CONFESSION. — DELATION. H 



and, under an astute and experienced directorship, 

 they have been found of such power, that the 

 Manual of Spiritual Exercises boasts to have 

 saved souls more in number than the letters it 

 contains.. 



To this succeed two years of discipline and prep- 

 aration, directed, above all things else, to perfecting 

 the virtues of humility and obedience. The novice 

 is obliged to perform the lowest menial offices, and 

 the most repulsive duties of the sick-room and the 

 hospital ; and he is sent forth, for weeks together, 

 to beg his bread like a common mendicant. He is 

 requhed to reveal to his confessor, not only his 

 sins, but all those hidden tendencies, instincts, and 

 impulses which form the distinctive traits of char- 

 acter. He is set to watch his comi'ades, and his 

 comrades are set to watch him. Each must report 

 what he observes of the acts and dispositions of the 

 others ; and this mutual espionage does not end 

 with the novitiate, but extends to the close of 

 life. The characteristics of every member of the 

 Order are minutely analyzed, and methodically put 

 on record. 



This horrible violence to the noblest qualities of 

 manhood, joined to that equivocal system of mo- 

 rality which eminent casuists of the Order have 

 inculcated, must, it may be thought, produce de- 

 plorable effects upon the characters of those under 

 its influence. Whether this has been actually the 

 case, the reader of history may determine. It is 

 certain, however, that the Society of Jesus has 

 numbered among its members men whose fervent 



