action and men of study; men qualified for daring enterprise, and men capable of profound policy; men of dauntless resolution, and men of insinuating manners; men who can win the favour and gain the confidence of the gentler sex, and men who can mingle in all the intrigues of state policy; men who, with a martyr's zeal, will risk everything for the conversion of the heathen abroad, and men of polemic skill to carry on controversies at home; but, withal, in mercy, excuse him, if you can, should you find, for ever and ever, in the Jesuit, a complete devotedness, body and soul, to the interests of his order, ever ready-nay, eager at the least sign of holy obedience, to perform any function in that Company, which now undertakes, with papal approbation, that is, secundum artem, to drug mankind with what she calls A THOUSAND NOSTRUMS FOR ALL DISEASES.2 1 Baptist Magazine, No. cxi. 2 Mille agitent morbi, mille ulcera, mille dolores; Illa domus causas mille salutis habet.-Imago, p. 454. For Man's thousand diseases and ulcerous ills BOOK IV. OR, LAINEZ. The prospect and the resolution. SPLENDID was the prospect before Ignatius and his troop full of difficulty, but full of hope-for an unconquerable Will impelled them to dare, was to be victorious. The Vicar of Christ had declared to the disciples, the designs and intentions of the Eternal respecting their leader. Two worlds of virgin-pagans were added to the world of cast-away Christians. The barbarians, as they were deemed, of the East, and the cannibals of the West, were destined to compensate the Church for her losses. in this little old world of ours-nostro piccolo e vecchio mondo. These barbarians and cannibals were to supply the place of the heretics consigned to perdition. But it was incumbent that a man should arise full of charity, zeal, courage, and Apostolic zeal wherewith to fill a multitude of such heroic workers, ready to sacrifice their labour, sweat, blood, and life, to the preaching of the Gospel and the conquest of souls; craving nothing in return-stipulating no reward for their labour, excepting only the "merit" of the performancewhithersoever the sign was given to them, thither to rush professionally bound, to do the work of the ministry, enlarging the limits of the Church, and God's kingdom, as far as worlds were discovered, and realms could be penetrated by a dashing, headlong apostolate. Nor was the little old world of Europe to be resigned to the heretics without a struggle. Luther and Calvin would find their match in Ignatius and his Jesuits. They would be met by preaching, teaching, writing, disputing. Schools would be planted against schools, pulpits would be raised against pulpits, voices would be opposed to voices, learning to learning, books to books, until the bank of heresy be broken, and its masters ruined for ever.1 What had chanced before, and may chance again. A beautiful prospect-in the issue to the pope and his Catholics but dismally the reverse for their antagonists. The struggle would be fierce-inhuman passions would be roused-dread calamities, individual and national, would attendbut what mattered that? The end seemed desirable. Let it be attempted. Let the strife begin. God wills it. God has raised up a man to fight his battle. The broken-down knight of Pampeluna is the Mohammed of Christendom. Has not such a deliverance chanced many a time and oft in the troubles of the Church? Rose there ever a "leader of heresy" without 66 a champion of the faith" to shiver a lance with the monster? Did not the great Athanasius brave Arius to the face? Did not Cyril of Alexandria put down Nestorius ? Was not Jerome a match for Vigilantius, and two others besides? Did not Augustin demolish the Manichees? Did not Bernard crush Abelard? Did not Dominic annihilate the Albigenses? And even at this blessed hour-if there be another heresy brooding 1 Bartoli, Dell' Ital. p. 1, et seq. in the breast, biding its time, there will arise, as there will be needed, the heart, the hand, the zeal, the chivalry of some new David to shatter the head and humble the pride of the blaspheming Goliah.' And men will suffer, without being bettered in body, in heart, in mind. Civilisation will be retarded. Men will retrograde. It will require hundreds of years to school memory into forgetfulness of the hideous strife, of which there will be ten thousand monuments in every history-in every land-which the minds of our children must learn to remember, to be treasured as a new gospel, but bereft of all charity-all brotherly love -all the sweetest feelings that enable us cheerfully to work through our pilgrimage to heaven. first Jesuits. Ignatius was the new David of the present strife. His nine other Davids demand a short description. Peter Lefevre was the son of a Savoyard The ten goat-herd. Evincing an aptitude and inclination for study, his father took him from the flock and sent him to college. He became a proficient in Latin, Greek, and Rhetoric; and subsequently proceeded to Paris, where, in the college of St. Barbara, he took his degree in 1530. He had just commenced his course of theology when Ignatius entered the same college to commence his hopeless philosophy-but also, as it appears, to gain a proselyte in Peter Lefevre. They became acquainted. "Ignatius could not have found a soul better adapted to his design, nor Peter a companion more to his taste." Ignatius set his eyes on Peter as a 1 Bartoli's notion. "E forse hora se ne tiene altri in petto, e trarranneli a luogo e a tempo, secondo le contingenze de' secoli avverine, ove a spezzare la fronte e l'orgoglio d'alcun nuovo bestemmiatore Golia, sia mestieri il cuore, la mano, il zelo, e la gagliardia d'alcun nuovo David."--Dell' Ital. p. 3. fit "companion of the work he was machinating,"-per compagno dell' opera che machinava,-and Peter confided in Ignatius as "a master of his soul, which was beyond his own guidance." It appears that he had the misfortune to be strongly tempted by the flesh. Scruples of conscience supervened. He found a refuge in the man of the "Spiritual Exercises." "Against the suggestions of carnal concupiscence, gluttony, and vain-glory, which were so troublesome to him, Ignatius prescribed his own practical method of pulling up, by the particular Examination of Conscience, the roots of those affections, one by one, from the heart, where such poisonous herbs usually sprout." For two years Ignatius attended the patient, apparently without alleviating the symptoms of the disease. Peter was still in utter perplexity, not knowing what to do with himself, soul or body, when Ignatius, seizing the happy moment, told him, as though in confidence, that he intended to cross the seas for the Holy Land, there to give his labours and his life for the conversion of the infidels. Peter rushed into his armshis heart was full of affection-embraced him tenderly, and offered to be his companion. The Jesuits call him "the first-begotten of Saint Ignatius "-il primogenito di S. Ignatio. Lefevre made himself useful to his patron; he proved himself worthy of the choice by the cultivation of those qualities which were at first evident in the man pre-destined to be a Jesuit, by the founder. He possessed the most peculiar dexterity in throwing spiritual hints into familiar conversation, conversing in a manner so ingenuously familiar, without betraying any artfulness, and yet with such exquisite art, and with such powerful effect, that he seemed to put his hand 1 Bartoli, Dell' Ital. 96-100. |