and shown why there seemed nothing so formidable to Loyola in exacting unlimited and unquestioned obedience from the members of his society. Certainly it could never have accomplished its purpose without; and he set an example of it, in yielding implicit obedience to the Pope.

66

We believe that we have met and answered most of the points brought forward by S. S. as forming the object of Jesuitism. Respecting the last three, in which assassination, indulgence, and private espionage are to be used as means to the accomplishment of an end, we adinit them to be bad; but we have still to remember that Loyola was brought up in a church which considers them not only as lawful, but as righteous means, to be unhesitatingly employed, wherever necessary, in spreading her faith. "In religion" we are told that Loyola was profoundly and wholly deceived." This, we should think, ought to produce pity, rather than condemnation for him. The whole of his after conduct sprang from, and was the result of, his religious impressions; so that if we are to condemn this, we ought to go to the root of the matter, and condemn him because he did not have the same views of Christianity as we have; having never had opportunities equal or similar to those which Luther had, or which we ourselves possess, for arriving at a just conclusion in the matter. Such are the bad qualities attributed to Loyola. Shakspere says that—

"Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water;"

and the truth of the aphorism seems exemplified in the case before us: for we find that the good qualities of Loyola are dealt out with a very sparing hand, though we are told that he was sincere, which is certainly, we think, a very important admission, and one which our friend N. E. would take as settling the whole controversy at once, being tantamount to an admission that Loyola is entitled to admiration and respect. It is also allowed that he wisely made choice of fit persons to be members and chiefs of the company of Jesus, to assist him in his endeavours to make Catholicism dominant and permanent; but no mention is made of the indomitable perseverance displayed by him in prosecuting his enterprise, no mention of the great and lasting reforms he effected in the Romish Church, or of the benevolence which induced him to visit the sick wherever he went, and to administer, as far as he was able, to both their temporal and spiritual wants. To these we must certainly add consistency. For proof of this consistency, we refer to the various acts of his life after his conversion, and which are so well and so forcibly brought out by N E. We may be told that the object aimed at was bad. and that Loyola was not consistent, but persistent in pursuing an evil course of action. To this we can only reply by requesting our readers to try and look at the subject from Loyola's point of view,-a Catholic, in an intensely Catholic country, in the early part of the sixteenth century, when ignorance

was the rule, learning the exception,-and not from our own position, in the heart of a Protestant country, in the nineteenth century, when knowledge is almost universal, intellectual culture general, and ignorance the exception. If this be done, we think their opinions of Loyola will be considerably modified and softened. On this point we again refer them to the article of N. E., at p. 116, where they will find the question fully worked out.

We have very little more to add in the way of general remark, and none in further particular criticism. The articles of the negative writers are, as before observe, so based on the opinions of Professor Ranke, Lord Macaulay, and Mr. Neil, that detailed criticism of any point in particular is next to impossible, because it is Loyola and Jesuitism that has been attacked, and which we were not and are not now prepared to defend. All that remained for us to do was to defend, as far as possible, those actions of Loyola as a man for which we think he is fully entitled to the admiration and respect of posterity. With what success or justice this has been done, we must leave each to determine for himself. We wish that space could have been found for more articles on this subject, as we think the character of Loyola as an individual would thereby have been better portrayed; we should have been able with more readiness to seize upon the prominent points in his character, both good and bad, to weigh them one against the other, and in all probability have arrived at a more impartial conclusion, and one which would have proved more satisfactory to both our readers and ourselves. As it is, Jesuitism has been attacked, and Loyola as a man almost ignored; so that on this point alone we think we might with fairness claim the verdict for the affirmative of the question discussed: but waiving this, we would request our oppo. nents and readers, one and all, to study for themselves the character of Loyola, as Loyola, carefully; to note the distinguishing features of that character; to ponder them well in their own minds; and we doubt not that they will arrive at a similar conclusion which we have reached, viz., that the character of Ignatius Loyola is one which, despite many blemishes, is entitled to the admiration and respect of the men of this generation. K. S.

NEGATIVE REPLY.

As a member of the debating club, we deeply regret that some Roman Catholic has not been found by the editor to bolster up the fame of Ignatius. Such a writer would have said something more, and more heartily, in favour of a man to whom Popery is more indebted than even to Hildebrand. We are not in editorial secrets, and need not be, to be sure of our mark when we say that the two affirmative articles are from the pen of Protestants. Too sound in common sense, and too enlightened with the principles of religious and civil liberties, they do but "damn with faint praise" their unnatural protégé.

The Germans have a proverb that apologies have always one leg

lame. The two apologies from R. S. and N. E. appears to us to be lame in both legs. A French officer drew his sword, and was about to make short work with his opponent, when he perceived that he had lost one arm. Drawing back his deadly weapon, and raising his cap, he bowed to the crippled officer, and rushed past him to find a two-armed antagonist. We wish we could follow his chival rous example; but how can we with only two opponents to fight, and both of them lame in the legs? From more enthusiastic and less scrupulous writers, trained to fence with the weapons forged by Lainez, bred up in the immoral doctrines of probabilism and philosophical sins, we should have had articles more to a debater's mind, and, to quote Cowley with one verbal alteration, we should have had

"Rich, racy papers, in which we,

The soil from which they came, taste, smell, and see."

As it is, we feel that our own severe opinion of Ignatius will really injure his reputation much less than the laboured, unnatural, half sentimental and half apologetic praise which our good-natured writers of the affirmative articles have bestowed upon the founder of Jesuitism.

We cannot sufficiently commend the motive of these two writers. It is, if we understand them, an endeavour to rise above Protestant prejudices, and to judge Ignatius upon the true spirit of Protestantism, pure and simple. If in so laudable an enterprise they have committed some logical blunders, have shut their eyes to the vices and weaknesses of Loyola, have used a telescope to find his good qualities, and coloured the lens not to see the great crimes he committed against God and the human race, it is an unwelcome task devolving upon us to take them to book. Both R. S. and N. E. urge us to look upon Loyola's motives, rather than the nature and consequences of his principles; and they will doubtless think that it is ungenerous if we disregard their motives, and judge of them only by the principles on which their articles are constructed. We cannot, however, help pursuing a more rational and a less sentimental course. A motive, unless avowed, cannot be judged of except by actions; and actions can be pronounced as good or evil only after weighing their consequences. Yet both the affirmative writers require us to close our eyes to the nature of the principles embodied in the life of Ignatius, and estimate his character by what we may charitably, but not historically, suppose to be his motives. One of them requests us to look at his birth and education as a Papist, and thus make allowances for his errors. There is much less of justice in this principle as applied to Ignatius than the writer imagines. Was not Luther bred and born in the same school? If, notwithstanding a similar origin and education, Luther becomes the champion of truth and liberty, and Loyola the champion of exploded superstition and shattered despotism; there must have been something noble in the reformer, and something ignoble in the restorer,

of Popery. Had Ignatius been of the mould of mind represented by his advocate, why did he not rise above his circumstances, as Luther did? Thousands and ten thousands of Roman Catholics abhorred the principles of Ignatius from the first moment of their development; were they not born under circumstances equally unfavourable to the formation of correct notions of right and wrong? We do not refer to those who had adopted the scriptural views of Protestants, though even their case is against Ignatius; but we refer to those who continued Roman Catholics, and yet denounced the system of Ignatius as subversive of all morality and true religion. If, then, we look at the Popish antecedents of the founder of Jesuitism, we see in them rather cause for censuring than excusing his errors. The first Protestants and their contemporary Roman Catholics were bred and born under the same superstitions as Ignatius; but while the former wished either to overthrow Popery or to reform it, Ignatius spent the whole energies of his extraordinary mind to make Popery more immoral, more superstitious, and more malignant than it had ever been before. This reference to his antecedents condemns rather than acquits him of some of the gravest charges brought against his character.

The unnaturalness of the task undertaken by R. S. is shown by the strange reasons adduced by him. His

I. Reason for admiring Ignatius is, "the loftiness and goodness of the work in which he engaged." This is supported by such statements as these,-"His impressions of things eternal were just, and of the most reverential nature (p. 34); and, "His one great object was spiritual dominion and Catholic unity" (p. 35).

As to the impressions; whence does the writer get his standard of their justness? Any idea of "things eternal," not derived from the Scriptures, and especially if in opposition to Revelation, cannot be just. Ranke says, "It does not appear that Loyola examined the Scriptures, or that any particular dogma of religion made an impression on his mind." On the contrary, "he thought no one so well understood Christianity as an old woman who, in the midst of his torments, told him that Christ would yet appear to him." At length this man, with "just impressions of things eternal," thought "that Christ or [mark the alternative] the Holy Virgin manifested themselves to his eyes of flesh." On the steps of San Dominico, "the mystery of the Holy Trinity was visibly revealed to him." This "ineffable mystery," Macaulay says, "which the Athanasian Creed has laboured to enunciate in words, was disclosed to him as an object, not of faith, but of actual sight. The past ages of the world were rolled back in his presence, and he beheld the material fabric of things rising into being, and perceived the motives which had prompted the exercise of the creative energy. To his spiritualized sense was disclosed the actual process by which the host is transubstantiated; and the other Christian verities, which it is permitted to common men to receive but as exercises of their belief, now became to him the objects of immediate inspection

and direct consciousness." We repeat our question, and with some astonishment, Whence does R. S. derive his standard of the just? As to the loftiness of his aim, that is, "spiritual dominion," why, in what did such dominion as Ignatius sought differ from that of any other impostor-Mohammed, Zoroaster? Alexander the Great, Attila, Julius Cæsar, Napoleon I., all aimed at subjugating mankind. Their aims were quite as lofty, and the results of their conquests were infinitely less destructive to the progress of the human race than those of the conquest effected by Loyola. It does not improve the position to add "goodness" to the loftiness of his work. This is the first time we ever heard of a Protestant describing the aim of Jesuitism as good. It was, then, a good work to set the Inquisition agoing; to aid in deluging the Netherlands with blood; to set half Europe on fire; to raise an armada against England. All the revived power of that great political and spiritual curse of Europethe despotism of a relentless priesthood, was the work of Jesuits. But for this society, Rome wculd, at the close of a century from Luther's first victories, have ceased to embroil nations and pervert Christianity. But for the inherent vitality of Protestantism, Jesuitism would have re-established Popery in a form abhorred by even many Roman Catholics, and re-asserted her supremacy over all temporal authority in a degree hateful to even Roman Catholic monarchs. Such was the aim of Ignatius; and we have in this nineteenth century of ours, and in the pages of the British Controversialist, a statement to the effect that all this was both lofty and good!

The second reason is the " consistency" with which Ignatius pursued his aims. His "life was one of consistency." We should have admired him more if, under the qualms of conscience, under the relentings of humanity, and under the influence of religion, there had been some occasional inconsistency. Do we see much to admire in the consistency of a man who, committed to gaol for some petty misdemeanour, re-enters society to become a felon, obtains a ticket-of-leave to become a garotter, and, after imprisonment and release, ends his life on the gallows?

The third reason for admiration, "the choice and use of his means" (p. 37), is in keeping with the former argument. A fool can never be a successful villain. There is no great conspirator against the rights of man, known to historians, who was wanting in cunning and sagacity. Ignatius, Ranke says, "had the acuteness to detect and the skul to appropriate all men of remarkable talents." So had Buonaparte, and so had every man that ever successfully aspired to subjugate his fellow-creatures. Lainez is not, but on such grounds ought to have been, admired and respected by Macaulay, because he "numbered among his disciples the infamous Catherine de Medici, and her less odious, because feebler, son, and was associated with them at the very time when they were revolving the great st crime with which the annals of Christendom have been polluted." To admire and respect Loyola for his success, is sentimentalism run mad.