avoided. Solemn thanksgivings were offered by the Society on this signal occasion. To affirm that this abnegation of ambition, in its more ordinary forms, was regarded by Loyola and his col- leagues as the means necessary for giving scope to an ambition — extraordinary and unbounded, would be an easy mode of laying open the motives of his earnestness on this occasion. It may be thought that he might cheaply spurn bishoprics for himself, and for his fol- lowers, while contriving, for their benefit, and for his own, a despotism that should grasp the world ! Such an explication of the facts may seem obvious and natural, and it would readily be accepted by those, on ,the one hand, who wish by all means to disparage HIS ADMINISTEATION. 145 Jesuitism, and its author ; and, on the other, by persons of sardonic temperament, whose pleasure it is to mock at human nature. Meantime those who examine Loy- ola's character more calmly and attentively will be slow to accept any such supposition. His master-motive was not of the kind to which the epithet ambition can with propriety be applied. A great idea had possessed itself of his mind : he pursued it with a consistent and vehement intensity; — he rejected whatever he felt to be of incongruous quality ; he ^discerned, at a glance, every adverse influence, and turned it aside: — all was harmony and unison in his conception of the Jesuit Institute; how then could he tolerate or accept what he felt to be dissonant, or knew to-be destructive ? It was not therefore a cloaked ambition, if the word is to carry its ordinary meaning, that impelled Loyola to refuse ecclesiastical dignities. He did so that he might hold his principle intact. It was about the same time that the General de- voted himself to the task of digesting anew the consti- tutions of the Society. These constitutions, forming as they do its professed code, demand a more exact attention than can be given them while pursuing the personal history of their author. It was a principle with him — and who must not approve it ? — on every ar- duous occasion to exert his natural ability of mind and body with all possible energy, as' if no divine aid or guidance were to be looked for; and then, having done so, and while thus employed, to seek that aid and guidance with a simple fervour, and an absolute re- liance, as if human faculties of intelligence and power were wholly inapplicable to the work in hand. It was in this spirit, and in adherence to this rule, that he now once again undertook to revise the laws of the Society, and to append to them those explicatory. notes 146 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. which form a running commentary upon the text In the calm exercise of his natural good sense he first con- sidered every point, weighing the reasons that presented themselves in favour of each enactment, and the con- trary ; and at length, and not until after days, or weeks of deliberation, he permitted himself to reach a condi'* tional conclusion. For, feven when this was don^ a half only of the process had been gone through with which he deemed necessary, before the matter in ques- tion could be dismissed as finally determined. This after-process was altogether devotional. With fervent prayer and fasting, and through the entreated inter- cession of the Virgin, he sought that illumination which should enable him to reconsider what he had done, as it appeared when seen in the light of eternal truth; When in that light ' the labours of natural reason stood approved, they were accepted as good and genuines Each article of the constitutions was then solemnly laid upori the altar, and presented to the Divine Majesty, along with the tremendous sacrifice of the mass. How sure should those be that they are making an appeal td heaven which heaveii approves, when they intend to affix heaven's seal to the product of their own minds I Loyola did not permit himself for a moment to doubt that each of the constitutions of the order of Jesus had been divinely authenticated ! Jesuit establishments were now rapidly fonuing id the principal cities of Catholic Europe, those of France iexcepted, where the new order, being of Spanish origin, and regarded as intended covertly to promote designs which were not purely religious, was held in little es- teem. Moreover, the Uncompromising subserviency of the Society to the court of Rome, would not be a re- commendation in the eyes of the French people or clergy. Besides, the German and Swiss refornlatiotj, pkogress op the society. lii even where its principles were professedly rejected, had, in a silent manner, wrought itself into the convic- tions of the more thoughtful portion of the people, and had created a feeling quite at variance with that which animated the members of the Jesuit order.' Individuals indeed there were, of the French nation, who had caught the Jesuit feeling, and who had eagerly placed themselves at the disposal of the General. Among these William Postel was signalised by his extraordi- nary accomplishments, his various learning, and the extravagances of his after course. For a moment he had been attracted by the fresh energy that distinguished the Society ; but Jesuitism could have no lasting charms for a man whose individuality was so strongly marked, and whose words and actions must be always his own. Both parties soon convinced themselves, and each other, that there could be no agreement between them. He was quickly expelled the Society which had too hastily admitted him; itself, perhaps, at this early period, too eager to secure talents of all kinds, and not fully understanding how to apply its own first principle io particular instances — That it could avail itself of none of those energies of the Intellectual or moral world which, in their very nature, must take their spring froni the mind and heart of the individual man. Jesuitism has produced so very few men who have commended themselves to the cordial regards of mankind at large, because it represses, or excludes, or destroys, that pure spontaneousness — that clearly expressed individuality, apart from which the individual man can never draw to himself the affectionate admiration of his fellows. Called upon by Paul III. to select two of the Soqiety to repair to the Council of Trent, as theologians, attend- ant upon the pope's legates, he fixed upon Lainez and l 2 148 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Salmeron*, both of them young men, but eminently gifted for such a service, and who had each of them, in his sphere of labour,, become a skilled combatant, in the controversies of the times. In the instructions which the General addressed to these delegates were included, not merely, as we should naturally suppose, exhortations to modesty of deportment, and an adherence to truth and charity in what they might advance in their places, but an admonition not to neglect^ while giving due at^ Ijendance in the council, those labours of christian bene- volence to which their profession bound them. They were to frequent the hospitals of the city, to teach the young, and to preach repentance among the common people. It was thus that, while ,discharging a high function tending to enflate them with self-importance, they might hope to maintain a due humility, and an evangelic fervour. If this fervour were chilled, and this humbleness of mind damaged or lost, no service they might render in the council, as accomplished theolo- gians, could be regarded by themselves with any satis- fection, or would be productive of lasting good effects. It was with a lively pleasure that the General received reports from time to time, not merely of the able con-, duct of the three Fathers in the council, but of their ad- herence to the course of conduct he had prescribed to them out of it : they laboured with unabated assiduity among the sick, the poor, the ignorant ; and themselves subsisted upon the alms which they meekly asked, from day to day, of the charitable. As to the course they were to pursue In the council, and especially in relation to opinions broached there by eminent persons, and sustained by weighty arguments, by citations from the fathers, and by passages of Holy * The name of Claude le Jay appears in the list of those pre- sent. He attended as theologian for the Bishop of Augsberg. PKOGEESS OF THE SOCIETY. 149 Scripture, Loyola enjoined upon them, in most peremp- tory terms, an exact adherence to the decisions of the Church, as already understood. Strong reasons -^ nay, reasons irresistibly strong, although they may make an opinion probable, do not make it Catholic ; and, there- fore, do not avail to recommend it, in any degree, to our approval or acceptance. No admission, therefore, should be made, even of the most indirect kind, which might seem to indicate a leaning toward any such opinion. It was about the same time that preparations were made for establishing Jesuit colleges, in different coun- tries, for the purposes of general education. The system pursued throughout in these colleges or universities, was in the most decisive sense religious ; that is to say, re- ligion, as understood by the Jesuit order, was assumed to be the legitimate end of secular education, and was therefore, in the most sovereign manner, to regulate, as well the choice of studies, as the modes of instruction. The interior discipline of the college, and every usage, was strictly in harmony with the requirements of the most highly toned piety; — piety, according to the no- tions, practices, and feeling of the " Society." It be- longs, however, to the history of Jesuitism, not to our subject, to pursue this copious subject, and to trace the effects of the Jesuit system of education upon the mind of Europe, as developed in the following century. " Go, my brethren," said the General to those whom he sent forth to preside over the lately established colleges, "go and kindle in all bosoms that fire which Jesus Christ came to light up upon earth." It was not the lamp of human learning, not the torch of science merely, that he would have them carry forth ; but a heaven-descended illumination and warmth. Such, no doubt, was Loyola's sincere intention. Before despatching, to their several posts, those who L 3 150 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. had been selected as superiors of colleges, or as profes- sors in particular departments, the General demanded of .each a written promise of passive obedience in whatever related to their employments, to the sphere of their labours, or to the government of others. Those about to sail for Sicily declared that, at the bidding of their father and master, who to them was as God, they would as readily sail for India as to Sicily; or would go elsewhere. If now destined to teach philosophy, in any of its highestdepartments,they would, at a sign from him, charge themselves with menial offices in the house ; or, although their natural taste and talent might incline them to one branch of knowledge, they would addic|; themselves, at his wish, to any other. All things ought to be Indifferent to those who had already immolated their all, and had renounced every personal wish. The labours of the Jesuits, as teachers, belong to the history of the Society; not to our present subject. A profound policy, as well as a strict adherence to his professed principles, manifests itself In the course pur- sued by Loyola on difficult occasions. Bobadilla had, with too little reserve, and too much heat, opposed him- self to the will of the emperor In the affair of the inte- rim. He had, in consequence, been driven from the imperial dominions, and had returned to Rome. As to the ground taken by this Father, the General could not but approve it ; yet Bobadilla should have shown more deference to the will and authority of " a prince." He was not received therefore on his return with approval, and was compelled to lodge himself elsewhere than in the house of the order. Yet, notwithstanding this concession to secular autho- rity, the known displeasure of the emperor woke up the animosity of some who had long repressed their ill feel* Ing toward the new order. Many such there were, and HIS PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. 151 especially among the Dominicans, A Spanish monk of this order, named Melchior Cano, inveighed against the Jesuits, as the ministers of Antichrist. Their unmo- nastic habit, the free access they had to persons of rank, and the part they played in secular affairs, afforded ground enough for such imputations ; and it was not long before the fickle multitude was brought to join in the outcry of execration against men whom, just before, they had reverenced as divinities. The Society, how- ever, had by this time too firmly entrenched itself within the munitions of the Church to be overthrown so easily, and it quickly regained its position in Spain. In this, and in several analogous instances, it afforded evi^ dence which allows us to affirm with confidence that, except from some fault of its own, or some vice deep-* seated in its constitution, Jesuitism could never have come, as it so early did, under the reprobation of Ca-? tholic princes, and of the Romish Church itself. Loyola's steady adherence to the principle of his in- stitute, and his vigorous good sense, were shown when one of the Fathers, Andrew Oviedo, principal of the Jesuit college at Gandia, fascinated, by the charms of hermit life, asked permission to vacate his charge, and to bury himself for some years in the wilderness. The pleas by which this request were sustained appeared to be good : the General, however, refuted and disallowed them all ; and in the end convinced Oviedo that he ought to deny himself in this instance, and that his personal desire of higher attainments in sanctity was itself a temptation. It is true we may, through the infir- mity that attaches to human nature, fall into errors, or even commit sins, amid the distractions of a public course ; but we must not attach an excessive importance to small delinquencies, which are incidental, not preme-i ditated ; nor arc we by any means to withdraw ourselves f- 4 152 I&NATIUS LOYOLA. from works of charity on the ground of the personal dslmage that may thence happen to accrue to us. Noble it is, and christian-like, to sacrifice, not merely our re- pose and our Individual comfort, but even our real wel- fare (within certain limits) to the salvation of souls. It was in this manner that Loyola diffused among his associates that energetic temper and those wider princir pies of action which then were almost neW to the Church, and to which he had given a definite expression. He carried these rules of conduct home in all instances with-r out respect of persons ; or if, in any case, the rank of the convert exerted any influence at all over the behaviour of the General, it was when those considerations to which men are wont to pay a profound regard were wit- tingly set at nought by him. That illustrious convert and " great saint, " Francis Borgia, whose story should form a history by itself, had already merited a cordial reception into the Society when he came to present himself as a candidate for admission. There was good room for Loyola to persuade himself^ and room also for the world to believe, that the noble personage to whom he opened his arms with such alacrity, was regarded as an eminent saint, rather than as a grandee of Spain, and a mighty patron of the Society at the imperial court. Like most of those who, in the Komish communion, have distinguished themselves by their piety and their self-denying virtues, Borgia sighed for the hermit's cell. His duchess had lately died, and he, after despoiling himself of all which the world had given him — fortune and rank — and having, as one dead while living, assigned to his children their shares of his estate, he would gladly have believed him- self free in conscience to relinquish all further concern- ment with things seen and temporal : he would have made his cell his sepulchre. HIS PKINCIPLES OP GOVEENMENT. 153 Loyola would grant to his noble convert no such licence to "live unto himself." The influence which Borgia actually possessed, and which he might with so much advantage exert in future for the advantage of the Society, was not to be foregone. Moreover, Borgia had given evidence of peculiar ability and discretion in the conduct of affairs, and might, on every account, be thought of as likely to come into that high position which, in fact, he afterwards occupied.* He yielded to the advice and injunctions of his spiritual father and superior, and devoted himself with a sustained assiduity to the duties assigned to him, for the " greater glory of God, and the good of souls." It was not, however, until the peremptory commands of the General had stopped his course, that he relaxed the austerities and remitted the sanguinary inflictions of his daily discipline. " God has given us," said the master to the disciple, " a body as well as a soul, both to be employed in His service, and we shall have to give an account to Him of the one gift, as well as of the other." It was in like manner that he restrained the misdirected fervours of several of his colleagues ; it was thus that he imbued them with principles essentially differing from those upon which the existing religious orders had been framed ; and it was thus that he slowly moulded anew the spirits of all, bringing them into conformity with a scheme which, as it had found no model in the past, has hitherto had no peer. If only these principles be admitted as sound, and if we can grant this scheme to be itself legitimate, then the bold consistency with which general rules were applied to particular cases, and the perfect harmony thence resulting, are entitled to admiration. It was * Borgia succeeded Lainez as (third) general of the order, in the year 1565, and governed it until his death, in 1572. 154 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. jof a piece with the Jesuit scheme that the sciences and polite literature should be cultivated with all pos- sible assiduity in the colleges of the Society; but it was iiot of a piece with it, and therefore not by any means allowable, that the spirit of advancement or of enterT prise in philosophy should be encouraged, or that inno- vations, even in the most trivial matters, or where im- provement was manifest, should be accepted. Every thing was to be taken up in its then actual state, and was to be laid down, when done with, in the same state. Jesuitism presented the most determined aspect of oppo- sition to the temper of the times which was then, in so fiflfective a manner, pushing discovery forwai'd in all directions. And yet, at the same time, a clearly developed and practical good sense governed those instructions which lioyola issued for carrying forward his scheme of educa- tion within its iron-bound circle. Well he understood what his personal experience had so effectively taught him, as to the natural influence of a college course, in chilling the spirit of devotion, and in substituting for the melting fervours and ecstacies of the spring-time of piety, a frame of mind that is dry, chilled, and im- poverished. He met this discouragement, in the instance of those whom he found to be labouring under it, with advice which we must grant to be free from exagge- ration and extravagance. It was in substance to this effect : — Heretofore you have waited upon God in the way of meditation and of spiritual enjoyment ; but now you are to do the same on the path of labour and study. With a right intention, lessons in philosophy will be- come to you exercises of piety ; a problem thoroughly mastered, will be as a mass celebrated. Once it was visions and ecstacies ; but now it is rules of grammar or logic that are to engage your minds. HIS PEOFFEEED RESIGNATION. 155 The General had now, that is to say, In the year 1550, borne the burden of the Society nine years; and this period of excessive labour, and of varied solicitude, had materially abated his natural strength. He sighed for repose, and it may easily be believed, his re- quest to be allowed to resign his office was thoroughly sincere. No such perplexing problem as that which presented itself when, in the first instance, he sought to evade the sovereign authority, attaches to his conduct at this after time. He had fully tasted whatever there iuay be of sweetness in the possession and exercise of absolute and far-extended power; and he had known what, to one so sincerely conscientious, must be the often-recurring paroxysm of anxiety that waits beside the chair of those who sway sceptres. Besides, if we correctly think of Loyola's constitution of mind, personal ambition, In the ordinary sense of the word, was far from being his ruling passion. His Idol was a vast abstract idea — a beautiful conception of spiritual domi- nation, which should at length supplant all other dominations, and ensure peace and order on earth. He had now lived to see his idea not merely brought into actual existence, and become potent among things potentj but to see It spreading itself out on all sides, rapidly, toward its utmost boimdary. Perhaps the very success which had so much surprised himself, and had so far exceeded his own sober hopes, inclined him now to step down from his pinnacle, and to turn away his eye, while yet the sun shone upon the prospect, and before any ominous shadows might fall athwxirt it. Loyola, in fact, addressed an earnest petitionary letter to the senior Fathers, conjuring them to accept hig resignation of the generalship. Among those who were thus addressed it is said that one, in amiable simplicity, professed to think that, when the General, whose every 166 I&NATIUS LOYOLA. word was law, solemnly declared himself incompetent to govern the Society, he ought to be believed ! All beside were of a different opinion, and all but the guileless Oviedo were peremptory in their determination not to yield to their superior's prayer in this instance ; none were willing to incur, until it ^should be inevitable, the risks of an election, the issue of which could not be forer seen. In the end he submitted himself to the will of his colleagues, assenting to their decision that he should retain his authority so long as God should listen to their prayers for his life. It is affirmed, however, that this disappointment brought upon him an illness that seemed likely to give him the release which his friends denied him, from the toils and cares of government. He however regained his accustomed health, and found full occupation, first, in revising anew the code of the Society — the constitutions, which were again submitted to the judgment and approval of the Fathers ; and, next, in meeting and evading that hostility which the order was now drawing upon itself from various quarters. In France especially those jealousies and suspicions which it had excited at the outset were spreading more widely, and had assumed a form of settled opposition. Not even the powerful support of the Guises, although it availed something at court, was sufficient to overcome the repugnance of the clergy, or of the parliament. It was furtively, or by connivance only, that the Jesuits maintained a house of their order aft Clermont. The vigilance and sagacity of Loyola, moreover, were constantly employed in detecting and rebutting the assaults made upon the religious principles of his spiritual children, by the indefatigable and insidious "heresiarchs" of Switzerland, France, and Germany. These are accused by the Jesuit writers of attempt- HIS CONTINUED ADMINISTBATION. 157 ing to tamper with the fidelity of some inexperienced members of the Society, In modes well suited to their purpose — the perversion and destruction of souls* Again, on the side of the Catholic world, his utmost endeavours were incessantly needed — now in shielding his establishments from the assaults of haughty eccle- siastics, whose influence had been put in peril by the zeal and ability of the Jesuits ; and now in warding off from the heads of some of his distinguished colleagues the fatal glories of a cardinal's hat. The noble Borgia might, if he had so chosen, have compensated himself for the resignation of a dukedom, by accepting a dignity that would have placed in his way the highest seat of power on earth. In this instance, however, the dissua- sive interference of the General was not needed ; for " Father Francis," late Duke of Gandia, proved that his first relinquishment of worldly splendour had sprung from motives that had gained supremacy in his soul, and which could be dislodged by nothing which this transitory state can confer. What is it to be duke, or cardinal, or pope, to one who, in steady earnestness of purpose, is "laying up for himself treasure in heaven?" It might have been foreseen by any one acquainted with Loyola's character, and with the spirit and inten- tion of the Jesuit Institute, that he would admit of no union or blending of his order with any other religious body. Some proposals of this sort had been made at a time when the Society might have thought itself strengthened by alliances with existing communities. Chiefs less clear-sighted, and less firm of purpose, would probably have yielded themselves to such offers. Not so Loyola; even while the Society was passing through its period of .precarious infancy, much less at a time when it had possessed itself of an extent of influence effectively greater than that of all other monastic bodies 158 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. put together. Loyola perfectly understood, in its ap- plication to his own proceedings, the meaning of the Inspired apophthegm-—" Men do not put new wine into old bottles " — and therefore a brief and courteous teply bi'ought at once to a conclusion the treaty set on foot by the Archbishop of Genoa, with the view of bringing about a union of the Barnabites and Jesuits. Although dignities might not be accepted by Jesuits, functions inseparable from high distinction at Courts were not to be declined, Loyola, It Is inanlfest, had fcontempliated, from the first, that Interference of his order with niundane affaii's, which has always been its characteristic. Jesuitism was constructed on this very supposition. One of the Fathers, Gonzalez, having attracted the notice and secured the favour of the king; of Portugal, John IIL, had been named by him as his confessor : a mistaken modesty, however, impelled this Father to withdraw himself froifi this post of honour. But the General wholly disallowing the refusal, pe- remptorily overruled it. A Jesuit, he said, should ever hold himself ready to promote the good of others, livhether they be beggars or princes, and should turn aside from no office of charity, whether called to minister in hospitals, in galleys, in cottages, or in palaces. Jesuits were not to be men of the cloister, who might seclude themselves for their Own benefit and individual enjoy- ment ; but should stand ready to fulfil their mission with equal alacrity in all quarters, and among all con-! ditions of men. In such Instances Loyola adhered Consistently to his principle, while on the one hand hd rejected paltres and cardinals' hats, arid on the other* gladly accepted, for his followers, the most influential employments in the closets of kings. A parallel Instance exhibits at once that thorough submission of the Individual will on which the institute HIS CONTINUED ADMINISTRATION. 159 is based, and the features of that meek-toned despotisni which knew how to secure its ends in all cases. Lalnez, one of the earliest and most able of Loyola's colleagues, had been appointed Provincial of Italy, Jlt the time of the suspension of the Council of Trent, in which he had greatly distinguished himself by his learning, eloquence, and discretion. This Father, however, having spent his best years in arduous and laborious services, now desired, instead of promotion, a period of seclusion, in which he might care for his own soul, and live un- noticed, in communion with God. But his friend, into whose hands he had consigned his body and his soul, would admit of no such evasion ; he would listen to no reasons of a personal kind, which were incompatible with the general good. " Tell me," says the General to his friend, " tell me what punishmeiit you are willing to undergo as expiation of your fault, in thus having wished to urge a plea dictated by a regard to your" particular welfare." Lainez not merely yielded implicitly to the will of his superior in this matter, but professed his readiness to undergo the most extreme humiliations, and to per- form every wonted JDcnance ; — he would be kitchen- man; he would teach the rudiments of grammar td boys ; he would beg his way to Rome ; or do anything else which should be enjoined him as his punishment. The General, however, was content with this submis^ feion : he had brought his refractory friend upon hia knees ; and, instead of imposing unseemly penanceai upon a man so highly regarded by all, be commanded him, in expiation of his offence, to compose a summary of Catholic Theology fit to be employed in controversy with heretics. A rigid and punctilious discipline he enforced in the colleges of the order, as necessary to preclude tliat tea- 160 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. denoy to insensible and unnoticed declension and decay which attaches to all human institutions, and which has actually effected the ruin of so many. If a great prin- ciple be Tiolated, or a fundamental rule be broken in upon, the mischief ensuing soon declares itself, and means are at once used for restoring what h^s so been overthrown. But a minute regulation is infringed with- out noise : the point is yielded — it is lost, and in its train follow other matters, each seemingly of small im- portance, and yet together constituting the fence and bulwark of the entire system. An occasion presented itself, in the instance of the Portuguese Jesuit college, for acting upon these princi- ples. Kodriquez, one of the most distinguished of the founders of the Society, had, during twelve years, go- verned the college with great ability ; but yet in a mode not sufficiently rigidi Symptoms had appeared there of that liberty of the understanding which the Jesuit institute does not favour, as well as too much licence in manners ; and these departures from system had so much alarmed the vigilance of the Genferal, that he resolved to withdraw the too indulgent superior from his office. Moreover, Rodriquez had attached those under his care to himself in a manner which Loyola deemed to be in- compatible with their perfect allegiance to himself. He felt his power, as general, to be put in some jeopardy by the warmth of that affection of which the superior had become the object. Eodriquez, therefore, was appointed to the province of Arragon, notwithstanding that national antipathy which renders always a Portuguese most un- acceptable to Spaniards ; at the same time, and for the purpose, as it seems, of breaking in upon this prejudice^ Miron, a Spaniard, was to succeed Eodriquez in Por- tugal. This obnoxious course involved consequences that had not at first been foreseen. The king and the HIS CONTINUED ADMINISTEATIOX. 161 court of Portugal stoutly resisted the removal of Ro' driquez, while the youth of the college warmly pro- tested that they would abandon their profession sooner than yield obedience to any one who should come in his place. This double opposition, however, the General at length overcame by the alternate employment of per.- suasive and peremptory letters. But when the new provincial came into office, he indiscreetly set about the restoration of discipline in so stern and uncompro- mising a manner, that an open revolt against his autho- rity seemed to be threatened. At length, and when the ever-judicious counsels of Loyola had been listened to by the successor of Rodriqviez, the spirit of the novices, and of others, suddenly flew off in an opposite direction, carrying many of them away into dangerous extrava- gances of devotion. Thus it was that the establish- ments of the Society in Portugal, loosened from their steadfastness, appeared to be swaying from side to side, like a vessel that rolls upon the billows without rudder or sail, and in a manner not merely perilous to itself, but likely to produce an ill effect within the Jesuit es- tablishments of Spain also. At one moment the General, filled with alarms by the prospect of these disorders, had resolved to attempt per- sonally the repression of them. But the possible failure of his direct interposition would involve dangers still more serious, and might lead to the overthrow at once of his mighty enterprise. He took therefore another course, and at the instigation, or, we might say, under the inspiration, of motives the most urgent, he collected and condensed his every thought, combining all in an epislte which, within the compass of a few pages, embodies Jesuitism, and reveals it. The epistle on " The Virtue of Obedience," addressed to the Jesuits of Portugal, has been the key-stone of the structure : it stands without M 162 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. a parallel in the volume of religious literature ; and it deserves the most careful analysis on the part of whoever would understand Jesuitism. This epistle, first de- spatched to Portugal, and then to Spain, was quickly sent forth into all the world, and became, and continues to be, a canonical instrument with the Society, univer* sally. It is the lot of men who hold steadily to some great principle of action to be charged with glaring inconsis- tencies by those who cannot grasp any such abstraction. It was thus with Loyola frequently. At one time we find him on his knees before the pope, fervently suppli- cating his interposition to screen some Jesuit head from an impending mitre ! then he rebukes a father whose modesty would have prevented his accepting an office of far more amplitude and importance than any episcopate ; and again he consents to the proposal of the king of Portugal, who looked to the Society for men whom he might establish in Abyssinia as patriarch and as bishops. But he well considered, that, while the mitres of Europe were fratight with allurements that might kindle worldly ambition among the Fathers, and thus fatally damage the Society, an Ethiopian mitre was not unlikely to be displaced by a martyr's crown ; or, if not, precarious re- venues, incessant labours, and extreme perils, would undoubtedly attach to the dignity in such a sphere, and therefore it might safely be offered to members of the Society. On the occasion of a misunderstanding between Charles V. and the pope, the Jesuits became implicated in the suspicion of having prompted those measures on the part of the emperor which so much irritated the pontiff. Loyola himself at the time laboured under a severe in- disposition, which prevented his offering any explana- tion : the ill-feeling, therefore, of the court and cardinals HIS CONTINUED ADMINISTRATION. 163 against the Society went on increasing from day to day unchecked. But at the earliest moment of his conva- lescence he hastened to the Vatican; and while yet scarcely capable of speaking upon afiPairs of importance, he succeeded, not merely in rebutting the charges that had been brought against the Spanish Jesuits, in the instance in question, but completely turned the tide of pontifical favour, as before, toward the Society ! Loyola possessed, in a high degree, that rare faculty which gives a man a thorough and instantaneous intuition of the views and feelings of another, and thus allows him to gain a lodgement for himself, as it were, within that other's bosom — thence to plead his cause. In dealing with persons in authority he vanquished them by hold- ing tenaciously to his one purpose, while by unresisting humiliation he seemed to yield everything. This personal talent, which, in a series of instances, had enabled the General to steer his vessel safely through perilous straits, and had secured for him the favour of popes against cardinals and princes, signalised itself on the accession of the declared enemy of the Society — Cardinal Caraffa. During the short month of the pontificate of Mar- cellus II., that pope had given the General reason to be- lieve that the Society would bask always in his favour : this sunshine, however, was but for a moment ; and every one believed that his successor, Paul IV., would deal with the order in a stern and summary manner. Some time before he had endeavoured to interpose in behalf of his countryman, a Neapolitan, whose son, at a tender age, had been induced (if not seduced) to profess himself a Jesuit. The father (and the mother too, urging her rights with loud laments) claimed his son at the hand of the inexorable General ; the cardinal, at the instance of the parents, commanded him to restore the youth to M 2 164 IGNATIUS LOTOLA. -them. Loyola, it is said, understanding better the precepts and principles of " the gospel," resolutely turned a deaf ear to the outcries of " flesh and blood." In fact, he easily persuaded thepope to reverse the order of the cardinal ; and nothing but sighs and submission were left to the bereaved parents. This affront was supposed still to be rankling in the bosom of the Neapolitan cardinal at the moment of his election, and few doubted that, now at length, the order of Jesuits would find their influence with pontiffs at an end. Loyola himself entertained no such desponding apprehensions. He had received an inward assurance that the head of the church would still smile upon the -company of Jesus ; nor was he proved to be mistaken by the event. Paul, at an early time, summoned Loy- ola into his presence, and at once treated him with un- wonted distinction ; but he would fain have taken a step indicative of favour, in the world's esteem, the very thought of which, as in former and similar instances, filled the soul of the General with dismay. The pope loudly declared that Lainez must now take his seat in the college of cardinals! "If indeed it must be so," ^aid the General, "the world shall at least see in what .fi2>irlt the Society accepts ecclesiastical honours," But on this occasion, whether or not Paul might ■secretly wish to effect the promotion of Lainez for the very reason which impelled Loyola to resist it — both clearly forecasting its fatal consequences to the order — whether or not Caraffa were quite sincere, Loyola, and his friend Lainez too, proved themselves to be so. Not less heartily for himself than did his master for him, he -sickened at the thought of this dignity. The entreaties of the one, and the protestations of the other, at length took their effect upon the mind of the pope ; and the hat 5vas destined for some less recusant, if not more worthy HIS LAST DAYS. 165 pate. The Society celebrated its deliverance on this oc- casion in solemn senices of thanksgiving ; and Loyola, when he lavished the expressions of his gratitude at the foot of the pontitf, felt and found that, if no individual Jesuit had risen to a seat of power, the Society had gained a far loftier position than before : Paul continued not merely to bestow his favours upon it, but admitted the General to his Intimate counsels. Much embarrassment and distress, public and private, followed in the course of that struggle which Paul IV. maintained with Spain ; and it was supposed that the Jesuit college at Rome, dependant as it was upon alms, or the stated contributions of a few, would fall into nC' cessitles. Difficulties did in fact present themselves ; but means of relief were ever at hand. " It will be as by a miracle," said one to the General, " if your order is sus- tained at such a time as this." " A miracle !" replied he, " would it not rather be marvellous, if, while we are serving God in reliance upon his promise, we were to lack any good thing?" During the last year of Loyola's government of the Society he was much occupied in contending with the dif- ficulties that impeded its progress in France., The French clergy generally, and notwithstanding the favour shown, to the Jesuits by Henry II., by the Cardinal of Lorraine,, and by the court, entertained a deep suspicion of the new order, and foresaw the consequences inevitably to result to themselves from its obtaining the ascendency in France. They must lose ground, precisely in pro- portion as the Society gained ground : they well under- stood that the Jesuit principle is — exclusiveness and supremacy : they knew well that Jesuits, while holding back from ostensible dignities and emoluments, were, at a rapid pace, tending toward a position whence they might give law to the Catholic world ! The French M 3 166 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. clergy of the sixteenth century appear very generally to have understood that which Pascal, in the seven- teenth, would not, or dared not, permit himself to dis- cern — namely, that those perversions against which he inveighed were the proper and necessary products of Jesuitism, such as its founder had made, and had left it. The decree of the Sorbonne against the order of Jesus, although it does not touch the intimate moral sophism on which the Society is founded, and does not reach the very centre, nevertheless so defines the circle of mis- chiefs as to make it easy to reach that centre. Strange that a mind like Pascal's should have failed to find its way along these radii ! All his colleagues urged the General to furnish to the church and the world a formal refutation of the charges brought against the Society by the faculty of theology at Paris. He knew his part better, and en- joined upon them the silence and the patience which he imposed upon himself. " Truth," he told them, "will prevail over that temporary illusion which, just now, leads the doctors of the Sorbonne to misrepresent " and oppose the Society. But truth will avenge herself, and us in due time." Loyola, perhaps, while in sin- cerity he reminded his friends of these truisms, inwardly felt that the apprehensions of the French Church were but too well founded, and that the unrestricted triumph of the Society in France could mean nothing less than the disparagement and subjugation of the native hierarchy. After a time, and by yielding to the storm, the vehe- mence of this opposition abated, and the Society crept on until it had gained as firm a footing in France as elsewhere. Loyola, while he so well understood human nature and the course of affairs as to enable him to steer his bark through instant perils, in the modes of negotiation, or by the management of individuals, kept his eye steadily HIS LAST DAYS. 16 it fixed upon those permanent means of success whichj if they be neglected, must render the most astute and able administration of affairs unavailing. He showed him- self to be not merely a good pilot in a storm, but a master of every science which a thoroughly trained navigator should understand. It was thus that, in his colleges, and where, as in so many instances, men of one nation were trained to exercise their functions in ano- ther, he enjoined and enforced the most assiduous study of the language of the country, and required it especi- ally of those who were to be preachers, or who were to exercise their ministry among the common people, that they should show themselves to be thoroughly accom- plished in the colloquial use of the language. He would grant no indulgence to grammatical incorrectness, even the most trivial ; he would allow no foreign idioms, no foreign accents, no college stiffness or pedantry to pass uncorrected. The Jesuit preacher or confessor must be able to win his way in public and in private by satisfy- ino; the ear and taste of the most fastidious. That he might set a good example on this ground, he employed a friend usually at his side, to note each instance — and such instances were frequent — in which, during free con- versation, he offended Italian ears. It was thus that the same clearness and vigour of un- derstanding which had impelled him, in his thirtieth year, to place himself under the rod, among boys, in a Latin class, impelled him also, in his sixty-fifth, to submit his daily colloquial discourse to the correction of a smart Italian youth ; and the measure which he dealt out rigidly to himself, he dealt out as rigidly to others. Whatever we do for the glory of God, he would say, 'a,nd the good of souls must be done, not in a slovenly manner, but in the most perfect manner. Years of excessive labour were now fast anticipating M 4 168 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. the orclinary course of decay ; and the General, in pre- sence of the- assembled members of the order, declared himself no longer able to bear alone the burden of the Society. He would not, however, himself appoint a co- adjutor ; but he called upon them to look out from among themselves one whom they might judge to be competent to the task of rendering him the aid he needed. A Spanish Jesnit, named Jerom Nadal, re- ceived the suffrages of all; and he, without any infringe- ment of Loyola's absolute authority, thenceforward, and till his death, transacted the business of the order. From that time the General concerned himself chiefly, or solely, with the care of the sick, his attentions to whom were assiduous and tender. " One so laden with infirmities as I am, and who suffers so much, may well feel sympathy with others, and must be reputed to be skilled in administering relief or solace." But these, his last labours of charity, were speedily brought to a close. Rome at that time resounded with martial preparations : it was no longer the place where one like Loyola could choose to remain ; and he retired to a small house of the order, at some distance from the city. This removal, however, from whatever accidental cause, instead of proving beneficial, seemed to hasten his end. He declined daily : those around him, however, and his assiduous medical attendants, apprehended no immediate danger. He himself felt that his departure was at hand. Nevertheless he allowed his friends to employ whatever means they thought likely to promote his recovery, of which none but himself despaired: despair is not the word to apply to Loyola's state of mind, in the near prospect of death. He confessed himself, and received with unwonted fervour " the body of our Lord Jesus Christ." One care only now remained to him : this was to ob- HIS DEATH. 169 tain, while yet he could be conscious of so great a solace, the apostolic benediction. " Go," said he to his secre- tary, — " Go, and ask for me, from the pope, his bless- ing, and indulgence for my sins, so that my soul may be the better sustained in passing the terrors of this moment." The secretary, assured by the physician that death was not at hand, delayed till the next day to exe- cute this commission. Having given attention to some ordinary matters, he was left for the night, by the Fathers In attendance, who believed that he would survive some time. In the morning he was found still con- scious, and able to listen to that message of grace which had just been obtained for him from the pope. Soon afterward, joining his hands, raising his eyes toward heaven, and feebly pronouncing the one word, "Jesus," he expired. This event took place an hour after sunrise, oa Friday, the last day of July, in the year 1556 ; and in the sixty-fifth year of his age. 170 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. CHAPTER IX. LOYOLA'S MIND. Those must be feeble-minded indeed whose ill opinion of Jesuitism would make it difficult for them to form an estimate of the personal character of its author, on the broad ground of Christian charity and philosophic equanimity. In this instance the writer may easily be- lieve that the reader is quite willing to. accompany him in the endeavour to reach a conclusion, which shall oiFend no dictate, either of gemxine religious feeling, or of an enlightened philosophy. And yet, even when we stand clear of every narrow prejudice, we are far from finding ourselves in a position whence it might be easy to form our opinion of the personal character and merits of a man like Ignatius Loyola. Indeed there are few tasks more difficult within the department of moral science, than that of estimating, fairly, candidly, and correctly, the. virtues and talents of a saint of the Romish Church ! The difficulty especially attaching to problems of this class is twofold, resulting, in the first place, from what we could not call ihe fraudulent, but rather the unreal, or unsubstantial style in which it has become the settled habit of Romish writers to compose the biographies of their worthies. With scarcely an exception, they com- pile such memoirs under the influence, or inspiration, of that polytheistic temper with which the saint- worship of their Church has, in a greater or less degree, de- praved all the moral and religious sentiments of its adherents. Polytheism — and not less so in its mitigated form HIS CHARACTER. 171 of saint-worship — polytheism has, in every age and among every people — cultured or barbarous, shown itself to be a " strong delusion," shedding falsity upon every- thing near it. A man of sound mind is instantly con- scious of this influence, when he enters the temple of the Church's canonized ones. Colourless daylight does not enter that fane : — a sepulchral taint sickens the atmosphere, and he who has not, by effort and practice, gained command over himself, exclaims, " If I stay long in this place I shall lose my senses : let me escape from it while I can." The difficulty that besets us in these instances is, we have said, twofold; the first arising from the illusive style of the writers from whom aU our information must necessarily be derived; the second, and which is still more formidable than the first, springs from that deep illusiveness or unreality, that attaches, from his train- ing, and from the atmosphere he has always breathed, personally even to the most eminent of the Komish worthies. Due care, and a patient employment of certain rules of historical investigation, may, in some good degree, enable us to surmount the first-named obstacle, and may put us in communion with a great and good man — spite of his unwise eulogists. Thus in endeavouring to ob- tain a correct idea of an object Avhich we can see only through the medium of a distorted lens — let us suppose it to be a beautiful statue — it would happen that, although there might be no single position of the lens which did not present an image of deformity. Instead of symmetry, yet that, by shifting this medium in various modes, we should at length be able so to compensate one distortion by another, as, when all these misrepre- sentations were collated, would make up, in idea at least, a true conception of the real figure. nZ IGNATIUS LOYOLA. In the condensed personal history which has now beea placed before the reader, little regard has been paid to those narrations which, if they be not foolish fabrica- tions, imply what must have been supernatural, or must nearly have bordered upon the miraculous. Yet as there are but slight traces (if any), in Loyola's own and undoubted writings, of a pretension to miraculous powers, no hesitation need be felt in treating all such narratives as unworthy of serious attention. Besides several instances of miraculous cures effected by " our saint," and of predictions marvellously fulfilled, we are told by his biographers that, on frequent occasions, he came forth from his devotions with a face luminous and radiant — in a literal sense. Nor was it unusual, we are told, for him to be found, at his devotions, floating in the air, a foot or more from the ground ! From the encumbrance of all this decorative stuff, we release, without scruple, the real Ignatius Loyola. And yet he is still found to be enveloped in that which one feels is factitious, and which cannot altogether be carried to the account of his biographers. Loyola, we must remember, had reached adult years at the time of his conversion; and his mind, at that period, was a waste: the reasoning power had not been trained; scarcely at all had it been quickened. Although with him the purely intellectual faculties were of extraordi- nary grasp, they had slumbered through what might be called a babyhood of thirty years ; and when at length they were awakened, the moral emotions and the reli- gious impulses had already taken a form with which reason never afterwards interfered. Loyola's reason mastered every impulse, even the strongest, which his religious convictions disallowed ; but it never ventured to bring those convictions to its tribunal. It is thus that he stands before us as, at once, the boldest of all innovators, and as HIS CHARACTER. 173 the most unquestioning and submissive of the Church's dutiful sons. His intellect was of giant strength ; but a silken thread was always enough to bind it in allegiance to the faith and usages of the Church. No spirit more daring than his, or more purely original and self- informed, in relation to whatever he held to be free to him, or to be at his full disposal ; none more abject in relation to what, from his cradle, he had regarded aS sacred. Loyola could never have been the reformer of established systems ; for he worshipped every shred of the ecclesiastical tatters of past ages. But he was the inventor of a scheme essentially his own, and with mar- vellous sagacity, and a tact fertile in I'esources, he con- trived to lodge the prodigious novelty — the Society of Jesus — within the very adytum of the old system, and to do so, without noise, without any displacement of parts, or the breakir^- off even of a moulding ! By his hands a house was built within a house ; yet none had heard the din of the builder's tools while it was in pro- gress. While therefore we have to do, not merely with one who is good and devout, according to the fashion of the Bomish or Medifeval Church, but with a man who takes his place among a very few on the list of the intellectually great, this greatness shows itself not at all on the side of his saintship : on that side Loyola is a " saint " only, and is as devout, and often as absurd as lire any of the class to which he belongs ; and this ever- exaggerated and exaggerating pietism, which is content with nothing that is not enormous, is driven to the ne* cessity of being factitious : — it is a tawdry heroism. The things said and done are in themselves, perhaps, good and approvable ; but they are so done and said as if a harlequin were doing and saying them. At every turn of the bedizened performer we are inwardly perplexed. 174 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. not knowing whether we should admire or scorn what is passing before us. Several instances of this kind, attaching to Loyola's first season of religious fervour, have already been briefly mentioned ; others of a similar kind are on record, in relation to which the plea of inexperience cannot be advanced. If any doubt attaches to their authenticity, every generous mind will rejoice to throw them aside as spurious. It was not the founder and general of the order of Jesuits, but the " Saint Ignatius," whom we have fol- lowed, begging crumbs of bread at the doors of hovels, with a heavy purse in his girdle ; or lodging himself in an hospital, at the cost of its charitable fund, within sight of his paternal castle, where his presence was ear- nestly desired : these, and other instances of puerile extravagance, belong to his earlier years; but other in- stances, not more to be approved of, enter into the period of his generalship. He might perhaps think himself obliged to set an example of strict adherence to the principles of the institute, on occasions that were likely to attract attention, and to be noised abroad. Thus one day the porter broke in rather hastily upon the General's retirement, bearing in his hand a packet of letters that had just then arrived from Guipuscoa, and which, no doubt, contained tidings fromi his relatives, of whom he had heard nothing for a long time. These letters might perhaps relate to the most important in- terests of the writers, if not to his own ; but it was the Jesuit rule to cut off all those occasions of entanglement with the things of this life, which might spring from a natural regard to the temporal well-being of relatives. Loyola, therefore, snatched the packet from the hand of the porter, and, in his sight, threw it, unopened, upon the fire ! HIS CHAEACTER. 175 We are told that this " great saint " so gloried in re- proaches, and received with so keen a relish indignities and scoffings, that, if he had not been restrained by a consideration of the ill effect such behaviour might have had upon the minds of some, he would, when opportunity offered, have feigned himself mad, have run forth into rthe streets, covered with filth and tatters, and he would have done this, for the very enjoyment of it ! That he might fee! himself to be as the scum and offscouring of all things, he would have drawn upon himself the hoot- ings of the rabble ! Does it seem probable that St. Paul would thus have beseemed himself ? Surely his history, and his epistles, say that he would not ; and therefore, inasmuch as Loyola was not wanting in in- telligence or good sense — as he was no half-witted fanatic, this preposteroiis style of behaviour, or this professed readiness so to act, can be attributed to nothing but the radical unsoundness of that system of moral training under which he had grown up. In his latter years the General was frequently com- pelled to put himself into the hands of the medical attendants of the house. On these occasions it was his rule to set an example of that perfect obedience which was the first law of the Society. From the moment when he asked the advice of his physician, and until the day when discharged by him as convalescent, he surrendered, not merely his body, but his judgment, to the will and disposal of him, whether skilful or other- wise, whom, for the time, he had acknowledged to be his sovereign lord. On one of these occasions, when suffering grievously from an internal inflammation, to which he was subject, it happened that a young and in- experienced physician, and who knew nothing of Loyola's constitution, was then serving as medical at- .tendant in the house. When summoned to attend the 176 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. General, he immediately employed means which the patient well knew to be utterly improper in his case, and which, in fact, aggravated the symptoms in a fearful manner. °It was a sultry summer time, but all windows and doors were to be closed, the coverlets were to be doubled — his drinks to be administered hot, and his wine was sour. Loyola thoroughly understanding as be did his own malady, felt that the treatment he was now subjected to could not fail speedily to be fatal : he knew too that a change of treatment would instantly give him relief. But " obedience " was his part -^ obedience, according to his own pithy expression — perinde cadar ver ; and it was now certain that a very few hours' con- tinuance of this process of voluntary and superfluous martyrdom would have put a literal interpretation upofl the met9,phoric phrase, as applied to himself. At the moment, however, when life was ebbing fast, the Fathers rushed into the chamber, and seeing clearly what was the error of the stripling doctor, insisted upon putting the life of their superior into better hands: this was done, and he survived ! If this story be true, it must be taken as furnishing a proof and illustration of what has been alleged, namely, that there was a factitiousness in Loyola's moral condition, which much perplexes any endeavour we may make to estimate correctly the qua- lity and power of his understanding. If it be not true, or if it be a much exaggerated narrative of what took place, then it curiously exemplifies that vitiated taste which at first prompted such a fabrication, and which renders it acceptable to the ears to which it is addressed. It can scarcely be affirmed that Loyola found ready to his hand, within the Romish Church, elements, intellectual or religious, that needed only to be moulded anew to suit his purpose. These elements existed in- deed in human nature, and it is true also that the HIS CHAEACTEK. 177 jarring movements of the sixteenth century tended to bring them more within his reach than otherwise they might have been. But it is certain that the modes of thinking, and the habits that had so long been cherished within the Church, especially within the circle of its monastic enclosures, were far from being what can be regarded as constituting a fit preparation for the Jesuit Institute. Jesuitism, while taking to itself the concentration and the intentness that had belonged (at their best) to the monastic bodies, ran counter to them all in its main principle, as well as in the practical application of that principle. Monastioism had subsisted, or it was intended to subsist, as a sort of moral anomaly in the midst of a sensual world ; but Jesuitism planted itself as an anomaly in the bosom of the Church. The Monk vows to deny himself as to his earthly appetites ; the Jesuit, as to his spiritual tastes. The men of the monastery are, or they should be, aspirant followers in that right-hand angelic stream that is ever ascending Jacob's ladder, from earth to heaven ; but the company of Jesuits offers itself to the eye on the sinister side of the same colossal scale ; and its members are perpetually descending from heaven to busy themselves with the things of earth. It was no easy task to turn a stream that had flowed so long in one direction ; and merely to imagine such an enterprise as that of turning it, was the effort of a powerful and self-prompting intellect, confident in its own wrought- out conclusions, and immoveably fixed in its grasp of what it had thus created for itself. And as the scheme was vast, the execution of it, and the perpetual administration of a system so novel in its intentions, and so wide in its actual extent, demanded the rarest talents. Loyola's power over other minds was such as belongs to those men of genius — a few in N 17^ IGNATIUS COYOLA. any age — or rather, a few in the lapse of ages, who had first acquired a sovereign power over themselvesj 'oefore they asserted their right to rule the world. He was master of other men, and even of some superior to himself in mind and accomplishments, because he had become more master of himself than were they of them- selves. It does not appear that he ever failed to carry his purposes within the Society, or even within the circle of the Church, so far as any of its measures or move- ments might affect the interests of the order. In each Instance in which he undertook to wrestle with authori- ties he finally prevailed, as by a sort of molluscous per- tinacity : he wound himself around his antagonist, nor could there be any release from the boneless gripe — except by the spell of that consenting word, " be it then as you will ! " In those encounters of this sort that are recorded, what Loyola had to do was, not simply to obtain the consent of authorities to particular measures which he wished to carry, and which they might think adverse to their interests, as to convince them of the soundness of a principle wholly new to their minds. And thus also toward recusant members of the Society, the question between the General and the ^ insubordinate Jesuit was often a question of principle, which the subaltern had not, as yet, comprehended. It was the task of Loyola to forge upon many hundred minds the Idea of the Society ; and in the execution of this task, far more than In the compilation of its code, he displayed a power and a unity of purpose, surpassed by few of the achieve- ments of either philosophers or legislators. No instance Is mentioned of his having lost sight of his master prin- ciple, or of his giving way, except for a moment, to any infringement of It. In matters not touching this prin- ciple he was easily compliant, iand seemingly open to the HIS CHARACTER. 179 impulse of circumstances. Even in things that did affect the working of the institute, he Avas far from showing himself to be opiniative, or unduly prepossessed in favour of his first determinations. Consistency, not pertinacity, was Loyola's characteristic. Much was always left to the discretion of the several provincials in the government of the Society. The General, vigilant and cognizant of all details, was yet quite superior to the folly of attempting to do and to rule everything. His colleagues felt that they were trusted by their master, and they were ordinarily well pleased when they could justify the confidence thus re- posed in them. By most of them he was well and affec- tionately served. As to the constitutions of the Society, it was by slow degrees only that they came to be de- fined and fixed. Their sagacious author, exempt as he was from the legislator's fond conceit that his theoretic code could admit of no improvement, wished rather that time and experience should teach him what In It was practically good, and enable him to abrogate or to modify whatever had appeared to have been ill devised. Rigid in the enforcement of each actual rule, so long as it stood upon the statute book, he lent an ear at all times to reasons which might induce him to remove^it thence. Loyola understood too the respective oflSces of faith, or religious motive, and of reason. He was wary of emotion, when it might influence those determinations over which it was the province of reason to preside. It was his professed practice, on all occasions of moment, to Implore the divine guidance, with a simple-hearted fervour, as if heaven was to do all: and having done this — then to apply himself, with all his might, to every natural means of success, by aid of energy, sagacity, and the calculation of causes, as If the event were V 2 180 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. wholly dependent upon human forethought and assi- duity. " Let us pray as if we had no help in ourselves: let us labour as if there were no help for us in heaven."J What is said of him by all his biographers, as to the empassioned style of his devotions — and as to the co- piousness of that torrent of tears which seemed, at length,, to have quite exhausted his natural moisture, and to have brought him almost to the physical condi- tion of a mummy, must be admitted as authentic in the main, and therefore as proving that his temperament was far from cold, or purely intellectual. But he had learned a secret which, perhaps, very few passionate spirits ever learn, or ever attempt to put in practice — namely, during the paroxysms of emotion to unharness reason, and to let her stand by in her place. Loyola's emotions, how impetuous soever they might be, never ran away with his mind. At whatever time his bark was driven before the hurricane of religious fervour, reason was found to be safe on shore ; and ready to re- sume her place at the helm, when the winds were hushed. He did nothing without emotion ; but he did nothing at its bidding. " Impulse and feeling," he would say, " man shares with the inferior orders around him ; but reason is his distinction, and with him, therefore, it should be supreme." A less pure reason than Loyola's could never have conceived the Idea of the Society ; nor could an inferior sagacity have governed it. Yet a spirit less profoundly empa,ssioned than his, must have failed to breathe into it the soul and the vital force which have carried it over the world, and given it perpetuity. Loyola's reason, however, as we have already said, was not at all occu- pied upon the verbally expressed dogmas of religious belief; or not in any manner that would warrant his being styled a theologian, or that could make it a perti- HIS CHAEACTEE. 181 nent question — To what school of sacred philosophy did he attach himself? The awful mysteries of the Christian faith he discerned, in all their plenitude of unrevealed wonders, during those trances or extacies with which he was favoured. His creed was always and Implicitly the Church's creed : his theology was what he had felt to be true when in presence of some effulgent manifestation of celestial objects ; he believed by intuition, not by interpretation of Scripture. Luther, credulous as he was in matters that did not touch points of theology, reasoned hard and logi- cally always on every inch of biblical ground. Loyola, who was wholly passive, or one might say mindless on that ground, showed himself a shrewd sceptic frequ en tlyj if not always, when called upon to give ear to superna- tural relations. The demon, he would say, baffled in his endeavours to make himself master of the souls of the saints, plays what tricks he can with their bodies. To this cause — that is, to the counterfeit operations of the wicked spirit — he attributed, not so often as he should have done in his own case, but usually in the instance of others, those semi-miraculous occurrences of which the Eomish Church has too much availed herself for feeding the wonderment appetite of the populace. A certain nun was reported to him as subject to ravishments of the soul, during the continuance of which she remained in- sensible even to fire when apj)lied to her, and upbii whose person something resembling the famed stigmas of St. Francis at times appeared ; and it was said that she could be brought back to consciousness by nothing but a word of authority, uttered by her superior. "Aye," said the General, on hearing this recital, " Aye, I can well understand the holy nun's obedience ; but as to her stiff mas, I must know more about them." Minds of the vehemently impassioned class — and N 3 182 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Loyola's Avas such — are not ofteiij if ever, gifted with the imaginative faculty and taste : it does not appear that he possessed this power or this taste in any degree that might have exerted an influence over his intellec- tual course. Nor, on the other hand, does that lumi- nous sagacity, which»indeed was his distinction, often combine itself with the creative power, and the sensibi- lities that constitute the poetic character. But then it was this utter want of imagination — it was this bare destitution of the power to entertain simple conceptions of beauty and grandeur, that threw him back, in his method of religious meditation, upon " the beggarly elements" of a sensuous imagery. Perhaps no book in existence, like the " Spiritual Exercises," (which we are about to analyse) exhibits the unavoidable gross- ness of that descent from the spiritual to the sensuous, which results from an absolute want of imaginative power. If Loyola had been a poet by mental consti-( tutlon, the book of Spiritual Exercises, instead of its being as it is, a fit instrument of Jesuit subjugation — jin engine of torture, — would have fascinated all the Tvorld, and have beguiled the human family into its toils. It has often been remarked, concerning those forms of superhuman beauty which we owe to the Grecian chisel, that they are not sensuous, and are not obnoxious to the moral sentiment of a well ordered mind: — they are unearthly, because they are purely, and in the highest sense, poetic. Now, it is not unwarrantable to affirm of Loyola's mode of picturing sacred subjects, that it is in the lowest degree sensuous, because it is not in any degree poetic. Nevertheless, that which, to minds less passionately devout than his own, is, and must ever prove itself to be, of debasing tendency, did not thus operate upon a soul so fervent as his. Fervent he was — fervently devout ; and our Frotes- HIS CHARACTER. 183 taut notions would lead us into a very perilous kind of uncharitableness if they forbad our thinking of Ignatius Loyola as an eminently good and christian man. If some hesitation is felt when it is demanded of us to allow him his designation as a great man, it is because the conception oi greatness seems to include necessarily that which the founder of Jesuitism manifestly wanted ; namely, an ennobling inspiration springing from the sensibility of the soul toward beauty and sublimity in the natural and in the moral world. ir 4 PART II. JESUITISM IN ITS RUDIMENTS. 187 CHAPTER I. THE "EXERCITIA SPIRITUALIA.' Although it does not enter into the plan of this essay to trace the history of Loyola's Institute, we may, for a moment, look onwards to a lime dating about a century after his death ; and shall then find a state of feeling and opinion, in relation to the Society, pre- vailing, not merely on the Protestant side of the Euro- pean community, but on that of most Catholic nations, which offers a problem that can be solved only on one of the following suppositions, — or, by taking into the account a part of each. The high merits and indefatigable labours of verv many of the Company of Jesuits being admitted, while ncTertheless it had drawn upon itself the darkest suspi- cions, or even the vehement hatred of Catholic govern- ments and people, it must be supposed — Either that these suspicions and that this odium were altogether unwarrantable and groundless ; or. That being in the main well founded, the Society had, within the brief period of a few years, lost the spirit and forgotten the intentions of its founder, and had undergone a moral degeneracy more rapid than has taken place in any parallel instance, and of which no intelligible account can be given ; or, That the suspicions and hatred of man- kind being, as above supposed, but too warrantable, the Society, instead of having, in the usual sense of the word, degenerated, or of its having departed from the course prescribed for it, had only developed the principles of 188 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. its constitution ; and, while rendering itself odious to states, and an object of indignant dread throughout the world, it had, nevertheless, faithfully given effect to the spirit and letter of its code. This last supposition we assume to be the only one which can be adhered to consistently with the facts of the case ; and it is moreover believed that an analysis of this code, or of what we have termed the canonical writings of the Society, exhibits clearly, and incon- testibly, those germs of evil which have rendered, and which must ever render Jesuitism a vicious institu- tion, and must make it a source of mischief, moral and political, in the bosom of nations. What may be regarded as the canonical writings of the Jesuit Society, comprise, — The Spiritual Exercises ? — The Letter on Obedience, addressed to the Portuguese Jesuits ; — The Constitutions, with the original notes thereon ; and the DIrectorium ; of each of which some account must be given, with a brief descriptive analysis of its purport. The book entitled Exercitia Spiritualia, was, as to its rudiments, if not more, the earliest produce of Loyola's mind ; nor is it on that account merely entitled to the earliest place in an examination of the documents of his Institute ; for it has always been regarded by the So'' ciety itself as the nucleus of the system, and has been made use of as the Text-book of initiation : in truth, it might be designated, not unfairly, as the Bible of Je* suitism. The most approved Jesuit writers have not hesitated, in terms more or less distinct, to claim for it, the sanction of inspiration ; and a living writer of the highest repute, in commending a translation of it to the English public, does not seem to shrink from such a supposition ; although the adroit use of a parenthesis saves him from the necessity of plainly avowing his own THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. 189 conviction in this particular. "It is apian," he says, (that laid down in the Spiritual Exercises) " framed by a master-mind, (unless we admit a higher solution) ca- pable of grappling with the most arduous and compli- cated task." Loyola, as we have seen, required every one of his early colleagues in turn, and not excepting those of them who were far his superiors in accomplishments and in general intelligence, to pass regularly through the course of discipline which this book prescribes ; and from that time to this, it has been the door, and the only door, into the Society. Moreover, it is enjoined upon those who, not intending to become members of the Society, but seeking only their personal advancement in piety, wish to place themselves, for a time, under the spiritual direction of a Jesuit father, that they should submit themselves to this course. In the Directorium, or book of instructions for those whose duty it may be to superintend the initiatory dis-^ cipline of candidates, and which was drawn up, digested, and sanctioned, by Loyola's successor, Aquaviva, the " Spiritual Exercises" are held forth as of primary au- thority and utility, and as of universal application ; and in the "Constitutions of the Society," the same place of primary importance is assigned to them. We are bound, therefore, to regard this book as containing, what the Society declares it to contain — namely, the very substance, or germinating rudiment of Loyola's - Institute. Wonders of moral cure have been accom- plished by it, we are assured, in the course of three cen- turies ; and similar wonders are formally warranted to result, invariably, from a due use of it still, if em- ployed under an authentic direction. As sure is it to produce its result — that is to say, an entire conversion from sin to holiness — as sure, even in the most despe- 190 IGJfATIUS LOYOLA. rate instances, as is Euclid, to bring every rationally constituted mind to one and the same conclusion. " The mind may struggle against the first axiom, or rather demonstrable truth in the series ; but once satis- fied of this, resistance is as useless as unreasonable; the next- consequence is inevitable, conclusion follows conclusion, and the triumph is complete. The passions may entrench themselves at each step, behind new works, but each position carried is a point of successful attack upon the next, and grace at length wins the very citadel. Many is the fool who has entered into a retreat to scoff, and remained to pray." * No book whatever, perhaps, could be named which would so much surprise and disappoint the natural ex- pectations of a reader who, entirely uninformed of its contents, should open it with some vague conception of its purport, engendered by the title, and by a knowledge, not very exact, of the character and temperament of the writer. The " Spiritual Exercises" of St. Ignatius Loyola ! a Spanish devotee of the most ardent tempe- rament — a man whose tears of joy and penitence flowed like a perennial brook — the chivalrous champion too, of " the Blessed Virgin;" — a man of habitual ecstacy, and who was favoured v^ith visions the most extraordinary. What then shall be the " Spiritual Exercises" of such a Baint, composed at the very moment of his first fer- vours in the religious life? The very contrary are they of what it is so natural to €xpect. Q'here are to be found in this book no rhap- sodies, no outbursts of devout feeling, no imaginative revellings in scenes of paradisiacal pleasure : there is in it no enthusiasm, no fanaticism, no presumptuous in- trusion upon the mysteries of heaven : nothing in it is expanded, nothing is elaborated, in the way of descrip- * Preface to the Spiritual Exercises by Dr. Wiseman. THE SPIBITaAL EXERCISES. 191 tion ; the book is enlivened by no eloquence, is deep- ened by no pathos. There is in it nothing savouring of Dante, nothing even of Bonaventura; nothing of St. Bernard, nothing of St. Basil, nothing of Thomas k Kempis: — nothing after the fashion of the modern mystics. The " Spiritual Exercises" is simply a book of drilling ; and it is almost as dry, as cold, and as formal as could be any specification of a system of military training and field manoeuvres. But is it, therefore, a book to be contemned, or to be hastily glanced at ? This will not be thought by those who know what has been its ac- tual influence within a Society like that of the Jesuits. If indeed we may believe that the world will outlive, not Jesuitism merely, but every scheme founded upon analogous principles, and if this book shall still be pre- served on the shelves of the antiquary, it will be looked into with equal amazement and perplexity. Strange will it seem that it should have been attempted, or even conceived of as possible, to bring into existence a per- manent religious condition — a condition embracing all the compass of the most intense theopathy, by the means of a drill-book of mechanical devotion — a drill- book to be got through with in so many days — in twenty-eight ! Strange that it should have been thought possible to con- nect any such mechanism as this with the heaven-bora freedom of the Christian system ; and how strange that such an attempt should, to so great an extent, have been successful ! The philosophers of a future time will per- haps attempt to unravel these perplexities by recurring to the fact, first, that the influence of Romanism, through a course of ages, had been a preparation of the human mind for yielding itself to a scheme of this very kind ; and then, that this scheme, mechanical as it is, and diametrically opposed as it is to the spirit of Christl- 192 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. anity, does nevertheless work up, and does avail itself of, some potent rudiments of the Gospel. , And how potent — how omnipotent these are, is strikingly shown in in- stances such as this, where the merest fragments> when thus incoherently brought together, still retain so much vitalising energy, and fail not to sway and to vanquish the human spirit. But we are told that this Novum Organon of piety," whatever we may think of its contrariety to human na- ture and to Christianity, has always proved itself effec- tive for its purpose — that it uniformly and infallibly yields the result intended to be accomplished by it. Take it in hand, submit yourself without reserve to the process (under a proper direction) ; and although you be a heretic — a very Luther, although a leper in moral depravity, you will come forth, at the month's end, or let it be in six weeks, orthodox in belief, and holy in heart and life. Methods of cure applied to the body may indeed fail, and they do fail, through the malignity or the inveteracy of the disease ; but this method of cure, if duly applied to the soul, fails never ! Such, in substance, is the style of those who invite a sin-stricken world, even in these days, to try the panacea of the " Spiritual Exercises ! " The class of practitioners who are wont to recommend their nostrums in this very fashion, needs not to be named. Where such boasts, however, are made, and where an "infallible cure" is thus announced, there may surely be ground for a pre- sumption that the cures so effected are factitious, or are only skin-deep ; and that neither the human con- stitution, nor the disease under which it labours, has been well understood. This is certain, that thoroughly taught and honest practitioners carefully abstain from fixciting hopes in their patients, which they well know THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. 193 might fail of being I'ealisecl, even if their skill were ten- fold what it is. This "spiritual" medicine, however, so we are told, must always be administered by a qualified hand ; and the afflicted must also enter the hospital, where alone a successful treatment can be vouched for. The prac- titioners, in this case, make no promises to "out-door patients," any more than they do to those who may think to purchase a bottle, and doctor themselves, " The life of a good retreat is a good director of it ;" so says the high authority above quoted. But the patient is not perhaps In circumstances to allow of his spending so long a time as a month in a retreat. If so, the Society adapts itself to the necessities of such persons ; "the weeks of the Exercises do not mean liecessarily a period of seven days (there are four such periods embraced by the Spiritual Exercises). The original duration of their performance was certainly a month ; but even so, more or less time was allotted to each week's w^ork, according to the discretion of the director. Now, except in very particular circumstances, the entire period is abridged to ten days ; sometimes it is still further reduced." * The good Ignatius was too conscientious to undertake the cure of a vicious soul in less than twenty-eight days ; and in diflScult cases, he asked another fortnight. But how have all velocities been accelerated in thejo times, and how marvellously have all processes in the arts been abridged ! Once a journey occupied a week, which now may be accomplished in a few hours ! Once linen could not be bleached in less than six months, now it may be made white as snow in six days ; and now, in like manner, it is authentically announced, that the cure of a soul, that is to say, its entire cleansing from all sj'ot arid stain of sin, may, in the case of those who have * Preface .nbove cited. ' O 194 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. little leisure at their command, be warranted to be effected within " ten days," or even a less space of time. Let none be incredulous — this mighty transformation may be effected, and in no slovenly manner, within the above-named period, incredibly short as it is ! "A man is presumed to enter into the course of the Spiritual Exercises in the defilement of sin, under the bondage of every passion, wedded to every worldly and selfish affection, without a method or rule of life ; and to come out from them restored to virtue, full of generous and noble thoughts, self-conquering and self-ruling, but not self-trusting, on the arduous path of the Christian life. Black and unwholesome as the muddy water that is poured into the filter, were his affections and his soul ; bright, sweet, and healthful as the stream that issues from it they come forth. He was as dross when cast into the furnace, and is pure gold when drawn from it." * A month, in the by-gone times of sluggish movement, was the time assigned to this " filter " process — '' ten days" now ; and who can say whether some unthought- of improvement in the method may not ere long reduce it to three ! To call in question the reality of sudden conversions would be a perilous presumption. Such have un- doubtedly taken place in innumerable instances. No fault, therefore, could be found, on this score, with those who, in recommending the means they employ for bringing men to repentance, affirm that these means take effect often in a manner which surprises them- selves by its suddenness, and by the thoroughness of the change, which perhaps has had its commence- ment, its crisis, and its completion within the com- pass of an hour ! Such things have been. What is excepted ag'ainst in the language of those who re- * Preface, as above. THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. 195 commend a course of the " Spiritual Exercises " is, the bold daring which engages that a certain round of de- votional performances shall uniformly, or ordinarily, and as a matter of course, if not invariably, produce con- version, even in the most inveterate cases,, and within a definite period ; — twenty-eight days for those who can afford, and who can -endure, twenty-eight days' seclu- sion in a retreat ; — ten days for those who are too busy to spare a longer time ; and less still for any who have less leisure at their command ! Every customer is thus assured of his conversion ; and he has only to say how many days he can set off from his business for under- going the process ! Such are the moral wonders — well might they, if real, be called miracles ! — which even now are warranted to be effected by a due use of the book before us! Who would not, then, look into it with an eager curi- osity? Few protestant readers, probably, have ever given themselves the trouble to bestow upon it more than a transient glance. In fact, its pages have so much the appearance of a school manual, a grammar, or the rudi- ments of a science, and there is so much of apparent repetition in them — so much of what, if it may be practised, yet cannot be perused, and so entire a want of expansion, or of continuity, that some special motive is needed to keep the reader's attention alive, while he follows page after page. Such a motive may spring from the conviction that Jesuitism is not to be understood in any other manner than by a careful examination of its authenticated documents. The " Spiritual Exercises " were composed, we are told, by Loyola, in the Spanish language — the only lan- guage which he then understood ; and it is affirmed that the author's autograph is now preserved in the library of the Vatican. At an early period, however, a Latin o 2 196 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. translation was effected for the use of the Society in all countries. Of late, there have been several recensions of that translation, in editing which a careful collation of it, word by word, with Loyola's autograph has been made, and the variations, where they were of any moment, have been inserted, either within brackets, or at the foot of the page, or at the end of the book. These variations, however, are rarely such as should claim any notice in relation to our immediate purpose. The edition here made use of is that of Turin, 1838 *; and in any instance in which the too strong rendering of a passage for the purpose of supporting an inference might be suspected, the lately published English trans- lation, to which Bishop Wiseman gives his sanction, and which he professes himself to have compared with the original, and to have carefully revised, is adhered to. The body of this book is, as we have said, divided into four portions, to each of which a week is assigned as the space of time within which the Exercises it em- braces may be gone through with ; this time, however, may be lengthened or abridged according to the capacity, the proficiency, or the convenience of the novice. In «very case in which it is possible so to do, he who wishes to pass through, or rather to be passed through, " the Spiritual Exercises," enters for this purpose a Re- treat or house of the Society, where he places himself under the carcTof a director, who is to visit him once every day, to instruct him in the course of meditation he is to pursue, to examine him as to his progress, to search his conscience, and to mark out his next day's work, accord" ihg to the proficiency he may have made. A cell, as re- * This edition is stated to he a reprint of tlie fifth, wLich was the last revised by Loyola himself; and was printed at Antwerp, 1696, It was diligently compared by the Editor (Father Ignatius Diertins) ■with the new literal version from the Spanish autograph published at Rome in 1835, hy tlie General of the Order. THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. 19"? mote as possible from all disturbance, is assigned to the use of the novice, who is to hold little or no intercourse with other inmates of the house; and none with his relatives or friends. The doors and windows of this apartment arc to be closed, except when a gleam of light is required for the purposes of reading or of taking food. It need scarcely be said, therefore, that what meets the eye in the book before us, if considered as an instru- ment iiitended to produce a given effect upon the mind, bears a very small proportion to the system of means employed in a Eetreat for securing this issue. The Directory is as nothing ; it is the Director, with his insinuations, his blandishments, his calm anatomic dis- section of the soul, his application of the mysterious stethoscope of confession ; it is the seclusion ; it is the long hours of solitude, the removal of all the refreshments of social intercourse and occupation ; it is the dim cell and the interrupted sleep ; it is all these influences together, that have rendered the " Spiritual Exercises " an effec- tive means of conversion, whether to Christian piety or to Jesuitism. Twenty preliminary admonitions first claim attention; the first of which sets forth in what light the " Exercises" should be regarded : they are called methods of dealing with ihe conscience, and of meditating and praying, " For as to walk, to travel, to run, are bodily exercises, so also to prepare and dispose the soul for removing all ill-ordered affections, and for seeking and finding the will of God, after the removal of such affections, in re- lation to a man's own course of life, and the salvation of his soul, are called Spiritual Exercises." A point necessary to be understood in ascertaining the drift of much that meets the eye in these Exercises is this, that whereas the admission of the novice into the Society (if o 3 198 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. the Society itself shall at length think him likely to serve its purposes) is kept in view from the first, the director is enjoined carefully to abstain from all allusion to such an issue of the month's discipline ; and he is most scru- pulously to repress every intimation of a wish on the part of the Society to secure such a result. An air of the most absolute indifference, on this head, is to be assumed, and is to be maintained by the director toward the novice. All that may be done is to induce such a state of mind as shall throw a probability on that side. Greatly wiU it promote the advantage which the novice is likely to derive from his course of exercise, if, with a magnanimous freedom, he offers himself — his entire purpose and will, to. his Creator, so that he, and whatever belongs to him, may, be disposed of in the manner most conducive to the divine purposes, and most in accordance with the divine good, pleasure. It is true that the novice has in most instances set foot within the Retreat with this awful issue distinctly in his view; and the director, on his part, never actually loses sight of it, even for a moment: the one constantly thinks of himself as intending this immolation of himself; the other is always leading his ■victim toward it. Meantime this reserve forbids any word to be uttered by the novice which might give vent to the feeling that is heaving his bosom ; and it operates so inuch the more powerfully in imparting an intensity of emotion to the spiritual agitations of this season of solitude. Every temptation to shorten the period of each act of meditation (one hour) is to be resisted, and care taken, for the ease of the conscience, that the stipulated time be always father exceeded than curtailed. This rule is especially to be observed in seasons of spiritual desola- tion, which the adversary never fails to take advantage of, for this very purpose. THE SPIRITUAL EXEECISES. 199 In the Instance of those whose fervour and eagerness might prompt them too early, and inconsiderately, to bind themselves by vows, or to devote themselves to the religious life, the director is to preclude, if he can, any such precipitancy, or at least he is to hold himself clear of any attempt to promote or procure an early profes- sion : — " He who gives the Exercises (the director) ought not to urge the other (the novice) to poverty and the pro- mise thereof, more than to the opposite ; nor to this, rather than to that, plan of life ; for although, apart from the practice of the Exercises (extra exercitia) it is not only lawful, but meritorious, to persuade any who, as to their personal qualities and condition, may be suit- Btble for such a profession, to embrace celibacy, the reli- gious life, and any other means of evangelic perfection ; yet is it far more convenient and better, while the Exer- cises are actually proceeding (inter exercitia) not to attempt any thing of the kind ; but rather to seek for, and to await the manifestation of the will of God ; and to stay until the Creator and Lord himself shall com- municate himself to the soul devoted to Him, and em- bracing it, shall dispose it to the love, praise, and service of himself, as He knows to be most fitting. Wherefore the director should, in this behalf, hold himself in a position evenly balanced, and without attempting to interpose, leave the Creator to deal with the creature, and the creature with the Creator in the affair." If this mode of proceeding be not marked by the purest Christian ingenuousness, if it do not savour of godly simplicity. It has the opposite merit of exhibiting a nice perception of the depths of human nature, and great skill in driving a highly-excited mind onward toward a desired result, as if by its own acts — o 4 200 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. influenced powerfully, and yet invisibly, by a foreign force. Should any motive of selfishness, or of worldly ambi- tion, seem to lurk in the novice's mind, the most earnest endeavours of the director are to be employed in eradi- cating any such unholy tendency. For the sake of its ulterior purposes, the Society rigorously excludes, or seeks to exclude, every other view or aim from the minds of its members. As often as it is discovered that the novice is of slen- der understanding and weak character — in a word, that he is one who is not likely to be serviceable to the body, he is, for saving of time and cost, to be sum- marily dealt with, and dismissed, within the compass of a week ; and by no means is to be carried forward to those exercises that relate to the choice of a religious life. As to those who have their time at their command, ,and a serious purpose in view, it is recommended that they should entirely withdraw themselves from the society of their friends and acquaintance, and should dis- miss all solicitude about mundane affairs ; — that they should betake themselves to some House of Retreat, or cell, whence they may have easy access to a chapel there to hear the naorning sacrifice of the Mass, or the office of Vespers, without interference of others. In such a solitude, the soul comes into nearer communication with its Creator, and is the better fitted to receive heavenly favours. That which is true and unquestionable, we find often in these Exercises to be intimately commingled with positions which, although perhaps susceptible of an interpretation not to be found fault with, are equally sus- ceptible of a rendering that embodies the very sophism THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. 201 whereon factitious religious institutes, in all ages, have rooted themselves. " Man," we are told, " was created for this end, that he might praise and reverence the Lord his God, and serving Him, at length be saved. But the other tilings which are placed on the earth were created for man's sake, that they might assist him in pursuing the end of his creation ; whence it follows that they are to be used or abstained from in proportion as they profit or hinder him in pursuing that end. Wherefore we ought to be indifferent toward all created things, in so far as they are subject to the liberty of our will, and not pi'ohibited, so that, to the best of our power, we seek not health more than sickness, nor prefer riches to poverty, honour to contempt, a long life to a short one. But it is fitting, out of all, to choose and desire those things only which ]ead to the end." Thus it is that, in its rudiments, Jesuitism may not seem to differ at all from the earlier ascetic systems. The principles assumed are perhaps identical, and iden- tical even in the phraseology that is employed to convey them. The vast difference, in fact, results from their application to modes of life essentially unlike. Thus, for instance, the latter clauses of the passage thus cited express that Buddhist doctrine which all the ancient ascetic schemes took up and professed; — a doctrine subversive at once of genuine morality and piety, namely, that those impulses of human nature which im- pel us to pui'sue and to secure our well-being — animal, social, and intellectual, are to be paralysed, instead of regulated. Christianity regulates human nature, and works upon the basis of its undisturbed constitution. Instead of saying that a man " should not seek health more than sickness, nor prefer riches to poverty, honour to contempt, a long life to a short one" — instead of 202 IGNATIUS LOTOLA. this, It addresses these very instincts of self-preservation, and the desire of wellbeing, and boldly says — reiterating the promises of a less spiritual dispensation — " he that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil," &c. Christianity taught those whom it found in the condition of slaves, in the first place, patiently to endure so great a misfortune; but then, and if there were the opportunity to obtain freedom — " to use it rather." Nothing can be more manifest than is the contrariety of the ascetic dogma of indif- ferentism or moral apathy, to the spirit of Christianity. But then what is to be noted is this — that whereas this sophistic principle was altogether in harmony with the anchoretic mode of life, and was in keeping with its practices, and therefore took no firm or broad hold of public morals, to deprave them, it has been far other- wise with a Society the members of which are sent forth to mingle familiarly with the world — to be as little distinguished as possible from other men in their attire and their modes of behaviour, and to diffuse themselves throughout the mass in every mode of ordinary collo- quial intercourse. We may be quite sure that an absolute indifference to present good and ill can never be maintained by more than a very few individuals among a mass of men, living abroad in the world, and coming daily into contact with the good and the ill of common life. So long, therefore, as this stoic indif- ference is the professed j^rinciple of such a body, its silent and introverted operation will be of the most unfavourable kind upon the moral sentiments; it will not fail to render the conscience obtuse, and to generate a constitutional disingenuousness, not very remote from hypocrisy. The bold attempt which Loyola has made to disjoin the foundation principle of the ascetic insti- tute from the ascetic and anchoretic mode of life, can THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. 203 have no other issue than this ; and the fact should be noted as foremost among the causes that have drawn upon Jesuitism its ill repute as characterised by a cold duplicity. Hundreds of hermits there have been whose hard struggles against human nature — whose " combats with the demon" — have attested the honesty, if they have not established the wisdom of their profession of indifference to all things that affect only the wellbeing of the present state. But can we believe that such inward conflicts are maintained — or maintained suc- cessfully, by men of ordinary mould, while passing to and fro among the enticements, the solaces, the trials, the illusions, and the realities of the open world ? Much that meets the eye in these " Spiritual Ex- ercises " cannot but seem utterly inane and nugatory. The reader, not informed of the important place which the book holds among the institutes of so noted a society, would almost instantly throw it from him, and take up in its stead, and with a feeling of comparative respect, the most frivolous sample of literary trifling. But if such a reader knows any thing of the conflicts of good and evil principles in his own bosom — if he have him- self, and in all seriousness, contended against the ill impulses of the heart, and have done so on the ground of Christian motives, it must be with a feeling kindling from contempt into indignation that he peruses such instructions as the following, and is gravely assured that, by the careful and punctilious observance of inanities such as these, a vicious condition of the soul, even the most inveterate, will be remedied— and this — within so many days ! — — The novice is enjoined to sift his conscience three times every day ; and after supper, each day, he is to notify the frequency of his delinquencies in any one respect (an easily besetting sin being specified) by so 204 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. many points made upon a line. Now, if due diligence be used in checking this one evil propensity, each day's dotted line of actual transgressions will be, by a little at least, shorter than the one above it, and so onward and downward, from day to day, until the persecuted sin has been reduced to an infinitesimal quantity; as thus — Who that had, in this manner, and within the com- pass of a few days, brought an inherent vice of his nature down from a four inches length to a point, would not try the efficacy of so sure and easy a method upon the vice that happens to stand next in order on his private list ? In this mode of treatment, " sinner " may become " saint" as surely and as quickly as a few theorems of Euclid may be demonstrated ! The diagram above presented shows a week's work in the eradication of " evil affections ; " but in the same mode a progress in virtue may be geometrically ex- pressed, as it advances from week to week, or from month to month. " Of the following figures, the first, which is longer than the rest, is assigned to the first day, say the Sunday; the second, which is a little shorter, to the Monday ; and so in succession, it being THE SPIEITUAL EXERCISES. 205 reasonable that the number of faults should decrease daily;" and so weeks successively may be treated mathematically. There are minds, it is true, upon which inanities of this sort might be imposed with as little harm, perhaps, as benefit. But what must be the effect of them upon a cultured mind that has reached maturity, and that is awake to every impulse of the moral sentiments ? If methods such as tliese, so frivolous and so illusory, be ac- tually submitted to by such a mind, there must first have taken place such a crushing of the faculties as would come little short of stupefaction ; and this in fact seems to be the intention of this course of discipline. It is easy to understand, froni the sample just now given of the methods of cure resorted to, what sort of restoration to virtue it is that is warranted to be effected in twenty-eight days, or in ten ! The prominent characteristic of these Exercises is the endeavour made from time to time, and perpetually re- peated, to connect religious meditation with sensible images exclusively ; that is to say, to pre-occupy the conceptive faculty in every case with sensuous impres- sions. The instances will be adduced, or a sufiicient sample of them, as they occur. The subjects of medi- tation being almost entirely confined to a meagre series of incidents drawn from the Gospels, great pains are taken to give a purely graphic direction to the thoughts in dwelling upon each incident. Thus, at the commence- ment, it is said : — " The first prelude is a cei'tain way of constructing the place — forming an image of the scene, for which it must be noted, that in every meditation or contem- plation about a bodily thing, as for example about Christ, We must form, according to a certain imaginary vision, a bodily place representing what we contemplate^ 206 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. as the templej or a mountain, in which we may find Christ Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, and the other things which concern the subject of our contemplation. But if the subject of meditation be an incorporeal thing, as is the consideration of sins, now oiFered, the construc- tion of the place may be such as if by imagination we see our soul in this corruptible body, or confined in a prison, and a man himself, in this vale of misery, an exile among brute animals." That is to say, care is taken that in every instance the sensuous faculty shall not only be in exercise, but shall lead the way. In concluding a meditation, well condensed in its subjects, upon sin, a sensible colloquy is to follow between the penitent and the Saviour— " imagined to be present before me, fixed on the cross." Much that would be pointed and affecting, if only it were separated from what is mechanical and earthly, might be cited from these Exercises relating to, or in- tended to produce, compunction for sin. Thus, the emotions that should be spontaneous, are ordered at the point where, in due course, they are to be forth- coming ; as, for example, — " Thej^ifA point is to break forth into exclamations, from a vehement commotion of the feelings, admiring greatly how all creatures (going 6ver them severally) have borne with me so long, and even to this time preserved me alive ; how the angels, bearing the sword of the divine justice, have patiently borne with me, guarded me, and even assisted me with their prayers ; how the saints have interceded for me ; how the sky, the sun, the moon, and the other heavenly bodies, the elements, and all kinds of animals and pro- ductions of the earth, in place of the vengeance due, have served me ; how, lastly, the earth has not opefted and swallowed me up, unbarring a thousand hells, in which I might suffer everlasting punishments." THE SPIRITUAL EXEKCISES. 207 Of those peculiarities of Romanism which are the most offensive to a well-ordered and scriptually informed mind, as little as can be supposed meets the eye in , these Exercises. Nevertheless the great distinctive "mark" of the Romish system is broadly set upon the whole ; namely, the intercessory relationship of the Virgin to mankind, which is once and again formally recognised. Each Exercise is concluded with a colloquy, or a con- versation held between the penitent, and a divine person imaged as present before the mind; as thus, — " The first colloquy is made to our lady, the mother of Christ, by asking — flagitando — her intercession with her Son, and the gaining of grace necessary to us for three things ; first, that we may feel the inward knowledge and detest- ation of our sins ; secondly, that, acknowledging and ab- horring the perverse order of our actions, we may correct it, and rightly order ourselves according to God ; thirdly, that perceiving and condemning the wickedness of the world, we may recover ourselves from worldly and vain things. These things having been finished, let Ave Maria be said once." The second colloquy is to be held with Christ the Mediator, "that He would obtain for us those same things from the Eternal Father," — and the third — going on in the same order — with God the Father." A certain stage on the road of repentance having now been reached, there follows — for the deepening of the emotions already excited — a " contemplation concerning hell;" and this is so characteristic of these spiritual exercises, that it should be cited entire. "The first prelude is here the forming the place, which is to set before the eyes of the imagination the length, breadth, and depth of hell. The second consists in asking for an intimate perception of the punishments 208 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. which the'damned undergo ; that if at any time I should be forgetful of the love of God, at least the fear of punishment may restrain me from sins. " The first point is, to see by the imagination the vast fires of hell, and the souls inclosed in certain fiery bodies, as it were in dungeons. The second is to heai; In imagination, the lamentations, the bowlings, the exclamations, and the blasphemies against Christ and his Saints, thence breaking forth. The third is to per- ceive by the smell also of the imagination, the smoke, the brimstone, and the stench of a kind of sink, or filth, and of putrefaction. The fourth is, to taste in like manner those most bitter things, as the tears, the rottenness, and the worm of conscience. The fifth, to touch in a manner those fires, by the touch of which the souls themselves are burnt." In observance of the prescribed order of going through with the Exercises, this descent into hell, occupying one hour, would be made late in the evening — the hour before suppei". No one would deny that an hour's converse with terrors, in this formal manner conducted, might have a salutary influence in certain cases ; but we can- not forget the fact, that, in proportion as any religious system has been anti-spiritual and sensuous, it has been prone to have recourse to these elaborated means of stimulating, not the imagination, but the sensorium. If this section of the Spiritual Exercises be altogether of good tendency, then it must be allowed that several noted chapters of the Koran are of still better tendency. Loyola endeavours to work upon the five senses, oi* upon the mind's power of repeating their impressions, which indeed, except as to sight and hearing, is ex- tremely limited : but Mahomet has done this in a fai' more effectual style. Yet what has been the result of such attempts? — seldom, if ever, to awaken the moral sense. THE SPIEITUAL EXEECISES. 209 The brain may be frenzied, while the soul is still dead. If the Koran must not be adduced on this ground, let cer- tain passages of the Inferno be employed in attempting to effect conversions — and let these be aided by Michael Angelo's Last Judgment. Poor tooJs for such a work ! Much might be cited, having the same purpose to stimulate the lower faculties ; in truth this endeavour is the characteristic of the book throughout. It is in accord- ance with this intention that frequent directions are given, better befitting the lips of a posture master, than those of a religious teacher. The penitent is directed to set about the allotted contemplation — now kneeling on the ground, and lying on his face, or on his back ; now sitting or standing ; and composing himself in the way in which he may hope the more easily to attain what he desires. Further to ensure success, he Is " to deprive himself of all the brightness of the light ; shutting the doors and windows so long as he remains there (in his cell) except while he has to read or take his food." The effects of meditation are to be enhanced by penance, in three kinds ; first, by diminishing the amount of aliment — the more one withdraws (of food) the better one does ; avoiding, however, the injury of one's constitution, or (inducing) any serious weakness or infirmity. — Secondly, by shortening the time of sleep, always keeping in mind the same caution, and lastly by infliction of pain upon the flesh itself — as by the wearing of haircloth, ropes, or iron bars, the application of strokes or blows, 'or the use of other austerities. In all which things, however, it seems more expedient that the sense of pain should be in the flesh alone, and not penetrate the bones, with the danger of injury to the health. Wherefore we should use in preference whips made of small cords, which hurt the outward parts, and not those within so as to injure p 210 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. the health." The uses of penance, we are told, are three- fold : — "first, it makes some satisfaction for past sins ; secondly, it aids a man in bringing his inferior nature, his sensuality, into subjection to reason ; and thirdly, it is a means of obtaining some gift or grace which we desire." As to these Exercises of the first week, we are assured that by the means of them " Sin is abandoned, hated, loathed." At the conclusion of the painful task the soul finds itself prostrate, and full of anxieties. The past is remedied ; but what is to be done for the future ? " It is the Exercises of the second week that are to bring things forward to their next stage." It might be a point for literary discussion to determine whether the palm of quaint ingenuity should be awarded to the avithor of the Spiritual Exercises, or to the Bedford dreamer. The " Holy War," to say nothing of the " Pilgrim's Progress," is undoubtedly more pic- turesque, and far more affecting too, than are those meagre descriptions of the " Two Potentates," which are the principal objects presented in the second weeks' Exercises. The person exercised is directed to form in his mind " an imaginary vision, as if the whole circuit of the earth, inhabited by so many different nations, lay open before his eyes. Then, in one particular part of the world, let the cottage of the Blessed Virgin, situated at Nazareth, in the province of Galilee, be beheld. He is to view in idea the human beings living on the face of the earth ; so different in manners, gestures, and actions ; some white, and others black ; some enjoying peace, and the rest disturbed by wars ; this one weep- ing, and that one laughing ; one Veil, another ill ; — many being born, and many, on the other hand, dying ; with other varieties, almost innumerable. Next must THE jSPIKITUAL EXERCISES. 211 be contemplated the three Divine Persons, from their royal throne, looking upon all the races of men, living as blind on the surface of the earth, and descending to hell. Afterwards, we shall consider the Virgin Mary, with the angel saluting her ; always applying something thence to ourselves, that from such considerations we may derive some fruit. " The second point," that is to say the second part of this sensuous process, " is to perceive by the inward hearing what all the persons are saying, as what the men are saying, who on earth are conversing together, blaspheming, reviling each other; what the Divine Persons are saying, who in heaven are speaking to each other concerning the redemption of the human race : what the Virgin and the angel are saying, who in i\ little cell are conversing on the Mysteries of the Incar- nation. By reflecting on all which things," &c. The third point in order will be -' to consider at the same time the actions also of the persons ; as, for in- stance, how mortal men are treating one another, and all rushing to hell ; how the most Holy Trinity is per- forming the work of the incarnation; how also the angel is executing his commission, and the Blessed Virgin, bearing herself most humbly, is giving thanks to the Divine Majesty. From which things, &c." Then follows the colloquy, in which the novice " searches out words, with which he may worthily ad-r dress each Divine Person, the word Incarnate, and his Mother also." This entire apparatus of what might not unaptly be called Pictorial Piety, indicates with sufficient clearness one of the sources whence probably it was derivQ(J — namely, those quaint mosaics with which the pavements of churches were frequently decorated, as well as the painted windows and the altar pieces, of which samples P 2 212 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. are still extant, especially in the Italian churclies. Ano- ther probable source of these images will presently be mentioned. Loyola's stock of biblical knowledge, at the time when the " Spiritual Exercises" were com- posed, embraced, as it seems, very little beyond that which he had gathered from such visible sources. The extreme meagreness of his allusions to the Scriptures at large, and the narrowness of that line of incident which appears to have been familiar to his memory, renders it almost certain that the Picture-Gospel, drawn forth upon church walls, or in illuminated books, was all the gospel he had then learned. His was far from being a creative or poetic imagination ; it was a servile faculty, forging itself forward by mechanical helps, from point to point, of a narrative. It might be nothing more than some series of decorations, resembling the Dutch tiles of a later time, that suggested such laboured descriptions as the following. The novice is to fancy the Virgin, " sitting on a she- ass (as one may piously meditate) ; she and Joseph, with a poor maid servant, and an ox, set out for Bethlehem, that they might pay the tribute laid upon them by Caesar." Then he must form his idea of the journey, as to its " length, obliquity, smoothness, or roughness presenting itself from place to place. Then also we shall examine the place of the nativity, like to a cavern ; whether broad or narrow, lying flat, or rising up, conve- niently or inconveniently prepared." Is it a conjecture too bold, that one of the two or three religious books put into the hands of Loyola, when he asked for romances, to divert his sufferings, and one of which, we are told, was " a Life of Christ," might be an illuminated summary of the gospels, the pictures of which fixed themselves indelibly in his fancy, and in fact became the germinating rudiment of these very THE SPIRITUAL EXEECISES. 213 Exercises? They were composed, we are assured, almost immediately after liis conversion ; and what is the staple of them, but precisely such as the rude cuts or paintings of such a picture-gospel would furnish to a susceptible but untutored mind ? In fact it is not easy to dismiss the idea of the evangelic decorations, so copiously fur- nished to the Christian world at that time, while we peruse these methods of meditation. Each of these scenes is to be gone over, again and again, until the sentiment which it ought to excite has actually been felt, and the repetition is to be made a fourth, a fifth time, or oftener. The sensuous faculty is, in a manner, to be worked to and fro — and to be turned this way and that, among these objects, until they have incorporated themselves among the elements of the soul. " The first point is (as before) to see in imagination all 'the persons — the second, to hear what they are saying, or what it may be natural for them to say ; the third, to perceive, by a certain inward taste and smell, how great is the sweetness, delightful- nefts of the soul imbued with the divine gifts and virtues, according to the nature of the person we are considering .... The fourth, by an inward touch to handle and kiss the garments, places, foot-steps, and other things connected with such persons." This first process concerning the Incarnation, is to be performed " at midnight ; the next at dawn ; the third about the hour of mass; the fourth about the time of vespers ; the fifth a little before supper ; and on each of them will be spent the space of one hour." A diminished task is to be indulged to the aged and infirm, or to those whose fervour of mind too much exhausts the animal strength. Care, however, is to be taken that whatever in the Exercises is curtailed, there should always be before supper " an exercise of the five senses p 3 214 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. of the imagination," on the subject fippointed for the day. On the observance of this rule the efficacy of these spiritual exercises is said to hinge. To each day's task there is added so many repetitions, together with " the application of the senses." The occupation of the fourth day of this second week' is sufficiently characteristic of the Jesuit scheme, as to its method of initiation. It has already been mentioned that although the director of novices is carefully to avoid every allusion to the supposed case of admission into the Society, and is so to bear himself toward his pupil as if it had no wish whatever that such should be the issue of his months' preparation, yet (as will appear incontestibly from what follows) this result is the real intention of the Exercises, throughout which may be discerned the track of an astute and well con- cealed procedure, tending onwards regularly towards the one end contemplated from the first. The moment having arrived at which the novice should endeavour to learn what is the mind of the Lord, and should " search out and intreat that peculiar kind of life in which he prefers us to serve his own majesty," a grand preparation is made with this purpose in view, for inducing the desired election by working upon the sensuous faculty with the aid of images more exciting than those heretofore presented to it. "While these images are described, no one who has amused an hour in examining the uncouth emblematic wood-cuts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, can resist the belief that Lojola's own conversion had been mainly effected by such means as these; that is to say, that, while languishing upon his couch he had beguiled the hours of pain by the help of the sacred pictures of some decorated Life of Christ. On the fourth day of the second week, the person exercised is to entertain hlin^ THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. 215 self with "a certain historical consideration of Christ on the one part, and Lucifer on the other, each of whom is calling all men to him, to be gathered to- gether under his standard. Then, for the "construction of the place," there is to be " represented to us a most extensive plain around Jerusalem, in which our Lord Jesus Christ stands as the chief general of all good people. Again, another plain in the country of Ba- bylon, where Lucifer presents himself as the captain of the wicked and God's enemies." The novice is then instructed " to imagine before his eyes, in the Baby- lonian plain, the captain of the wicked, sitting in a chair of fire and smoke, horrible in figure, and terrible in countenance ;" — then it is to be imagined how this prince of evil, " having assembled a countless number of demons, disperses them through the whole world in- order to do mischief: no cities or places, no kinds of persons being left free." Then it is to be considered " what kind of address he makes to his servants, whom he stirs up to seize, and secure in snares and chains, and so draw men (as commonly happens) to the desire of riches, whence afterwards they may the more easily be forced down into the ambition of worldly honour, and thence into the abyss of pride." In like manner, " on the opposite side, must be Considered our most exalted and excellent leader and commander, Christ ;" who is seen " in a pleasant plain by Jerusalem ; placed indeed in lowly state, but very beautiful in form, and in appearance supremely worthy of love. He, the Lord of tlie whole world, sends his chosen apostles, disciples, and other ministers through the world, to impart to every race, state, and condition' of man His sacred and saving doctrine;" — then it follows, " to hear the exliortatory speech of Christ to all his servants and friends, destined to such a work, p 4 216 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. wherein He bids them study to help all, and first to take care to lead them to the spiritual affection of poverty ; and moreover (if the course of duty to God and the choice of heaven leads that way) to real and actual poverty; then to draw them to the desire of reproach and contempt, from which springs the virtue of humility." A colloquy is afterwards to be made by the novice to the Blessed Virgin, and " grace is to be implored through her from her Son, that I may be received and remain under his standard ; and that first by poverty, either that which is only spiritual, or further that Avhich consists in the loss of one's goods" (i. e. the abdication of his pro- perty) " if indeed he shall vouchsafe to call and admit me thereto — then by contempt or ignominy also I may imitate Him the more closely," &c. " This exercise will be gone through once in the middle of the night, and again just before dawn." /' We are now nearing the critical point, and that in relation to which the most solicitude is shown. On his admission into the Society the professed person must rid himself, in the most absolute manner, of all property, of all his personal rights and possessions: henceforward he is individually to own nothing. But for the purpose of gra- dually leading the veiled novice to such a determination, he is first to imagine three classes of men, each of whom has acquired ten thousand ducats, with some other aim than that of the service and love of God ; but who now desires to pacify God and to be saved, getting rid, some how or other, of the hurtful love of property, as being a " hindrance to salvation." Then there is to be imagined a. " certain place, in which I may see mj'self standing with perseverance before God and all the Saints, with the desire of knowing how I may best please God himself." THE SPIEIT0AL EXEECISES. 217 Men of the first sort, although they desire to be rid of the love of property, use no effective means for that purpose. Those of the second sort go a step further ; but still hold fast the property, and try rather to draw God to their own wish, than forsake this hindrance. But those of the third class have brought themselves to a state of Indifference, being willing either to part with, or to retain the property, whichever they shall perceive, either by the divine motions, or by the dictates of reason, to be more conducive to the service of God : and in the meantime to bear themselves as they who have left all in affection : striving, that is to say, " to desire neither this nor anything else, except so far as the service of God may move them so as not to admit any other course of leaving or retaining the property acquired, except the consideration and desire of serving our Lord God better." To induce this state of indifference is manifestly a great point in the Jesuit system throughout. We do not wish you to make a choice; we deprecate your doing so. All we ask is, that you should bring yourself to a condition of indifference on the question, and so abide until you shall feel yourself swayed by the divine will. A step further on toward the " Election " is made at "^ the close of the second week, by propounding what are termed " Three modes of Humility." The first is that which is necessary for salvation, and which demands such a state of submission to the known will of God as that no inducement, not, even the dominion of the Avhole world, or the utmost danger of life, should avail to lead to a deliberate transgression of any law which binds under the penalty of mortal sin. The second degree of humility, and which belongs to a greater perfection, consists in that state of absolute indifference in which 218 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. the mind is equally inclined toward riches and poverty, honour and ignominy, shortness and length of life : and this state of indifference is such that no motive, drawn from either side, would be a sufficient inducement to com- mit even a venial sin. The thjrd mode, belonging to the most perfect humility, the first and second having already been obtained — 'supposes that, even if a regard to the glory of God did not determine this way or ikat, yet, "for the sake of the greater imitation of Christ, I choose rather with him, who was poor, despised, and mocked, to embrace poverty, contempt, and the repu- tation of folly, than wealth, honours, and the estimation of wisdom." The spirit of a tortuous casuistry pervades the pre- liminary instructions which are to induce the intended " election ; " and these instructions we may perhaps attribute to the hand of Loyola, and assign ihem also to a later date than that of the first composition of the book. The materials of meditation for the third week are drawn from the incidents of the Passion ; and in follow- ing these incidents, the same care as before is taken to engage the sensuous faculty by fixing upon the mind an image of the way, " as rough or smooth, short or long," and of the place of the supper, " as wide or narrow, plain or adorned and the like, the way descending firsts and of steep ascent ; also the garden, which must be imagined of a certain size, shape and nature." In accor- dance with this picture-practice of devotion, is that dry speciality of the directions, how to secure the desired state of mind in different cases : could rules such as the following be observed by any but those whose minds are already broken down by servility and formality ? - If any one wishes to spend a longer time in medi- tating on the Passion of Christ, he ought to complete THE SPIRITUAL EXEECISES. 219 each contemplation with fewer mysteries ; so as in the first to include only the Supper Then the " whole Passion" having been gone over in one day, " on the following day he may go over half of it again, on the third day the rest.". . . . On the other hand, " if any one prefers to shorten the time, let him contemplate con- cerning our Lord's Supper in the night ; concerning the garden at daybi'cak," and so forth In detail. During this week, particular attention is to be given to diet. Bread is a less dangerous aliment than any other: drink should be restricted carefully : cooked meats and delicacies are to be very moderately allowed ; and, in a word, so long as the health is not injured by too much abstinence, the more abstinence the better; all the while the person exercised may expect some rays of inward knowledge, and consolatory movements sent within him from heaven, by means of which he will easily be able to distinguish the plan of food which Is the more advantageous for him. All eagerness of appetite, or haste in taking food is to be avoided, and while eating we should " imagine that we see the Lord Jesus Christ taking food with his disciples, observing the plan he follows of eating, of drinking, of looking, and of speaking; and proposing him for our Imita- tion." The fourth week takes up the evangelic narrative at ^ the moment of the resurrection, and this closing week is to be a season of refreshment and exhilaration ; there- fore the novice may now throw open his shutters, and " make use of the advantage of light and sky which shall offer itself; as, in the time of spring and summer the sight of the green herbs and flowers, and on the agree- ableness of a sunny place ; in the winter, the welcome heat of the sun, or of a fire, and so concerning the other suitable satisfactions of the body and mind, by 220 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. which I may be able to rejoice together with my Creator and Redeemer." Amid this indulged comforting of the body and mind, the critical business of the " election " is silently pushed forward; and what occurs here, if no sinister intention were apparent, would call for approval. Xet who can forget that the issue thus circuitously aimed at is the palpable affair of the no-vice's abdication of his property ? he is taught thus to profess his willingness so to do: "Receive, O Lord, my whole liberty: accept my memory, understanding, and whole will, whatsoever I have or possess. Thou hast given me : this all I restore to thee, and to thy will, altogether deliver up to be governed. Give me only the love of Thee, with Thy grace, and I am rich enough, and desire nothing else beyond." This fourth week is closed by directions for prac- tising " Three methods of Prayer." A sample, taking the last or most perfect, sufficiently exhibits the quality of this scheme of spiritual exercise. " This third method of praying consists in this, that between the several times of drawing breath I pro- nounce the several words of the Lord's, or some other prayer, considering in the meantime either the signi- fication of the word uttered, or the dignity of the person to whom the prayer is directed, or my own vileness, or lastly the difference between the two. In the same way the other words must be proceeded with. One must add also the prayers above mentioned, Ave, Credo, &o. Two rules apply to this matter : the first that having finished the Lord's Prayer, according fo this method of praying, on other days or hours, we take the Angelic Salutation, to be gone through, with a similar interval of respirations, together with the other prayers to be said in the usual way. The second rule THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. 221 id, that he Avho wishes to exercise this method of praying for a longer time, apply to it all the aforesaid prayers, or parts of them, and observe similar interstices of breathings and words." Such are the " Spiritual Exercises " of the Jesuit Society ! There then follows what are called " The Mysteries of the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ," and which consist of a recitation, in brief, of the incidents of the gospel narrative, with very little of annotation, and nothing that seems to deserve citation. The Exercises of the " Four weeks " comprise — so we must think — all that belonged to Loyola's original book ; in fact thus far it is a digest of his own course of feeling in passing over that narrow ground through which the Picture Life of Christ had led him. So meagre is the stock of scriptural materials worked up in these Exercises, so strictly are the allusions confined to the graphic incidents of the gospel narrative, and so utter is, or seems to be, the author's ignorance of every thing in the New Testament, which stands beyond this strait pathway, that we may reasonably doubt whether he had, at the time of the composition of the Spiritual Exercises, ever read, or perhaps ever seen a Bible. In a book intended to serve as an elaborate course of disci- pline in piety, it can scarcely be imagined that a writer — if himself perfectly conversant with the pages of the Evangelists, with the Acts, and with the apostolic epistles — should, for purposes of excitement and instruc- tion, have availed himself of absolutely nothing beyond what he might find depicted upon a painted window, or upon the margin of an illuminated missal ! Might not some good use have been made in these Spiritual Exer- cises of Christ's discourses — of his discourse with his disciples, as reported by St. John ? Or could nothing be 222 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. found profitable " for correction, for reproof, for Instruc- tion in righteousness " in the Epistles, either of Paul, Peter, James, or John? If Loyola had actually read the Epistles, or indeed if he had read the Gospels, it is marvellous that he should compose an elaborate practical directory — a manual of conversion, such as this — in a manner so utterly abstinent of all scriptural citation or allusion ! The only supposition that seems admissible, and entirely consistent with the fiicts, is the one already hazarded — namely, that Loyola's Christianity, at the time of his conversion, and until he had visited Paris, had been drawn from no sources more copious than the Texts, put at the bottom or around the margin of the decorations of that Life of Christ with which he had solaced his hours of pain, while confined in the paternal castle. But we have at length worked our way through this picture-book Gospel ; and what next occurs is of a less puerile character. In fact it displays the experience of riper years, in the treatment of souls; and whether attributable to Loyola, or to his colleagues, it is of another stamp. In this supplementary part divers rules, applicable to the discrimination of spiritual symptoms, are propounded, as indicating what is genuine and what is spurious in piety. Among these rules this is one — never to deli- berate upon the choice we may have made, or are about to make, during the season of spiritual desolation or lifelessness ; but only in hours of consolation and joy. In hours of spiritual distress, the soul is " urged on by the evil spirit, by whose instigation nothing right Is ever efifected." Seasons of desolation are appointed to us, as for other reasons, so for this — that we may be made intimately to feel " that it is not of our own strength to acquire or retain the fervour of devotion, the vehemence THE SPlIlITUAt, EXEECISES. 223 of love, the abundance of tears, or any other inward consolation ; but that all these things are the gratuitous gifts of Godj which, if we challenge them to ourselves as our own, we shall incur the charge of pride and vain glory, not without seriously endangering our salvation," It has already been affirmed that Jesuitism, not- withstanding its vehement professions of subservient obedience to the Vicar of Christ, hangs loose upon Komanism. The Romish Church has well understood this precarious submissiveness, and has shown her mis- trust of her obsequious minister ; and the Society has, once and again, adhered to its own course, with an almost open contumacy of resistance. Loyola was gifted with a far-stretching intellectual sight ; — or with what was equally available for his guidance — a perfect intuition of the qualities of things as related, whether essentially or circumstantially, to the permanence of his own scheme. That he felt as a principle, if he did not foresee as a fact, the intrinsic independence of the Society, may be ga- thered from indications which, if they are not the most palpable, are yet not altogether recondite or imaginary. As much as this may be inferred from the tone and style of certain rules which he propounds, " to the end that we may truly feel or think with the Orthodox Church." Throvighout these rules there is apparent aa air of concession made, from motives of prudence or courtesy, to the claims of a?i independent power. The rules are conditions of peace, or terms of friendship and co-operation, ratified and understood between neighbours ing states. The first of these rules enjoins that, putting out of the way all judgment of one's own, our minds should always be prepared and held ready to obey the " true spouse of Christ, and our Holy Mother, which is the Orthodox^ Catholic, and Hierarchical Church." 224 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. There is a diflSculty in selecting English phrases which may correctly convey the whole import of the Latin phrases — and nothing more — laudare convenit, laudare plurimum. In the recent English translation of the Spiritual Exercises, these two words are tamely translated, " it is proper to commend," " it is a fit thing to extol ;" that is to say, the members of the Society, after having relinquished all individual exercise of the reasoning faculty in relation to things already deter- mined by the Church, should hold themselves ready, as often as an occasion may arise, to speak in commendatory terras of such and such principles and practices ; — not indeed as if they themselves, on any grounds of personal conviction, approved these things ; for they might do so, or the contrary ; but they had entered into a compact which bound them so to receive, to commend, and to extol, whatever the Church receives, and whatever it enjoins. That this is the true value of the " convenit laudare " can scarcely be doubted, when we find, as jjre- sently, to what a length of intellectual submissiveness these rules are carried. It is, then, declared to be " a fit thing " to extol or commend, — " the customary confession of sins made to the priest, and the receiving the Eucharist, at the least once every year ; better every week : — the frequent hearing of Mass — the recitation of church hymns — long prayers in churches, or outside them — and the observance of the canonical hours : — it is fitting to extol highly — laudare plurimum — the state of the reli- gious, and to prefer virginity or celibacy to marriage. To approve the vows made by the religious orders for the observance of chastity, poverty, and perpetual obe- dience, along with other works of perfection and supe- rerogation. It is fitting to praise relics, the veneration and invocation of the saints; likewise the stations. THE SriEITUAL EXERCISES. 225 pious pilgrimages, indulgences, jubilees, the candles used to be lighted in churches, and other similar helps to our piety and devotion. It is fitting to extol the use of abstinences and fasts, as those of Lent, &c., and all those voluntary afflictions called penances, as -well the external as the internal. Moreover, to praise the con- struction of churches, and their ornaments ; also images, as most rightfully demanding to be venerated on behalf of what they represent. To uphold or sustain all the prece})ts of the Church, nor to impugn them in any manner ; but, on the contrary, to be ready to defend them by reasons drawn from all sources against those who do impugn them. It is fitting to approve zealously the decrees, traditions, rites, and manners (lives) of the Fathers, as well as superiors. And, although there be not found everywhere that pureness of manners which ought to be ; yet is it of ill consequence, either in public preaching or in converse with the people, to inveigh against them, inasmucli as the doing so breeds damage and scandals, rather than leads to amendment or any utility ; and so that nothing ensues but exasperation of the people against princes and pastors, and a blaming of tliem. Such invectives are therefore to be repressed. Nevertheless, while it is of mischievous tendency so to call rulers in question before the people, and in their absence, yet is it well privately to admonish those who, if willing, are able to apply a remedy to the evil. It is fitting to put the highest value upon the sacred doctrine, as well that which is termed the positive as the scholastic ; for as it was the aim of the ancient holy doctors, such as Jerome, Augustine, Gregory, and others, to stir up men's minds to the love and worship of God, so Is It the peculiar office of the blessed Thomas, of Bonaventura, of the master of the sentences, and of other more recent theologians, to lay down and define Q 226 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. more exactly the dogmas necessary to salvation in a manner suited to their own times and to ours, and pro- iper for the refutation of heresies : these later doctors not only being endued with Itnowledge of Holy Scrip- ture, but being aided by the writings of the ancient authors, as well as by the influx of the divine light, and availing themselves also of the decrees of councils, and various constitutions of Holy Church, much to our advantage. It is a practice to be blamed and avoided that of instituting comparisons between living persons, even of the highest merit, and the saints and the blessed ; as to say of such a one that he is more learned than Augustine, that he is another St. Francis, that he is a match for Paul in sanctity, or the like." The thirteenth of these rules should have taken the place of the first, or of the second. Inasmuch as it deter- mines in the clearest manner the value and meaning of all the rest : — let it then be listened to : " In order that we may be altogether in conformity with the Catholic Church, and of the same mind, we should hold ourselves ready, if in any instance she has pronounced that to be black, which to our eyes appears white, to declare that it is so. For it is undoubtedly to be believed that the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the spirit of the Orthodox Church, his spouse, is the same, and by which spirit we are governed and guided to salvation. Nor can we question that it is the same God who, of old, gave forth the precepts of the Decalogue, who at this present time instructs and governs the hierarchical church." When mute submission is professed to the decisions of the Church on points of doctrine, nothing more is tendered than the surrender or abeyance of the opinion of an individual, to what is regarded as an authority more valid or trustworthy than can be any individual THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. 227 judgment. But something altogether different must be intended when the individual pledges himself to declare, against the unchanged and unchangeable evidence of his senses, that white is black. There is much meaning in the promise so to pronounce white to be black ; but a profession of readiness to believe it would be devoid — we should not say of sincerity or honesty, but — of all intelligible import. No sense whatever could be as- signed to the words in which such a promise might be conveyed. Here, then, we find what is the value of the Jesuit profession of accordance with the Komish Church : it is an engagement in all cases to affirm, after the Church ; — as to personal convictions they are not pledged or implied. The remaining rules, the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th, seem to have been subjoined at a later time, and when it had been found necessary to define the course which the Society, in discharging its public functions, should observe so as to steer clear of Inconveniences and blame in relation to the agitated questions of predestination, free will, faith, efficacious grace, and the pure love of God. It was the policy of the Society to hold itself always to a path where it should be as little as possible committed to any specific mode of teaching which the Church might perhaps," at some future time, explicitly condemn. The Spiritual Exercises, we have said, should not be thought of as a book, but as a method. If it were regarded as a literary work, scarcely could it pretend to merits of any kind : as to the mass of it, it is mindless, vapid, jejune, frivolous. But, as a method, it has proved itself to be of great efficiency for the end it has in view. This end, however, we must not allow to be identical 228 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. with a genuine renovation of the mind and affections, oi" a turning of the soul from vice to virtue, either in a scriptural or in a philosophical sense : — it cannot be so allowed, and for reasons precisely analogous to those which impel us to resent the pretensions of the quack, who engages, for a stipulated fee, and in such a time, to cure any and every disease, how inveterate or malignant soever, by means of a certain number of his boxes or phials. The Jesuit Society has manifestly outstepped the limits of discretion on this ground. Certainly these are not the times when it will be easily granted that the inmates of a penitentiary, promiscuously taken, will infallibly be restored, not merely to outward good be- haviour, but to inward moral health, and be filled with all heaVenly graces, by a twenty-eight days' course of meditation in a dark chamber ! Nov can it be reasonably demanded of us to grant that these Exercises, even in those cases in which the novice is the most favourably disposed toward whatever is holy, can be serviceable, considered as an initiation in Christian principles. This cannot be pretended, for, as to the broad surface of Christian doctrine — in whatever way the text of the New Testament may be interpreted — this book takes no account of it whatever. The author seems not to be cognisant of more than two or three articles of Christian belief. The novice is led or driven along a path that has been fenced high on either hand: he is permitted to see nothing of the country across which this blind passage is winding its course. So much of Christianity as may be gleaned or picked up from the Isolated verses that may have been put under a series of evangelic pictures, is the extent of what may be learned from the '•' Exercises of the four weeks ! " It cannot easily be believed that Loyola, at the time when the Exercises were composed, had THE SPIRITUAL EXRECISES. 229 himself advanced a step beyond these rudhnents of the Gospel history. Nevertheless the Spiritual Exercises have been exten- sively efficient as a method of religious discipline. The ir.onth's work in the cell, together with the daily visits and instructions of the director, have had their effect ; and in truth, if among those whose trembling foot touches the threshold of a retreat, there have been some (there may have been many such) whose minds were already quickened by pungent religious motives, whose consciences were in a sensitive condition, and whose intentions were sincere — then indeed this method, or almost any other in its stead, could not but take its effect, and would set the mind and dispositions in some form of fervid devotion. But the effect of such a course of discipline, or of any other, will bear proportion, in a direct ratio, to the magnitude of the foreseen result; or to the import of some ulterior consequence. Among those who in a course of time have submitted themselves to this ti'ain- ing, the larger number, and certainly tlie larger pro- portion of those upon whom it has produced any lasting effect, have entered upon it with no indistinct fore- thought of what would be — of what they wished to be — the next procedure, namely, their entrance upon the pro- bationary course of a noviciate ; and then, in due order, their taking the vows, their abjui'ation of every thing- earthly, and the commencement of a course of life awful in the view of those who are regarding it in perspective, and from a distance. The Spiritual Exercises open this path to the conscious victim; and they take hold of a spirit already awe-stricken and tormented with that indecision which precedes an act Avhicli is far more ter- rible than would be a suicide. o 3 230 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Does candour compel us to believe that those who enter a Jesuit house of retreat do not even dream of any such issue as this; or that the studied reserve of the director does really avail to preclude the entrance of any such supposition? It is not without amaze- ment that one finds instructions in the Directorium, which, except in one instance in a thousand, must be an utter mockery — and which, on the part of the director, must imply a shameless imposition. The super- intendents of Jesuit colleges and the rectors of houses are reminded that, while it is a signal work of charity to induce as many souls as possible to undergo this sanitive process, yet that much caution and discretion are needed in so conducting themselves toward any who may incline to make trial of it, as not to engender the remotest suspicion that anything is thought of beyond the immediate refreshment or renovation of the mind. No solicitude, no importunity is to be indicated on the part of the director, and with special care is he to look to it that no ground of surmise be afforded, as if " we wished to draw the person toward the religious state." Fit occasions should be waited for, sudden opportunities are to be embraced, and those occasions are to be seized upon when' the novice is perceived to be labouring with uneasy reflections upon his own spiritual condition, or when he is depressed by worldly anxieties, and by the ill-success of his secular employments. The director is to mention known instances of the happy effect of a month's discipline ; but in the choice of such examples he\is carefully to abstain from any allusion to those who, in consequence of this training, have entered the Society, or taken the vows of some other religious order. Those rather are to be named who have returned to a se- cular course of life, yet benefited by the discipline; other- wise it is more than probable that the party we have in THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. 231 view may take the .alarm, and draw off from the Exer- cises. These indications of an astute and tortuous, not to say wily discretion, meet the eye at the outset, and are apparent at every turn in the early history of the Society. The most impartial eye involuntarily notices this species of circuitous management as the constant characteristic of the Jesuit Institute. The Directorium, even if inter- preted in the most candid manner, and with a philosc^ phic readiness to allow to every institute the largest licence which its own principles seem to challenge for it, cannot be regarded in any other light than as the germi- nating rudiment of all those ambiguous practices which, in later times, have heaped opprobrium upon the Society. This manual of spiritual discipline enjoins the func- tionaries who are to superintend the process, when they have secured their victim (must we not use the phrase?) to seclude him from all intercourse with his relatives — to interdict all correspondence, and to cut him off from every earthly tie. He is then told to throw himself^rsf upon the divine bounty, without reserve, willing to obey whatever may in the end appear to be the will of God as to his future course of life, and next, to put himself into the hands of his director, as the interpreter of heaven toward him — opening his bosom to the in- spection of so skilful an eye, and attempting to conceal nothing from so kind and wise a friend. Most strictly is he to obey the instructions of his director, not allow- ing even a thought to wander from off that path of me- ditation which is traced out for every hour of each day^ To relieve a little the monotony of these exercises, a little reading may be permitted ; but it is to be such only as the director shall appoint. No other books are to enter the cell than the Breviary and Office of the Q 4 232 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Virgin, If the person be a priest ; orjiemay be indulged with a portion of Gerson, a passage from the Gospels, or some select passages from the Lives of the Saints.. As to the Gospels, nothing is to be read at any time be- yond the passage in the " Mysteries of the Life of Christ," appointed for the day and hour. To these may be added, if needful, a passage from Dionysius the Car- thusian, or from the Confessions of Augustine. A similar restraint is to be submitted to as to anything written. The novice, confined to his cell, is to see only his director, and one attendant, who ministers to hia wants daily, but who is forbidden to hold conversation with him on any subject not relating to his food or personal comfort. This attendant is carefully to report to the director whatever occurs in these interviews. In certain instances, and Avhere it seems desirable to invite the person exercised to a more free opening of his mind, some discreet friend may be invited to visit him. An exact knowledge of human nature, together with a nice perception of what is fitting to persons of every class, shows itself throughout these instructions. All this knowledge of the heart, all this perception of the ocult peculiarities of individual temperament, and all this practical wisdom are brought to beat upon that which is confessedly the main end and intention of this system of discipline — namely, the inducing those whom the superiors may think fit to invite into the bosom of the Society to surrender themselves — their earthly well- being, their conscience, their intelligence, their faith and hope — to its care, keeping, and service. The Direc- torlum exhibits the most intense anxiety In digesting and expressing the instructions which bear upon this one object. It is not indiscriminately that such a proposal as that of entering the Society should be made : In fact It is to THE SPIRITUAL EXEKCISES. 233 those only whose personal fitness includes qualities and conditions of no ordinary sort. Of course no such invi-' tatlon is to be given to any who are bound to a course of life by ties which cannot properly be broken; as those of matrimony, or rank, or office ; nor to any who are already joined to some religious order. Nor to any is this election to be pi'opounded in whose temperament there appears to be any levity, or inconstancy, or whose propensities are ungovernable, or their disposition malign, or who are of an incorrigible mould ; unless indeed, in any such instances, the contrary indications of grace are of an extraordinary kind. There must be manifested also a cordial desire in the party toward that course of life which the Society propounds to him. Never must any one who is reluctant be driven forward into it. There are difficulties enough to contend with, even where the affections are the most fervently set upon this course: how much more when a hearty will is wanting in the individual! Unless the novice has reached that third mode of humility which consists in an absolute indifference towards things earthly, and a desire of nothing but that which God wills, there is little room to look for a favourable issue. That the issue should be favourable, in a large proper* tion of instances when thus carefully selected, is natural, and quite easy to be believed. As to the result of a month's seclusion and discipline, under the hand of a director, in the case of secular persons, who have no thought of entering the Society, it is probably very nearly analogous to that produced upon the general health by a month's release from business at the sea side. Men wishing and intending to refresh their religious feelings, betake themselves to one of these much reputed spiritual hospitals : they give themselves up, heartily, to the far-famed process, they submissively 234 IGNATIUS LOYOLA, invite tWb physician of souls to do his best for them— - and they come forth pretty well satisfied with the result. It would be a matter of curious inquiry to learn what proportion of persons it is who are found willing to submit themselves to the Spiritual Exercises a second time, and a third. But the meaning and value of this scheme of religious training is to be estimated on another principle, if we are thinking of those who, in bending their steps toward a house of the Society, do so with the avowed or with the concealed purpose of consecrating themselves to its service. This intention, even though it amount to scarcely more than a latent and slumbering wish — a wish from which the mind recoils, if at any time it presents itself distinctly — operates to enhance a hundred fold the force of all those powers of working upon the imagination and the feelings which the Exercises may call into play. It is the Jesuit scheme of life, with its infinite and undefined ambition, and its tremendous conditions, which make the Spiritual Exercises what they are found to be as an effective religious discipline. These eight and twenty days' meditations might have been thrown into any one of a hundred imaginable forms, each of which would have been nearly equal to any other in efficiency — supposing only that the conditions were the same. What we have before us is a method of producing intensity, which is rendered such by Aforethought of its issue. In protestant communities we see around us little or nothing of the deepest emotions, except in rare and individual instances ; and this deficiency of emotion is easily accounted for, inasmuch as protestant institu^ tions do not include, nor do they allow, those soul- stirring immolations, the contemplation and practice of which generates intensity, and foments it, and gathers THE SPIEITTJAL EXERCISES. 235 it from the wide surface of society, around certain visible centres. Protestant communions do not sanction these immolations, not because earnest religious feeling is not in itself good; but because these monstrous devices for obtaining and for cherishing it are unwar- I'antable abstractedly, and have been proved, by ample and long continued experiment, to be of pernicioug tendency, and to be destructive of the diffused and healthful influences of the Gospel upon society at large : they cost too much. The Spiritual Exercises of Loyola would prove themselves to be nothing better than what they intrin- sically are — a vapid inanity, if separated from those things which impart to them a terrible energy. It is undoubtedly true, therefore, that " bits and particles of the Catholic system cannot be thus detached with im- punity and incorporated with another system." * If over against the Spiritual Exercises we were to set up the ascetic principles — the monastic vows, the practice of confession, the tremendous powers left in the hands of the priest, the awful authority of the Church — then such exercises as those of Loyola will at once be endowed with that wonderful power and effi- cacy which is attributed to them. Yet even then, certain conditions would be wanted which no monastic institute, founded on the ancient ascetic principle, could furnish. These obsolete orders were most of them anchoretic as well as ascetic. Each was a scheme of seclusion from the world (more or less so) and as such each drew toward itself — seldom the robust or enterprising portion of the community ; but more often the languid, the melancholic, the saturnine, the morose, the debilitated, the disappointed, the mis anthropic. In direct contrariety to this, Jesuitism is * Wiseman's Preface. 236 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. a scheme devised for taking a position upon the very ground of the world's busiest movements. The So- ciety has built for itself a fortress in the centre of a field whereon a boundless secular ambition might seek and find for Itself the choicest opportunities. It was a consequence, therefore, sure to follow, that it should draw to itself — not the feeble, but the strong ; not those who were sick of the world, but those who are eager to play their parts in it. As to the weak, the timid, and the inert, the Society has no cells for such ; it turns them adrift as speedily as possible : it is a gymnasium, not an infirmary ; and not only does it insensibly draw into its vortex the most energetic spirits, but it is constantly employed in casting its own net over the waters of common life ; and at each draught its rule is to take the good to itself, and to cast the bad away. The result then which has followed, is what is natural and necessary : that which would be intense even while the feebler elements of society only were wrought upon, will become so in a tenfold proportion when it is the robust always upon which it tries its powers. Those energies, therefore, intellectual, moral, and po- litical, which the Society, in its brightest times, has developed, are attributable, not to any intrinsic pro- perties attaching to the "Exercises" which are its germ, but to those conditions of the Institute which distinguish it from every other analogous association. These points of distinction result in part from the more severe or thorough-going interpretation which was put by Loyola upon some of the ancient ascetic doctrines ; in part, also, from a politic relaxation of those very doctrines whenever his ulterior purpose would not consist with a rigid enforcement of them ; and in part, and chieflyj from his having propounded an end that was strongly THE SPIRITUAL EXKECISES. 237 contrasted with that of the monastic orders ; — an end distinctly practical, essentially secular, and such as would invite and employ the most active class of minds. The three vows of initiation do not include either any new principle, or any ostensible deviation from existing and ancient practices; but in their interpretation and in their consequences, as applied in a manner so novel, two of them at least were innovations. But that which in the most important sense has placed Jesuitism at an immeasurable distance in advance of any monastic ordei'j is the all embracing interpretation put by Loyola's own hand upon the vow and doctrine of obedience. 238 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. CHAPTER II. THE LETTER ON OBEDIENCE. This doctrine, so far as it applies to the understanding and common sense of the individual, is summarily- expressed in the rule, lately cited, which enjoins that, when the Church has pronounced black to be white, we are so to think and speak, notwithstanding the evidence of our senses to the contrary. The same rule, more- over, is aptly and intelligibly illustrated by Loyola's own exemplification of it, when he knowingly left himself to be slaughtered by an incompetent medical attendant. We find it, however, elaborately explained and expanded in a letter addressed by him to the Jesuits of Portugal ; and to this letter, as on the whole more significant than any other document of the Institute, the most exact attention should be given. The Jesuitism of the Jesuit Institute is condensed within the compass of this notable letter. It was addressed to the Portuguese houses at a late time in Loyola's government of the Society ; that is to say, in the year 1553, and only three years before his death ; it may therefore be regarded, and in this light it has always been regarded by the Society — as an authoritative expression of the founder's matured judgment in relation to a principle to which he himself and his colleagues attached paramount importance. The letter is addressed " To the brethren of the Society of Jesus, who are in Portugal, grace and love eternal in Christ the Lord." The General, after an exordium of customary courtesy. THE LETTER ON OBEDIENCE, 239 reminds his brethren of what he had heretofore and always taught them, namely, that obedience is the first of all Christian virtues, inasmuch as it is from this that all other graces and excellences take their rise. " Without regret," says he, " may we see ourselves surpassed by other religious orders in the fasts and vigils they observe, and in the severity of those practices which, each according to its rule, piously adheres to. But it is my wish to see all those who within this So- ciety devote themselves to the service of God, distin- guishing themselves by a true and perfect obedience, an abdication of will and judgment. I would that every true and genuine son of the Society should be known by this very mark, that he looks not to the person to whom (immediately) he yields obedience ; but (always) that he sees in him the Lord Christ, for whose sake that obedience is rendered. Obedience is to be rendered to a Superior, not on account of his wisdom, goodness, or any other such like qualities with which he may be en- dowed; but solely because he is in God's place, and wields the authority of Him who says — ' they that hear youj' &c. Nor, on the other hand, is any thing to be abated from this obedience on the ground that the Superior may be wanting in prudence or discretion ; for he claims it as superior, and as filling the place of Him whose wisdom can never be at fault, and who will make up whatever may be wanting in his minister, whether he lack probity, or any other virtue. Even as Christ has expressly said, speaking of the Scribes and Phari- sees, they have sat in Moses' seat." This principle, thus generally enounced, is sus- tained by several citations of Scripture. Most earnestly does the General desire that his brethi'en should under- stand and intimately feel this as true — that the obe- dience which contents itself with the exterior act of doing 240 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Avhat has been enjoined, is altogether an inferior and imperfect sort of obedience, not wortby to be called a virtue — not until it has reached that farther point at which the will of the Superior is made one's own, and is so identical with it, as that not only in the palpable effect it is the same, but also that in the inward affection, there is a perfect agreement of sentiment. So that the two — the Superior and the inferior will the same thing, or will it not; according to that word — "to obey is better than sacrifice," or that saying of S. Gregory, " in a sacrifice it is the flesh of another that is immolated ; in obedience, it is our own will ;" and so much the moi-e as this part of our nature has dignity and importance, is the immolation of it of great price. "Any deviation from the will and injunction of the Superior on the pretext which is so specious — of going beyond what is commanded, in things abstractedly good and commendable, is nevertheless to be accounted a dis- obedience, prompted by an erroneous principle, and fraught with danger. Nothing is acceptable to God which is not strictly conformable to the mind and inten- tion of him who is in God's place toward ourselves. Your own will lay down — freely return to your Crea- tor, through his ministers, that liberty with which he has endowed you ; dedicate it to Him. Think it no mean fruit of that free will which you have received from Him, if it enables you, by obedience, to return it entire to Him. In doing so you do not lose it — you augment and bring it to perfection. In conforming yourselves absolutely to the Divine will, as interpreted to you by him who stands in God's place toward you, you are certain that all your volitions are in harmony with the most sure rules of rectitude. Take care that you never attempt to bend or mould the will of yout Superior, which you should esteem as the will of God; THE LETTER ON OBEDIENCE. 241 to your own will. This is to invert the order of the divine wisdom ; — it is an endeavour to bring the divine will into conformity with your own. How are those blinded by self-love who, while thinking themselves obedient, go about by some show of reason to bring the Superior to will what they will ! On the contrary, who- ever would immolate himself without reserve to God, must offer to Him, not his will merely, but his intelli- gence (or understanding) also, which is the third and higher grade of obedience ; so that he not only wills what the Superior wills, but thinks as he thinks, sub- mitting to him his own judgment so far as it is possible for a devoted will to bend the intellect." We should especially notice Loyola's interpretation of the mental constitution of man, as related to his doctrine of obedience : he says — " Albeit the intellect is riot en- dowed with that sort or degree of liberty which attaches to the will, and is in its nature impelled to yield assent to that which seems to it to wear the appearance of truth, yet are there many occasions on which, as the evidence of truth is not absolutely irresistible, the will may throw its preponderating weight into this scale or the other. Now in all such instances he who professes the doctrine of obedience is bound to incline his judgnient to that of his Superior." It is on this principle that the Society builds its prac- tice ; for it teaches that when, in the judgment of the inferior, the evidence of ti'uth preponderates on this side, or on that, if the Superior, not as superior, but as doctor or teacher, declares there to be a probability, how small soever, that the balance of evidence may be on the other side, then the case is brought within those conditions under which the will may throw its weight into the scale, on either side, and therefore may overbear the evidence of truth. 242 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. In a word, if obedience be a sort of holocaust, in which the entire man, without withholding anything, offers himself to his Creator and Lord, by the hand of his ministers, in the fires of love — if it be an entire renun- ciation of oneself, in which the religious freely relin- quishes all right in, and over himself, so that the divine Providence, by the hand of the Superior, governs and possesses him, it thence follows, unquestionably, that obe- dience includes, not merely the execution of commands, nor that compliance of the will which renders the out- ward act properly spontaneous, but also a resignation of the judgment ; so that whatever the Superior com- mands and believes should, to the inferior, seem right and true — so far, as already said, as the will by its own power is able to bend the understanding. Well were it, says the General, if men could receive this doctrine of obedience, of the mind and understand- ing, agreeable as it is to God, and indispensable to those who live under religious obligations. Among the celes- tial bodies the lesser yield themselves to the influence of the greater, with a pei-fect ordel- and harmony ; and thus among men should th6 inferiors allow themselves to be carried forward by the will of the superior, so as that the virtue of the upper may permeate the lower spheres ; this can only be when the will and judgment of the in- ferior entirely accords with the will and judgment of the superior. " Lean not to your own undei-standing," say the Scriptures ; and if in things of this life it be the part of prudence in the opinion of the wise, to submit our judgments to the direction of those wiser than our- selves, how much more proper Is this in things spiritual, and when one has surrendered himself to a Superior, as standing toward us in the place of God, and as the in- terpreter of the divine mind. " Apart from this submission of the intellect, neither THE LETTER ON OBEDIENCE. MS' the compliance of tlie will, nor the obedience of the out- ward act can be what it ought. We ai-e so constituted as that the appetitive faculties should follow the appi'e- hensive faculties (that we should desire and follow after those things which the mind perceives to be desirable) ; nor can it be but by a sort of force that the will conti- nues long to follow where the judgment repugnates. A man may for a while, from an ordinary feeling of com- pliance, conform himself to what he thinks an unreason- able behest ; but this sort of obedience has nothing in it that is fixed and steady : it will fail after a while, or at least in the perfection of obedience which is shown in alacrity and readiness. What alacrity can there be where the will and mind ( commander and commanded ) are at variance ? If one hesitates and doubts whether it be desirable or not desirable to do what is commanded, there is no zeal, no celerity. That noble simplicity of a blind obedience is gone, when we allow ourselves to question whether that which is commanded be right or wrong, and when perhaps we blame the Superior who commands us to do what is not agreeable to us. Humility, too, is gone, for although on one hand we obey, on the other (by exercising our own judgment in the case) we set ourselves above the Superior. And thus also all con- stancy, or firmness, on difficult occasions, is lost. In a word, all the force and dignity of this virtue is thus lost j and in their place come pain, unquietness, sluggishness, lassitude, murmurings, excuses, and those vices which destroy all the price and merit of obedience. " But an obedience perfect and acceptable to the Lord, Is shown In the first place, because in it Is consecrated to Him the most excellent and precious part of the man (the Intellect), and next, because in this manner a llvIng^ holocaust, gi'ateful to the Divine Majesty, is offered]-^- the man retaining nothing of himself; and lastly, be*- B 2 244 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. cause the difficulty Of such a contest Is great : — he who thus obeys breaks, as It were, himself, for God, and runs counter to that natural impulse, deep seated In every bosom, and which impels every one to embrace and pursue his own purpose (or desire). Hence it is, that obedience, while it seems to be a perfection of the will, rendering a man always prompt and ready to yield to the nod of the Superior, yet should extend, as we have said, to the intellect or understanding, leading it to think as the Superior thinks; and thus all the powers of the will and of the mind being In concord, there follows a quick and complete execution of the task. " But it Is asked, how is this virtue to be attained ? There Is nothing arduous .for the humble r — nothing rough for the meek; nor shall the divine grace and aid be wanting to those who possess these virtues. As helps In the endeavour to acquire this perfect obedience, these three rules are to be kept, in mind — first, not to see In the person of the Superior a man, liable to errors and to niiseries; but Christ, himself, who Is wisdom In perfection, goodness unbounded, love Infinite ; who neither can be deceived, nor Is willing to deceive any. And Inasmuch as you are conscious that it Is for the love of God that you have yielded yourselves to the yoke of obedience, so that the more surely, while fol- lowing the wUl of the Superior, you may follow the divine will, doubt not t^at the Lord will continue to guide you by means of those whom he has placed over you, and thus lead you in the right path. Wherefore, in the voice of the Superior, hear the voice of Christ; as says Paul in addressing the Colosslqns, &c., or as says St. Bernard, &c. " The second rule, the observance of Avhieh will pre- clude any Inward murmurings, or the tendency to blame THE LETTER ON OBEDIENCE. 245 the Superior, is to cherish an affectionate zeal, ready to fulfil any of his behests ; thus each act of obedience, in- stead of being attended with uneasiness, will yield you pleasure and joy. " Lastly, a means easy and safe, of subjugating the judgment, is that which was a habit with the holy Fathers, — namely, to fix it in your uiind that whatever the Superior commands, is the order and will of God himself; and as when you are required to believe ac- cording to the Catholic faith, you bend your whole will and mind to do so, in like manner in bringing your- selves to perform the order — let it be what it may — of the Superior, a certain, blind impulse, of an eager will shall bear you forward, without giving space for in- quiry. Thus did Abraham obey when commanded to offer up his son ; and thus, in the times of the New Testament {i. e. under the Christian dispensation) did a holy Father exercise this virtue, as recorded by Cassian. As for instance, the abbot John, who in- quired not whether that which he was ordered to do was useful, or not ; but continued daily throughout a year, and with great labour, to water the dead stump of a tree ; nor did he ask even whether it was possible or not, as when he applied his whole strength to effect the removal of a huge block of stone, to which the united strength of many could have been unequal. This sort of obedience has, in some cases, received the divine approval by means of miracles. As not to mention in- stances which yourselves are aware of, that of St. Maur, a Benedictine, may be named, who, when at the com- mand of his Superior, he walked into a lake, did not sink; or that of one who, commanded by his Superior to bring him a lioness, went and caught it, and brought it to him. Such is the method of bringing the judgj- ment into subjection, and of approving, without hesi- K 3 ?^^ IGNATIUS LOYOLA, tatjon, every command of the Superior, not manifestly smful, which holy men have observed, but which those who desire to attain to a perfect obedience will imitate. " Nevertheless, if after all, something still presents it- self which is at variance with the decisions of the Supe- rior, you are not forbidden — having sought guidance from the Lord — to mention it. But that you may not be deceived by self-love, and your private judgment, you are bound, both before making such a representation and afterwards — not merely to hold your mind in a state of even readiness to go on with, or to abandon, the affair in question, but also to approve the decision of the Superior, and to think it preferable to your own opinion, , " That which has been said concerning obedience ap- plies, not merely to the conduct of individuals toward their immediate Superiors, but to that g-lso of the Kec- tors and local Superiors toward the Provincials, to that of the Provincials toward the General, and to that of the General toward him whom God has set over hiui — namely, the Lord's vicar on earth. And it is thus that the gradation of orders throughout is preserved ; as well as peace and charity, without which neither our Society nor any other community can maintain within itself a right government ; and thus it is that the Di- vine Providence orders all things easily — controlling the lowest ranks by means of those next above them, these by the higher, and leading all to accomplish His own purposes. Such, no doubt, is the principle of order in the angelic hierarchy — such among the celestial bodies — such in every well constructed polity on earth, and such, especially, is the ecclesiastical hierarchy, within which every thing proceeds from, and is related to, the one vicar of the Lord Christ, where the move- ment originating at the centre Is communicated to the THE LETTER ON OBEDIENCE. 247 extremities. By so much as this disposition of things is accurately regai-ded, any system of government is good ; and, on the contrary, negligence on this ground brings with it, as every one sees, the heaviest evils to human societies. Therefore it is, that, as God lias entrusted to me the care and ordering of this Society, I am anx- iously concerned that this virtue (obedience) should be practised, and should flourish, inasmuch as the well^ being and safety of the Society thereupon depend. Labour therefore with ardour, and In hope of victory, thus to conquer yourselves, thus to vanquish and sub^ due the loftiest and most difBcult part of yourselves — your will and judgment ; so that a true knowledge and love of God may lead your souls to Him, and may, throughout the course of your pilgrimage on earth, govern you, that you and those whom you may aid by your example may attain to eternal blessedness." The doctrine of obedience (so called) as thus ex- pounded and enforced by Loyola, In this letter, is the pucleus of the Society — it is the law of all its laws, and the guiding principle of Its administration. Ab-j stractedly, and even as expressed in the most extravagant manner, the doctrine was not new among the religious orders ; In truth Loyola might, to a far greater extent than he has attempted it, have cited passages from the ■writings of the monastic founders,- falling little short. If at all, of bis own tremendous consistency. The differ', ence between him and his predecessors, on this ground, is less in language and tone, than In the practical bear-, ing of the doctrine. The obsequious St. Maur of a monastery might well be left, by the wide world, to water stumps, through the year, or alternately to dig holes, and to fill them again, in the monastery garden, year after year. The abjectness of this obedience was quite In harmony with the inanity o/the system of which B 4 248 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. it was a part, and to which it was confined. The good abbot, and his good monks (let us now think of them as good) and their occupations, and their round of prayers, were, one and all, Well cemented together by a doctrine of utter passivity, such as we have just heard Loyola enforcing. The open world was little, if at all, affected by the existence, within monastery walls, of monastery virtues, or of ascetic absurdities. And, as to those of the religious orders which, through laxity of rule,, or from principle and practice, diffused themselves through- out society, they left behind them, in so doing, the most characteristic of the monastic virtues, and lost in- fluence proportionately. But this same principle of unreasoning and unscru- pulous subserviency to the will of a Superior, how differejit a thing does it become when it is lifted into the place of sovereign importance in a Society that has been constituted for the very purpose of laying an am- bitious hand upon the things of the world, and of fixing itself upon every human interest, with an unrelenting gra§p ! The Jesuit Society has not hesitated to signalise its doctrine of obedience, as the germ and the vital principle of its Institute ; and in the Constitutions the most ex- treme positions that are assumed in the Lettek, are firmly maintained, and lucidly expounded, with illus- trations the most apt and forcible. The way in which this master principle has been expanded and explained by Jesuit writers, of a later time, we have nothing now to do with : it is Jesuitism, such as its Founder made and left it, that is our subject. When the time comes that this scheme shall have fallen into its place on the page of history, and is no longer regarded either w;ith favour, prejudice, or alarm, the " Letter on Obedience " will be read as a sample, no where to be matched, of har- THE LETTER ON OBEDIENCE. 249 Hiohious incoherence, and of refined absurdity. Loyola's was a mind of exquisite subtilty, but wholly wanting in the philosophic faculty of abstraction ; and hence it is that we may exonerate him from the charge of design- edly going about to establish his Society upon principles which he knew to be false and vicious. In fact, these principles were, in the last degree, false and immoral; but at the point of view whence he looked upon them— foreshortened from the low level of his own moral stand- ing, he saw none of their contrarieties; he saw only their adaptation to a special end. The most obvious of the objections to which this Letter is liable, is the outrageous misuse, which is made throughout it, of the leading term — Obedience. The Jesuit is taught that he is to yield himself to the will of his superior — perinde cadaver; and because the idea of a corpse is naturally associated with a recollection of the faculties and powers that had belonged to , the liv- ing man, the absurdity of attributing to the lifeless body a quality which could attach only to the man, is a little veiled from our view. Nor can mischief arise from the illusion, if it belong only to a loose metaphoric style ; but when it comes to be worked up, in a stringent form, as a rule of practice, the enormity of the sophism reaches a pitch beyond all power of estimation. To talk of the obedience of a staff in the hand, or of the obe- dience of a corpse, is a sort of fantastic nonsense, which would be quite undeserving of criticism, if it had not long and extensively been employed in sustaining a pernicious practice. Loyola, who had conceived the idea of a factitious condition of the moral and intellectual man, suited to his purposes, could find no term fitly conveying that idea, simply because the condition itself being monstrous and contradictory, it has had no name assigned it 250 IGlfATIUS LOYOLA. in any language : it is a nihility, equally impracticable, and inconceivable ; it is a triangle of four sides. Never- theless a moral term must needs be selected, and Loyola, himself deluded, more than intending to delude, called his chimera — Obedience. By a licence of speech — pai-donable in cases where no consequences result from it — we employ the word so improperly, as to say that the sculptor's chisel obeys his hand ; but it would be an insufferable aifectar tion to use the abstract term obedience, in such an in^- stance, as if the tool were consciously fraught with a moral quality. Nor may we stretch the proprieties of speech so far, as to apply the abstract term, even to the hand of the artist : the hand, it is true, obeys the mind ; but how jejune would it be to commend the hand for its obedience ; and scarcely less so to speak of the obedience of a well-trained horse ; although, by an admissible analogy, we say he obeys the hand and leg of his rider. The fiery, yet obsequious animal while yielding hipi" self to the will of his rider, knows nothing of obedience, .because his nature does not include that moral liberty which is the source and soul of the virtue so named. The very phi-ase — passive obedience, is a pedantic so- lecism, which has been tolerated too long ; and when it is attempted to define and describe this obedience, as that of a corpse, or of a walking-stick, then the outrage so com- mitted upon language, and upon common sense, is be*- yond endurance. The same peremptory objection holds good against every attempt, under shelter of a variation in the terms, to give currency to the like absurdity. " Un- conditional obedience " — " obedience — as a holocaust of the intellect, as well as of the will," and the like, are phrases utterly absurd in philosophy, and of pernicious import in morals : with equal propriety might we comr mend the devotion of a zealous messenger who, before THE liETTEB ON OBEDIENCE. 251 he set out on his destined journey, should amputate his feet, and offer them to his employer, as evidence of his willingness to acquit himself of his task ! The base obsequiousness of a debauched mind may indeed impel an inferior to offer to his master what is called — "passive obedience;" and a reciprocal baser- ness in the master, or his ignorance, may induce him to accept, and to avail himself of, so nefarious a tender. But it is manifest that he who yields to a being like himself that which the Lord of all refuses to accept, is devoid of a due sense of the nature and grounds of moral obligation. Loyola did not violate the proprieties of language until after he had, within his own mind, misapprehended and distorted every notion of morality and religion. What it was which he needed in the agents who were to give effect to_ his polity, he saw clearly enough ; but he did not see that this condition was, in the sense in which he thought of it, a thing impossible ; and that, so far as it might, in any sense, be possible and practicable, it is fatal to the conscience ; and not less so to the un- derstanding. It may be said that a man who freely enters a community is free, in doing so, to make over, or to mortgage, as well his bodily agencies as his mental powers to its service, receiving, in return, Avhat he is contented to regard as an equivalent : if we grant this, and it can be conceded only in a sense strictly limited, it can never be conceded that a man is at liberty to sell his soul to anothei'. A selling of the soul, whether it be the entire surrender of present and future well- being, or imply only what is indeed less tremendous, but not less Immoral — a consenting to the abdication of some one or more of the faculties of our moral and intellectual constitution, — is a transaction which nothing can warrant. 252 I&NATIUS LOYOLA. If suicide be a crime — and who but the atheist ques- tions this ? so would be the amputation of a limb, for no surgical reason; and so would it be a crime, and a frightful impiety, to swallow a drug for the purpose of effecting a paralysis of one side, or the extinction of a sense — of sight or of hearing. But is not man's indi- ■vidual mind and conscience, with its involuntary con- victions of truth and virtue, a faculty, and an element of human nature ? is not the understanding — is not the intuition of first principles, an ingredient of our nature 'i is not the freedom of the will a sacred bestowment, which every responsible being has received from his Maker ? What shall a man accept in exchange, either for his soul, or for any one of its elementary prerogatives? Neither his soul, nor any of its powers, is really at his disposal ; for not only are these powers, in themselves, beyond all price ; but if a price could be adduced that should be their equivalent, in whole or in part, the offer could not be listened to — the proposal is a blasphemy ; and it is a blasphemy in the intention, notwithstanding that such an intention could never actually be carried out. It is on this ground, apparently, that Loyola deluded himself so strangely, and thus led his Society, uncon- sciously into, and left it, in the deepest quagmire of religious perversion. His mind was penetrating, but as we have said, not philosophic : the Letter before us exhibits a profound adroitness in the management of human nature ; but not the clearness or straightforwardness of a soundly constituted understanding. He does not seem at all alive, either to the immorality of the scheme he was digesting — for he insinuates no apology for it — nor to the illusory quality of the transfer that is made when it is attempted to buy and to seU individual conscience and intellen* The most obvious truths on this ground, THE LETTER ON OBEDIENCE. 253 he did not recognise ; — such as that the human soul may be lost, but that it cannot either be sold, or be made a gift of to another: that conscience may be bound, or may be slaughtered, but cannot be transferred to another's keeping. He did not know that moral re- sponsibility, instead of being shifted entire from one to another, or instead of being shared between two, each taking a half, or a proportion, is doubled whenever it is attempted to be transferred, or to be deposited, or to be pawned. An utter forgetfuluess of these first principles of morals — or an entire ignorance of them, an ignorance chiargeable in great measure upon the system under which Loyola had been trained, vitiates the Jesuit Institute throughout, and shows itself portentously in the " Let- ter on Obedience." Need it be proved that no man can require of another, and that none can render or promise to another, that which God himself neither requires, nor will accept from his intelligent creatures ? Spiritual authority on earth, even if it were indispu- tably sanctioned, surely can never surpass in its re- quirements the powers and requirements of Heaven. Shall the vicar extort that fwhich the principal would reject, if offered to himself? We may be certain that it is not Christ — the rightful " bishop of souls," but that it must be the tyrant of this world, who is used to ask from men what is not theirs to give — their consciences. Whatever mystery may attach to the moral system under which we are placed, this at least is cleai*, that the Creator, rather than resume, or recall, his gifts of intellect, conscience, and free will, leaves these faculties, in the individual, and in the race, to run — when mis- directed — to the most awful extents of mischief. Men, endowed with understanding, and with, a moral sense, are in no instances saved from the fatal consequences of 254 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. a misuse of these endowments, hy a resumption of them. And thus too, within the sacred and narrower precincts of that spiritual economy of which the Church is the scene, neither the perpetuity of truth, nor the purity of morals, is secured by any divine interposition, such as might interfere with the natural liberty of the human mind : therefore it is that the Church, not less thaa the world,' has exhibited in its history, from age to age, the multifarious products of erring intelligence, and of wild freewill.' How striking — how appalling even, is the contrast that presents itself when Loyola's doctrine of corpse- like obedience is compared with the tone, the style, and the intention of God's dealing with men, as dis- played in the Scriptures, from first to last ! "While con- templating this contrast, one is compelled to say — these two styles must issue from different, or rather from antagonist sources. Throughout the inspired volume men are persuaded, they are reasoned with, they are entreated: — they are urged, they are threat- ened, they are encouraged and invited; but never is a blind submission of the intellect asked for ; never does authority set its foot upon reason. Illumination, guidance, right influence, are promised to those who would be led heaven-ward; for which promise there could be no room if that kind of compulsion were em- ployed which infringes the individual liberty of man. If the " Father of Spirits " dealt with human spirits, as Jesuitism deals with its ministers, the use and meaning of three fourths of the Bible would be superseded : nay, a single page might contain all that could have any meaning in the message of God to men. Shocking is this contrast ; and the more so the more one considers it. Instead of the blind passivity of a corpse, or the mechanical subserviency of a tool, that THE LETTER ON OBEDIENCE. 255 which God himself invites, and that in which He will take pleasure, is the uncompelled, undamaged duty, love, and service of the entire man: the mind, informed, not " immolated, " not crushed, but nobly consenting to do its part in that service which is " perfect freedom." That which heaven accepts must come from the health- ful energies of the heart and soul. Mulcted of any faculty, abridged in any degree of its liberty, maimed, shackled, palsied, the " living sacrifice," if it might be a fit offering for the altar of a demon, could never be a "holocaust" which the wise and benignant Creator would regard as an acceptable oblation. It is not without a feeling of horror that the mind endeavours distinctly to bring before it an idea of that breaking down of the individual will and mind which Loyola exacts from his fellow-men. One stands aghast at the thought of such an abnegation of the moral and intellectual faculties, Avhen effected upon a large scale. What, it may be asked, would a society most resemble, the members of which should actually be brought down to the level of Jesuit obedience ? One involuntarily thinks of the condition of hosts of spirits subjected to the despotism of the infernal world — the myriad yielding a blind submission to the unreasoning caprices of the one ! — hosts of living " corpses *' — liv- ing only to be conscious of their loss of whatever could render individual existence, even apart from positive sufferings, desirable ! In such a conception it is supposed that the innate perception of the difterence between good and evil is uprooted from the soul ; or, if not wholly lost and forgotten, yet thrown off, as an encumbrance by beings who can no longer follow its impulses, and whose entire well-being has passed into another's hand! If one were to imagine a course of discipline — a training on earth, such as might be most fit to prepare human 256 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. spirits for taking their place within the tremendous Biachinery of the nether world, the schooling we must think of could not differ essentially from that which Loyola devised for his Society, and of which he gives the rudiments in this epistle. The constitution of the human mind — a constitution which we may be quite sure no Jesuit " Constitutions " can alter, utterly forbids that any such state of the will and intellect should come into existence as that which Loyola allowed himself to imagine as possible, and which he speaks of as good. His " perfect obedience " could no more be realised than can a mathematical con- fradictioh be brought into existence. What would be the process in an instance coming strictly within the meaning of the rule he lays down ? Let the case be stated. " Three and three are seven," says the supe- rior : — " I think them only six." " Well, let us then take an equation somewhat less immediately resolvable by mere intuition. 342 times 848 are equal to 290,017." " I riiust take one from this sum according to my calculation of the numbers." " Your calculation is not what is now in question; iov first you are to affirm, as bound by your oath of obedience, that the sum is what I declare it to be ; and more than this, you are required to believe it, with an ' inward conviction' as full and sincere as if you knew it to be true, instead of knowing it to be false." . " This is that immolation of the intellect to which you have solemnly pledged yourself. If, however, you find a difficulty in so doing, and if reason still revolts, the Society has provided a means of escape for you, or at least a palliative ; and you are bound to avail yourself of it : — rit is this. — If ten persons sit down to make a calcu- lation, such as that above-mentioned, one of the number will probably bring out a result differing from that of his nine companions ; and then it must be granted that THE LETTER ON OBEDIENCE. 257 some degree of probability attaches to the supposition that this one is right, and that the nine are wrong* Now this probability, how small soever it may be, affords ground enough for you to rest your faith upon, when it is offered to you by your superior, as a suf- ficient reason for assenting to the product which he declares to be correct. You have vowed obedience; and not merely that of the outward act, which is of little value, and possesses no merit, but that also of the conscience and of the understanding ; and this all^ comprehensive immolation obliges you to yield your assent to any degree of probability, how small soever it may be, when it is sustained by the affirmation of your superior." What must be the next consequence, after such a submission of the reason as is here demanded, has been yielded ? It will be different according to the structure of the Individual mind. Men, clear-sighted and of sound understanding, if, from any motive, such have been in- duced to play their part within a community which ex- acts of them this sort of " perfect obedience " will, from the first, thoroughly have understood what Is the inter- pretation which thei/ must put upon Loyola's verbiage about the " Immolation of the intellect." To them this " holocaust " means — what is very simple, and, what, in a certain condition of the moral sense, may be very easy too — namely ,fthe never uttering their convictions; and an habitual promptness (resting upon some fine theory of moral obligation) always to utter the contrary. Did Loyola believe that the clear-headed members of his Society would, at his bidding, obliterate their under- standings ? Did he actually think that the Epistle to the Jesuits of Portugal would induce such men to attempt it? As to minds of inferior quality, down to the lowest grade, such — some sooner and some later in their s 258 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. course — some with more, and some with less damage to the moral sense — would forge themselves forward on. to a sand-bank as far as possible beyond the range of the lashings of conscience and the buffettings of reason. Much may be done by a confused, an infirm, and a perverted mind, when impelled by an urgent motive of interest, in botching up a cloak, within which contra- dictions of all kinds, rational and moral, may be bound about and held together. None of these contradictions make themselves heard within: all are stifled by the pressure which envelopes them all ! But there are souls — and there are some always, if not many at any one time — of a stamp as unlike the first-named sort as the second. Good men they are, and perhaps they may be Christian heroes too — men who might have been great, if greatness (in the true sense of the word) did not exclude the admixture of any thing that is illusory or factitious. Their whole exist- ence is a dream — a dream not to be broken in upon by logic, spoken never so loudly. But a question of this sort may fairly be put by the advocates of the Jesuit Society: — "If, indeed, our prin- ciples, and if the very rudiments of our Institute are, as you allege, out of harmony with nature — if they are at variance with Christianity, and are incompatible with the healthful exercise, .either of the reason or the moral faculties, how is it that the Sc^iety has produced, and that it has had in its service, men — more than a few, whose virtue, piety, benevolence, and self-denying zeal, have commanded the admiration even of our enemies?" An answer to this well-grounded question, and an answer compatible with our allegations, is not far to fetch. Loyola has prepared a labyrinth, throughwhich.no human foot can wind its way in a line approvable at THE LETTEK ON OBEDIENCE. 259 once to right reason, and to Christian principles. But a labyrinth, how intricate soever, need not perplex those who fly. There is an intensity of the interior life which carries him to whom it belongs clear over all embar- rassments, which bears him aloft over the most rugged ground. Snares — pitfalls — dangerous ravines, preci- pitous paths, are all alike to him who, on the wings of faaibitual ecstacy, soars through the air ! At a difficult pass, where an unimpassioned but conscientious spirit is staggered and swoons, and where the unimpassioned and the unconscientious press on, and are lost, the impas- sioned — the fervent, take to their pinions, and alight beyond the danger — unharmed ! Minds thus elastic and buoyant do in fact retain their virtue and their integrity in the midst of systems that must be fatal to the moral existence of all but themselves. It is in truth a charaCT teristic of such systems, that is to say, of institutions essentially vicious to bring together, and to hold in juxta- position the most extreme samples of lofty virtue and of utter depravity. The spectacle exhibited by such sys- tems resembles what one should see in visiting a spot over which a njortal miasma broods; and where one should find, amid cadaverous human beings, two or three of the gods — blooming with immortal health ! There is reason to believe, notwithstanding the pro- found subtilty of his intellect, that Loyola's own tem? perament was of this very kind. Undoubtedly it was so, unless the whole of his personal history is a fabrica- tion ! It is quite credible that amid the perpetual glare of his burning thoughts, and the frequent blazings up of ecstacy upon ecstacy, he failed to discern, not only the monstrous incongruities, but the immoral tendency of the scheme he was digesting. Of this tendency he had made no personal experiment. His own position was like that of a man who, from a hill top, looks down on all sides upon S 2 260 IGXATIUS LOYOLA. what seems an unbroken surface, affording a safe and easy descent ; but those whom he commands to descend find themselves soon upon the brink of precipices. In his own habitual state of mind Loyola might imagine a something which he could think of as real and possible, answering to his idea of a holocaust of the intellect, and an immolation of the will. Perhaps an unconfessed presentiment of failure held him back from personally making an experiment of the virtue which he so highly commended. Certain it is, and the fact is very noticeable, that, as often as the ONE authority which he himself recognised as supreme on earth, actually attempted to countervail his own, or to thwart his purposes, or to interfere with his administration, Loyola, instead of wel- coming so fine an occasion for exhibiting, in the view of his inferiors throughout the world, the edifying spec- tacle of the " holocaust," struggled, by all means of wily management and of epileptic vehemence, to divert that interference, and to obtain a decision agreeable to his wishes ! The very fault he so pointedly condemns in others — that of attempting to bring over a superior to our mind and wish, and thus to contend with God, was that which he himself constantly fell into when the Vicar of Christ and the General of the Order happened to be of opposite opinions ! How fitly, on these occasions — and they were not very infrequent — might his own exhortations have been pealed in his ears. St. Ignatius obey the nod of the Vicar of Christ, or yield himself to the volitions of the head of the church — perlnde cada- ver ! No such thing ; or not so long as contumacious resistance might by any means screen itself from rebuke by prostrate humiliations. It Is certain that the world Would have seen no " Society of Jesus " if its founder had, in any such manner, thought himself bound to re- gard consistency. THE LETTER ON OBEDJENCE. 261 Gravely, and for the purpose of strengthening them in the path of duty, Loyola tells his subalterns that, just as they implicitly obey their superiors and rectors, £0 do the supei'iors obey the provincials, and so the provincials the General, and so does the General himself obey the sovereign pontiff! Alas ! how largely must ■\ve draw upon our residue of charitable ingenuity, before we can save his reputation, in an Instance so flagrant, from the charge of impudent and conscious falsification ! Many of the Society have, no doubt, surpassed its founder in honest fervour, in Christian integrity, and in the unmixed intensity of their devout feelings. And it is these men that have held the reputation of the order afloat : it is these that have stood in the breach when the citadel has sustained an assault. The supe- riors and the provincials having the means, at all times^ of thoroughly knowing the dispositions and the peculiar excellencies of those under their control, have felt no difficulty in assigning men to their fittest tasks : they have had at their command heroes and martyrs : they have also had base minions and tools : nor have they so far wanted discretion as not to send the best men on the best errands, and the worst on the worst. Thus it has been that the Society has been able, while doing its own work, in its own manner, throughout Europe, to hus- band always a needful amoimt of glory and bright fame, accruing from the noble behaviour of a few of its purer members. These latter, happy enough in being con- temptuously deemed by their superiors — good for nothing but goodness, Avould be suffered, at once, to save their own virtue, and to bring home from fields of arduous service some superfluous sheaves of golden reputation wherewith to replenish the exhausted stock of the Society. S 3 262 IGNATIUS LOTOLA, CHAPTER III. THE CONSTITUTIONS. Most of those who might wish to acquaint themselves with the rudimental principles of the Jesuit Society, would willingly accomplish this task in some mode less repulsive than that of a continuous perusal of the " Con- stitutions and Declarations." Such a perusal is not simply wearisome, as must be, in any case, that of a vast body of regulations und instructions, not one of which takes any broad bearing upon the welfare of man-' kind — but It generates a feeling quite peculiar, and which is positively painful. A melancholy sentiment and a depression of the animal spirits is produced, resembling that which comes on when treading the corridors and wards of an Infirmary, or of an asylum, or of a prison; there is a fear, as when pursuing the clue that Is to guide our way through the mazes of the cata- combs. We are beset by objects that impose dread, but that possess none of the charms of sublimity. We are bewildered In a forest ; but It Is a forest leafless and lifeless. Nevertheless, a re-action of the most agreeable kind ensues as one proceeds ; for the reader awakes to the com- forting recollection, that this night-mare of despotism is to him a dream only — that this elaborate scheme of bondage of the mind, soul and body — binds not him — that for him there is a means of return from this region of living death ; and that all Ms part In this stupendous mechanism of a factitious and monstrous existence is ended when he has returned a cumbrous folio to Its place on his shelves ! THE CONSTITUTIONS. 263 A perusal of the Jesuit Coiistitutions produces an Im- pression, quite unlike what attends that of the institutes and rules of the earlier religious orders. Let Cassian be opened : — an intelligent reader of this author is tempted forward, from page to page, by a certain air of simplicity — by a homogeneous imaginativeness, and by a moral harmony, pervading the whole : — the book is recommended by a style of picturesque and grotesque phraseology. There is in it much of an amusing quaintness, aiid of a grave absurdity and frivolity that tickle the fancy. The monastic system plainly and honestly declares its intention, and this intention is wholly, or almost wholly, centred within itself; and its purposes and alms are avowed in an intelligible manner. There is little of mystery, or none, attaching to the monastic institutes, even when they afiect the most concealment. But the Jesuit Institute, as embodied in the Consti- tutions, is utterly destitute of every charm : it has no embellishment : — there is nothing in or about it that is in the least degree picturesque ; — nothing that is quaint ; ^— nothing gracefully relaxed ; — nothing belonging to the world of mixed sentiment and imagination : all is stern — business-like — mechanical ; — and then, just in proportion as, in these institutes, there is less of con- eealment, there is more of mystery attaching to themi There is laid before us an apparatus — vast enough for effecting the greatest of those purposes which the ambitioii of man has ever aimed at, or imagined ; and yet no such purposes, and none but those to which such an apparatus could never be fitly applied, and to which it bears no proportion, are named or alluded to — are in- timated or avowed ! Then again, while the monastery was, for tbe most part, the asyluih of men whose withdrawal from the 264 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. duties and service of active life seldom involved any very serious loss to the veorld, tlie Jesuit institute is framed for no purpose more evidently, than that of sifting the mass of society, so that it may take to itself the choicest samples of energy, intelligence, and de- yotedness. The one drift of the Constitutions is the selection and careful discipline of those who are to be the agents of the Society. But if vre ask in what labours are those carefully chosen instruments to be employed, we obtain no answer which can be accepted as any thing better than an evasion. All is shrouded in piystery on this ground. Nor does it appear, nor can any solution of the difficulty be gathered either from the Constitutions, or from any other documentary source, what it was which the Society offered to men of this order, whose talents and acquire- ments would have secured to them a course of splendid success in any path of secular life, as an equivalent for the surrender, not merely of its ordinary enjoyments, but of its rewards, its honours, and its emoluments. If, as a sufficient reply, we should be told that the highest and the purest motives which Christianity inspires have at all times secured to the Society the devoted services of so large a number of accomplished men — if this be all that is said, then we are left to balance a most incre- dible supposition against an utterly insoluble mystery ; and so to leave the question as we found it. It is quite true that the pure motives of Christian zeal have often availed, and tbat they do avail for securing the best ser- vices of men who may have been more or less fitted to fight their way in secular employments, where no extra- ordinary sacrifices of personal wellbeing are demanded of the ministers of religion. But such are not the con- ditions of the problem now before us ; for we have to consider the case of a band of men selected on account THE CONSTITUTIONS. ' 265 of their natural ability, their personal energy, and their practical address ; and then that upon such men con- ditions are imposed, and from such men sacrifices are demanded that must ever be appalling to human nature. What then is the compensation? In what species is the equivalent counted out? From the documents of Jesuitism no answer to these questions can by any means be extracted. Those pages of European history, on which the name of the Jesuit Society meets the eye, might indeed aid us in attempting to clear up these mysteries. But from these later and indirect sources of information we re- frain. They must be appealed to, if it shall appear that, neither from the " Constitutions," nor from the "Declarations," nor from any other undisputed and original sources, is to be obtained any intelligible state- ment of those objects arid purposes of the Institute which might reasonably be regarded as proportionate to the preparations and to the mechanism which this Insti-? tute exhibits to our view. On the threshold we are told that the object of this Society is not merely (nor chiefly) the spiritual good of its members ; but rather the salvation and religious ad- vancement of others. For securing these ends it im- poses on its members the solemn obligation of three vows — the vow of obedience, the vow of poverty, and the vow of chastity. The first of these is to be under- stood as forbidding the retention, by individuals, of any property or funds whatsoever, to be employed or en- joyed personally or privately ; as also the acceptance of the customary fees for performance of the offices of re- ligion ; or of any salary rendered on any such account. This law affects not merely individual members, but the churches and houses of the order. By means however of an ingenious distinction which 266 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. we may be sure the Society would not be long in find- ing, the possession and enjoyment of property to an in- definite amount has been made to consist with the stem profession of this vow. So far from relaxing this obligation, every one, on being admitted as a mem- ber, solemnly engages that he will never consent to any modification of the rules relating to poverty, unless it be such as may render them more severe. All that comes, and which may be accepted, must come from Godj in the simple form of alms, bestowed by the pious upon those who are absolutely indigent. k - Besides these three vows, to which all are subject, the pro^ssed members bind themselves by a fourth, in which they promise absolute obedience to the Pope, as the vicar of Christ; a promise obliging those who make it to go whithersoever the sovereign pontiff miay send them, and without demanding the means of sup- port; or to undertake any affairs with which he may charge them, relating to the worship of Grod, or the interests of the Christian religion. As to modes of living, that is to say, ascetic prac- tices, the Society enjoins and imposes nothing; it would wish Its members to live among other men, as other men do ; yet allowing any, with the consent of theif superiors, to adopt more severe rules. The members of the Society are divided into four classes, occupying so many stages of proficiency or of dignity. The first and highest is that of those who have bound themselves by the four vows, who are priests, and who have regularly passed through all the. initiatory forms. They must be ^men of approved and long-tried manners. These are the " professed." The second class includes those called coadjutors, devoted to the service of God in things either spiritual THE CONSTITUTIONS. 267 or temporal ; they have passed the initiatory forms, and have taken the three vows — not the fourth. ■ The third class is that of scholars — or those youths in the Jesuit schools, in whom talents and gifts or special qualities have probably been descried, fitting them for the service of the Society. Before admission into this class they are to take the three vows, and to bind themselves by an explicit promise to enter into its service if so required. Let it be noted that, while on the one side, an obligation is imposed, on the other none is accepted. The fourth class embraces those who are retained in a sort of probationary condition, and are employed iu such services as they . may seem the best adapted for, and until the Society shall determine to which of the preceding three classes they should be assigned. The ordinary time of the noviciate Is two years, which may be curtailed or prolonged at the discretion of the su-t peripr. The Society will accept no divided affection ; it must command its members in the most absolute manner, and therefore it exacts of them, not merely a relinquishment of aU personal interests, civil rights, and ecclesiastical benefices, but a plenary renunciation of every tie of kindred : this indeed had been the rule and practice of the ancient monastic communities, but in the Jesuit institute it is carried out in the most rigorous manner. The novice consents thus to cut himself off from " the flesh," and to put himself also, without conditions, into the hands of all around him, to make such reports of him as they may please to the superior : in retaliation he pledges himself, in like manner, to act the delator toward his delators. Each is armed with the powers of insinuation or of accusation against all ; all are ranged around each on the same principle of noiseless imj)eachment. 268 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Six principal trials of faith, of humility, and of con- stancy, are to be passed through by the novice ; and these deserve attention, as indicative of the sort of cha- racter which the discipline of the Society seems intended to form. The first of these methods of probation is that of employing a month, more or less, in passing through the course of the Spiritual Exercises, as already described ; and under those conditions of seclusion and direction which have been mentioned. The second trial of sincerity for the novice consists in spending a second month in an hospital, there giving attendance upon the sick in any mode that shall be appointed for him. The third de- mands that the novice shall set out, destitute of money or other resources, to beg his bread from door to door for the space of one month. The fourth requires that, on his return to the house, he should there execute the most abject and menial offices. T\ie fifth, that he should employ himself for a time, in public or in private, in teaching children, or the most ignorant of the people, the rudiments of Christian doctrine. The sixth — after having in these modes approved himself to the Society — is to undertake for a time the offices of a preacher or confessor ; or of both together. These modes of trial must be trials indeed ; unless in the administration of the Society a very great laxity of interpretation be admitted. Let it however be sup- posed that the letter of the Institute is rigorously adhered to. In that case this course of humiliation will s6 act upon a/ew minds, as to set the dispositions and the habits. In a style of religious intensity, consistent and effective, conferring upon the individual a sort of unearthly greatness, which those will not easily equal whose Christian virtues have been cherished in a less artificial mode. These few excepted — the few in whom THE CONSTITUTIONS. 269 the Society will be able to make its boast — a discipline so entirely factitious can produce nothing better than a factitious style of character; it will cover the moral nature with a crust of seeming Christian heroism: it will indurate the exterior, and desiccate the interior man, who, in his moral condition, will be brought to resemble those rugged orders of animal life, in which a shell, hard enough to render it the safe casket of a jewel, encloses a creature that does not seem to possess either head, or heart, or voluntary powers ! The human mind is not, we may be sure, to be trifled with in such modes as these. When a severe and humiliating course is imposed simply as a discipline, and apart from any obvious necessity, or any reason or utility, the inner sense revolts at the gratuitous suffering, and so recoils as to generate a deep hypocrisy, or an inward contrariety never, perhaps, spoken of, but which slowly grows and spreads as a canker in the bosom. Let any one distinctly imagine the effect that would be produced upon his feelings, if he found himself shoved off from a threshold, to practise mendicity as an amateur in begging ! How fatal an injury must every proper sentiment sustain, when he knocked at the first door with a plea of destitution on his lips, which, in uttering it, he blushes to recollect is false ! This is an instance^ and it is one among the many with which the Jesuit Institute abounds, of a method of dealing Avith human nature too profoundly artificial to produce what can. merit to be called genuine virtue. Analogous methods have often been devised, and have been put in practice in families, and in schools, by theoretic parents and teachers. Whoever has witnessed such experiments will have turned from the spectacle in mingled pity and disgust. The same artificial style meets us in almost every 270 IGNATIUS LOTOLA. page of these muUipUed regulations— those especially which relate to the noviciate. That the device of the begging month is felt to be nugatory and absurd, appears from the vagueness of the terms in which the novice's certificate of having begged in a seemly manner is demanded. The month's peregrination, however, is not trial enough in this line. Immediately before taking the vows, those who are to do so, to whatever class they may have belonged, are anew thrust out into the streets for three days — there, and in imitation of the founders of the Society — to beg from door to door " for the love of Christ." While at the command of the cook or scullion, the novice washes the dishes, or while sweeping the floor, he is to regard — not the person of him who imposes the task, but the Lord to whom the service is rendered. Grant it that, where this discipline finds a fund of affectionate piety in the heart, it may work well ; but otherwise — and these must be the greater number of instances — a sullen abjectness, or a callous indifference can be its only consequence. " It will be better," says the rule, " that the cook should avoid a softened style of request toward the novice. Let him rather, with modesty, command him to do this or that. , For if he speaks entreatingly it is then a man addressing a man ; — thus it will be a cook — a layman, asking a priest to wash an earthen-pot, or to do anything of this kind, which would seem neither decent nor proper. Whereas, if he uses the style of command, — ' Do this — do that ' — then it is at once understood that he speaks as in the name and person of Christ: it is not the voice of the cook that is heard, nor even that of a superior, but of the Lord." Perilous must be all such attempts to give a practical THE CONSTITUTIONS. 271 efficiency to an extravagant and hypothetlcally con- structed religious sentiment! It may sometimes suc- ceed : it is far more likely to fail, and, in failing, to become purely mischievous. Repeated indications are given in the course of these preliminary regulations, of the anxiety which Is felt in relation to the full manifestation of the souls of the novices to the superiors, who must know whatever is peculiar to the outward and to the inward man; — the first, by the direct means of confession ; the second, chiefly by the incidental aids of delation. Where all is already well, as to the religious sentiments, the sifting methods of examination enjoined In these regulations may be. If not beneficial — harmless. But it Is the vice of all such extreme means of dealing with souls — a vice which has exhibited itself In the practice of more than one communion, and among those be* tween whom, and the Society of Jesus, there may be no other point of resemblance — that on the whole they generate what is artificial, what is hypocritical, what is formal. Even if signally beneficial for a time, these rigorous measures quickly swerve from their direct course, and either become instruments of despotism, or occasions of spiritual fraud : — probably both. No war- rant whatever can be found for them in the apostolic writings. Thus far the General Examination, prefixed to the body of the Constitutions. The First Paet of the Constitutions signalizes, in each of Its regulations, the one intention of the whole ; namely, to bring together a body of men fitted, by every natural and acquired talent, to work upon the mass of mankind. The Society will harbour none who could only vegetate within its precincts, or only apply them- selves to their personal improvementj or only indulge their devotional or literary tastes. ' Energy and ability. 272 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. constitutional and habitual, are demanded as the indis- pensable qualities which the Society, in the first place, looks to. In the Second Paet of the Constitutions rules are given applicable to cases in which a proposal to enter the Society is declined, after the noviciate has actually been commenced. — • For instance ; — there is a sufficient reason of exclu* sion when the novice is found to be in such a state of health, or liable to infirmities of body of such a kind, as must prevent his undergoing the labours which the ser- vice of the Society may demand ; and a reason of equal weight excludes those, who, during their noviciate, have betrayed an indisposition to submit themselves to the law of absolute obedience, as interpreted within the Society ; and who are either unable or unwilling to contravene their own sense and judgment — proprium suum sensum aut judicium infringere. The Third Paet relates to the care and advance- ment of those who proceed with their noviciate. The first point is to preclude all intercourse, orally, or by writing, with any who might chill the ardour of the novice, or divert him from his purpose. In fact he is as strictly watched over, and is as constantly attended by a trusty companion, as if he were a state prisoner* The most stringent and particular rule^ hedge him in during this period of probation. Converse with others, in the same position as himself, being ordi- narily prohibited; and the novice himself, while vigilantly guarded by the functionaries of the house, — we must not call them "turnkeys" — is enjoinedj with a like jealousy, to watch his own senses and facul- ties : his eyes, his ears, his tongue, his soul, his every gesture. In harmony with the first law of the Institute — THE CONSTITUTIONS. 273 namely, the securing the utmost efficiency in its mem- bers — all ascetic extravagances tending either to enfeeble the body, or to enervate the mind, are discouraged; and every one is permitted to mention to the superior any particular, relating to his personal comfort, in matters of clothing, diet, lodging, or the like, which he may think important to his health ; yet he must do so submissively, leaving the decision, in all such instances to his superior. In what relates to the sustenance and preservation of the body, it is the example of the Lord that is to be followed (not that of the mad ascetics of the desert) : a like prudence is to be regarded in the apportionment of bodily labours, care being taken that the elasticity of the mind be not impaired by over-much toil : a practical good sense reigns in whatever affects the bodily well- being of the members of the Society : abstinences^ mortifications, penances, are all to be restricted within bounds of individual discretion, or are to be limited by the direct authority of the superior. The FoTTETH Part of these Constitutions relates to the secular education of the members of the Society, and of those whom it takes under its instructions ; — to the studies to be pursued, and to the modes of teaching that are to be adopted ; and in no department of its' Constitutions is the true intention of the Society more distinctly manifested than in this. The Jesuit colleges are establishments, devoted mainly to purposes of education, which have been conferred upon the Society by the grant of munificent persons, and which have been adequately endowed by them. These establishments, and these endowments, are held by the Society in a less direct, manner, and, the funds attaching to them being so employed as to confer a benefit upon the community at large — a benefit, at 274 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. least, in the opinion of the Society itself — they do not come within the range of the vow of poverty. On this side, therefore, the Society has thought itself at liberty to accumulate wealth ; and it has done so to a vast amountj This however is beside our immediate subject ; in fact, it 18 a subject which could not be fully treated unless the history of the Society were pursued downward^ through a century from the time of its origin. It is here adverted to only in explanation of what occurs in this fourth part of the Constitutions. The first chapter of this part relates to those offices of gratitude which the Society acknowledges itself to owe to the founders of its colleges ; a debt it is willing to discharge by means of perpetual masses said for their benefit, and for the benefit of their successorg " living and dead." A transparent good sense, and practical sagacity, shows itself in all regulations and cautions that bear upon the conduct of students, and the course of study, but which do not interfere with the ulterior and occult intentions of the Society. The detection of this concealed motive, as it calls for a vigilant attention to every paragraph, so should it exclude a suspecting ingenuity, too ready to see mischief where none is intended* In fact, throughout these regulations, so large a margin is left open to the discretion of the rectors, and so frequent a use is made of the all-comprehensive injunction, to do what shall seem most Conducive, under any actual circumstances, " ad majorem Dei gloriam," that the question as to the tendency and character of the Jesuit educational system is not to be determined otlierwise than by the detailed evidence of history, which must inform us what this scheme has actually effected, and what, in the course of years, have been Its fruits. Such a reference to the testimony of history, it is not easy al- THE CONSTITUTIONS, 275 ways to abstain from, when one would fairly consider the import of the regulations now before us. Most of those who have ranged themselves with the adversaries of the Society have used no reserve in expounding its rules, by aid of its history. It is highly desirable, so far as it may be possible, to avoid this method. The ample space that is allowed to the discretionary power of the rectors of colleges, connected as this is with the absolute dependence of these functionaries, through their provincials, upon the General of the order, toward whom they are to hold no reserve, and whose will is to be their law, renders the educational scheme of the Jesuits' Society an elastic and a pliable instrument, which may be modified, at every moment, and to almost any extent, so as if to adapt itself constantly to what the interests of the body, in this or that country, may seem to demand. In different countries, and amid the revo- lutions of opinion, political or philosophical, this systeiil of education may wind its tortuous course, under the skilful pilotage of the General : easily may it extricate itself from any temporary or local embarrassment ; and easily, by aid of this plastic condition of the mass, so mould its exterior form, as to hold to its great pur- pose, while compromising whatever is subsidiary to that purpose. In this respect the Jesuit educational system stands on ground which may be said to be essentially new ; that is to say, as compared with more ancient foundations. These for the most part are stringently obliged by their charters, or by the testaments of their founders, to adhere to a certain course and method; and thus, while a stability is secured to them which is in itself of great value, they are at once precluded from the advantages, and are preserved from the risks, attaching to a less re- stricted condition. The founder of Jesuitism, when T 2 276 IGNATITJS LOYOLA. devising the means for binding the world, took to him- gelf, as a first. principle, this rule — himself to be bound to nothing. , The PiFTH Part of the Constitutions treats of ad- mission into the Society; that is to say, the final re- ception into its bosom of those who have passed through their noviciate with credit, and have been accepted by its authorities, as men qualified to spend their lives advantageously in its service. Of such moment is the act which connects for ever a member with the Society, that the power to admit is a prerogative reserved to the General; The exercise of this prerogative he delegates as often as necessary to the provincials, sometimes to the local superiors, or to the rectors of colleges; or even to prelates not themselves members of the Society. The qualities and the accomplishments required in every candidate are such,, and we should note the fact, as would secure to this institution a body of men much more highly gifted than any other community has ever had at its command ; and far more highly gifted too, than can be necessary in relation to those religious func- tions to which the Society professes to devote, and to confine itself, namely— the care of souls, public preachr ing, teaching of children, and missions to the heathen. And inasmuch as by means of that thorough knowledge of all under their control which the superiors, the pro- vincials, and the General possess, they are well able,, at all times, and even on the exigency of a moment, to choose from a large number the men best fitted, to any kind of labour, it would seem a sort of prodigality to expend so much labour upon the education of all, very many of whom will never be called upon to discharge any but the humblest duties. If indeed all are to be thus elaborately trained, must not so costly a prepare THE CONSTITUTIOKS. 277 latlon be held to bear relation to purposes very unlike any which wo find to be acknowledged ? At the end of a two years' noviciate, or of a longer term, and of a four years' course of study, the Society, in a mode the most solemn, admits the candidate into its bosom. No sifting has been spared which might serve to bring out the most latent of his dispositions; no mode of discipline has been lieglected which might give play to his talents. At length it is ascertained that M. or N. is one who may well do the work of the So- ciety, and upon whose obedience and discretion, in the most difficult instances, a thorough reliance may be placed. All members of the Society then at hand as- semble in the church belonging to it, headed by the provincial, the superiors, and the functionaries of the order, on the spot. AH spaces are filled by spectator^ from the neighbourhood. The General himself presides on these occasions, when circumstances allow him so to do. After saying Mass, and with the holy sacra- ment of the Eucharist before him, the'Generalj or in his absence the provincial, turns toward him who is to profess, and who having made the general confession, and uttered the words usiial before the communion, recites with a loud voice the formula (which has been in his hands some days) to the following effect : — " I, N. make profession, and I promise to God j^- mighty, before the Virgin, his Mother, and before the universal celestial court, and all here present, and to thee Keverend Father N. General of the Society of Jesus, and standing in the place of God, and to thy successors (or to the official who shall act as proxy for the General) — perpetual poverty, chastity, and obedi- ence, and conformably with which (obedience) I pro- mise a peculiar care in the instruction of youth, and all in accordance with the rule of life set forth in the Letr T 3 278 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. ters Apostolic, and the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. " Further, I promise a special obedience to the Sove- reign Pontiff in that which regards missions, as declared in the same Letters Apostolic and Constitutions, made at Rome (or elsewhere) the day, month, year, and in the church named." These vows pronounced, the professed receives the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, and his name is en- rolled in the registry of the Society, and a copy of his vows, written with his own hand, is deposited among its archives. A corresponding form — the fourth vow of obedience to the Pope, is omitted in the admission of the coadjutors and of the Scholars. The Sixth Part of the Constitutions relates to the behaviour and occupations of those who in this man- ner haye entered the Society. The first point being that chastity, "concerning which nothing more need be said than that the vow thereto relating binds to an endeavour to imitate the purity of the angels in body and mind. But the vow of obedience — being in fact the very rudiment of the Jesuit Institute^ — demands a rigor- ous explication of its meaning and extent. We should not fail to observe the peculiar anxiety which manifests itself in relation to this subject, whenever it is alluded to in the Constitutioils, or elsewhere. No one can doubt that it is vinderstood to be the foundation stone of the structure. An instantaneous compliance, not merely with the express commands of the superior, but with any silent indication of his will, is the law of every member of the Society. The entire strength of the body, and force of •the will, with the special aid of the divine grace, is to be concentrated upon this one virtue of perfect obedi- ence ; — holy obedience — perfect always in the execu- THE CONSTITUTIONS. 879 tion of commands — perfect in the will ■■ — perfect in the understanding. Whatever is enjoined is to be per-* formed with promptitude, with spiritual joy, and perT severance, and in the conviction that whatever is com- manded by the superior is just, and is to be complied with in blind obedience, leaving no room for individual impressions or judgment ; unless sin therein be mani- fest. Thus is every one to yield himself to the guid- ance of the Divine Providence, as signified to him by his superior ; even as if he were a dead body, which suffers itself to be moved this way or that, or to be handled in any way ; or as the staff in the hand of an old man which is employed in any manner, at the -will of him who holds it. " Above all things is it necessary that all surrender themselves to a perfect obedience; acknowledging the superior, be he whomsoever he may, as standing in the place of our Lord Jesus Christ, following him in inward veneration and love, and this (exhibited) .not merely in an exterior fulfilment of his commands, en- tirely, promptly, vigorously, and with a due humility yielding obedience without excuses or murmurings ; although such cotnmands be of difficult execution^ and repugnant to natural feelings ; but moreover that ■they strive, as to the interior, to cherish resignation, and to practise a true abnegation of their own will and judgment — conforming their will and judgment to that ■which their superior wills and thinks in all things (wherein sin is not perceived) proposing to themselves the will and judgment of their superior as the rule of their own, whereby they may the better be conformed to that supreme rule, which is in itself eternal goodness and wisdom." The obedience due to the superior of each house or college, is due also to all subaltern functionaries ap- T 4 280 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. pointed by him. A note attached to the above passage recommends the superior to put the obedience of those under his care to severe and gratuitous tests — tempt' ing them, even as God tempted Abraham ; nevertheless with a due regard always to the strength of him upon whom such experiments are to be tried. It is as a branch of this perfect and unreasoning compliance with the nod of his superior, that the Jesuit is enjoined to disclose to him his inmost souL The question which obtrudes itself upon the mind again and again in pei'using these injunctions is this — Can it be solely and purely in relation to the intelligible offices of Christian benevolence, and of popular instruction, that a law of obedience so extraordinary as this, and so tre- mendous, can be either necessary or warrantable ? Do not these unearthly conditions mutely declare purposes of a very different kind, and of far greater difficulty? Who can exclude from his thoughts such suppositions ?, The vow of poverty is anew enforced and explained in this part ; but upon ground necessarily implying one of the three assumptions following, namely ■ — That the Society expects and confides in a miraculous dis- pensation in its favour — from day to day — from year to year, and in perpetuity ; or. That it calculates with more of calmness than of ingenuousness upon that con.- stant stream of pious munificence which it shall be able to direct towards its establishments, by aid of its control over the public mind ; — or Tliat it bears in mind (and so relieves its disquietudes) that device by means of which it is able, as in fact it has done, at once to pro- fess poverty, to live upon alms, and to amass wealth. Perhaps the three sources of supply are alternately kept in view ; or are held available, singly, as occasions may demand. Let it however be acknowledged that, even if the THE CONSTITUTIONS. 281 Society did cherish a little illusion in what relates to its support and secular welfare, and did speak of things as practicable which it knew were not so, yet that a har- mony characterises its regulations and instructions in this behalf. So far as such a scheme of conventual exist- ence could be realised — and it might be realised under circumstances peculiarly favourable — there is a noble simplicity in it — there is a moral force and grandeur ; and undoubtedly the influence of this system upon the conduct and feelings of the simple-minded, (we must be permitted to speak of simple-minded Jesuits) would be of a kind tending to cherish a self-immolating heroism. In fact it has been by the instrumentality of men of this class that the Society has won its triumphs. Its ex- ceptive instances have saved it, when its own machi- nations have gone near to ruin it. The rule of obedience, as we have seen, admits a parenthesis — a saving clause, in regard to the tender conscience of here and there a scrupulous member. Obedience is to be blind — unless sin be manifest. The Jesuit is to close his eyes, and is to hold them closed, and yet he is, by aid of some other sense, to get notice of the presence of sin, should it at any time be involved in the commands of a superior. An explanatory rule, bearing upon this delicate case, is as follows; — wher ther it amounts to an entire nullification of that liberty ■which the parenthesis seems to grant, let the reader determine for himself: — "Although it is the intention of the Society, that all its Constitutions, and Declarations, and its Eule of life, should be undeviatingly observed, according to the Institute ; yet it nevertheless desires to tranquillize, or at least to guard the minds of all its members from the danger of falling into the snare of any sin, owing to the obligation of these Constitutions and ordinances. Therefore it hath seemed good to us in 282 , IGNATIUS LOYOLA. the Lord, with the express exception of the vow of obedience to the Pope for the time being, and the other ■thi'ee fundamental Vows of Poverty, Chastity, and Obe* dience, to declare that none of these Constitutions, De-r clarations, or Rules of life, shall make obligatory any sin whether mortal or venial j unless the superior may command it In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in virtue of the vow of obedience ; and this he may do whenever and to whomsoever he may judge it condut cive, either to Individual good, or to the universal wellr being of the Society. Thus for the greater glory of Christ our Creator and Lord, instead of a perpetual fear of sinning, is substituted love, and the desire of entire perfection." The Seventh Part relates to the assignment of tasks, at home or abroad, to the members of the Society individually. It has already been said that a vast preparation is -made — means the most unusual are resorted to, and a course of discipline is instituted which has no parallel for securing the services of a large body of accomplished men, under conditions the most severe ; and we have yet' to learn what those high purposes are that might geem proportionate to the magnitude and solemnity of such preliminaries. The first of the avowed purposes of the Society, and it is that to which much importance is attached — ut inter cseteras prascipua — includes those missions (to the heathen principally) which the sovereign Pontiflf may enjoin, conformably with the vow to that effect made by every professed Jesuit. This undoubtedly is a great and worthy object, although it by no means demands the sort of preparation which the Jesuit Institute involves. But let us hear in what terms the Society interprets THE CONSTITUTIONS. 283 its obligation to obey the sovereign Pontiff in what relates to foreign missions. First, as to the country whither its members should direct their course : — upon this point, inasmuch as the Society has submitted its own sense and will " to our Lord Jesus Christ, and to his Vicar, it is not permitted to the superior for himself, nor to any subaltern for himself, nor for another, to use endeavours, mediately or immediately, intended to influence the Sovereign Pontifi", or his ministers, in determining where any one should reside, or whither he should be sent. Every one in particular leaves this determination absolutely to the vicar of Christ, and to his superior ; the superior leaves it to the pontiff and to the Society — in the Lord " ; — that is to say, to the General, who is to enlighten the pontiff in whatever relates to such decisions, and to arrange the matter with him, as best he may. Whoever is in this manner de- •signated, and sent forth, is to go unconditionally, and without demanding even the costs of his journey, or any remuneration. In looking at the amplitude of these engagements — freely entered into as they are by the Society, it is barely possible to exclude all recollection of that flar grant course of contumacious resistance to the papal authority which has marked the Jesuit missions in the East, and elsewliere, almost from the earliest days. A determined defiance of papal bulls, and a fixed contempt of apostolic letters has been, in practice, the comment put by the Society upon its vow of implicit obedience. In this same manner, we have seen Loyola, after pro« fessing himself to be bound to the vicar of Christ by his own doctrine of passive obedience, employing every means of vehement protest and of intrigue, either to in- fluence the papal decisions, or to evade them. The 284 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. remaining instructions of this seventh part are few and meagre. The Eighth Part relates to the means to be used for maintaining a good and intimate understanding among the members of the Society ; and between them and their head. The first of these means is the careful exclusion (or expulsion, if it has been incautiously admitted) of the leaven of self-will, or individuality'. Whoever shows a disposition to think for himself—^ whoever fails in the prime article- of passive obedience, is either to be removed to a distant province, or to be expelled fi-om the Society. It is in proportion to the perfection of this first of Jesuit virtues that it fulfils its intention, and only so that it prospers. An accessary means for securing this thorough ac- cordance of all movements is the appointment, when and where it shall seem necessary, of a colleague, or colla- teral, who himself owing no obedience to the function- ary at whose elbow he stands, advises him in ci'itical instances, acts as a sort of flywheel to the machinery, when otherwise a jar or stop might occur ; and who imposes caution and fear upon the superior and the subaltern, by his known nse of the licence of delation, which, however, is not so to be employed as might tend to weaken the authority of the superior. To the General he conveys uncontrolled and uncontradicted intelligence of whatever he sees, as well as of what he does not see, and only surmises. It is thus tha t this complicated scheme of government commands a double system of espionage — one regular and constant ; the other applied whenever circumstances may seem to render the first insufficient. A despotism absolutely unmixed, or which makes no statute provision for extreme cases of misrule, or for occasions of extraordinary difficulty, will either bring THE CONSTITUTIONS. 285 upon Itself a sudden destruction, or will necessitate a transmutation into some other form of polity. The founders of Jesuitism would not leave their Institute exposed to any such peril as this ; and to avert the danger they have not only made provision for dethron-. ing the autocrat in extreme cases, but have mitigated a little his rule, and placed him under a measure of control by the aid of a democratic element — the General Con- gregation, which is convoked, not periodically indeed, nor frequently; but as extraordinary occasions may demand, and either at the will of the General, or even of a majority of those who immediately surround him. It Is the professed members only, with a few of the coad- jutors, who are summoned to attend this Congregation; Nor is it all even of these who are convoked, but' those only who can attend without personal inconvenience}: and without damage to the affairs with which they are entrusted. In fact, the electoral apparatus of a repre- sentative government is put in movement on such occa- sions. Thus, by a provision of the most peculiar kind, a polity which is more purely monarchical than any other, takes to itself the prerogatives of a regular and efficient representative government — at any moment when, without such a transformation, a crisis would probably ensue. A designed indistinctness attaches to the language of the Constitutions, when specifyingy Gr professing to specify, the cases that might warrant the convoking a Congregation of the order. As rarely as possible Is the Society to be subjugated to the labours and to the distractions of such an assemblage. The General, aided by those around him, would no doubt avert the necessity of this measure, as far as It may be possible for him so to do. It must, however, be under- gone as often as the election of a general Is to take place, whether occasioned by the death of him who had 286 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. held that office, or by so extraordinary an occurrence as his deposition. A Congregation must also be sum- moned when the permanent interests of the Society at large are in question, or when colleges or houses are to be broken up. An elaborate system is put in movement for the elec- tion of members in each province, who are to be its delegates in this muster of the order. The congrega- tion when convoked, as for example for the election of a General, may, after having discharged this duty, pro- ceed to consider other matters, and such as may be regarded as too weighty to be left to his discretion, or that of his coadjutors. On such occasions therefore, that is to say, as often as a demise of the sovereign power takes place, the monarchical principle is held in abeyance, even although a successor to it has been ap- pointed, and for a moment the Society breathes its own. breath, and speaks and acts as a free community. The Jesuit Institute, therefore, is at once an absolute mon- archy, a mixed monarchy, and a democracy, and it is-, so not by a balance of the several elements of power in simultaneous juxta-posltion, but by an alternating and variable supremacy of each. The Ninth Pakt of the Constitutions relates to the office of the General, a;nd to the rules and modes of his administration. The strongest reasons favour an election to this office for life, an office altogether analogous to those ruled by this same condition — such as that of the Pope, and of all ecclesiastical dignitaries. The qualities that should recommend any one to this high position are — the en- joyment of the favour of God, and the consequent pos- session, in an eminent degree, of all those gifts and griaces which emanate from the source of all good : — !• a life exemplary in the sight of men ; and a temper THE CONSTITUTIONS. 287 adorned by humility ; — earthly affections mortified — • x disposition calm and circumspect ; and manners grave and sedate. He must, however, be firm and resolved, and capable of carrying measures of severity when such are called for ; yet should he be full of tenderness toward those whom he chastises. He must be distinguished by courage and greatness of mind, apt to form the largest plans, not soon discouraged, but steady in purpose to carry them forward, unmoved by threats, or by en- treaties ; and even when those who would divert him from his course are the loftiest potentates. He must be ready to die, if need be, for the Society, and in the service of the Lord ; and of such tranquil temperament as to be neither elated by pi-osperity, nor dejected by adversity. The General must shine among his fellows by inteU ligence, as well as by every acquired accomplishment, by practical ability, and pre-eminently by soundness of judgment and prudence — by experience in things spiritual, and by knowledge of human nature. He must be so •well skilled moreover in secular affairs, as to be able to deal advantageously with men of all con- ditions. He must be distinguished by his assiduity, promptness, energy, and habits of despatch in business. He should, in person, age, health, figure, manners, be such as to command the respect due to his office, and to the discharge of its duties ; and should actually enjoy the favour and esteem of all men. He should be one long known within the Society, and highly esteemed^ and who, whatever other qualities he may lack, must be recommended by probity, a clear judgment, and devoted affection to the Society. The General thus qualified to govern so vast a com- munity, exercises an authority which has scarcely any limits. To him belongs the prerogative of admitting to 288 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. membership ; as also of expulsion. He sends whither^ soever he will, those who are prosecuting their studies. He superintends and governs colleges, in all that relates to the scholars, the professors, and other functionaries, especially to the rectors themselves, whom he nominates or deposes, and whose authority in each instance he defines : to him they render account [of their adminis^ tration, and in like manner he governs all those univer- sities that are placed under the control of the Society. All contracts of a pecuniary kind, all sales and pur- chases, must be effected or sanctioned by the General ; his power in matters secular being bounded only by this restriction, that he may not alienate or break up colleges or houses, without the consent of a congregation of the order. As it is his office and duty to enforce the strict observance of the Constitutions upon all the members of the Society and its officers, so does it rest with him to dispense with that observance in any instances in which — as' enlightened from above — he may think that the main ends of the institution would better be secured by a breach of them, than by a rigid adherence to the letter of the law. That is to say, the General is virtually superior to law, or he is held to it only by the possible resentment and resistance of those around him. The General exercises the most absolute control over all persons and measures attaching to foreign missions — regardful, only and always, of that higher control which the Society, by its fourth vow, assigns to the sovereign Pontiffi He distributes, according to the talents of each, the offices of confessor, reader, preacher, and the like. Whatever powers or privileges may be accorded to the Society by the Pontiff, are at the absolute disposal of the General. To him belongs the infliction of pun- ishment, and the appointment of penances. It is at THE CONSTITUTIONS. 289 Ids discretion tliat general or provincial assemblies are convoked. Without his permission (and it is granted only in the most rare instances, and at the express command of the Holy See) no member of the Society can accept any office or dignity out of its pale. All offices within it are filled at his appointment. It be- longs to him to accept any houses, colleges, or univer- sities, with their endowments, that may be offered to the Society — a discretion, as .to the retention of such, being reserved for the general congregation. It is his duty to make himself intimately acquainted with the consciences of all who are subjected to his authority, the Provincials especially, and of those to whom the most important functions have been assigned. In a word, all power, with the fewest possible limita* tions, is left in the hands of the head of the Society. The Society, however, while subjecting itself to art authority so absolute, keeps an eye upon its own well- being, and upon the great purposes of its institution* The proceedings of the General are watched on the part of the Society, by officers appointed foi* that purpose, and always resident near him. These "Assistants," four in number, exercise a control to which he is bound to submit, over his personal expenses, his establishment, and his attire ; and even over his personal conduct, so far as to moderate any labours or abstinences which they may think excessive and prejudicial to his health. Thej' appoint him a confessor, or other well qualified pei'son, who, taking the oversight of his spiritual welfare, ad- monishes and advises him, with all humility and free- dom, having in view solely the glory of God. A possible case is provided for, in which the General may be urgently pressed by a secular prince to accept some office incompatible with the due discharge of his functions, and which would render a resignation on his u 290 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. part necesary. To no such solicitations can he yield without the consent of the Society ; and this is never to be granted unless in submission to the authority of the Pope. Should the General become hopelessly negligent in the performance of his duties, or incapable through dis- ease, or the advance of years, a vicar is appointed, with or without his consent, upon whom devolves all the powers of the supex-seded or superannuated General. The last case supposed as possible (never it is hoped actually to occur) in which the Society, by means of its officers, resumes the powers it has conferred, is that of some flagrant delinquency on the part of the General, such as sensuality, the infliction of a wound upon any one, malversation in the administration of the funds of the Society, gifts to those not belonging to it, the alienation of the property of houses or colleges, or the holding of false doctrine. In any such case, if incon- testably established, the Society deposes the General, and may even expel him from its pale. In the mode in which the equilibrium of powers is provided for, the Provincials yielding passive obedience, or professing so to do, while at the same time they are held responsible to the Society at large, and required to exercise some discretion, involves an anomaly of which no explanation can be given except that which applies equally to politics and to mechanics, namely, that some such means of adjustment, as the theory of the con- struction would not admit, is in fact allowed for in the working of its parts, by help of the unperceived elasticity of the materials. On no other supposition can we re- concile that unconditional, and yet conditional law of obedience, which connects the supreme power, in the Jesuit institute, with the subordinate power. In the execution of his oflice, involving an exact THE CONSTITUTIONS. 291 attention to a vast multiplicity of affairs, and to questions the most difficult and diverse, the General is aided by his own assistants, heads of departments, administrators of particular interests, and generally by a remembrancer, whose duty it is to recall to his recollection daily, whatj from the infirmity of the best memory, might otherwise be forffotten. The TENTH and last paet of the Constitutions embraces various subjects bearing upon the wellbeing of the Society, upon its efficiency, and its permanence. Some perhaps would not be ready to suppose that a passage such as the following would occur in the midst of a system of laws so immoral in their tendency as are those of " the Society, " and connected with the history of what is regarded as a confederacy against the liberties of nations. But inasmuch as we are not now construct- ing an argument upon materials of late date, all credit should be given to the professions here cited. " Inasmuch as the Society, which has not been esta- blished by human means, but by the favour of the Almighty and of our Lord Jesus Christ, our hope in Him alone must be placed, confident that he will main- tain and further this work, which he has vouchsafed to commence, for His service and glory and the succour of souls. In accordance with this hope, the prime and most suitable means to be employed for this end are prayers and sacrifices, offered with this pious intention, in all places where the Society is established, and at ap- pointed times in due order every week, month, and year. " For the preservation and increase, not of the body merely of the Society, that is to say of those things that are external, but also of its spirit, and for the attain- ment of that which it proposes to itself, namely the benefit of souls, in aiding them to reach their final and celestial destiny, those means are the most efficacious u 2 292 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. which connect the instrument with God, and dispose it to be tightly governed by the divine hand, rather than such as attemper it toward men. Of this sort are pro-" bity and virtue, and especially charity — a pure inten- tion to serve God — a familiar communion with God in the spiritual exercises of devotion ; and a sincere zeal for the welfare of souls, tending to the glory of Him who has created and redeemed them ; and this apart from any thought of further advantage. Thus then we should see to it, that all those who dedicate themselves to the service of the Society, apply themselves to the study of the solid and perfect virtues, and of spiritual excellences ; and that they attach more importance to these things, than to learning, or other natural gifts and accomplishments. For it is from these interior graces that an efficacious influence should flow for securing the ends we purpose as to things exterior. " These gifts and graces being present, all exterioi* and natural means useful for obtaining influence with men, are with assiduity to be employed, especially a Solid and exact erudition, and the art or faculty of con- veying to the people, in sermons and lectures, the rudi- ments of knowledge." The disinterestedness of professors in colleges is to h& secured by a strict observance of the rules thereto rela- ting. That poverty which is so indispensable to the wellbeing of a religious order is to be most sedulously guarded from the insidious advances pf the spirit of cupidity. The occasions of ambition are to be cut off, the vitmost vigilance is to be observed in the admis- sion of members, and firmness in expelling the unworthy. All care is to be used in the election of the chief of the Society, and in the appointment of all inferior officers. A frequent and intimate communication is to be main- tained among the members, and between them and theif to THE CONSTITUTIONS. 293 superiors. AH excesses prompted by an Indiscreet fer- vour are to be discouraged. The good opinion of the world at large, and the favour of princes, are to be sought for; yet not by courting parties. The best use is to be made of the favours granted to the Society by the apostolic See. Such are the means which should be diligently used for securing the welfare, pei'manence, iand increase of the Society. Certain points in relation to which the distinction between Komanism and Jesuitism is, if not obvious, yet real and vitally important, are presented to view in an incidental manner throughout the Constitutions. Thq evidence that touches upon these points is to be gleaned, up and down, from the surface of this body of laws. Among these subjects, thus incidentally and somewhat obscurely set forth, none are of deeper consequence than are the Jesuit practices of "Confession" — the "Mani- festation of the conscience," and the appended usage of " Delation." The principle involved in these practices, and the bearing of this principle upon the unalterable constitution of the human mind, and upon the eternal laws of God's government of the moral world, demand attention. On this ground, as well as in the Inter- pretation which Loyola has put upon the doctrine of obedience, the most candid inquirer into the merits of Jesuitism is compelled to acknowledge that the system rests upon a principle, and authorises practices that do the most frightful violence to human nature, and that contravene, in an outrageous manner, the first principles of natural and revealed religion. In these instances the inherent and irremediable viciousness of this Institute obtrudes itself upon our view. The Romish Church, how culpable soever it may itself be on this ground, has shown itself not insensible to the perils and abuses that beset its practice of CoU'? u 3 294 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. fession ; and it has, by stringent and reiterated enact- ments, done something to diminish these dangers, and to repress those mischiefs, the existence of which it admits. How far these precautionary measures may have been effective is not now a question to be con- sidered : at the least they are indicative of a feeling that is good in itself. The Romish Church allows her mem- bers individually to choose a Confessor, wherever there may be room for such a choice ; and in doing so it establishes, between the penitent and the Confessor, in some sort, a relationship of affectionate confidence, and of personal friendship. And then the confidence reposed by the one in the other is guarded by enactments and by sanctions the most peremptory, and which in fact are not often violated : — the priest's lips do, in this sense, "keep knowledge," — i. e. retain it. And then when confession has been duly made, absolution granted, and the imposed penances performed, all is so far con- cluded ; and although a deep incision may have been made into the bosom, yet has it also been closed by the same professional hand. But the Society, on this ground, deals in a very different manner with its members. Every Jesuit is obliged to confess himself, at the stated times, and they are frequent, to the one Confessor who has been ap- pointed for him by his superior. This functionary, who receives the confessions of all within the house or college to which he is attached, instead of being at liberty to grant absolution jn the mode, and on the terms, custom- ary in the Romish Church, is instructed to reserve certain specified cases of delinquency, and to report them to the Superior. In fact, whatever may either touch the repu- tation of the individual, or may serve in any manner to afford a clue to his secret dispositions, is, on the ground of its being "a reserved case," reported to those next in THE CONSTITUTIONS. 295 authority ; and through these it ascends, when of sufficient importance, to the ear of the General, the penitent mean- while is held in suspense, not only unabsolved, but in doubt as to the course that may be pursued toward him in the infliction of punishment. In this manner — that is to say, by holding always in his hand a number of these reserved cases — the Superior rules his house with a rod of iron. Undefined terrors are at his command : the fate of every one whose conscience has compelled him to confess a sin whicli is of the " reserved" class — his fate, temporal and eternal, is in the hand of the Superior, and remains in his hand for an indefinite time. But even when Confession has gone its length, what is called "the manifestation of the conscience" goes much further ; for this practice, not indeed new among the monastic orders, plunges a ruthless hand into the bosom, to the utmost depth which human nature may admit, and leaves absolutely nothing unsurrendered of the inmost secrets of the soul. If such a violation of the first rudiment of the moral life be intolerable when the bosoms subjected to it are such only as a monastery is likely to harbour, how intolerable must it be when it is sustained by men of intelligence and energy, and who are daily moving in and out on the crowded paths of common life ! An outrage like this, committed upon minds such as these, will not fail either to break the spirit, or to debauch it. Romish Confession, and Jesuit Confession, with its attendant " manifestation," are not by any means identical, nor should they be confounded : — the one is a religious usage ; — the other is a means of secular government; and in how frightful a sense does it become such when confession and manifestation are the groundwork upon which " Delation " makfes good its footing ! ■ It may happen that, neither by the confession of his u 4 296 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. sins, nor by the manifestation of liis conscience, has a member of the Society thoroughly removed from the mind of his Superior all suspicions as to his sincerity, or his subserviency. Perhaps it has not yet become per- fectly certain that he, individually, may safely be em- ployed in this or that manner ; or that the Society holds his whole soul at its absolute command. For cases of this kind it makes provision by means of the practice of Pelation. ' Delation follows upon Confession and Manifestation — sweeping the ground after each of them, and gathering up, by the menial broom and shovel of silent treachery, whatever may lie scattered about, and which may be in any manner significant. Every Jesuit is encouraged — nay he is bound — to report to his Superior whatever he may know, and whatever he may suspect, relative to the conduct, to the private habits, or to the secret dispositions of every other. Every Jesuit is a spy upon every Jesuit ; a net-work of perfidy embraces the entire community, and from its meshes not even those highest in authority stand for a moment clear. Every functionary knows that he is minutely watched by every eye around him, and that he may be reported and accused to the central authority, without his cognizance of the charge, and from which charge he has no opportunity to clear himself. Spiritual despotism hoards this influx of treacherous criminations among her choicest treasures, and brings them forth, after perhaps a lapse of years, Avhen they may be found to be of avail for carrying her long-meditated purposes. Let us now be told whether Christian simplicity and manly ingenuousness, whether the purest and the noblest virtues are likely to flourish within precincts thus brooded over by fear, by malice, and by falsehood ? Let not the extreme proposition be maintained — that piety and virtue, candour and truth, can never exist under THE CONSTITUTIONS. 297 conditions such as these. It is more than enough for any purposes of argument if it appears — that a scheme pf government which first robs men of all self-respect, and -then of all confidence, one in another, must render Christian piety and manly virtue rare ; — and ■what does this mean when we are speaking of a body of men who offer themselves to the world as the teachers and patterns of both ? So long as the constitution of the human mind, and the first principles of that moral economy under which we find ourselves to be placed, arc respected, the con- fession of faults one to another, and the disclosure of the inmost secrets of the bosom will be regarded as exceptive cases, that are warrantable, or that are rendered neces- sary, by peculiar and special reasons. These special reasons therefore must always prescribe the limits within which the practice can be allowed as legitimate, or can be encouraged, as of good tendency. But if 710 such limits are observed, then this disclosure of the individual consciousness has become, not the exceptive instance, but the rule, and then, consequently, each Jhstance of concealment becomes, not merely an exception to a rule, but an exception that is open to the severest reprehension. It is thus therefore that the Jesuit practices, above adverted to, rest broadly upon a mis- understanding of human nature — upon a violation of its most sacred instincts, and of the conscience as related to the divine government. The very rudiment of the intellectual, as well as of the moral life, is the power of reserve. This en- crusting of the soul is the first law, and it is the necessary condition of that individuality, apart from which there remains no fulcrum of resolve, no self* originating progress or purpose, no liberty, no dignity, no love; and therefore, by inevitable consequence. 298 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. no virtue. Whoever will follow out in idea these conditions will feel that wisdom and virtue, strength of purpose, self-respect, and respect for others (apart from which love is not possible) can no longer be con- ceived of after we have rejected from our conception of human nature all power of seclusion and concealment, and have thoroughly denuded the individual mind and heart. Man, created as he was in the likeness of God, bears upon his very front no ambiguous indication of his participation in that perfection of the Divine nature which surrounds it with " clouds and darkness." " None by searching can find out God," or " know his mind," for " He giveth no account of any of His matters." He still " hideth himself," even in the heavens where his glory is manifested. And so, while endeavouring dis- tinctly to conceive of any order of beings, we wholly fail to associate with such a conception the idea of pergonal virtue, until we have admitted the idea of individual invio- lability : Virtue will have her vesture. That this power of concealment is in fact of primary importance, as the ground or Support of individual responsibility, may well be inferred from the fact that, in the constitution of man, it has been guarded with the utmost care. How terrific an illustration of that sacred inviolability with which the Creator has endowed human nature do we obtain, when mechanic ingenuity is seen to be exhausting in vain its last devices of torture at the bidding of tyranny, only to break up by force this power of reserve, and to violate this inviolability ! Blood oozes from every vein - — the sinews crack — the marrow of the bones drops from the fingers' ends, sooner than the secrets of a firmly constructed soul can be wrenched from the bosom ! The quivering lips emit involuntary groans ; but they do ijot belie ' that awful truth of the moral system — That God's own hand has sealed man's individuality, by con- THE CONSTITUTIONS. 299 ferring upon him this strength of the will ! Can it then be a light mattei' to fret away, by little and little, this covering of the soul, which is the fence of virtue, and its necessary condition, and which the Creator has planted so deep in the recesses of our nature ? That which despotism attempts to accomplish by the anguish of the rack, a perverted and vicious ingenuity has sought to achieve by its sinister procedures. If love be the perfection of virtue, or if virtue be love universal, then is it certain that, if by any means an entire exposure of the inmost soul could be eiFected, such as would rend away the last reserve of self-esteem, then virtue would be possible no more. Even an ap- proach toward such a denuding of the heart, and toward such an abandonment of individuality, is felt to be preju- dicial to the purest affections. Those who are well skilled in human nature do not need to be told this ; for they are conscious of it as by a sort of intuition. Love is the communing of two spirits, or it is such an intertwining of natures as that while the branches, the foliage, and the clusters appear all as one mass, yet each plant has its own stem, and its own root ; and the root of each must draw its nourishment from a depth beneath, and apart from the other. It is the weakly-fond, it is not the wise, who would push the revealing of hearts beyond all limit. It is a diseased prurience> not a virtuous ingenuousness, which shows itself impatient of all concealment. A mind that has been violated by the prurience, or by the tyranny of another, feels that it has lost, and perhaps has lost irrecoverably, its contractile force : — henceforward individual purposes, and resolves, and energy, and the calm consciousness of strength, are gone ! Now the Romish practice of Confession, what- ever evils may attend it, does not in any such manner violate the inner principle of the moral nature. Con- 300 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. fession may indeed, and it should, suffuse the cheek with crimson ; but this Jesuit practice of the manifestation of the conscience, which leaves nothing unrevealed, spreads over the visage the jjalidness of despair. Shame — that is to say a virtuous shame — the shame whence reformation might take its rise, springs from a painful consciousness of the contrast which the penitent's own confession has presented to the eye of another, between that outside of virtue which personal reserve has hitherto maintained, and the delinquency which has now been disclosed. But if all reserve has been abandoned, shame can have place no more — for there can now be no contrast — no confusion of face — no humbling of pride ; ihenceforth there is room only for sullen despondency, for self-contempt, or for immoveable apatliy ! If it be said that the wisdom or expediency of any practice that is called in question must be judged of, not on grounds of abstract reasoning, but by paying regard to certain purposes that are in view, and that these purposes may be of so extraordinary a kind, or may be at once of such difficulty and of such importance as to warrant what otherwise must be regarded as vicious and unwarrantable ; if this be said, then a fur- ther question presents itself; and it must be asked. What these extraordinary purposes are which might be alleged as proper and sufficient for justifying the vast apparatus of spiritual tyranny which the Jesuit Insti- tute puts in movement. 301 CHAPTER IV. THE rXj-EPORT OF THE JESUIT INSTITUTE. What, then, are the professed intentions of the So- ciety of Jesus ? And what are those labours which it undertakes? And of what kind are the preparations ■which it makes for achieving its avowed purposes ? Is there a manifest adaptation of such means to the ac- complishment of such ends; and are the means duly- proportioned to the ends ? These queries are plainly reasonable, nor should they be dismissed until they have been disposed of in a man-^ ner that is free from ambiguity. A passage lately cited, p. 291., may well be referred to as a fair sample of the style in which the founders of the Society declare their motives, and set forth the ends and purposes toward which all their labours are directed, and within the compass of which this mass of rules and enactments — this thousand and more of carefully digested regulations, find their reason. Scarcely a chapter or a page of the Constitutions is wanting in similar protestations of the highest and the purest religious motives, as the sole incentives of ac- tion that are recognised by the Society. Let then these professions be accepted as genuine, and as ingenuous ; that is to say, as being clear of all suspicion of mental reservation. But if so, then the 302 IGKATIUS LOYOLA, avowal of purposes, as well as the profession of motives, must be taken as an entire or comprehensive avowal. This should be clearly understood. If we give credence to the Society while declaring that it is animated by no motive of secular ambition, and that it is warmed solely by the love of God in " Christ Jesus the Lord," then must we also regard it as certain that, when the Society specifies the labours and duties to which its members are to devote themselves, nothing remains behind — nothing — no offices are silently thought of — no functions are held in prospect of which no mention is made. But it must be granted, that if the avowal oi purposes be found to be incomplete or disingenuous, then the pro- fession of motives will, at the same time, have forfeited all claim to our confidence ; and in that case the " So- ciety of Jesus" will seem to have come into full and rightful possession of its vulgar reputation. Thence- forward no injustice will be done to Jesuitism when, without qualifying the term, we employ it as an epithet, caiTying its conventional meaning, all the world over, and call it — Jesuitism. The Founders of the Society first make a profession, as we have "said, of their motives. They then spread before us the means they have devised, and the pre- parations they have made for eflPecting a great work, at the impulse of such motives, and in harmony therewith. Vast are these means — mighty is this preparation ! No such scheme, none so elaborate, so exactly balanced, so highly finished, has the world ever seen. No other system has so carefully selected its agents, or has sub- jected thera to so severe a training. Nothing would this scheme seem to want, either in amplitude, or in elaboration, or in a profoundly calculated adaptation to the shifting occasions of this world's affairs, if indeed its ulterior purpose were to grasp, to bind, and to serve it- PUEPOET OF JESUITISM. 303 self upon — the human family ! Nothing more than what the Jesuit institute includes would appear to be needed, if the establishment of a universal empire, secular in its ends, but spiritual in its pretexts, were proved to be in truth its intention. But how simple, must we not say — how vapid, is the recital which the Society makes of the purposes to which it dedicates this mighty machinery ! Awe and terror attach, on every side, to the machine ; a guileless benevolence, which seems to need no machinery what- ever, characterises its avowed labours ! The Jesuit Society proposes to itself such labours as these : — First, to take the oversight and direction of souls, for their furtherance heaven-ward ; it intends to aim at nothing in discharging this duty that is not purely spiritual. Secondly, it offers its unpaid services in the very humble ofSce of catechising children and youth, and of imparting the rudiments of knowledge, religious and secular : — it is, or would be, schoolmaster gratis, to all the world. And, thirdly, it charges itself with the labours — arduous indeed — of evangelising the heathen, and of restoring a catholic belief among apostate nations. This is the whole duty ostensibly undertaken by the Society ! Not a syllable occurs in any of its authentic documents whence might be inferred any latent intention to step over these modest boundaries, or to touch, even remotely, any secular interests. No course. whereon worldly ambition might start forward is suggested as possibly to be opened before the Society, or before any of its members individually. The spiritual good of men, and the glory of God, are — and these alone — the ends and purposes of this Institute. These purposes are professed in terms which might exclude all suspicion of sinister or fraudulent intention. Everywhere purely religious professions are 304 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. advanced in a purely religious style, and with an abun- dant use of phrases drawn from Holy Scripture. If in any case whatever the consequences of a given line of conduct may be anticipated with certainty, we may be sure that an association of Christian men im- pelled by motives such as those that are in this instance professed, and pursuing objects so intelligibly good and benign, and confining its labours strictly within the limits of ecclesiastical usage, and always in punctilious observance of the rites of the national faith, could never draw upon itself the execration of nations, or could come to be denounced as an enemy by governments that were once its patrons. Zealous sects, promulgating opinions in contrariety to the established belief, and acting independently of authorities in church and state^ have indeed often so made themselves obnoxious to princes and to mobs. But no instance can be cited analogous to that of this Society, if indeed its motives have been such only as it has professed, and if its In- tentions are those only which it avows. On this sup- position, what an enigma is the history of the Society within the bosom of Catholic communities, If we ad- vert to the events of the years following In quick succession fronl 1606 to 1773 ! But If, In fact, the events that signalised that course of time are Indisputable, and therefore demand explica- tion, then must we revert to the canonical documents of the Society, and Inquire whether they do not ex- hibit so monstrous an Incoherence, and such an internal disproportion, as baffles the attempts both of philosophic candour and of Christian charity to admit the plea — that all is sincere and ingenuous In the professions of this community. A little attention to the several heads above men- tioned may suffice for bringing distinctly In view this PURPORT OF JESUITISM. 305 alleged disproportion. First, then, among the avowed purposes of the Society, is the care of souls. Nothing that does not directly bear upon the spiritual welfare of men, as immortal beings, is alluded to in con- nection with this principal function of the Society. These labours of evangelic benevolence are therefore precisely identical with those that were undertaken by the first promulgators of Christianity. It cannot be alleged that the care of souls, as immortal beings, in one age of the world, essentially differs from the care of soiils in another age, or that it demands at one time provisions or preparations wholly unlike those which were proper and necessary at another. The miraculous endowments of the apostles and evangelists had a mani- fest intention in the establishment of a new faith ; but these are not in any way included among the means in- dispensable for giving effect to the pastoral office ; nor need a substitute be sought for in their place. Fervent love, firm faith, courage, zeal, and consistency of conduct, with an aptness to teach, are the qualifications of the Christian minister, or shepherd of souls. So far as appears, and If we are to accept the pro- fessions of the Society as true and ingenuous, the occu- pations of a Jesuit, in relation to the care of souls, differ not at all from those of the first preachers of the Gospel. What need, then, of the strange conditions which the former brings himself under, with a view, as he says, to his better discharge of these same offices ? Let us put these intelligible questions distinctly. What need then of the Vow of Poverty as a qualification for the spi- ritual oversight of souls ? Instead of taking upon him- self a spontaneous obligation which, in practice, must be null, and which must, when null, become a mockery — instead of doing this, Paul thought it enough that he had learned "how to abound, and how to suffer need ;" and 306 IGNATIUS LOTOLA. Ihat, for the furtherance of the Gospel, he had accustomed himself to the endurance of hunger, thirst, nakedness : — he could traverse countries, homeless and defenceless, Ayhenever these hard conditions were to be encountered. But did he think that a vow of perpetual and gratuitous poverty could be useful over and beyond this readiness to endure "hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ ?" It is certain that he did not : it is certain that he had encum- bered himself with no factitious obligation, which would have brought the simplicity and ingenuousness of his character into reasonable doubt. Some among those whom he exhorted to repentance would not have been slow to surmise that a man who paced the streets, beg- ging his bread when he had plenty of gold in his purse, br.when he might easily have supplied his daily wants in another manner, harboured some sinister intention, and was either a fool, a fanatic, or a knave. Let it be considered whether this vow of poverty has not a murky aspect when it is professed by those whose office it is to proclaim glad tidings in all simplicity of heart. Let it be asked whether a, profession which cannot be maintained at all without the aid of circuitous pretexts, and of a network of legal fictions, is likely to exert an auspicious influence upon the minds of converts, unless indeed they themselves have been dealt with delusively and fana- tically. This vow of poverty, which no doubt has been found to be both useful and necessary as a means for accomplishing sinister and secular ends, and for fasten- ing upon the souls of the people a pernicious tyranny, is clearly not only superfluous, but must be prejudicial in relation — purely and solely — to the care of souls. The utility of the vow of celibacy, as a means con- ducing to the same end, will not easily be admitted by those who are well read in Church history. The ques- tion however, not being peculiar to Jesuitism, need not in this place be considered. PUEPORT OF JESUITISM. 307' No such selection of instruments — no such training of these instruments — no such conditions as these instru- ments are subjected to in the Jesuit Institute, can there be any need of where nothing more is intended than a, simple-hearted and faithful discharge of the pastoral duties. And not only are such preparations wholly unnecessary in relation to the spiritual instruction and guidance of souls, but they must operate, as might easily be shown, and, indeed, as is obvious, prejudically in relation to any such function. Infinitely better were it, both for the religious teacher, and for the taught, that the two should stand together on the ground of common sympathies ; instead of their holding interlocution from the opposite sides of an unfathomable abyss. But now, if there be reason to imagine that, notwith- standing its professions to the contrary, the Jesuit So- ciety has looked on beyond the dim " eternity " of which it talks so incessantly, and that it keeps a steady eye upon the better-defined objects of this present life, then indeed would it secure for itself, by all means, the func- tion of the " care of souls," and would make precisely' such preparations for the successful discharge of this office as we find it to have made. In this particular aspect the Constitutions cease to b3 an enigma, and become quite intelligible; that is to say, when once we have assumed the hypothesis that the real intentions of the Society are directed, not toward heaven, but toward earth. The care of souls is the very office which those would be forward to undertake whose intention it was to possess themselves, not of the shadow, but of the very substance of universal empire. The abstract idea of PowEPv has been but poorly realised in even the most perfect forms of government hitherto established amon"- 308 IGNATIUS LOTOLA. men. Civil governments, when the most absolute, do but touch upon the exterior of such a conception of Dominion as the mind may entertain. Secular povfer professes to be content with that submission or obe- dience which ensures to itself its tangible revenues, its state, and its show ; its pageantry, its gorgeous pomps, and its trophies : as for the rest, it cares little. Ecclesiastical power looks somewhat further than this, and demands a more intimate kind of assent and com- pliance. Yet, knowing that beyond the lip, and the visage, and the knee, it can secure nothing without in- finite painstaking on its own part, it is willing to accept the hypocrisies of the exterior man as suffi- cient, even although conscious that the homage it re- ceives is spurious. The Church has asked either for a genuine or for a counterfeit submission; — the former, if it could be had ; but, if not, the latter. Yet something far more real than this there was room to imagine — namely, a true dominion, reaching to the very depth of men's hearts, and which, when so possessed of the interior, might be indifferent concerning the crust and the shell; — this was an object which, if thought of as attainable, was fitted to kindle the profoundest am- bition ; and, on the supposition that an object so vast and so awfully consistent with itself was contemplated by the authors of the Jesuit Institute, then every part of that complicated scheme is seen to be a means well adapted to such an end. Assuming this theory, there is no longer any perplexing disproportion between the means and the end ; and then the care of souls, under- taken by men who have passed through a discipline so stern, and who have bound themselves by vows so fearful, is the first and principal labour which should prepare the ground for the intended superstructure. On this sup- position, Jesuitism no longer (as otherwise it must) PUPPORT OF JESUITISM. 309 stultifies itself; and it is able — as we might be sure it would be — to give a rational account of itself^ TO ITSELF. It has not put itself to infinite pains — ► for nothing. Let then this idea be taken up as the theory of Jesuitism ; and let It be imagined that its intention is to stretch over the human family a perfect domination, independent of physical force, and therefore able to set it at defiance; and which, as more deeply seated than any other, should at length come in to supplant every other — to absorb all other authorities, and, in the endj to rule the world from the centre of a single bosom. Now, if such be the idea of Loyola's Institute, then it is obvious that the care of souls and the direction of consciences will be foremost among the offices with which It will charge itself. It will engage to do every thing for souls, " without fee or reward," which souls can need, or can wish to be done for them. It will un- dertake to cure all maladies, to relieve all perplexities ; it win burden itself with the heaviest responsibilities ; it will, without scruple, make itself universal proxy for men in every condition of spiritual incapacity. A scheme founded on such a principle of universality, inasmuch as it may not leave any single Instance or any possible case of conscience unprovided for— even the most extreme and desperate — must not have any conscience of its own to be cared for or respected. An authority that is limited internally, by its respect for certain fixed rules, and by a regard to its own Integrity, circum- scribes, so far, . Its faculty of adaptation to all states and circumstances ; for while it can and may do such or such a thing, it may not, and will not, do such or such another; and therefore its domination can take effect only within defined boundaries. Why is it, then — need we ask? — ^why is it that the X 3 310 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Jesuit Institute prepares its agents for their work -by first scooping clean out of their bosoms every «tom of individual conscience? why does it enjoin upon them a " blind obedience ? " Surely there is no mystery here ! The Society does so because the work ■it undertakes, as universal curator of souls, could not be carried forward by men within whose bosoms there remained any power of resistance, or any individual sense of the inconvertibility of right and wrong, or "ivho, in a word, had a conscience of their own. Every (day's round of duty must present occasions fraught -with anxious perplexity to those whose habit it should be to appeal to their personal convictions of right. Such an appeal would often utterly forbid those things to be said and done which must be said and done for " the tase of souls " by the ministers of a power that will in no possible case risk the loss of its influence, or the defection of its subjects. Such a power, moreover, aiming at once at univers- jility, and at extending an absolute rule down into the depths of all hearts, must have the means of surveying its field : in other words, it must know, or at least be able to know, all hearts. Its own agents, therefore, as they must be to it the medium of its omniscience, inust themselves have become thoroughly translucent. That " manifestation of the conscience " to which so much importance is attached by the Society, and that system of "delation" which is so sedulously maintained within its pale, are only the necessary means for effect- ing this transparency of all bosoms. A perfect SOUL- X)ESPOTiSM must needs have at its command a panopti- con such as this. The instrument is fitted to this pur- pose ; it is fitted to no other. If it were alleged that no valuable purpose could be answered, even in the view of the most despotic power, by this intimate inspection PURPORT OF JESUITISJr, 311 of the hearts of men, not one of a thousand of which would offer to the eye a particle deserving a moment's regard, it is enough to reply that, in these preparations for the care, direction, and government of souls, that one class of souls has not been forgotten upon the disposi- tions and machinations of which the revolutions of the great world depend. Shall this Society, in proof of the pure spirituality of its views, drive from its door nobles and potentates, ministers of state, dignitaries, captains, and the subaltern agents of government, leaving them to implore, in vain, its aid in giving ease to their con- sciences? Shall the Society repel all such frequenters of its precincts ; or, not repelling them, shall it sternly refuse to listen to any recitals or confessions that are not strictly of a spiritual kind ? or, if it listens in part to disclosures touching secular interests, shall it save itself the trouble of learning the whole which its clients may be willing to make known ? It will not do so : it has not done so. Instead of attributing to the Society any such modesty as this, we must assume it as certain, irrespectively of the evidence of history, that, in the anxious selection of its agents, in the severity of the discipline through which it compels them to pass, in the monstrous con- ditions to which they are subjected — especially the abnegation of conscience — and in the extraordinary measures it pursues for jjossesslng itself of a species of omniscience, the Jesuit Society has had prominently in view the care, guidance, succour, and control of the souls of those who possess and rule the world. Next to the care and direction of souls, the primary function which a spiritual domination must undertake is that which shall enable it to build for perpetuity — ^ namely, the education of children and youth: and this con- stitutes infact, the secondof the professed inte:itionsof the X 4 312 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Society. What are the qualifications of a good teacher ? If they are not the most common, neither are they the most rare : intelligence, acquirements, assiduity, bene- volence, and, not least, an ingenuous simplicity of cha- racter. "What beyond these gifts and endowments ? Not a practised astuteness, not a stilled refinement in casuistry, not a monstrous personal condition, not a renunciation of personal convictions and conscience: such things are not merely not beneficial, but must be, in the last degree, of ill-tendency in relation to the duties and oflBces of education. But if the first and the last lesson of a Jesuit-education be — to prepare a people for itself, to mould the several orders of society into a form the most readily available for its ovyn ends, then the mere schoolmaster, the simple-hearted, assiduous, and well-instructed teacher, will not be the tool adapted to purposes so occult and so difficult. It is the Jesuit teacher, who, while winning a well-earned reputation simply as a teacher (none have surpassed, on this ground, some of the Society's teachers and professors) shall be qualified to give to the education he conveys a special direction, and to infuse into the minds of youth sentiments altogether of a peculiar cast. If the subjugation of the human family be, indeed, the end and law of the Society, Jesuit education must be a habitude of moving in trammels : the philosophy which is pi'opounded to youth must be devitalised : in the literature which it doles out in morsels, the light and fire of genius must be extinguished ; and whatever is great, free, noble, must be kept out of view. All objects must be exhibited — as in a museum — in glass cases; not as in life and nature. The teacher must always stand bodily between the learner and reality, who must know, see, and feel nothing, except through a medium. How far the Jesuit educational system has PUEPOET OF JESUITISM. 313 corresponded to such a description is not now our question. What is affirmed is this only ; — That the Jesuit Institute, when considered as an engine of uni- versal education, is adapted to its purpose, if the endsi which it does not avow, are, in truth, those which it has actually had in view; but far otherwise, if it intends only what It speaks of. A lively missionary zeal marked the earliest outbreak of Loyola's religious ardour, and it is certain that his desire to go forth and attempt the conversion of Mahor metans and heathens preceded his conception of the Jesuit Institute. When at length, and in consequence of the defeat of his purpose to evangelise the East, the greater idea of subjugating Christendom absorbed his thoughts, then, as it seems, the missionary project, which a regard to consistency forbad him to relinquish, was taken up as a sort of appendage to Jesuitism. Besides, the heathen world was an outlying territory, which, if actually reclaimable, would vastly extend the range of the Society's domination — might yield it a revenue of reputation, and would moreover open to the General of the Order, at all times, a means of sending into honourr able banishment any among his colleagues whose high temper, whose conscientious firmness, or whose bright reputation, might make it desirable that they should be allowed to win a martyr's crown somewhere on the other side of the globe. Manifestly, the Jesuit Institute was not framed with any leading intention to adapt it to the evangelisation of the heathen world ; and it is remarkable that when- ever and wherever its agents have been so employed, they have found it expedient or unavoidable to hold its characteristic principles In abeyance ; or even to put open contempt upoii its rules. Among the heathen the vow of poverty has been a mockery ; and contumacy 314 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. has been the interpretation it has put upon its vow of obedience to the Pope. The Jesuit solemnly promises to go •whithersoever the Sovereign 'Pontiff shall send him — to India, to China, or to America ; but when he has reached his destination, he makes a very jest of papal authority. Jesuits have done well and worthily among the heathen ; and they have done ill too. What they have done well, they have done as Christian men ; what ill, as agents of the Society. But if, as is manifest and unquestionable, Jesuitism be a scheme framed for effecting purposes altogether unlike those which it avows, and if its history more than confirms the conjectures to which an analysis of its principles gives rise, then why should we not denounce its authors as wicked machinators, and its agents, one and all, as the cloaked enemies of their species ! Con- demnatory conclusions of this sort are inadmissible, not merely because they are offensive to Christian charity, nor because they are contradicted by the broad principles of a sound philosophy ; — but because they are repugnant to particular facts. Sweeping conclusions such as these would not hold good if advanced against the subaltern agents of the Society ; that is to say, those of ordinary intelligence, of fervent temperament, and of simple character : for there is quite enough in the avowed objects of the Institute- to recommend it to the conscientious regards of such men. Their line of labour would always be of a kind: which may easily offer itself to the affectionate approval of honest and benevolent men ; and especially of those whose minds are fraught with the principles of the Romish Church. To such minds, moreover, the enormous dis- proportion (which to those who look at the system from a distance is so astounding) between the scheme itself, PUKPORT OF JESUITISM. 315 and its declared purposes, would not be manifest. Je- suits, therefore, of a middle intellectual stature, and of ingenuous tempers, may individually deserve respect and esteem, notwithstanding their implication in a sys- tem so pernicious. But neither must a harsh conclusion be admitted against the authors of this scheme, as if tliey must have been deliberately conscious that they were pre- paring a wicked and treasonable attempt against the liberties and welfare of mankind. Human nature, in rare, if not In frequent Instances, brings forces into play of which the unobservant take no notice, or which they do not understand, and of which passive and Inert minds are incapable of forming any conception. For example, the idea of a widely- extended and absolute control over the spirits of men, or the abstract conception of power, has a fascination in it which, to some minds, is quite irresistible : it Is an idea which shows its own inherent quality by fii'st master- ing the bosom into which It has gained entrance, and where it swells to giant proportions, and soon plays the tyrant, imposing restraints upon all impulses that Avould divide empire with it. The mass of men, variously Im- pelled as they are by appetites, desires, petty interests, little imagine with how sovereign a force the idea and love of power rules the few minds that are born to ad^ mit It. Loyola is undoubtedly an eminent instance of this sort. His animal Impulses were of no feeble kind, and his susceptibility to emotions of the religious class was unusual ; so that his existence appears to have been a sort of chronic ecstacy. Nevertheless, if a certain moment of his course be assumed as a starting point, a purely intellectual impulse thenceforward ruled his con- duct in the most .absolute manner. 316 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. One thought — the idea of a universal spiritual domi- nation — had opened its vastness to his eye : the Jesuit Institute sprung up out of that thought, as its germ ; and thenceforward every vulgar desire vk'eltered and died away within him ; and even those swelling emotions which might have made him chief among enthusiasts were hushed ; or they rolled their awe-stricken billows silently through the deeps of his bosom. There are many degrees among those who are born for power. The less noble of this class covet it foi; themselves as a personal good; and then, in pursuit of it, they run the course of worldly ambition, often knee- deep in blood. But there are some (few indeed) whose Intellectual structure is of a far more refined sort, and to whom the mere contemplation of a deep-seated and wide-spread domination, near to the centre of which they are placed, is bliss enough. Even self is forgotten while this pure idea, embodied in fact, is gazed at. That Loyola's passion for power was of this sort may well be believed, and the supposition that it was so furnishes perhaps a clue to his otherwise strange be- haviour on the two occasions, first of his election to the Generalship, and afterwards of his proposed abdication* It may at least be imagined, and perhaps believed, that his primary impulse was the desire to see his idea of a universal empire put. in progress towards its completion; a secondary impulse, balanced by the toils of goveruT ment, was the personal wish to hold the reins in his own hand. On any supposition of this sort, therefore, we repel, on one side, the claim advanced by the admirers of " St. Ignatius," who attribute to him a heaven-born zeal ; and on the other, the denunciations of the adversaries of Jesuitism, who allow themselves to speak of Loyola as Satan's chief minister, even as the Spanish doctors PURPORT OF JESUITISM. 317 of the sixteenth century speak of Mahomet or of Luther. The idea of a universal spiritual empire does not, by itself, involve any element of malignity — a mind na- tively benevolent might entertain it. And, moreover, it is an abstraction of a sort around which there may be painted, in fair colours, abroad margin of pious assiduity and self-denying benevolence. To Loyola's own eye, probably, the Idola Specus never showed themselves otherwise than as enveloped in chaplets of love and devotion. Tortuous and guileful, astute and artificial, too often were his modes of administration ; but while treading these crooked paths, his eye was still fixed upon a bright idea beyond. It belongs to human nature in rare instances thus to feel and thus to act ; but we must not forget that the propensity which sways one mind in a million, finds a reciprocal sentiment, or corresponding impulse, in the breasts of that million. There is a fascination of sub- mission, as well as there is a fascination ot power ; there is an instinct asking to be guided and governed, which is not less marked than is the impulse to guide and to govern. If no such instincts or impulses had belonged to human nature, there could have been no social combina- tions ; or no governments, except such as are founded upon brute force. The fascination which impels the one to govern, and which inclines the million to be governed, is intense always in proportion to the vague- ness, or to the spirituality, or the mysteriousness that attach to the polity under which men are associated. Where there is no obscurity, and nothing that may not be instantly made intelligible to all, there is no room for loyalty or devotedness. But, on the contrary, within the precincts of a darkly shrouded domination, and where a veil hangs between the chair of power and the ?18 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. crowd, there an awe-stricken a.fFection binds the spirit of the multitude even to a much-dreaded authority. Is Jesuitism inexplicable ? it is so, and therefore its rule, when not broken up by the indiscretion of its agents, has been of the firmest sort. The subjects of this veiled power are drawn along in its wake by a luxury of their own imagination; they are not dragged onward, but they go, charmed and lulled : they have come within the flow of a mighty but tranquil current which bears them softly on — whither, how vain were it for them to ask, since the tide is irresistible ! , "We may be sure, therefore, that when the time comes for Jesuitism to make known, without reserve, its purposes, and when it shall admit all the world to in- spect its machinery, it will be Jesuitism no more. Yet, in these times of universal disclosure, how long will it be possible for any system, secular or religious, to wrap itself in clouds ? If it be true, as appears, that the Constitutions of the Jesuit Society do not enable us to discover any rational proportion, or relationship oi fitness, between the machinei-y of the Institute, and its avowed purposes, and if, therefore, mystery must be regarded as attaching to its very essence, and if illusory professions belong to it by inherent necessity ; then this question presents itself — namely, whether, in times like these, when con- cealment and prevarication are being rent away from every form of government — when the loftiest and the proudest potentates are rudely called upon to explain themselves, and to become intelligible — whether, in such times, a scheme of government which has ever been, and which must be, disingenuous — which is bound by its rudimental principle to deal falsely with the Avorld, will find it possible to withstand a tendency so adverse to it ; or, in a word, whether it can continue to exist ? PURPORT or JESUITISM, 319 The obvious answer to this question would be — that it cannot. Is not every government, it may be said, learning this new lesson, that, henceforward it must draw its stability, not from the mystification, but from the dis- closure of its pui'poses, its means, its resources, its prospects? must not every polity use a thorough in- genuousness, as well toward its foes, as toward its friends ? Does it not seem as if " Powers of dark- ness " were fast ceasing to be poioers at all ? and is not Chui'ch power showing that it also has become conscious of this same truth, and that it has admitted the dogma of a revolutionary ei'a ? Is not Komanism preparing herself for an appeal, in her own favour, to men's understand- ings, and showing that she intends to challenge their submission, for the future, on the ground, not of blind faith merely, but of reason ? It would seem natural to conclude, then, that a polity which must cease to be itself, when it becomes explicit and honest, must consent, in these days, to bring its dealings with the world to an end. But this inference cannot be admitted as certain. Jesuitism may indeed be compelled to slide itself off from its original position, and to establish itself, upon broader ground, as a refined scheme of spiritual and intellectual domination ; but it may, and probably will, make good its continued exIstT ence, and may renew its lease, not merely in spite of the prevailing anti-mysterious tendency of the times, but by the very aid of this tendency, operating upon it in the way of reaction. If the age we live in be the age of publicity, there will therefore be exhibited, in some quarter, and in a decisive form, that appetite of human nature which seeks for a deeiD and awe-inspirinor gloom, as a refuge from the glare. .Spiritual domination is not to be thought of (so to 320 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. think of it would be the dictate of a shallow philosophy) as a plot, hatched by the few against the rights and liberties of the many. The chiefs of such a domination are not contrivers of an unasked-for scheme, whose machinations all men would gladly circumvent and crush. They are not such ; but they are those who engage to provide and to furnish that which minds of a certain class — ^and they are not few — yearn to be sup- plied with, and which they must, somewhere, find ready to their use. Conspiracies are ephemeral ; but spiritual domination endures from age to age, for it is not a con- spiracy ; it is the supply of a constant want. But If it be so, then it is reasonable to suppose that, at a time when mysteriousness is passing oflf from almost every thing, the one power or polity which still shrouds itself in darkness, will refresh its forces — will extend its in- fluence, and will draw itself together in meditation of Hew schemes of aggrandisement. In these "last days" the hurricane of revolution has unroofed, or has utterly overthrown, almost every sanc- tuary of blind faith, and of devoted feeling. There remains, howevei', still one Cavern; and the Jesuit Society guards the entrance of it ; — a cavern where twilight sheds its fascinations upon unknown objects of awe. The herd of men seek for and enjoy the glare of-day : — but not so all men — not so women. While the greater number approve only what they understand (or what they think they understand) and will support only what they discern to be useful, others, and they are not a few, distaste whatever is thoroughly Intelli- gible, and captiously reject whatever is presented to them as unquestionably useful. Men of this order attach themselves the most passionately to that which will never show them the reason why they should do so ; and it Is with an irresistible instinct that they court, PURPOET OF JESUITISM. 321 invite, and yield themselves to, whatever it is which most men turn from with dread and hatred. It may then be assumed as probable that, 'notwith- standing the genertd adverse tendency of the times, and even drawing a new strength from that tendency, Je- suitism, as a purely spiritual domination, will perpetuate itself. It is another question whether it has not seen its last days as a secular scheme and polity, existing among other polities, and exerting an influence over them in a direct manner. Two revolutions marking the present era are both of them of a kind decisively unfavourable to the continued political influence of a body so notorious for the tortuous and wily modes of its procedures. The first of these revolutions — and how auspicious a change is it ! — con sists in the contempt into which has fallen the disin- genuous and knavish style which, in past times, charac- terised the diplomatic intercourse of nations. "Whatever is honest in politics wins approval, and carries with It a triumphant force. Such, at least, is the growing feel- ing of the European commonwealth. State craft is falling into disesteem, and is losing its advantage. At the same rate therefore, it would seem, that Jesuitism must relinquish its hope of ruling the world by whis- pering its counsels in the ears of statesmen and princes. But even if it might still attempt to do so, another revolution, more conspicuous and extensive in its im- port than the one just named, has come about, which either quite precludes all such endeavours, or which must restrict them within the narrowest limits. It is this, that those movements which affect the welfare of nations spring, less and less from the individual will — from the mind and purpose, of the governing few, and are more and more dependent — not so much upon the articulate voice of the people — as upon abstruse and T 322 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. uncontrollable influences — moral — physical — com- mercial, and fiscal. Sixty years ago — or less, the question was — " Who are they that govern the world ?" Now the only significant question is — " What is it that governs the world?" Once it was an all important matter, in the view of those who would give direction, this way or that, to European politics, to command the ear and conscience of a monarch, or of his minister, or of his mistress. Of how much avail now may be any secret influence of this sort? It is less than nothing ! Princes and statesmen themselves, with little inclination to listen to a con- science keeper — stand aghast in front of those mighty evolutions of the social system which are shaking the world. Civilised communities were once as ships governed by a hand at the helm : — they are now as rafts, borne on the heaving bosom of an impetuous tide. It is probable, therefore, that the Jesuit Society, not slow to read the lesson which events are placing in its view, will abandon what it may deem a desperate endeavour to rule the world as from the depths of closets and cabinets, and may at once address itself to a task which, if it be more arduous and more perilous, is more stimulating — that of ruling it by placing itself in immediate communication with the masses of the people, and by offering itself to ride foremost upon the surges of popular agitation. Henceforward, as we may surmise, it will not be in the way of intrigue that the Society will make itself felt ; — for intrigue is not an engine that can be brought to bear upon millions of men ; but as the promulgators of a political and social creed, acceptable to these masses in a sense of which it may seem to be susceptible, when expounded to rude ears ; but which, in its inner PURPORT OP JESUITISM. 323 and true meaning, carries entii-e the principles of an absolute despotism. In times gone by, Jesuitism sought to rule the world by pushing itself near and nearer still to thrones ; or by actually edging itself on to seats of power. But in times to come, as we may imagine, it will seek to compass the same design by shouldering the mob forward in every popular assault upon thrones. So long as monarchies rested solidly in their places upon the field of Europe, the Jesuit Society wished to stand upon the same terra firma ; but now that this ground trembles beneath the foot, it will com- mend itself, upon its own raft, to the mighty deep — the " many waters" — the people ! In the present aspect of Europe it may seem proba- ble that monarchies, by a natural reaction, will again become consolidated ; yet never again, in those coun- tries where they have been overthrown or violently shaken, can they resume the strength they possessed as products of time. Meanwhile the continuity of spiritual power-has not been broken; it has not, for it is far too deeply seated in human nature to be liable to any such disaster in the convulsions that shake the political fabric. Spiritual power, thereforej detaching itself from Institutions in the stability of which it can no longer confide, will lay its foundations broader : it will seek to rest itself, henceforward, without intervention — upon its own proper basis, namely, the religious instinct deep seated in the bosoms of men universally. If indeed this religious instinct were brought under the sovereign control of heaven's own truth, no form of that usurp- ing despotism with which we have now to do could hold its place on earth : but it is not so ; and therefore ghostly tyranny still commands its ancient field, and mav yet, at its pleasure, pursue its ends. T 2 324 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. On this ground a question such as this may present itself (and it is more easily proposed than answered) Whether spiritual power — we mean, usurping power ^— shall, in time to come, fall back upon some one of its superannuated forms, seeking to avail itself of the still remaining recommendations of antiquity; or whe- ther it shall not rather construct itself anew, and build for itself another house, and call into its service agents of another school, and profess a creed — spliced on, as it were, to the ancient creed, but essentially differing from it ? It would be by no means difficult to sketch the out- lines of a New Faith, well adapted to the prevailing notions and habits of continental communities. Such a faith would retain everything belonging to Romanism that is sensuous and imaginative ; — everything of cos- tume and of ceremonial that does not offend good taste, ior draw upon itself sarcasm : it would retain, moreover, ■a shadowy, though not a dogmatic, orthodoxy : it might pei-haps permit a Nicene profession to be " sung," but would never allow it to be " said." The lately-divulged doctrine of " Development " Tvould seem as if it had been now announced as the requisite preliminary to such a relinquishment of ancient practices and principles as we are supposing to be pro- bable. It is manifest that if " the Church " be endowed with a creative or re-creative vital energy, enabling and authorising it, from age to age, to evolve what is new in belief or in worship, or to bring to light what had previously slumbered in darkness ; it^ for example, the Church of the ninth century ought to be thought of aS an authentic product of the church of the third, although marked by new features — then this same vital force — this power of adaptation, may, as ages roll on, and as human reason ripens, show its energies in the mode of PUKPOnT OF JESUITISM. 325 absorption or retrenchment. During the ninth century the Church put forth a verdant top, darkening all the gkies ; but in the nineteenth century the tree may call in its sap from its luxuriant head, while it strikes its roots far into a new soil. If, in this age of reason, certain dogmas or modes of worship may seem to have fulfilled their intention, and to have become encumbrances, rather than aids, why may not the Inherent " Development " power re- scind, withdraw, remove, such adjuncts ? It is not easy to see what difficulty, either logical or theoretic, stands in the way to prevent the Church's faculty of developr ment from now shifting its position, and acting as a faculty of abrogation. Once it put its right hand forth to bring from its treasury things new : henceforward it will be pulling its left hand from its bosom, to withdraw these worn and faded articles from their places. In a rude age the Church — always wise in her day — bcr came flagrantly polytheistic : in a philosophic, or rather a scientific age, the same Church, equally wise, will be- come pantheistic. This is the very result that might seem highly pro- bable, as consequent upon a well calculated endeavour to reinstate spiritual power throughout Europe, by means of an alliance between that scientific pantheism which, at this time, is the prevalent belief of the con- tinental nations, and the Church, professing its faculty of adaptation to the changing aspects of the world. Let the Church absorb or abrogate what, although held to be true and good, as related to an age long gone by, is now felt to be redundant, and which will not amal- gamate with the present scientific temper of man- kind. Nothing would be needed beyond that which such a faculty of adaptation might supply, for com- piling a creed, and for instituting a worship, well T 3 326 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. adapted to tbe taste and propensities of the European Continental nations. If an enterprise of this sort were seriously thought of, the Jesuit body might consider itself to be peculiarly qualified for attempting the task. But shall not Christianity — shall not the religion of the Scriptures,, and shall not our " English Protest- antism " withstand and prevent, and bring to nothing, any such machination ? Let it be believed and hoped that thus truth shall triumph over its combined assailants ! But if it do, and in so far as such a triumph may depend upon the course pursued by those who should be the champions of truth, a moral courage will be demanded of them far exceeding that measure of this excellent quality that has been displayed by some of the best and wisest of mankind. The subject of this Essay points directly to an instance, than which none can be more signal or instructive. It is one which, in this place especially invites attention. The reader will have anticipated the writer's intention to say something of Pascal, and the " Provincial Letters." 327 CHAPTER y. PASCAL AND THE PEOVmClAL LETTERS. The Provincial Letters won for their author an im- perishable literary fame ; yet they secured for himself and his friends a very brief, and an inconclusive contro- versial triumph. No reader of these compositions can wonder that Pascal's fame as a writer should have been so enduring ; but it is not perhaps every reader who discerns the real cause of that argumentative failure which so soon brought them to be considered simply in the light of unmatched literary performances. Although it be true that Jesuitism must for ever sustain the load of con- tempt thrown upon it by Pascal's sarcastic pen, the Society very soon placed itself beyond the range of an assault which at first had threatened to be fatal to its very existence. Jesuitism survived the plaudits with which the Pro- vincial Letters were greeted throughout Europe. They were read with acclamation ; nevertheless, the Provincial Letters and the Society have floated down the stream of time, side by side ; it, indeed, was grievously vexed and annoyed, and yet neither was it quashed, nor materially injured by them. If a homely simile could be admitted in this instance, the Provincial Letters might be compared to a large cutting from a thorny hedge with which some luckless beast has so entangled his shaggy coat that his most desperate tossings and caperings fail to shake it from its hold ; at length however he goes his way, Y 4 328 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. tormented indeed, and yet not pierced to his serious injury. This failure to efFect what he had intended, namely — the overthrow of the credit and influence of the Jesuits, has been attributed, and justly so in measure, to the author's too great haste, or his incautlon — not to say unfairness — in throwing upon the Society all the odium with which the extravagances of certain of its writers might seem to cover it. Moreover, Pascal's mode of argu- ment may be thought inequitable, In so far as he heaps upon Jesuitism a mass of blame which a more ingenuous controvertist would have taken care to distribute amons several religious bodies, not less culpable than the Jesuits : in certain instances the earlier orders had fore- stalled everything in the way of pernicious casuistry. Jesuitism was especially culpable only so far as it had anew put forth notions which, but for it, would soon perhaps have melted into oblivion. Yet these are not the principal causes of Pascal's failure to Inflict a mortal wound upon his adversary. Charmed as the reader of the Provincial Letters is, and must be, by the wit and eloquence, the force and fire of every pa^e, he hastens on, and forgets to ask why it is that, while the Jesuit tree is thus shaken by a giant arm — its fruit covering the ground, and its fair boughs rent away from the trunk — why it Is that, while such an onslaught is made upon the head and branches, the trunk and root have not attracted the assailants' eye ; or scarely for a moment? On every page Pascal's contemporaries, the " Reverend Fathers," are mockingly saluted with their wonted appellation. But these " Fathers, " had they no predecessors ? had not all one Father ? Are we to suppose that Pascal, even if he had heard the name of St. Ignatius, had never seen the Spiritual Exercises, or the Letter on Obedience; or THE PEOVINCIAL LKTTBES. 329 that he knew nothing of the Constltntions, or of the Directory ? Such a supposition is not admissible ; but if it be not, then must it seem amazing that a mind such as M'as Pascal's could have failed to perceive that every particle of that intolerable casuistry which he repro- bates, as he finds it on the pages of Escobar, of Molina, of Le Moine, of Barry, of Bauny, of Sanchez, and of Vasquez, and eveiy dogma of their spurious morality are the products — the direct and inevitable products, of Jesuitism — such as Loyola made, and left it ! But if, as we cannot but suppose, Pascal had made himself in some degree familiar with the canoni- cal documents of the Society, and if, as we are also compelled to believe, the obvious connection of cause and effect in this instance had presented itself to his view, then why does he not point it out? Why not indicate that fact of which he must have^been con- scious? Why treat the subalterns with unsparing se- verity, while he spares the principals? Why rush with a ruthless vehemence upon the Jesuitism of the seven- teenth century, while, over the same Jesuitism of the sixteenth, he throws the veil of a reverential silence ? No acceptable reply can be given to these questions. Alas the infirmity of human nature ! How has truth suffered in the world, from age to age, from the want of moral courage, even among the most conscientious and enlightened of men ! In fact, it is these who, by their timidity, just where and when they should have feared none but God — it is these who have betrayed Chris- tianity, and have sent it down to their successors, laden with corruptions: it is these who, although it was but a slender service they could render it by endorsing it with their bright names, have inflicted upon it a deep and last- ing injury by sustaining, in this manner, the credit of those spurious systems with which themselves stood con- 330 IGNATIUS LOTOLA. nected. It was in this manner that the illustrious confessors of Port Koyal lost themselves, and lost truth toT Prance ; and thus that they left their country open to that deluge of Atheism which in the next century swept every thing before it. Oh, but — « St. Ignatius " was one of the Church's own — a " Saint," warranted to be such by the vicar of Christ ! Moreover the Society, and the Spiritual Exer- cises, and the Constitutions, had, after a careful examina- tion on the part of the only authority on earth in matters of religion, been authenticated, and had been commended to the reverential regards of Christendom. This was more than enough. This was why the " Reverend Fathers " are denounced, and are held up to contempt and execra- tion, although the system which they had too faithfully expounded, and the men whose genuine disciples they were, must be neither blamed — nor barely mentioned, or — not more than not once ! If in some cautiously worded paragraph, conveying a qualified disapproval, Loyola's name had found a place in the Provincial Letters, what consolation would it have aflPorded to the affectionate admirers of a man so good and great as was Pascal ! Alas ! it does not appear in any such manner ! A reader of the Provincial Letters, if by chance he were ignorant of the history of the Society, would not gather from these splendid compositions so much as a particle of information relating to its author, or to its origin ; — to its date — its early principles — its permanent laws. Such a reader would undoubtedly suppose that those enormous perversions of which the Jesuit writers — Pascal's contemporaries — are convicted, had all sprung from their own sophisticated heads, and more sophisti- cated hearts : he would naturally imagine that the Jesuit Society was at the least a thousand years old, and that THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS. 331 it furnished another instance, among so many similar instances, of an utter departure from the spirit and intention of its founders. It is amazing that, while Pascal is arraigning the Fathers with whom he had to do, on each principal point of Christian morality, he should have made no attempt, either to show that the errors he denounces were the products of Jesuit principles ; or that they were not so, and were chargeable upon those who then promulgated them. The vicious doctrines maintained by the " Reverend Fathers " were §itber the proper fruits of Loyola's Institute, or they were flagrant per- versions of it. If its proper fruits, then Pascal should have thought himself morally obliged to profess that be- lief, at all risks ; — but if perversions, then it would have been an act at once of generosity and of justice to hold up this fact to the world, and to set the fame of a saint clear from the implied opprobrium thrown upon it by the conduct of his successors and false followers. It is not a question with which we have anything to do, in this instance, whether, in his citation of the Jesuit writers, he has always been duly attentive to the sense of the context ; or whether his Inculpations have always been entirely well founded. It is enough that he himself fully thought them to be so ; and that the passages he adduces in support of his allegations were, in his own opinion, valid and sufficient for the purpose. But if so, how amazing is that course of things which is necessarily involved — on the one hand, in these allega- tions, and on the other, in the implicit approval that is conveyed, by his silence, as to Loyola, and his Institute ! The facts, thus implied, are these: — A body of men, professedly ministers of religion, and recognised as such by the Church — men accomplished, intelligent, and, by general acknowledgment, superior. 332 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. as a class, to their contemporaries, had — almost sud- denly, brought themselves to adojjt, and to employ, and to promulgate, without shame, a system of casuistry the most flagrantly immoral. Nothing like it, according to Pascal's own showing, had the world ever seen or heard of before ; its enormity outstretches even his command of language to expose it ! Whether warrantable or not, such is the tone and drift of page after page of the Provincial Letters. But did not it occur to so sagacious a mind — to one so accustomed to trace the connection of cause and effect — that so strange a departure from the simplicity of truth — a departure, affecting the members of a Society which had spread itself over Europe, must have had a Sufficient Cause? Did Pascal indeed think it credible that a religious community, so numerous, so powerful, so eminent in its accomplishments and gifts, had, as in a moment, and without the intervention of a transition period, sunk down into this slough of corrup- tion ? Was there no rational account to be given of a declension so instantaneous and universal? Had it no history ? Nothing would have seemed more natural — nothing more imperatively called for on the part of an impartial and unshackled controvertist, than, while dealing witli his sinning contemporaries, to have travelled back a few years — and a very few years would have sufficad for tracing to its source the putrescent stream of Jesuit morality ; or else to have shown that this Ganges of pestilential filth had no natural rise on earth's surface, but that it had leaped at once from the nether world ! If indeed the bad theology and worse morality of the "Reverend Fathers" — Pascal's contemporaries, were attributable to these degenerate men, with how much argumentative advantage might he have confronted THK PROVINCIAL LETTERS. 333 them with their wise and saintly predecessors, whose bright example they had forgotten, whose instruc- tions they had rejected, and upon whose" Constitutions and canons they had put contempt ! If the case were so, why did not Pascal cite St. Ignatius — page by page — why did he not bring forward chapter after chapter, of the Constitutions — why not adduce entire, the Letter on Obedience, by means of which he might at once have convinced the world that his immediate adversa- ries had sinned against their master as grievously as he proved them to have sinned against the Gospel —against the early Fathers, and against the general sense of the Catholic Church. It is manifest that, from such a mode of attack, the Jesuits of the 17 th century could not have defended themselves. If there had been ground for the summons, St. Ignatius might have been called from his seat among the canonised, to sit in judgment upon, and to condemn, his apostate followers. Nothing like this did the author of the Provincial Letters attempt. He dared not attempt it : he dared not put to his own conscience so simple a question as this — Whence had sprung the ethical enormities which he was denouncing ? He could not permit his eye to glance, even for a moment, from the foliage and branches, to the main trunk and roots of the Jesuit tree. Or if he did so for a moment, it was not more. Toward the close of the thirteenth Letter, where the author con- victs his opponents of a corrupt duplicity in citing the contradictory opinions of their writers, he says — " C'est done cette variety qui vous confond davantage. L'unl- formite seroit plus supportable : et il n'y a rien de plus contraire aux ordres expr^s de Saint Ignace et de vos premiers g^n^raux que ce melange confus de toutes sortes d'opinions. Je vous en parlerai peut-Stre quel- que jour, mes p^res : et on sera surpris de voir combien SS-f IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Tous Stes deohus du premier esprit de votre institut, et que vos propres gen^raux ont prevu que le der^glement de votre doctrine dans la morale pourroit §tre fimeste non seulement a votre Sooiete, mais encore k I'Eglise universelle." It wovdd have been well, if, instead of this vague and hurried reference to the " explicit injunctions" of " Saint Ignatius," and of his successors, the author had told^his readers where these injunctions might be found — in what work, book, and chapter, occurred any such cautionary passages, or what might possibly pass as such. Then it would have been necessary to show that the import of them — whatever it might be — was not rendered nugatory by the equally express and more formal declaration of principles set forth in the Letter on Obedience, and in the Constitutions. Pascal in various passages convincingly shows the vicious tendency of the Jesuit doctrine of " probability," or of the lawfulness of any act apparently immoral, in defence of which some authority, or some shred of reason, can be adduced. But this doctrine is most explicitly taught in several places of the Constitutions. In those directions, too, for the guidance of consciences which occur in the Spiritual Exercises, it is affirmed to be the duty of a Jesuit — at the command of his Superior — to declare that what his eyes tell him is black or white, is the cpntrary. The entire drift of the Letter on Obe- dience is this, that every member of the Society is bound to surrender his individual judgment, under- standing, and conscience, to the will of the Superior, whose word or " nod," is to be his one and only law. A passage already cited (page 281) from the Consti- tutions, seems, on the face of it, designed to ad- minister a little relief to scrupulous consciences ; but THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS. 335 it ends in a broad affirmation to this effect, that no act is to be regarded as immoral which a Superior com- mands to be perpetrated, if, in doing so, he alleges some particle of probability in its vindication ; and if such au act, in the opinion of the Superior, shall tend to promote "the greater glory of God," and the welfare of " the Order." The writer of this thirteenth Letter threatens, that " some day perhaps " he will bring " Saint Ignatius " and the earlier Generals into court, for the purpose of confounding his opponents. It was well for himself that he made no such attempt. " Perhaps," in some hour of leisure, he actually looked into the documents whence he had expected to draw his materials : a glance might suffice to convince him that, on this ground, nothing could be achieved that would not affiDrd an occasion of triumph to the Jesuits, and of deep per- plexity and confusion to the " Church, Catholic- Apostolic, and Roman." The Provincial Letters are dated in the spring of the year 1656 : Loyola's Letter on Obedience, in which the worst sophisms of the sy em are condensedly ex- pressed, is dated April 1. 1553. Little more, therefore, than a century intervenes between the two dates ; and it was within this brief period that those causes were to be looked for — had there been any such — which had brought about a degeneracy quite unexampled in the history of religious communities. Nothing on earth, according to Pascal's account, was so prodigious — ^ so appalling, so shamelessly immoral, as was the doctrine and practice of the Jesuits of his time ; and yet such a state of things had sprung out of a scheme which, by the silence he observes toward it, he must be held to have thought good — or at least as not chargeable with the pernicious sophisms which he assails. 336 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. We have said that little more than a century inter - venes between Pascal's time, and the date of the Epistle, in which the germ of Jesuitism is to be found. But in looking more exactly to the facts, this allowance of time during which a departure from its principles might have taken place, is found to be far too ample. Several of the writers, from whose pages he cites pas- sages of the most reprehensible kind, are of a date that touches near upon the very era of the Founder of the Society. In some instances it can scarcely be said that any interval separates these writers from their pre- decessors — the actual Fathers of Jesuitism. Saurez, so much cited by Pascal, abridges this period by more than half; and others so far shorten it as to preclude utterly the supposition that any great change of prin- ciple, or any gradual degeneracy, could have had place within it.* If, in any instance at all, principles of analogy may be taken as grounds of probable reasoning — if at all the known course of human affairs may be regarded as uniform — if the history of religious sects, and espe- cially of the monastic bodies, may seem to sustain a general inference, then must we be compelled to admit that the Jesuit casuistry, which had continued to excite against the Society the indignation of the soundest part of the Catholic Church, throughout the early years of the 17th century, must have been the product — the proper and direct consequence, of the principles upon which the Society had been established in the middle of the pre- ceding century. Did so obvious a conclusion veil itself from Pascal's keen sight ? or was it a task which must * Sanchez published his principal work in 1592, and diedl610. Molina published in 1568 ; twelve years, only, after the death of Loyola. THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS. 337 have baffled his powers of analysis and of synthesis to trace and establish the causal connection between the pages of Molina and of Bauny, on the one side, and those of Loyola, Lainez, and Bobadilla, on the other ? Nothing would have been more easy, to a mind like his, than to follow this short course of reasoning : no one step in it was a leap. The involutions of the Cycloid are far less easy to demonstrate than are the windings of Jesuit sophistry. Ancient errors relating to a vacuum, or to the tenacity of elastic fluids, were as inveterate, and were as difficult of dispersion, as were those false premises on which Loyola had constructed his scheme. Pascal did not want either the intelligence, or the logical habitude which such a task demanded ; nor did he want a sincere, although it was an infirm and misdirected, conscientiousness : — what he did want was that which the loftiest minds have so often wanted — the freedom of soul — ' the moral intrepidity — the thorough love of truth, and profound fear of God, which would have carried him irresistibly forward, from the abominations of the Jesuit casuistry, to the deep-seated immorality and impiety of the Jesuit Institute ; and thence onward to those mistaken doctrines — the medir aeval, and still earlier, church errors, which had spread a broad and solid foundation. for a scheme, such as that of the Society. The fear of God, and the love of truth, must have led a mind like Pascal's^ if unshackled — whither ? — from out the Church of Rome ! Nothing can be more conspicuously evident than tha;t the principles and practices of Confessiony.Manifestation of the conscience, of Delation, Absolute obedience, oi Probability, and the like, as defined and enforced in the canonical writings of the Society, resulted unavoidably in that debauched morality which Pascal exposes and condemns. But -then these doctrines, and these prac- 338 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. .' tices, necessarily fatal as they are to virtue and piety, had not only received authentication from Kome, but, though diverse, and in some respects novel, they had all Sprung out of Komanism. They were so far exaggerations pf Eomanisra, that it would not have been possible to deal with them in a conclusive manner without coming very near to the ground which the Reformers of Ger^ many and Switzerland had made their own. It would have been a most perilous, if not desperate endeavour, to excind Jesuitism, and to save the Church ; and those who would have hazarded themselves in any such at- tempt must have consented to be bound in the bundle of perdition with heretics. Pascal dared not even approach the boundary of that argumentative area which he filled. He drove his ad- versaries from off the spot on which he had alighted ; — but he did not venture to advance a step from that position in pursuit of them. The broad shadow of " the Church" rested upon all beyond the narrow circle over which the lash of his indignant eloquence held his ene- mies at bay ; — they retired beyond the reach of it, and they were safe. He could not follow them, because he must not inquire concerning the history of their Institute — an Institute which Christ's vicar had solemnly sanc- tioned. The reader of the Provincial Letters Is left to imagine the Society was as old as any of the religious communities ; — or as old as the pyramids. What is It, in a word, that this great man achieved ? Endowed by nature — let us rather say, gifted from on high, with powers of mind which very few of the human race have been singled out to possess — gifted also with moral qualities of the finest order — taught 'moreover to yield his mind and soul to the obedience of faith — thus prepared by Heaven's own hand — prepared as one only in a thousand years is prepared — to stand " for the THK PEOTINCIAL LETTERS. 339 defence and confirmation of the Gospel," what Pascal actually achieved, when called forth before a listening Europe to encounter the Goliath of immoral casuistry^ was — to leave to posterity an unmatched literary pro-' duction — a model of French writing — a book which Voltaire extols with glee, and which Atheistic Ency- clopedists set themselves to edit with willing industry ! In behalf of the Christianity of France, nothing of permanent consequence was effected by the Provincial Letters. The Keverend Fathers speedily washed them-r selves clean — or clean to their own taste, in their own ditch — repaired their torn coats, and applied their own salve to their lacerated shoulders. The Society stood erect on its feet, and, without a blush, confronted the scorn of the world. Nay, it triumphed ; it prevailed against its assailants, it drove them from the field> it held that field open for the advance of its successors — the men of the Encyclopedia, and of the Revolution. Pascal and his illustrious friends of Port Koyal for- feited their apostleship as the restorers of a genuine Christianity in France. They had received liberally all the gifts requisite for the purpose — all but the highest — a courage more rare than that of the martyr. Readily would several of these great men have trod a path such as that which Latimer and Ridley and Hooper trbd ; but they dared not walk on with God and conscience to — they knew not what consequence — perhaps till they found themselves abreast with Luther, Calvin, arid Melancthon ! France, after the horrors of the Huguenot persecu- tion, collapsed; for the Port Royal men had failed to do that for their country which might have given It a nevv^, a vital impulse ; and its actual condition at the present moment — its want of deep and powerful religious con- victions — its want of Christianity, may be traced up> z 2 340 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. through no very circuitous chain of effects and causes, to that fatal time when the onlyibody of men which, in modern times, France has possessed, influenced by a profound and genuine belief in the Gospel -r- held that belief subordinate to their .pledged submission to Church authority. . — " Graces a Dieu, je n'ai d'attachc sur la terra qu'a la seule Eglise Gatholique, Apostolique et Romaine, dans ; laquelle je veux vivre et mourir, et dans la com- munion aveo le pape son souverain chef, hors de la- quelle je suis trSs persuade qu'il n'y a point de salut." > — 17 th Letter. Thoroughly sincere, no doubt, was this professions Mut a sincere belief , is not all that will be required of those whose endowments and acquirements qualify them to ascertain the rational foundation of their belief, and whose position before the world, as teachers and writers, requires them to acquaint themselves witk those facts, and with those arguments,' of which they will hear nothing within the circle of their own communion. In France, and at the time of the struggle between the men of Port Eoyal aaid the: Jesuits, Christianity was shut up within precincts so narrow as thatj when this one fortress had been carried and demolished — all was lost. Among ourselves, and in this age, no catastrophe of a precisely similar kind can be thought of as probable. The Gospel, powerfully- entrenched as it is, in this Chris- tian land, and widely diffused^ and deep-seated in the bosoms of men moving and acting under independent influences, seems to stand exempt from any perils to which it might become liable through the plots or en- deavours of any single adversary, or even of several combined. It has little to fear from conclaves, or from conspiracies haitched in secret chambers : let Jesuitsy or others like them, do their worst. THE PKOVINCIAL LETTERS. 341 The struggle of our English Christianity will not be with bodies of men, whether Eomish or Infidel ; but with that ominous tendency of the human mind, too clearly indicated, as it is at this moment, from end to end of Europe, which, while it relieves us from anxiety regarding the mischievous agency of individuals or of parties, inspires a deep awe, if not alarm, as it announces the final conflict of First Principles, touching religious BeHef. z3 NOTES. NOTES. 345 NOTES. Note to page 18. No purpose which the writer of this volume has had in view would have been subserved by his attempting the precarious task of ascertainiog disputed dates, connected with Loyola's personal history, or of shedding, perhaps, some ray of light uponsingle and unimportant incidents in that history. The history of the Founder of Jesuitism is accepted as au- thentic in the main, at the hands of his friends and contem- poraries ; — r- little heed being given, on the one hand, to the foolish exaggerations with which they have encumbered it ; or on the other, to the invectives and vehement inculpations of those whose antagonist zeal has been unchecked by can- dour or Christian charity. The " Biographers " referred to in this volume are those collected in the Acta Sanctorum of the BoUandists (as well as separately published ) and whose pages have supplied Orlandintjs, the authorised historian of the Order, with his materials. Of these writers, the one whose Life of St. Ig- natius would be singled out as the most agreeable and com- prehensive by readers whose curiosity might not carry them on thi'ough folios, is the Jesuit — John Peteb Mapfei. His life of St. Ignatius. Loyola is not of great length; it is composed in a good Latin style, is as free from what might be offensive as ought to be ex- pected ; and it apparently deserves to _be considered as authentic. It has been separately printed, but is usually met with appended to this writer's History of the Indies. It first appeared in 1585. He seems to have drawn his ma- terials from the notes of Polancus, a contemporary and 34S NOTES. companion of tte General. From the same source, proba- bly, Orlandinus derived what he has, with unrestrained am- plitude, woven into his history of the Founder of the Order. One who was a daily companion of the General — a Spaniard, named Ludovico Gonsalvo — availing himself of the opportunities which his position afforded him, received from the lips of his spiritual Father such particulars of his personal history as the humility of a saint might permit him to convey. These narrations he had strung together in a manner and in a style which inspires confidence ; and so far as the Memoirs of Gonsalvo extend — which is only to the commencement of Loyola's public course — this writer is probably the safest of those guides among whom a choice must be made. The Jesuit Pietro Eibadeneira, availing himself — as a sort of text— of Gonsalvo's materials, expands them into a history of voluminous bulk, and in the course of which he frequently deviates from the path of other Jesuit writers — particularly from that of Maffei. As to what is supernatural in Loyola's history, Babadeneira is as abstinent and cautious as he well could be, and therefore he has, so much the more, a claiin to confidence. Nevertheless he and his colleagues write always with the intention and feeling of the appointed advocates of their Order. The Life of Loyola, by Oelandinus, constituting the first portion of that writer's history of the Society, is a very elaborate work, extending through the double Columns of 426 closely printed folio pages ; and it may well be held to comprise all materials which a writer so industrious, and so well informed, could derive from the copious stores placed for this purpose at his command. Note to page 21. Whether Tgnatius was the youngest of this numerous family, or the youngest of the sons, has been a point debated among the biographers. Once for all, the author will say, and in relation to very many instances of a similar kind, that NOTES. 347 he would think his own time and that of his reader thrown away in the endeavour — even if successful — to weigh evir dences and ascertain the truth, in such instances. No conse- quence, having an important bearing upon any great question, can possibly attach to details of this sort ; or even to some points in the personal history of Loyola which might seem of more weight and magnitude. A volume might soon be filled with the mere statement of discrepancies among the biographers, and with formally pronounced judgments there-r upon. Notes to Chapter I. Part IL Whether an attempt to ascertain Loyola's share in the literary documents of the Society could now be made with any chance of a successful result, I do not know. The inquiry could, however, entail no consequences beyond such as may attach to any ordinary question of literary antiquarianism. It might affect, in some degree, the opinion we form of his personal character, and of the compass of his mind. As to the Jesuit system, it is enough that we have in our hands its code and formularies, such as they have been, and have continued to be, since the time of the last recension of them under the hand of Loyola himself. As to the Spiritual Exercises, there is great reason to believe that — perhaps with some suggestions from his friends, they are Loyola's own : the body of them is probably attributable to a very early period in his religious'course ; the latter portions having been added from time to time, and embracing therefore the results of his large experience in the cai'e of souls. Some readers may wish to have before them a few samples, at least, of the book itself, and which may not happen to have fallen into their hands. The recent English translation to which reference is made in the text, is entitled — " The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, translated from the authorized Latin : with extracts from the literal version and notes of the Rev. Father Eothaan, Father General of the 348 notes; Company of Jesus ; by Charles Seager, M.A., to wHch is prefixed a Preface by the Right Rev. Nicholas Wiseman, D.D., Bishop of Melipotamus, and Coadjutor of the Mid- land District of England. London, 1847." The learned writer of this "Preface" prepares the uninstructed reader for the disappointment which is likely to attend a mere perusal of the " Exercises." He says — " In the Exercises of St. Ignatius many will no doubt be disappointed, when for the first time they look into them. They have heard of the wonderful effects which they have produced, of the innume- rable conversions which they have wrought, of the spiritual perfection to which they have led ; and they will see in the text of the work itself nothing but simplicity of form, plain- ness of sentiment and diction, hints often rather than expla- nations^ germs of thought rather than developments, skeletons often more than perfect forms, sketches instead of pictures ; — no poetry, no emotions, no high-flown ideas, no enthusi-? ^stic aspirations ; but maxims of eternal import inculcated with the calmness of a philosopher ; the sternest tru'ths.de* livered as obvious and self-demonstrating propositions ; the sublimest moral lessons of the Gospel, self-denial, renun- ciation of the world, contempt of life, perpetual continency, qnd blind obedience, taught as simple virtues attainable to any Christian. And yet throughout there is a manifest con- yictioB of the adequacy- of the means to the end, in the wrdtqr's mind; there is nothing experimental, nothing optional, nothing left to be discovered ; but every method is laid down as certain, eivery result reckoned on as sure." ■^Preface, .J The original Latin of a portion at least of the passages cited or referred to in the text shall now be laid before the reader, for his further satisfaction as to the tru6 meaning of the Jesuit documents. Passages cited on — page 197. Siout enim deambulare, iter facere, et currere, exercitia sunt corporalia;. ita quoque prSeparare et disponere animam NOTES. 349 ad toUendas affectiones omnes male ordinatas, et iis sublatis, ad quKrendam et inveniendam voluntatem Dei, circa vitos suae iustitutionem et salutem animee, exercitia vocantur spiritualia. — Exer. Spirit. Annotat. Page 201. Creatus est homo ad hunc iinem, ut Dominum Deum suum laudet, ac revereatur eique Servians tandem salvus fiat. Heliqua vero supra terram sita creata sunt hominis ipsius causa, uteum ad finera creationis suae prosequendum juventj unde sequitnr, utendum illis vel abstinendum eatenus esse, quatenus ad prosecutionem finis vel conferunt vel obsunt. Quapropter debemus absque dififerentia nos habere circa res creatas omnes (prout libertati arbitrii nostri subjectse sunt et non prohibitse) : ita ut (quod in nobis est) non quaeramus sanitatem magis quam'segritudinem, neque divitias paupertati, honorem contemptui, vitam longam brevi prse- feramus. Sed "consentaneum est, ex omnibus ea demum quae, ad finem ducunt, eligere ac desiderare. — Escer. Spirit Princip. Page 201. Prima est, ut quoties id peccati seu delicti genus homo commiserit, manu pectori admota, doleat de lapsu : quod fieri potest etiam'assistentibus aliis, nee advertentibus. Secunda est, ut sub noctem, numeratis comparatisque in- vicem punctis linearum, quarum prior' priori examini, posterior posteriori assignata, attendat, an a priore Examine usque ad secundum aliqua successerit emendatio. Tertia est, ut conferat diei secundae atque praecedentis Examina invicem : considerans ecquid sibi emendationis intervenerit. Quarta ut, collatis Hebdomadarum duarum inter se Ex- aminibus, pari modo factse vel omissae emendationis rationem habeat. Itein notandum est ex sequentibus figuris, primam ceteris 350 NOTES. longiorem' deputari diei primEB, puta Dominicse : secundam vero diei Juxmas, paulo breviorem : et ita deinceps : cum par sit, diminui in dies erratorum numerum — Exer, Spirit. Exam. Partic. Page 205. Priraum prseludium est ratio quaedam componendi loci. Pro qua notandum est, quod in quavis meditatione sive contem- platione de re corporea, ut puta de Christo, efiingendus erit nobis, secundum visionem quamdam imaginariam, locus corporeus, id quod contemplamur representans : veluti tem- plum aut mons, in quo reperiamus Christum Jestjit, vel Makiam Virginem, et caetera quae spectant ad contempla- tionis nostras argumentum. Sin autem speculation! subest res incorporea, ut est con- consideratio peccatorum nunc oblata ; poterit loci constructio talis esse, ut si per imaginationem cernamus animam nostram in corpore isto corruptibili relut in carcere constrictam^ hominem quoque ipsum in hac miserioe valle inter animalia bruta exulantem. — Exer. Spirit. I. Hebd. Page 206. " This cornposition of the place (making up the scene) is of great utility in fixing the attention, which, is thus pre- vented from wandering, or if it wanders is easily recalled." Nevertheless it should in candour be stated that tbe authors of the Directory append a caution at this place to the follow- ing eiFect : — " To avoid dwelling too much on this fabrication of the place, as it is not itself the end of meditation, but only the Christian means for attaining that end. For there is no doubt," they say, "that this (faculty) comes more naturally to those who have a lively imagination. Others who find more difficulty therein, should not expend upon it so much labour as to break down their faculties, and thereby impede the meditation." " The fifth Exercise, which is the application of the senses, NOTES. 351 is very easy and useful, enabling us Christians by the imagina- tion to see persons, hear words and noises, and to touch or kiss either places or persons, which should be done with all due reverence and fear. St. Ignatius applies the sense of smell to perceiving the fragrance of the mind from the gifts of God, and that of taste to tasting his sweetness, both which actions imply the presence of the subject of our meditations. " But what we mean here is that, having meditated on the incarnation and nativity, we should separately apply the senses to it, and in like manner with the other scenes in the Life of Christ. This does not mean that the application of the senses is to be separated from the matter of the medita- tion, but that the application of the senses is the chief end of meditation on the Mysteries. " This differs from meditation, inasmuch as the latter Is more elevated and intellectual and flies off to consider higher sub- jects: .... which the former does not do, but insists more upon the visible adjuncts. " There is a double utility in this, for when the mind is in- capacitated from the consideration of loftier subjects it is raised thereto by dwelling upon the lower. Sometimes also the mind, satiated by higher mysteries, descends and finds rest and consolation in the application of the senses to such mysteries." — Direct, cap. xx. rage 207. Colloquium primum fit ad Dominam nostram Christi Ma- trem, flagitando intercessionem ejus apud Filium, et gratiae impetrationem nobis tripliciter necessariae. Primo, ut in- ternam criminum nostrorum cognitionem ac detestationem sentiamus: secundo, ut^j'tperum nostrorum agnoscentes abhorrentesque ordinem perversum. correcto eo, nosmetipsos secundum Deum recte ordinemus: tertio, ut, perspecta et damuata mundi pravitate, a rebus mundanis ac vanis nos recipiainus. His expletis, semel recitetur Ave Maria. JExer. Spirit. I. Hebd. 352 notes; Page 207—208, Posterius vero consistit in poseenda intima poonarum, quas damnati luunt, apprehensione : ut, si quando me ceperit divini amoris oblivio, saltern a peccatis supplicii timor coerceat. Punctum primum est spectare per imaginationem vasta in- ferorum ineendia, et aninlas, igneis quibusdam corporibus, velut ergastulis, inclusas. Secundum audire imaginarie planctus, ejulatus, vocifera- tiones, atque blasphemias in Christum et Sanetos ejus, illinc erumpentes. Tertium, imaginarlo etiam olfactu fumum, sulfur, et sen- tinsB cujusdam seu fsecis atque putredinis a graveolentiam persentire. Quartum, gustare similiter res amarissimas, ut lacrymas, rancorem, conscientiaeque vermem. Quintum, tangere quodammodo ignes illos, quorum tactu animae ipsae amburuntur. Colloquendo interim cum Christo in memoriam adducendae erunt illorum animse, Septima est ut eamdem ob causam omni me privem lucis claritate, januis ac fenestris clausis tantisper dumillic moror, nisi quamdiu legendum aut vescendum erit — Exer. Spirit. I. Hebd. Page 209. Quarta est, ut ipsam aggrediar Contemplationem, nunc prostratus bumi et pronus aut supinus jacens, nunc sedens aut stans,' et eo me componens modo quo sperem faci- lius id consequi quod opto. Ubi adverti lisec duo debent : Primum, quod si flexis genibus, vel in alio quovis situ, voti compos flam, nil requiram ultra. Secundum, quod in puncto, in quo assecutus fuero quaesitam devotionem, conquiescere debeo, sine transcurrendi anxietate, donee mihi satisfecero. Exer. Spirit. I. Hebd. NOTES. 353 Page 209. Tertio, circa ipsam carnem, ut inflictum sentiat dolorem admotis gestatisque ciliciis, funibus, aut vectibus ferreis, vel ineussis verberibus ac plagis, vel aliis austeritatis generibus assumptis. In quibus tamen omnibus magis expedire vide- tur, ut doloris sensus in came tantum sit, nee penetret ossa cum infirmitatis periculo. Quare flagellis potissimum utemur ex funiculis minutis, qu® exteriores affligunt partes, non autem adeo interiores ut valetudinem adversam causare possint. — Exer. Spirit. I. Hebd. Page 212. Praeludium primum ex historia dependet, quae recensenda est ab egressu beatae Virginis ex oppido Nazaretli : quo sci- licet modo, jam nono mense gravida, etinsidens asinse (ut pie meditari licet), ac Joseph comes, cum ancillula, et bove pro- fecti sunt Bethlehem, tributum a Csesare exactum pro se soluturi. Secundum vero deducendum erit ex consideratione itineris, sestimata ejus longitudine, obliquitate, lenitate, vel asperitate passim occurrente. Deinceps etiam nativitatis locum rima- bimur, speluncse similem, latum vel angustum, planum vel erectum, commode vel incommode paratum. — Exer. Spirit. II. Hebd. Page 213. Post orationem preeparatoriam cum tribus jam dictis Prse- ludiis, apprimse conducet, quinque imaginarios sensus circa primam et secundam Contemplationem eo qui sequitur modo exercere, prout res subjecta feret. Punctum primum erit, secundum imaginationem respicere personas omnes : et notatis quee circa eas occurrent, circum- stantiis utilitatem nostram elicere. A A 334 NOTES. Secundum, velut audiendo quid loquantur, aut loqui eas deceat, omnia in usum nostrum attrahere. Tertium, interiore quodam gustu et olfactu sentire, quanta sit suavitas et dulcedo animse, divinis donis ac virtutibus ira- butae, juxta rationem personse quam consideramus : adaptando nobis ea, qua; fructum aliquem afferre possint. Quartum, per internum tactum attrectare ac deosculari vestimenta, loca, vestigia, ceteraque personis talibus con- juncta: unde fiat nobis devotionis, vel boni cujuslibet spiri- tualis major accessio. — Exer. Spirit. II.Hebd. Pages 215, 216. Prseludium primum erit historica quaedam consideratio Christi ex una parte, et ex altera Luciferi : quorum uterque omnes homines ad se vocat, sub vexillo suo congregandos. Secundum est ad constructionem loci, ut representetur nobis campus amplissimus circa Hierosolymam, in quo Dominus Jesus Christus tamquam bonorum hominum om- nium summus Dux assistat. Eursum alter campus in Babylonia, ubi se Lucifer malorum et adversariorum Ducem exhibeat. Tertium ad gratiam petendam illud erit, ut poscamus ex- ploratas habere fraudes mali Ducis, invocata simul divina ope ad eas vitandas : veri autem optimique Imperatoris Christi agnoscere mores ingenuos, ac per gratiam imitari posse. Punctum primum est, imaginari coram oculis meis, apud campum Babylonicum Ducem impiorum in cathedra ignea et fumosa sedere, horribilem figura, vultuque terribilem. Secundum est, advertere quomodo eonvocatos dsemones innumeros per totum orbem spargit ad nocendum, nullis civitatibus et loeis, nullis personarum generibus immunibus relictis. Tertium, attendere cujusmodi concionem habeat ad mini* stros suos, quos instigat, ut, correptis injectisque lacqueis et catenis, homines primum trahant (quod fere contingit) ad cupidatem divitiarum : unde postea facilius in mundani NOTES. 355 honoris ambitionem, ac demum in superbise barathrum de- turbari queant. Atque ita tres sunt praecipui tentationum gradus, in divitiis, honoribus, et superbia fundati : ex quibus in alia vitiorum genera omnia praeceps fit decursus. Similiterj ex opposito, considerandus est summus opti- musque noster Dux et Imperator Christus. Punctum primum erit, conspicari Christum, in amoeno campo juxta Hierosolymam, humili quidem constitutum loco, sed valde specibsum forma et aspectu summe amabilem. Secundum autem est, specular! quo pacto ipse mundi Dominus universi electos Apostolos, Discipulos, et ministros alios per orbem mittat, qui omni hominum generi, statui, et conditioni doctrinam sacram ac salutiferam impartiant. Tertium, auscultare concionem Christi exhortatoriam, ad servos et amicos suos omnes in opus tale destinatos, qua eis praecipit, ut juvare studiant quemlibet, ac primo inducendum curent ad spiritualem affectum paupertatis : et insuper (si divini obsequii ratio et electio ceelestis eo ferat) ad sectandam actu ipso veram paupertatem : deinde ut ad opprobrii con- temptusque desiderium alliciant, unde humilitatis virtus enascitur. Et ita tres consurgunt perfectionis gradus, videlicet pau- pertas, abjectio sui, atque humilitas, quae ex diametro divitiis, honori, et superbise opponuntur, ac virtutes omnes statim introducunt. Colloquium postea formandum erit ad Virginem beatam, implorandaque est per eam a Filio gratia, ut recipi possim et manere sub Vexillo ejus : idque primum per spiritualem tan- tum paupertatem, aut etiam in rerum expoliatione sitam (siquidem ad eam me vocare atque admittere dignabitur) : deinde per abjeotionem quoque seu ignominiam, ut ipsum imiter vicinius : deprecando tamen culpam aliorum, ne con- temptus mei tam in alicujus detrimentum quam in offensam Dei cedat. Terminabitur primum hoc Colloquium per Ave Maria. — Exer. Spirit. II. Hehd. A A 2 356 NOTES. Page 217. Tertius est Modus humilitatis absolutissimEe ut, priores duos jam adeptus, etiam si, nuUo superaddito, laus Dei par foret ; ad majorem tamen imitationem Christi eligam potius (cum eo paupere, spreto, et illuso) pauperiem, contemptum, et insi- pientiae titulum amplecti, quam opes, honores, et sapientiee sestimationem. Porro, ad gradum hunc humilitatis attingendum, magnum afferet compendium, triplicis CoUoquii pr^cedentis deVexillis usus, per quod suppliciter poscamus (si divin» placeat Be- nignitati) ad talem perduciElectionem, sive major sive sequa- lis obsequii mei erga Deum et glorias divinae proventus sub- sit. — Exer. Spirit. II. Hebd. Page 218. Secundum, ex compositione loci, considerando dictum iter, asperum aut lene, breve aut longum, cum ceteris quae inesse poterant circumstantiis : deinceps conspicando locum Cense, amplum vel augustum, vilem vel ornatum, et consimilia. — Exer. Spirit. III. Hebd. Page 219. Quinta, quod expedit inter comedendum imaginari, quasi videamus Jesuji Christum Dominum nostrum vescentem cum suis Discipulis, observando quem teneat edendi, bibendi, respiciendi, et loquendi modum, eumque ad imitandum nobis proponendo. Usuveniet enim, ut, occupato magis intellectu circa meditationem talem quam circa corporalem cibum, dis- camus facilius victum moderari. — Exer. Spirit. III. Hebd. Page 220. Suscipe, Domine, universam meam libertatem. Accipe me- moriam, intellectum, atque voluntatem omnem. Quidquid habeo, vel possideo, mihi largitus es : id tibi totum restituo, KOTES. 357 ac tuse prorsus voluntati trado gubernandum. Amorem tui solum cum gratia tua mihi dones, et dives sum satis, nee aliud quidquam ultra posco. — JSxer, Spirit IV. Hehd. Page 220. Tertius hie orandi Modus in eo eonsistit, ut inter singulas resperandi vices, singula Dominicse alteriusve Orationis verba tranmittamus, expensa interim vel significatione prolate vocis, vel persones ad quam oratio spectat dignitate, vel mea ipsius vilitate, vel utriusque postremo differentia. Eodem procedendum modo in verbis reliquis. Addendae quoque ora- tiones supra memoratae, Ave, Credo, etc. Regul^ Du^ huc SPECTANTES. Prior, ut, finita juxta hunc orandi Modum Precatione Do- minica, sumatur aliis diebus vel horis Angelica Salutatio, simili respirationum intervallo tractanda : cum aliis eratio- nibus usitato more recitandis. Posterior, ut qui hunc orandi Modum exercere cupit diu- tius, ut eum applicet precationes omnes supradictas aut earum partes, et paria anhelituum ac vocum interstitia observet. — Spirit. Exer. Modi Tres Orandi. Pages 224, 225. EEGUL^ ALIQUOT. Prima, sublato proprio omni judicio, tenendus est semper paratus promptusque animus ad obediendum veras Christi Sponsae ac sanctae Matri nostra, quae est orthodoxa, catholica, et hierarchica Ecclesia. Secunda, laudare convenit solitam fieri Sacerdoti Confes- sionem peccatorum, et Eucharistiae sacrae sumptionem annuam lit minimum : cum sit laudabilius, octavo quoque die, aut semel saltem in mense quolibet, servatis interim conditioni- bus debitis, Sacramentum ipsum suscipere. Tertia, commendare Christi fidelibus, ut frequenter ac de- vote Missae Sacrum seu Sacrificium audiant. Item cantus A A 3 358 NOTES. ecclesiasticos, psalmos, et prolixas preces, in templis \el ex- tra templa recitandas : tempora etiam probare, determinata ofiiciis Divinis et precationibus quibuscumque, ut sunt quas vocamus Horas canonicas. Quarta, laudare plurimum Religionum Status, atque casli- batum seu virginitatem matrimonio praeferre. Quinta, comprobare vota Religiosorum de servanda casti- tate, paupertate, obedientiaque perpetua, cum aliis perfec- tionis et supererogationis operibus. Ubi obiter notandum est, quod cum voti ratio ad ea pertineat quae ad perfectionem ducunt vitsB Christianas, de aliis quaj ab ipsa perfectione potius avertunt, ut de negotiatione vel matrimonio, votum numquam emittendum sit. Sexta, laudare prseterea Reliquias, venerationem et invoca- tionem Sanctorum : item stationes peregrinationesque pias, indulgentias, jubilaea, candelas in templis accendi solitas, et reliqua hujusmodi pietatis ac devotionis nostras admini- cula. Septima, extoUere abstinentiae ac jejuniorum usum, ut quadragesimae quatuor temporum, vigiliarum sextae feriae, sabbati, aliorumque pro devotione susceptorum : item spon- taneas afflictiones sui, quas pasnitentias dicimus, non internas solum, sed etiam externas. Octava, laudare insuper templorum exstructiones atque ornamenta : nee non imagines, tamquam propter id quod reprfflsentant, jure optimo venerandas. Nona, confirmare maxima omnia Ecclesiae prsecepta, neo impugnare uUo modo : sed contra impugnantes, quaesitis undi- que rationibus, prompte defendere. Decima, Patrum etiam seu Superiorum deereta, mandata, traditiones, ritus, et mores studiose probare. Licet autem non reperiatur ubique ea quae deberet esse morum integritas, si quis tamen vel in publica concione vel in populari com- mercio ipsis obloquitur, generat potius damna et scandala, quam aliquid afferat remedii aut utilitatis : cum nihil aliud sequatur, nisi exasperatio et obstrectatio populi adversus Principes ac Pastores suos. Temperandum est igitur ab isto invectivarum genere. Verumtamen, sicut damnosum NOTES. 359 est, Pi-imates ipsos absentes apud populum allatrare atque proscindere ; ita rursus privatim admonere eos qui, si velint, mederi huic malo possunt, operae pretium videtur fore Decima tertia, denique, ut ipsi Ecclesise Catholicse omnino unanimes conformesque simus, si quid, quod oculis nostris ap- paret album, nigrum ilia esse definierit, debemus itidem, quod nigrum sit, pronuntiare. Indubitate namque credendum est, eumdem esse Domini nostri Jesu Christi et Ecclesiae ortho- doxse Sponsse ejus spiritum, per quem gubernamur ac dirigi- mur ad salutem ; neque alium esse Deum, qui olim tradidit Decalogi praecepta, et qui nunc temporis Ecclesiam hier- archicam instruit atque regit. — Exer. Spirit. Reg. Aliquot. Notes to Chapter II. Pages 238—261. Passages to which a reference is made, or which are cited or abridged from the Epistola B. P. Nostri Ignatii de Vir- tute Obedientiae. IGNATIUS LOYOLA, Fratribus Societatis Jesu, qui sunt in Lusitania, Gratiam, et Amorem Christi Domini Sempiternum. Ab aliis religiosis ordinibus facilius patiamur superari nos jejuniis, viglliis, et c»tera victus cultuque asperitate, quam suo quisque ritu, ac disciplina sancte suscipiunt : vera qui- dem ac perfecta Obedientia, abdicationeque voluntatis atque judicii, maxime velim, Fratres Carissimi, esse conspicuos qui- cumque in hac Societate Djjo Domino nostro deserviunt ; ejusdemque Societatis veram germanamque sobolem hac quasi nota distingui, qui nunquam intueantur personam ipsam cui obediunt,sed in ea Christum Dominum, cujus causa obediunt. Si quidem Superiori, nee si prudentia, bonitate, A A 4 360 NOTES. caeterisve quibuslibet Divinis donis ornatus, instructusque sit, propterea obtemperandum est ; sed ob id solum, quod vices gerat Dei ejusdemque auctoritate fungatur, qui dicit, " Qui vos audit, me audit ; et qui vos spernit, me spernit : " nee- contra, sive consilio aut prudentia minus valeat, quidquam idcirco de Obedientia remittendum, quatenus ille Superior est ; quando illius personam refert, cujus sapientia falli noni potest : supplebitque ipse, quid quidministro defuerit, sive probitate, aliisque ornamentis careat. Siquidem disertis verbis Cliristus Dominus cum dixisset : " super Cathedrara Moysi sederunt Scribse, et Pharissei ; " protinus addidit, " omnia ergo qusecumque' dixerint vobis, servate et facite ; secundum vero opera eorum nolite facere." Jam vero illud etiam^ vobis clare compertum esse, ac in animis vestris penitus insidere vehementer cupio, infimam et valde imperfectam esse illam Obedientise formam quae man- data duntaxat opere exsequitur ; nee virtutis nomine dignam, nisi ad alterum gradum ascendat, qui voluntatem Superioris suam efficit, et cum ea ita concordet, ut non solum in effectu executio appareat, verum etiam in affectu consentio ; sicque idem velit uterque, idem nolit. Atque propterea in Sacris Litteris legimus, " Melior est Obedientia, quam victimfe ; " si quidem (ut S. Gregorius docet) " per victimas aliena caro, per Obedientiam vero voluntas propria mactatur; " quae qui- dem pars animi, quoniam est adeo praestans, sic fit, ut ejus oblatio Domino ac Creatori nostro per Obedientiam facta magni sit aestimanda Quocirca voluntates vestras, Fratres Carissimi, quoad ejus fieri omnino deponite : libertatem Conditori vestro quam vobis ipsemet elargitus est, in ejus ministris libere tradite, ac dicate. Nolite exiguum vestri liberi arbitrii fructum putare quod liceat vobis illud, a quo id aecepistis, eidem per Obedi- entiam plene reddere. Quod cum facitis, non modo non perditis ipsum, verum ipsum augetis atque perficitis; quippe qui vestras omnes voluntates certissima rectitudinis regula moderamini voluntate Divina, quam videlicet interpretatur is, qui vobis Dei nomine prsesidet. Itaque diligenter illud etiam cavendum est, ne Superioris NOTES. 361 ullo unquam tempore voluntatem (quam ducere pro Divina debetis) ad vestrain detorquere nitamini : id enim esset non vestram Divinae conformare, sed Divinam vestrae voluntatis norma regere velle, ejusdem Divinae Sapientiae ordinem in- vertentes. Sane quam magnus est error, et quidem eorum quos amor sui obcaecavit, obedientes existimare sese, cum Superio- rem ad id quod ipsimet volunt aliqua ratione pertraxerint — Qui vero se totum penitus immolare vult Deo praeter voluntatem, intelligentiam quoque (qui tertius et summus est gradus Obedientiae) offerat necesse est, ut non solum idem velitjsed etiam ut idem sentiat quod Superior, ej usque judicio subjiciat suum, quoad potest devota voluntas intelligentiam inflectere. Qu» vis animi tametsi non ea qua voluntas poUet, libertate prasdita est ; atque ipsa natura fertur ejus assensus in id, quod sibi veri speciem praebet: tamen multis in rebus, in quibus videlicet cognitsB veritatis evidentia vim illi non infert, potest voluntatis pondere in banc potius, quam in illam partem inclinari. Quae res cum incidunt, debet quisquis Obe- dientiam profitetur, inclinare sese in sententiam Superioris. Etenim cum Obedientia sit quoddam bolocaustum, quo totus homo sine uUa prorsus immunitione Conditori suo, ac Domino per manus ministrorum in caritatis igne immolatur ; cumque siteadem renunciatio qu«dam integra, per quam omni suo jure sponte decedit religiosus, ut Divinae Providentiae Superioris ductu gubernandum, ac possidendum ultro sese addicat, ac mancipet: negari non potest, quin Obedientia comprehendat, non solum executionem, ut imperatur quis faciat, et volunta- tem, ut libenter faciat ; sed etiam judicium, ut quaecumque Superior mandat ac sentit, eadem inferiori et recta, et vera esse videantur, quatenus, ut dixi, vi sua potest voluntas intel- ligentiam flectere Nam ut in corporibus globisque coelestibus, alius alium afficiat moveatque, requiritur, ut certa quadam eonvenientia et ordine inferior orbis superiori subjiciatur : sic in homi- nibus, cum alter alterius auctoritate movetur, quod per Obedientiam fit, oportet ut is, qui ab alterius nutu pendet, subserviat, et obsecundet ; ut virtus ab imperante ad eum derivetur, et influat. Hac autem obtemperandi obsecundan- 362 NOTES. dique ratio constare non potest, nisi voluntas ac judicium inferioris cum Superioris voluntate ac judicio congruat Praetereaj nisi haec Obedientia judicii existat, fieri non potest, ut vel consensus voluntatis, vel executio talis sit, qualem esse oportet : natura enim ita comparatum est, ut animi nostri vires, quae appetitivae dicuntur, sequantur appre- hensivas ; et nisi adhibita vi, voluntas, judicio repugnante, diu obteraperare non poterit. Quod si forte quis aliquo temporis spatio obediat percommunemillamapprehensionem, qua censetur, perperam etiam praecipienti parendum esse ; certe id stabile, ac fixum esse non potest : atqua ita perse- verantia deficit, vel saltem Obedientiae perfectio, quae in prompte et alacriter obediendo consistit ; non enim ibi potest esse alacritas, sententiarumque dissensio. Perit etiam exsequendi studium, et celeritas, cum ambitur, expediat nee ne, facere quod jubemur : perit Celebris ilia Obedientiae caecae simplicitas, cum apud nos ipsos in quaestionem vocamus, reote ne praecipiatur, an secus : atque etiam fortasse damnamus Superiorem, quod ea mandet, quae nobis non ita jucunda sunt: perit humilitas, quoniam etsi ex altera parte paremus, ex al- tera tamen nosmetipsos Superiori praeferimus : perit in rebus arduis fortitude ; perit denique (ut summatim complectar) virtutis hujus vis omnis ac dignitas. Succedunt autem in eorum locum dolor, molestia, tarditas, lassitude, obmurmu- rationes, excusationes, aliaque vitia non sane levia, quibus Obedientiae pretium, ac meritum prorsus extinguitur Quam vero sit eadem ipsa perfecta, grataque Domino, inde primum ostenditur, quod per earn prsestantissima pars hominis ac pretiosissima Domino consecratur. Deinde quod Obediens ita fit holocaustum vivum, gratumque MajestatiDi- vinae, cum nihil suimet omnino retineat : postremo quod magna est hujus certaminis difficultas ; frangit enim sese Dei causa Obediens ipsemet, resistitque naturali propensioni, quae omnibus hominibus incita est ad suam complectendam sequendamque sententiam. Ex his igitur rebus efficitur, ut Obedientia, tametsi proprie voluntatem perficere videatur, quippe quam reddit ad nutum Superioris promptam ac NOTES. 363 paratam ; nihilominus ad intelligentiam quoque ipsam, ut diximus, pertinere debeat, eamque inducere ad sentiendum id ipsum, quod sentit Superior : sic enim flet, ut omnibus connixi viribus et voluntatis, et intelligentise, ad executionem celerem atque integram veniamus. Primum illud est, ut quemadmodum initio dixi, non in- tueamini in persona Superioris hominem obnoxium erroribus, atque miseriis ; sed Christum ipsum, qui est sapientia summa, bonitas immensa, caritas infinita ; qui nee decipi potest, nee vos vult ipse decipere ; et quoniam conscii vobismet estis, vos Dei amore jugum obedientiae subiisse, ut in Superioris volun- tate sequendo, voluntatem Divinam certius sequeremini ; nolite dubitare, quin purgat fidelissima Domini caritas, eorum ministerio, quos vobis prsefecit, vos deinceps gubernare, et rectis itineribus ducere. Itaque Superioris vocem, ac jussa, non secus ac Christi vocem, excipite Postrema subjiciendi judicii ratio est cum facilior, tutior- que, tum etiam apud sanctos patres in more posita, ut statua- tis vobiscum ipsi, quidquid Superior praecipit, ipsius Dei praeceptum esse, et voluntatem, atque ut ad credenda, quse CathoUca fides proponit, toto animo assensuque vestro statim incumbitis ; sic ad ea facienda, qusecumque Superior dixerit, Cffico quodam impetu voluntatis parendi cupidae, sine uUa pror- sus disquisitione feramini. Sic egisse credendus est Abra- ham, filium Isaac immolare jussus ; sic Novi Testamenti tempore aliquis e Sanctis patribus iis, quos commemorat Cassianus, ut Johannes Abbas, qui, quod erat ei imperatum, non reputabat utilene esset, an inutile ; ut cum aridum lig- num tanto ac tam diuturno labore per annum irrigavit ; nee utrum fieri possit, nee ne ; ut cum conatus est tam ex animo ingens saxum solus demovere loco, quod ne multi quidem simul homines impellere potuissent. Quod obedientiae genus ipsis interdum miraculis divinitus comprobatum videmus. Nam (ut alios taceam, quos ipsi non ignoratis) Maurus sancti Benedicti discipulus, mandato Superioris lacum in- gressus, nee mersus est: alius quidam a Superiore jussus, leaenam ad se ducere, illam ccepit, atque perduxit. Est igitur haec ratio subjiciendi proprii judicii, ac sine uUa questione 364 NOTES. sanciendi et coUaudandi apud se quodcumque Superior jus- serit, non solum Sanctis viris usitata, sed etiam perfectas obe- dientioe studiosis imitanda omnibus in rebus quae cum peccato manifesto conjunct® non sunt Romae. VII. Kalend. Aprilis, millessimo quingentessimo quinquagesimo tertio. Loyola had addressed similar advices to individuals of the Society as occasion required ; but it seems that this Letter to the Portuguese brethren was composed with more delibe- rate care than had been bestowed upon any of those previous epistles. Orlandinus is warranted in expressing himself concerning it as he does. Accustomed as was the General to leave the administration of Houses to the Rectors and Provincials, and abstaining as he did from interference in ordinary instances, he knew how to step forward, on those rare occasions when the welfare or very existence of the Order was in question. Such an instance was that which drew from him the Epistle on Obedience. Oklandinus (Lib. XIIL an. 1553) says:— Ad omnes vero communiter socios Epistola de Obedientia, quae extat, misit : qua disputatione non facile absolutius in eo genere quidquam subtiliusve reperias : quae deinde per caeteras Societatis missa provincias vehementer ubique ad parendum alacritatem incendit. As a matter of course the authorship of this epistle, as well as that of the Spiritual Exercises, has been called in question by the adversaries of the Society. It does not how- ever appear that these allegations have rested upon any solid ground. There seems to have been a reluctance to believe that Loyola had mind enough to produce any of the writings that have been attributed to his pen. NOTES. 365 Notes to Chapter III. THE CONSTITUTIONS. So long as it was possible to do so, the Society held its Constitutions in the dark ; when at length this could not be done, and when, by various means, almost the entire code had found its way to the public, an authorised edition was published. This appeared at Prague, in 1757. The Con- stitutions had indeed been printed frequently ; but the copies had been reserved to the use of the Superiors and Pro- vincials. During this period of secrecy many alterations had been effected in the text ; these underwent a careful scrutiny in preparation for the Prague edition, which was thenceforward to be considered as unalterable. The world had already become familiar with a preliminary tract, entitled — Primum ac Generale Examen iis omnibus qui in Societatem Jesu admitti petunt proponendum ; — and which, as this title indicates, has always been put into the hand of those who apply to be admitted into the Society. Under eight heads, a sort of outline of the institute is conveyed, and those points are insisted upon, which a candidate for admis- sion would do well maturely to consider. Upon these several points each candidate is strictly examined, certain rare cases excepted, as when his qualifications, disposition, and accomplishments have already become thoroughly known to the Superiors. The main intention of the Society is thus declared: — Finis hujus Societatis est, non solum saluti, et perfectioni propriarum animarum cum Divina gratia vacare, sed cum eadem impense in salutem, et perfectionem proximorum incumbere. It then sets forth the principal means employed for securing its great end and purpose : — Ad hunc finem melius consequendum, tria Vota in ea, Obedientiae, Paupertatis, et Castitatis emittuntur ; sic Pau- pertatem accipiendo, ut nee velit, nee possit reditus ullos ad suam sustentationem, nee ad quidvis aliud habere. Quod 366 NOTES. non tantum in particulari de unoquoque, sed etiara de Eccle- siis, et Domibus Societatis Professae est intelligendum. Nee etiam (quamvis aliis sit licitum) pro Missarum Sacrificiis, vel Praedicationibus, vel Lectionibus, vel uUius Sacramenti admi- nistratione, vel quovis alio pio Officio ex iis, quae juxta suum Institutum Societas potest exercere, stipendium uUum vel eleemosynam, quae ad compensation em hujusmodi ministerio- rum dari solent, ab alio quam a Deo (ob cujus obsequium omnia pure facere debent) possunt admittere. One of the most characteristic of the Jesuit principles is conveyed in the following passage (it is alluded to at page 273.) : — Ceterum ratio vivendi in exterioribus, justas ob causas, majus Dei obsequium semper intuendo, communis est : nee uUas ordinarias poenitentias, vel corporis afflictiones, ex ob- ligatione subeundas habet ; sed illas assumere qui vis poterit, quse sibi videbuntur, cum approbatione Superioris ad majo- rem sui spiritus profectum convenire, et quas propter eun- dem finem Superiores eis poterunt imponere. Candidates for admission are required to declare whether they be willing to renounce and alienate their property, and to bestow it otherwise than they might be disposed to do : that is to say, not upon their relatives ; also whether they be willing to cut themselves off from all ties of kindred ; or at least to submit, in this respect, to the directions of their Superior. The following passage is referred to at page 267. : — Cum autem communieatio, quse cum amicis, et sanguine junctis, verbo aut scripto fit, potius ad quietis perturbationem, quam ad eorum, qui spiritus vacant, profectum, praesertim in initiis, facere soleat : interrogentur, num contenti sint cum hujusmodi non communicare, nee litteras accipere, nee scribere, nisi aliqua occasione, Superiori aliter videretur. Et quamdiu Domi fuerint, num contenti sint, ut videantur litterse omnes, et qui ipsis scribentur et quas ipsi aliis scri- bent; ei, cui hujusmodi munus commissum est, cura relicta, ut eas det, vel non det, quemadmodum in Domino nostro magis expedire judicabit. Unusquisque eorum qui Societatem ingrediuntur, consilium NOTES. 367 illud Christi sequendo : " Qui dimiserit Patrum," &c. exis- timet sibi patrem, matrem, fratres, et sorores, et quidquid in mundo habebat, relinquendum ; imo sibi dictum existimet verbum Illud : " Qui non odit patrem, et matrem, insuper et animam suam, non potest meus esse discipulus." Et ita curandum ei est, ut omnem carnis effectum erga sanguine junctos exuat, ac ilium in spiritualem convertat : eosque diligat eo solum amore, quem ordinata charitas exigit, ut qui mundo ac proprio amori mortuus, Christo Domino Nostro soli vivit, eumque loco parentum, fratrum, et rerum omnium habet. The candidate is asked whether he can submit himself to that system of delation which prevails within the Society ; as well as whether he can take his part in carrying it for- ward toward others. Enactments involving the most frightful consequences may easily be condensed within tlie compass of a brief para- graph ; and this may be done in terms apparently so guile- less, and so well intentioned, as to screen the greatest enormities from the observation of even an intelligent reader. It is in such a style of innocence and unconsciousness that one of the most poisonous ingredients of the Jesuit system is dropped into the cup. How reasonable a thing does it seem to ask one who wishes to dedicate himself to a spiritual func- tion, whether he is willing that his faults, by whomsoever noted, and apart from the acknowledgment he may make of them to his Confessor, should be reported to his superiors ? And if willing thus, for his personal benefit, to stand open to the observation and report of others, he cannot think it too much to ask of him a reciprocity of faithful love : or in plain terms, that he will, in his turn, render his aid in promot- ing the welfare of all around him. It is thus quietly that the deep foundations are laid upon which a superstructure of universal treachery is to be reared : — Ad majorem in spiritu profectum et prEecipue ad majorem submissionem et humilitatem propriam, interrogetur, an con- tentus sit futurus, ut omnes errores, et defectus ipsius, et res qusecumque qu^ notatae in eo et observatffi fuerint, Superi- 368 NOTES. oribus, per quemvis, qui extra Confessionem eas acceperit, manifestentur. Num etiam boni sit eonsulturus (quod et ipse, et quivis alius facere debet) ab aliis corrigi, et ad aliorum correctionem j uvare : ac num manifestare sese invicem sint parati, debito cum amore et charitate, ad majorem spiritus profectum ; prajsertim ubi a Superiore, qui illorum curam gerit, fuerit ita praescriptum aut interrogatum, ad majorem Dei gloriam. Page 268. Of the six means of probation through which the candidate is required to pass, the first being a course of the Spiritual Exercises, the second is — Servire in uno vel pluribus Xenodochiis per mensem alium, ibidem cibum capiendo et dormiendo : vel per aliquam vel plures horas quotidie, pro temporum, locorum, et personarum ratione auxilium, et minis- terium omnibus segris et sanis, prout injunctum eis fuerit, impendendo : ut magis se demittant et humilient, ac eo veluti argumento demonstrent se prorsus ab hoc saeculo ej usque pompis ac vanitate recedere : ut omnino suo Creatori et Domino pro ipsorum salute cruciflxo serviant. Tertium est, peregrinari mensem alium sine pecunia : imo suis temporibus ostiatim pro Christi amore mendicare ; ut possint ad incommoditatem comedendi et dormiendi assue- fieri : atque adeo ut, omni spe ilia abjecta, quam in pecuniis et rebus aliis creatis possint constituere, integre, vera cum fide et ardenti amore, earn in* suo (lireatore et Domino consti- tuant : vel utrumque mensem ministerio hospitalium, vel alicujus eorum, aut etiam utrumque peregrinationi, prout Superior! visum furit, impendent. A " mendicity ticket," that is to say, a testimonial from " aliquis fide dignus " must be brought in by the novice on his return to the House, to this purport : — "I, A. B., certify that the bearer, C. D., has been begging in my neighbour- hood [so many days], in a pious and edifying manner." It is thus that a false system is built up with falsities, from the foundation to the summit : — NOTES. 369 Cum in tertio, peregrinationis, ab ultimo loco, ad quern per- venit vel non procul ab eo, testimonium ab aliquibus, vel uno certe fide digno secum ferat ; quod suam devotionem secutus, sineuUa cujusquam querela eo pervenit. Passages referred to in Page 270. . . . per triduum suis constitutis temporibus, vestigia se- quendo primorum, de quibus mentionem fecimus, ostiatim pro Christi Domini nostri amore mendicare debent : ut contra quani est communis hominum sensus, ad Divinum obsequium et laudem magis se possint submittere : magisque in spiritu proficere ad gloriam Divinse Majestatis. Ut etiam magis sint dispositi ad ipsum faciendum, quando illis injunctum fuerit, vel conveniens aut necessarium erit, dum per -varias mundi partes, juxta quod eis prsescriptum vel constitutum per sum- mum Christi Vicarium, vel ejus loco per Superiorem Societatis fuerit, discurrent. Quandoquidem exigit Nostras Professionis ratio, ut parati, et in procinctu simus, ad ea omnia quas quovis tempore in Domino nobis injuncta fuerint nee petendo, nee expectando prsemium ullum in praesenti hac et labili vita ; sed eam quae undecumque seterna est, ex summa Dei miseri- cordia semper sperando. Et ad particularia qusedam descendendo, in probationibus humilitatis, et abnegationis sui, et in exercendis Officiis ab- jectis et humilibus (cujusmodi sunt in culina servire, domum everrere, et reliqua omnia servitia obire) promptius ea suscipi convenit, a quibus sensus magis abborrebit : si quidem in- junctum fuerit, ut in eis se exerceant. Page 270. Ideo melius est ut Coquus non roget sibi inservientem, ut hoc aut illud faciat, sed cum modestia jubeat, vel dicat. Hoc fac, vel illud. Si enim rogat, potius ut homo hominem alloqui videbitur : ut Coquum laicum rogare Sacerdotem, ut ollas ab- B B 370 NOTES. stergat, vel res hujusmodi faciat, nee decens, nee justum vide- retur. Sed sijubeat, vel dieat, Fac hoc, velillud ; signifleabit magis, quod ut Christus homini loquatur, quandoquidem ipsius locojubet : atque ita qui obedit, considerare ac perpen- dere vocem a Coquo vel alio, qui sit ei Superior, egressam debet, ut si a Christo Domino Nostro egrederetur, ut omnino placere Divinse Majestati possit. Page 272. .... ex parte rerum animi, quando qui ad Probationem admissus fuit, se componere ad vitam sub Obedientia et juxta modum procedendi Soeietatis ducendam non possit ; quod nequeat, vel nolit propriura suum sensum, aut judicium infrin- gere; vel propter alia impedimenta, quae a natura, vel a consue- tudine promanarent. — Constitutiones, Pars II. cap. ii. Page 272. The one lesson that is reiterated in varied terms, as often as possible, is that which teaches unreasoning submission to the commands of a Superior. As thus ; — Expedit in primis ad profeetum, et valde necessarium est, ut omnes perfectse Obedientise se dedant, Superiorem (qui- cumque ille sit) loco Christi Domini nostri agnoscentes, et interna reverentia et amore eum prosequentes, nee solum in exseeutione externa eorum quse injungit, integre, prompte, fortiter, et cum humilitate debita, sine excusationibus, et obmurmurationibus obediant, licet diifieilia, et secundum sensualitatem repugnantia jubeat ; verum etiam conentur interius resignationem, et veram abnegationem propriae voluntatis et judicii habere, voluntatem ac judicium suum cum eo, quod Superior vult et sentit, in omnibus rebus (ubi peecatum non cerneretur) omnino conformantes, proposita sibi voluntate, ac judicio Superioris, pro regula suse voluntatis et judicii, quo exactius conformentur primaa ac summee NOTES. 371 regulse omnisbonse voluntatis et judicii, qujeest jeterna boni- tas et sapientia Constit. Pars. III. cap. i. Again to the same purport further on : — Quam quidem omnes plurimum observare et in ea excellere studiant ; nee solum in rebus obligatoriis, sed etiam in aliis ; licet nihil aliud quam signum voluntatis Superioris, sine uUo expresso przecepto, videretur. Versari autem debet ob oculos Deus Creator ac Dominus Noster, propter quern homini obedientia praestatur : — ita ut omnibus rebus, ad quas potest cum charitate se Obedientia extendere ad ejus vocem, perinde ac si a Christo Domino egrederetur (quandoquidem ipsius loco, ac pro ipsius amore et reverentia Obedientiam prsestamus ) quam promptissimi simus ; re quavis atque adeo littera a Nobis inchoata, necdum perfecta, relicta, ad eum scopum vires omnes ac intentionem in Domino con- vertendo, ut sancta Obedientia turn in executione, tum in voluntate, tum in intellectu sit in Nobis semper omni ex parte perfecta ; cum magna celeritate, spirituali gau- dio et perseverentia, quidquid Nobis injunctum fueiit, obeundo : omnia justaesse Nobis persuadendo omnem sen- ten tiara ac judicium Nostrum contrarium cseca quadam Obedentia abnegando ; et id quidem in omnibus, quje a Superiore disponuntur, ubi definiri non possit (quemadmo- dum dictum est) aliquod peccati genus intercedere. Et sibi quisque persuadeat, quod qui sub Obedientia vivunt, se ferri ac regi Divina Providentia per Superiores sues sincere debent, perinde ac si cadaver essent, quod quoquoversus ferri, et quacumque ratione tractari se sinit : vel similiter at- que senis baculus, qui ubicumque, et quacumque in re velit eo uti, qui eum manu tenet, ei inservit. Sic enim obediena rem quamcumque, cui eum Superior ad auxiUum totius cor- poris Eeligionis velit impendere, cum animi hilaritate debet exsequi : pro certo habens, quod ea ratione potius, quam re alia quavis, quam prsestare possit, propriam voluntatem ac judicium diversum sectando, Divinae voluntati respondebit. — Constit. Pars. VI. cap. i. § 1. B B 2 372 NOTES. Page 211. Ego, N., Professionem facio, etpromitto Omnipotenti Deo, coram ejus Virgine Matre, et universa ccElesti curia, ac omnibus circumstantibus ; et tibi Patri Reverendo N. Prasposito Generali Societatis Jesu, locum Dei tenenti^ et successoribus tuis ; (yel tibi Eeverendo Patri N. Vice Prse- positi Generalis Societatis Jesu, et successorum ejus, locum Dei tenenti ;) perpetuam Paupertatem, Castitatem, et Obedi- entiam, et secundum earn, peculiarein curam circa puerorum eruditionem, juxta formam vivendi, in Litteris Apostolicis Societatis Jesu, et in ejus Constitutionibus contentam. Page 281. Cum exoptet Societas universas Constitutiones, Decla- rationes, ac vivendi ordinem, omnino juxta Nostrum insti- tutum, nihil ulla in re declinando, observari ; optet etiam nihilominus suos omnes secures esse, vel certe adjuvari, ne in laqueum illius peccati quod ex vi Constitutionum hujus- modi, aut Ordinationum proveniat, incidant, visum est Nobis in Domino, excepto expresso Voto, quo Societas Summo Pontiflci pro tempore existent! tenetur, ac tribus aliis essen- tialibus Paupertatis, Castitatis, et Obedientae nullas Consti- tutiones, Declarationes, vel ordinem uUam vivendi, posse obligationem ad peccatum mortale vel veniale inducere ; nisi Superior ea in Nomine Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, vel in virtute Obedientise juberet; quod in rebus, vel personis illis in quibus judicabitur, quod ad particulare uniuscuj usque, vel ad universale bonum multum conveniet, fieri poterit : et loco timoris oifensae succedat airior desiderium omnis perfectionis et ut major gloria et laus Christi Creatoris ac Domini Nostri consequantur. — Constit, Pars VI. cap. v. NOTES. 373 Pages 285, 286. Ex Professis qui Congregationi intererunt, unusquisque suffragium unicum, solus Generalis duo habebit. Sed si Humerus par esset, Provincialis reliquis prseferetur ; et si inter ipsos Provinciales esset paritas, pars ilia, in quam Priaepositus Generalis, vel (si is e vivis excessisset) ipsius Vicarius inclinabit, esset prseferenda. Ut enira illis magis est necessarium Divinse gratise auxilium, propter munus quod gerunt ; ita sperandum est Deum ac Dominum nostrum uberius id illis, ut sentiant et dicant, quae ad ipsius gloriam faciant, largiturum Quando non ad electionem Generalis congregatur Societas, in aliis eventibus Propositus Generalis earn convocabit ; prseterquam in illis, qui in Nona Parte exprimentur : et non congregabit frequenter Societatem, ut dictum est, nisi rerum agendarum necessitas urgeret. Sed cum generalis Congre- gatio ad electionem Propositi eonvocata, eum jam elegerit, deinde de rebus aliis gravioribus, quam ut a Generali et lis qui cum ipso agunt, decidi debeant, tractari poterit.— Constit. Pars VIII. cap iv. § 2. Page 291. Quia Societas quae mediis humanis instituta non est, per ea nee conservari, nee augeri potest; sed per gratiam Omni- potentis Dei ac Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, in eo solo spem constitui oportet, quod conservaturus sit et promoturus hoc opus, quod ad obsequium et laudem suam, et auxilium animarum inchoare dignatus est. Et juxta spem banc, primum medium et maxime consentaneum orationum et sacrificiorum erit ; quae hac cum intentione santa ofFerri, et singulis hebdomalis, mensibus et annis, in omnibus locis ubi Societas residet, certa ordinatione instituti debent. Ad conservationem et incrementum non solum corporis, id est, eorum quae externa sunt, sed etiam spiritus Societatis, atque ad assecutionem finis quem sibi praefigit auxilii 374 NOTES. animarum, ad ultimum et supernaturalem suum firwn con- sequendum, media ilia quae cum Deo instrumentum con- jungunt ac disponunt, ut a Divina manu recte gubernetur, efficaciora sunt, quam quae illud disponunt erga homines. Hujusmodi est probitas et virtus, ac pr^cipue charitas et pura intentio Divini servitii, et familiaritas cum Deo in spiritualibus devotionis exercitiis, et zelus sincerus animarum ad gloriam ejus qui eas creavit ac redemit, quovis alio emolu- mento posthabito. Videtur itaque in uniyersum curandum esse, ut omnes qui se Societati addixerunt, in virtutum solidarum ac perfectarum et spiritualium studium rerum incumbat; ac in hujusmodi majus momentum, quam in doctrina vel aliis donis naturalibus et humania constitutum esse ducant. Ilia enim interiora sunt, ex quibus eflicaciam ad exteriora permanare ad finem nobis propositum oportet. Constit. Pars. X. § 1. To the Constitutions, throughout, there are attached notes more or less, at the foot of almost every page : these are called " Declarations," and professedly they serve to set the text free from any ambiguity that might seem to attach to it. But in fact, the principal use of this running commentary is to assist, rather than to remove, the intended ambiguity of the text. Where, in the body of the Constitutions, a rule or in- junction is propounded, and is withdrawn — is advanced and pulled in, the attendant note or " Declaration " smooths the way for the operation — saying and unsaying the same thing, in other terms. The notes having been originally attached to the Jesuit Code, are held to be of the same authority as the text. 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