234 



JESUITS. 



they were restored again at the re-establishment of 

 absolute power in 1823. Thus, in the conduct and 

 the fortunes of the order, liave been fulfilled the pro- 

 phetic words of their third general, Francis Borgia : 

 " Like lambs have we crept into power, like wolves 

 Iiave we used it, like dogs shall we be driven out, 

 but like eagles shall we renew our youth." Portugal 

 alone stediastly adhered to its ordinance of September 

 3, 1759, which banished the Jesuits out of the king- 

 dom. Germany lias hitherto refused to admit them; 

 but the Paccanarists and Redemptorists in Austria 

 have much in common with this society : some of" the 

 Jesuits, indeed, were allowed to take refuge there, 

 after their banishment from Russia, but were com- 

 manded, in 1825, on pain of exile, to acknowledge 

 the archbishop of the province as their supreme 

 head. In France, the ultra-royalists succeeded in 

 causing their presence to be connived at, and they 

 already had congregations and seminaries at Mont- 

 rouge, St Acheul, &c., previous to the late revolu- 

 tion, tn Russia, where they had been expelled by 

 Peter the Great, and re-admitted by Catharine II., 

 it appeared that they were using their endeavours to 

 win over the sons and daughters of distinguished 

 families to the Catholic church, and they were banish- 

 ed in consequence, by an ukase of Jan. 1, 1817, from 

 Moscow and Petersburg. But, still carrying on their 

 proselyting schemes, and making themselves obnoxi- 

 ous to the government by secret intrigues of all sorts, 

 an imperial ukase of March 25, 1820, abolished their 

 order for ever in Russia and Poland, and provided 

 that the whole body of its members should be trans- 

 ported beyond the boundaries of these two countries, 

 at the expense of the government, having regard to 

 the age and bodily condition of individuals ; that the 

 valuable estates of the order should be confiscated, 

 and the academy at Polotzk abolished. In England, 

 the tolerating spirit of the British constitution has per- 

 mitted them, for the last thirty years, to have a college 

 at Stonyhurst, near Preston in Lancashire, with an 

 academy of 500 pupils, and several smaller boarding 

 schools, from which they carry on with success,, the 

 propagation of the Catholic faith. (See Dallas's 

 History of the Jesuits, London 1816.)* They have 

 also three colleges in Piedmont, one in Eerrara; onin 

 Ireland, one in Friburg in Switzerland, and "two 

 colleges in the United States, one in Georgetown, 

 in the district of Columbia, the other at St Louis, 

 Missouri. 



The Jesuits have outlived their power; the age 

 rejects them. The world is ruled by a spirit with 

 which this fraternity, now inconsiderable in point of 

 numbers, talent and influence, could not keep pace. 

 The sagacious statesmen of the present day need not 

 to be reminded of the answer of Maintenon, the mis- 

 tress of the great patron of the Jesuits, who, on 

 having chosen Lazarists for the spiritual guides of 

 her pupils at St Cyr, was asked why she had not tak- 

 en Jesuits ; " Because," she replied, " I would be 

 mistress in my own house." The order originated 

 in a wise view of the state of the world on the part 

 of leading Catholics, who saw that the rapid advances 

 of the Protestants in learning and science would soon 

 throw the old system of ignorant mendicant orders 

 into contempt. They therefore trained a new race 

 of combatants for the church in the use of intellectual 



1 By the Catholic relief bill (April 13, 1829) it is required 

 >at every Jesuit in the United Kingdom shall register bis 

 name and place of residence with a clerk of the peace; that 

 n> member of the order who shall enter the realm shall 

 ty of a misdemeanour, and, on conviction, be baniau- 

 e (any natural born subject out of the realm, be- 

 ing a Jesuit, u, however, permitted to return); the admis- 

 sion of any person to the order is also forbidden; both those 

 tdinitted and the members who administer the engagement 

 are liable to fine and imprisonment, or banishment. 



weapons ; but the advantages, which they thus ob- 

 tained originally, have been lost in the general 

 spread of intelligence, and the Jesuits are now con- 

 sidered as a part of the old regime, and no longer 

 influence public opinion. Their conduct of late 

 years in France has not tended to restore their popu- 

 larity. The disposition to adapt them to the new 

 order of things, however, has been shown in the ac- 

 quittal, by the court of Rome, of two Jesuits charged 

 with having spoken well of republics, on the ground 

 that, being citizens of the United States of America, 

 they had a right to defend republican principles. 



A Universal History of the Jesuits was published 

 by Wolf (second edition, Leipsic, 1803, 4 vols.). 

 An important historical work, drawn from the first 

 sources, appeared at Leipsic, in 1820, called Cate- 

 chismo dei Gesuiti (Catechism of the Jesuits). The 

 Manila secreta Societatis Jesu (Paderborn, 1661) 

 have been reprinted in Latin and German, at Aix- 

 la-Chapelle, 1825, with a report of M. Portalis, re- 

 specting the Peres de la Foi. The genuineness of 

 these Monita, &c., however, is not fully established 

 See, also, Hist, des Confesseurs des Empercurs, de 

 Rois, &c., by M. Gregoire (Paris, 1824); also Precit 

 de V Histoire generate de la Compagnie de Jesus, 

 suivi des Monita secreta, by Arn. Scheffer (Paris, 

 1824); De Pradt, Du Jesuitisme ancien et moderne, 

 (Paris, 1826); and Les Jesuites modernes, by abbe 

 Marcial Marcet de la Roche Arnauld, formerly a 

 Jesuit (Paris, 1826). See the following article. 



JESUITS [written by a Jesuit. In the preceding 

 article, the opinions of the opponents of the Jesuits 

 are given, and we propose now to give a brief out- 

 line of the views of the Jesuits themselves respecting 

 their order, taken from the article Jesuits, written 

 by one of the society, for the Conversations- Lexicon]. 

 The middle ages had ended. It was no longer a 

 question whether the exercise of simple faith was 

 sufficient ; societies formed for the contemplative 

 life the monks could, in future, have but a sub- 

 ordinate value for the church : the question was now, 

 how to find effectual means to save the Catholic reli- 

 gion and church against the attacks of the spirit of 

 innovation. As action, in the natural world, always 

 produces reaction, so is it in the moral world. A new 

 order originated in the church the Jesuits. It is 

 true, the intention of Ignatius Loyola was originally 

 directed rather to mystic and ascetic contemplations; 

 but the order .A>II took a shape adapted to the wants 

 of the church. Ignatius Loyola was a Spaniard of 

 a very warm imagination and great sensibility, which 

 early awakened in him a zeal for religion. After 

 having served against the infidels, he founded a reli- 

 gious society. In the convent of Montserrat, in an 

 almost inaccessible wilderness of Catalonia, he copied 

 the rules of a holy life, which an abbot, cousin to 

 cardinal Ximenes, the minister of state, had prescrib- 

 ed. The inflamed mind of Ignatius saw Mary, the 

 mother of Jesus, in a vision : she gave him the power 

 of chastity. Jesus and Satan appeared to him in the 

 form of military officers enlisting men for service : 

 he followed Christ. The order was founded in 1540. 

 After the death of the founder, the society was fur- 

 ther developed by Lainez, and, after him, by Aqua- 

 viva, men of deep knowledge of mankind, and 

 steadfast purpose, the real authors of the society, 

 which, as John Muller said, deserves to be compared 

 with the great institutions of the lawgivers of anti- 

 quity. The object of the society was, as it is de- 

 scribed in their institutions, to devote all their 

 powers to the salvation and perfection of their 

 souls, and those of their neighbours, and to occupy 

 themselves for this end in all places, according 

 to the direction of their superiors. The society 

 designated their obiect by the motto of Ignatius 



