AIMS OF LOYOLA. 9 



Loyola's training had been in courts and camps : 

 of books he knew little or nothing. He had Hved 

 in the unquestioning faith of one bom and bred 

 in the very focus of Eomanism ; and thus, at the 

 age of about thirty, his conversion found him. It 

 was a change of life and purpose, not of belief. 

 He presumed not to inquire into the doctrines 

 of the Church. It was for him to enforce those 

 (] jctrines ; and to this end he turned all the facul- 

 ties of his potent intellect, and all his deep knowl- 

 edge of mankind. He did not aim to build up 

 barren communities of secluded monks, aspiring 

 to heaven through prayer, penance, and medita- 

 tion, but to subdue the world to the dominion of 

 the dogmas which had subdued him; to organize 

 and discipline a mighty host, controlled by one 

 purpose and one mind, fired by a quenchless zeal 

 or nerved by a fixed resolve, yet impelled, re- 

 strained, and directed by a smgle master hand. 

 The Jesuit is no dreamer: he is emphatically a 

 man of action ; action is the end of his exist- 

 ence. 



It was an arduous problem which Loyola under- 

 took to solve, — to rob a man of volition, yet to 

 preserve in him, nay, to stimulate, those energies 

 which w^ould make him the most eificient instru- 

 ment of a great design. To this end the Jesuit 

 novitiate and the constitutions of the Order are 

 dhected. The enthusiasm of the novice is urged 

 to its intensest pitch ; then, in the name of religion, 

 he is summoned to the utter abnegation of intellect 

 and wiU in favor of the Superior, in whom he is 



