JESUITS. 



the order. Iiilier in rank stand the scholars and 

 ipiritttai axidjutors, who are instructed in the higher 

 branches of learning, take upon them solemn 

 monastic vows, and are bound to devote themselves 

 particularly to the education of youth. These are, 

 as it were, the artists of the Jesuit community, are 

 employed as professors in academies, as preachers in 

 cities and at courts, as rectors and professors in 

 colleges, as tutors and spiritual guides in families 

 which they wish to gain or to watch, and as assis- 

 tants in the missions. Finally, the nobility, or 

 (ugliest class, is made up of the professed, amongst 

 whom are admitted only the most experienced 

 members, whose address, energy, and fidelity to the 

 order have been eminently tried and proved. They 

 make profession, i. e. take the vows of their order, 

 by binding themselves, in addition to the common 

 monastic vows, by a fourth vow, to the undertaking 

 of missions ; and, when they are not living together 

 in pious ease in their professed houses, they serve as 

 missionaries among heathens and heretics, as gover- 

 nors of colonies in remote parts of the world, as 

 father-confessors of princes, and as residents of the 

 order in places where it has no college. They are 

 entirely exempt, on the other hand, from the 

 care of the education of youth. None but the 

 professed have a voice in the election of a general, 

 who must himself be of their number, and who 

 has the right of choosing from them the assis- 

 tants, provincials, superiors, and rectors. The 

 general holds his office for life, and has his resi- 

 dence in Rome, where he is attended by a monitor 

 and five assistants or counsellors, who also repre- 

 sent the five chief nations, the Italians, Germans, 

 French, Spanish, and Portuguese. He is the centre 

 of the government of the whole order, and receives 

 monthly reports from the provincials, and one every 

 quarter from the superiors of the professed-houses, 

 from the rectors of the colleges (which are the monas- 

 teries of the order, but with nothing very monastic 

 about them), and from the masters of the novitiates. 

 These reports detail all remarkable occurrences, 

 political events, and the characters, capacities, and 

 services of individual members, and thereupon the 

 general directs what is to be done, and how to make 

 use of tried and approved members. All are bound 

 to obey him implicitly, and even contrary to their 

 own convictions. There is no appeal from his orders. 

 He may even alter particular rules of the society, 

 expel members without trial, or exile them by sending 

 them away to some distant place, and inflict or remit 

 punishments at his pleasure. Ignatius Loyola, who 

 died July 31, 1556, at Rome, left to the order the 

 sketch of this constitution, and a mystical treatise 

 called Exercitia Spiritualia (Spiritual Exercises), 

 the use of which was formally introduced among the 

 Jesuits, and occupies the first four weeks of every 

 novice. This pious enthusiast, but by no means 

 great man, obtained a lasting fame, and the honour 

 of canonization (1622), by the rapid increase of his 

 order, which, as early as 1556, numbered 1000 

 members in twelve provinces. The first was Por- 

 tugal, where Xavier and Rodriguez, at the invitation 

 of the king, had founded colleges. The increase of 

 the Jesuits was no less rapid in the Italian states, 

 where they were supported by the influence of the 

 pope ; in Spain, where they were, at first, opposed 

 by the bishops, but soon prevailed through the ex- 

 ample of the nobility, especially of one of the most 

 powerful grandees, Francis Borgia, duke of Candia, 

 who became an Inighist (as the Jesuits were called 

 iu Spain, after their founder, Inigo) ; and in Catholic 

 Germany, where Austria and Bavaria granted them 

 privileges and foundations. At the universities of 

 Vienna, Prague, and Ingolstadt, they obtained an 



ascendency which they held for two centuries. In 

 their strict hierarchical principles, in their restless, 

 zealous activity, nnd in their success in making con- 

 verts, the Catholic princes, as well as the pope him- 

 self, found the most effectual barrier against the 

 growing power of Protestantism. Even to the com- 

 mon people they soon recommended themselves, as 

 the offspring of the new spirit of the times, and were, 

 therefore, readily favoured by persons who were ill- 

 disposed to the monks. For institutions which would 

 not adopt the tendency of the age towards practical 

 improvement and a more cheerful tone of conduct, 

 could no longer succeed, after the restoration of 

 learning and sound reasoning ; the excited world 

 preferred business to contemplation, and the mendi- 

 cant monks, who had every where pushed themselves 

 into notice, had passed their most splendid epoch. 

 Those who disliked the Franciscans as too coarse 

 and vulgar, and the Dominicans as too rigid and 

 gloomy, were the better pleased with the polished, 

 cheerful, and social Jesuits. Nobody could accuse 

 them of idle brooding in prayer and psalm-singing ; 

 even in the houses of the professed, the canonical 

 hours were not observed ; they nowhere remained 

 long at their exercises of devotion, even as the spirit- 

 ual guides of the laity ; they carefully avoided all 

 appearance of spiritual pride, and dressed like the 

 secular clergy, and might even change this dress for 

 the ordinary garb of the country, in places where 

 they thought to gain easier entrance without any 

 such mark of distinction. Besides this, they were 

 directed to use a gentle demeanour while engaged 

 in their religious or political operations ; to win men 

 by compliance with their peculiarities ; never to con- 

 tend openly, even against declared enemies ; and 

 never to betray any passion ; but to keep their views 

 and measures secret, and, under a show of coldness 

 and reserve, to prosecute the more ardently and con- 

 stantly, in secret, what might have excited opposi- 

 tion if made public. This spirit of worldly policy, 

 and accommodation to circumstances, was princi- 

 pally derived from the artful principles of their 

 second general, James Lainez, who had the address 

 to soften what was austere and monastic in the re- 

 gulations of the founder, and to adapt them, accord- 

 ing to the circumstances of the times, to the object 

 of the society. This was originally nothing else 

 but the preservation and establishment of the papal 

 power against all the attacks of Protestantism, of 

 kings, and national bishops. To this end the Jesuits 

 systematically laboured, under the pretext of pro- 

 moting religion or the honour of God (In majorem 

 Dei gloriam, as the inscription is on their arms) ; 

 arid, as nothing appeared more conducive to their 

 purpose than the subjection of the mind and of pub- 

 lic opinion, they gained dominion over the young by 

 the establishment of schools, and over the adult by 

 confession, preaching, and the common intercourse 

 of society. When Lainez died, in 1564, this system, 

 and the active, energetic spirit belonging to it, had 

 already become decidedly fixed in the internal char- 

 acter of the order, so that the example of monastic 

 devotion held up by his successor, Francis Borgia, 

 who was afterwards canonized, and the efforts of 

 popes Paul IV. and Pius V. to restore the observa- 

 tion of the canonical hours, proved ineffectual. The 

 succeeding popes and generals allowed the ord'-r 

 perfect freedom from all monastic constraint, and tl.e 

 wisdom of its system soon appeared evident in tlifc 

 important successes and services which it accom- 

 plished. Their foreign missions, begun by Frauds 

 Xavier, in the Portuguese East Indies, in 1541, were 

 attended with vast and unprecedented success, if 

 their own accounts maybe trusted. He converted, 

 with the aid of his fellow missionaries who were soit 





