BOOK I. OR, IGNATIUS.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE POPEDOM, RELIGION, POLITICS, MEN AND MANNERS,— IN A WORD, THE CHRISTENDOM OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

View of the subject.

In the moral, as in the physical world, effects suggest their causes. Events, in the history of individuals and nations, are moral effects, whose causes must exist. To trace these events or effects to their most probable causes, enters into the philosophy of history. One of the most remarkable events in the history of the sixteenth century was, not the establishment of the Jesuits, but their wonderful success and rapid development. At first sight, their origin is somewhat ridiculous. A crippled soldier in the guise of a pilgrim in rags, after collecting nine companions, reaches Rome, obtains an interview with the pope, offers him his services, his terms are accepted, a company is established, and, within sixteen years, this company is spread all over the world, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America; dividing into twelve provinces a regiment of a thousand veterans, with a hundred colleges for their head-quarters, numberless entrenchments

in the walled cities of the Christian, or flying camps in the wilds of the cannibal, influencing, for good or evil, millions of earth's inhabitants. Many causes must have conspired to produce these effects to which the origin of the Jesuits lends, apparently, no adequate interpretation. Another example of rapid development may, however, lessen our wonder, though it will not, perhaps, explain the difficulty.

Mohammed's career and method.

Mohammed, an ignorant man, as represented, with ten followers, went forth on his mission-and within twenty years from the moment of inspiration, his followers amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand-his sceptre triumphant from the shores of the Indian to the billows of the Midland Sea. The ambassadors, who knelt before the throne of the prophet "outnumbered the dates that fall from the palm-tree in its maturity." Without assuming national excitement to be the result of "electric evolution," (the curious "Kyffrawd" of an ingenious modern theorist), Mohammed's method, in the evident circumstances of his career, fully explains the causes of his wonderful success. War to the death-and fanaticism —in the midst of enervated Asiatics, bore down all before him; whilst the laws he framed for his followers made them at least comfortable in a sensual world--in wealth and strength, long to live, and cry La Allah Il Allah, and "Mohammed is the Apostle of God." Here was the "word of God" to the sword of man most desperately united-and the result was commensurate.

Somewhat different was the method of Ignatius of Loyola; the crippled soldier aforesaid, in the guise of

1 The Geographical Progress of Empire, &c., by Rev. T. Price, 1847.

The method proposed by Ignatius.

a ragged pilgrim, with his nine companions. Listen to the patriarch-the "man of God"-for his words will not beseem a soldier, though crippled and in rags. To his followers he said: We are the company of Jesus. Under the banner of the Cross we do battle for God, and serve the pope, his vicar, on earth. You must vow perpetual chastity. You will have to labour for the advancement of souls in the way of salvation, and for the defence of the faith, by public preaching, by the ministry of God's word, by "Spiritual Exercises" in which you shall be duly initiated, and by works of charity. The young and the ignorant shall be the special objects of your ministry. You shall have but two objects constantly before you-God, and the design of this institute,—which you must promote with might and main, as the end proposed to you by God Almighty. But, observe, each member must confine himself to the grace vouchsafed to him, and the rank of his vocation: no one must aspire beyond his intellectual and spiritual powers, lest he be misled by the zeal of ignorance. Consequently the rank that each shall obtain, the functions that each shall perform, will be left entirely to the judgment and discretion of the Head who shall be chosen to govern the company. This Head shall be elected by the majority of votes; and the election will invest him with the right of drawing up the constitutions or statutes of the company; but the whole right of command shall be vested in the Head. There is one point of immense importance to which your attention is imperatively called. All the members must know, not only in the very threshold of their probation, but as long as they live must daily bear in mind, that the whole

company, and each member thereof, must fight in faithful obedience to our most holy lord, the pope, and his successors. Doubtless, all the faithful of Christ owe obedience to the Roman pontiff as their head, and the vicar of Jesus Christ; but we have judged it expedient, in all humility, and perfect self-denial (besides the common bond aforesaid), to bind ourselves by a special vow to go whithersoever the pope shall be pleased to send us for the advancement of souls and the defence of the Faith. Without excuse, without a moment's hesitation, whether he send us to the Turks or other infidels, even to the Indies to heretics or schismatics-in a word, to any and every place, without exception. In conclusion, you need not be told that all must vow obedience to the head of the company. Of course, all must vow perpetual poverty.1

Three proba

his success.

For God-for the Pope-for the Company :-a special vow of obedience to the pope :-absolute power vested in the chief of the company to whom ble causes of obedience is vowed ;-chastity and poverty, the additional vows of each member-public preaching, spiritual functions, works of charity, and a prospective glance at "colleges,"-such are the broad ways and means of the institute whose expansion was so wonderful. Assuredly they are not adequate to account for that wonderful development. Something similar, if not identical, had existed, and still existed, in the various institutions of monks-the Orders of St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Benedict. The design or scheme of Ignatius was not entirely originalunless we confine the peculiarity of his institute to

1 See the Bull establishing the Jesuits, Litt. Apost. Paul III. Soc. Jesu Approbatio.

the fact that the Jesuits were to be papal emissaries scattered over the world, emancipated from convents, and yet essentially monks, by the obligations of their vows. But the pope could always insure the services of the monks: they were always ready to obey the Holy Father. Such being the case, why was this new order established? And being established, how are we to account for its wonderful success? It is evident that the secret of this Founder's success is not contained in the proposals of his institute: there was nothing in them likely to captivate, by novelty,' the admiration of the pope for even the promise of obedience to his holiness was but a promise depending upon individual dispositions for its complete fulfilment. Still, the fact of success suggests, at once, three probabilities-that Ignatius was an extraordinary worker--that circumstances favoured his scheme-and that the state of the world at that time was exactly the medium best adapted to facilitate his advancement-like the peculiar fluid in which planets revolve round about their centres. Therefore, as in the case of Mohammed, we have to investigate the circumstances in which Ignatius went forth to fight, and conquer, and raise a shrine whereat to receive ambassadors from all the quarters of the habitable world, "outnumbering the dates that fall from the palm-tree in its maturity." These circumstances may give the force of originality to the scheme of Loyola, or present its results as those of a skilful adaptation of old materials. The investigation must begin with the sixteenth century-some forty years before the rise of the Jesuits. The popedom-religion-politics-men and manners

Ribadeneyra, the Jesuit, proves this in his "Tratado-De la Compañia de Jesus," which will be noticed in Book III. of the present work.