was successful: a clever compromise ensued. It is very characteristic. The king restored the episcopal revenues to the ex-bishop, and the pope granted the king considerable privileges in favour of the Inquisition established in his kingdom.' These external occupations never interfered with his domestic duties: the concerns of kings and queens revealed to him the wants of the age. These it was his object to supply by his method. His credit with the princes of the earth was, therefore, of infinite service to the general of a company, whose men should go forth perfectly trained, and instructed in all matters in which they might be called to take a part. The art of government is based on the knowledge of men and measures.

Foul charges

Jesuits.

Already had Ignatius been opposed by rancorous enemies; his men were accused of the foulest practices. They were denounced as heretics; they were charged with revealing the secrets of the against the confessional; but the accusations were not satisfactorily brought home; the accuser, a priest of Rome, was punished with perpetual imprisonment "for certain crimes at last revealed," says the Jesuit biographer.2 The opponents of the Jesuits are invariably represented in the worst light by their historians and friends; an imputation, an innuendo, a slur, a stab in the dark, are freely administered. Whatever foundation there may have been for the charges above named, it is impossible to discover; the Jesuits were acquitted by the papal authorities, and the charges are, in their broad announcement, improbable: they are incompatible with the present views of the Society. It had no leisure for crime its virtue was high in the market: policy, 1 Bouhours, ii. 21-23.

2 Ribaden. lib. iii. c. xii.

if no higher motive existed, must have made the first Jesuits chaste, discreet, and orthodox. At all events, strong in papal protection, patronised by the potentates of earth, increasing in strength and numbers, in a word, with their glorious prospect, they could bid defiance to their enemies, whose discomfiture they pictured as the judgment of Heaven.

1 Quisquis es, insanis frustrà conatibus uti

Desine: nam Solem nulla sagitta ferit.-Imago, p. 565.

Vain are your efforts! Stay your aims begun

Fools that you are! No arrow strikes the Sun.

BOOK V. OR, SALMERON.

Its presiding genius, the vigilant Ignatius, beheld the enlarging scope of his enterprise; events aided in its development. The Council of Trent super- The Council vened. An appeal had been made by the of Trent. Protestants, to a General Council of the Christian Church, for a judgment on the doctrines in litigation. Other motives, in other quarters, as the reader is aware, urged the measure on the pope in spite of his reluctance. He feared for his prerogatives. With regard to the Protestants, the decisions of such a council must be condemnatory. There could be no compromise in favour of litigants whose cause of contest-whose protest had been already judged, already condemned, by the very authority which would preside in a "Council of the Christian Church." Pope Clement VII. had announced his acquiescence in 1530; he died and left the fulfilment to Paul III.

The Council opened on the 13th of December, 1545, in the cathedral of Trent. It was destined to prolong its sessions, or sittings, for the space of eighteen years. Its object was to define, from the arguments and opinions of the bishops and other

Its object.

dignitaries, the fathers and doctors of Roman Catholic Christendom, past and present, the doctrines and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church. Its decisions would be final; anathema would be superadded to every clause against the presuming dissentient. It would be the utter annihilation of heresy, as was fondly imagined. In a speech delivered at the opening of the Council, Bishop Cornelius Musso told the prelates assembled that they "should come into that city like as the worthy and valiant Greek captains went into the wooden horse wherewith Troy was taken by surprise.

The infant Company of Jesus had flung into the controversial arena wrestlers of nerve and agility-an Two Jesuits earnest she had given of the coming epoch, when her arsenal would send forth the arma

sent as the Pope's guns

to the Coun- ments which blazed to the world as fire-ships cil. Ignatius primes them. of equivocal destination: only results would prove whether they destroyed the enemies of Rome, or damaged the cause for which they were fighting. Two Jesuits, Lainez and Salmeron, were selected by the pope as theologians of the Holy See; another Jesuit, Lejay, represented the Cardinal Bishop of Augsberg. This distinguished honour rivetted the eyes of the "religious" world on the young Society, so fondly rocked and cherished by the Father of the Faithful. Lainez and Salmeron were young; the former numbered but thirty-four years, the latter not quite thirty-one; but both were old in experience, and that constitutes the maturity of man. Ignatius gave them a preparatory lecture adapted to the occasion, and similar

See the "Canons" following the Sessions. Each begins with "Si quis dixerit-if any one shall say," and ends with "Anathema sit-let him be anathema."-Il Sacro Conc. di Trento.

2 Peignot, Predicat. p. xix. and elsewhere.

to that which he addressed to the Irish legates. After becomingly insisting on the standard preliminaries, the greater glory of God, the good of the universal church, and due regard for their own spiritual advancement, he proceeds to display his habitual tact and dexterity as follows:

"In the Council you must be rather slow than eager to speak-deliberate and charitable in your advice on matters doing, or to be done; attentive and calm in listening-applying yourself to seize the mind, intention, and desires of the speakers, so that you may know when to be silent or to speak. In the discussions which shall arise you must bring forward the arguments of the two opinions in debate, so that you may not appear attached to your own judgment. You ought always to manage, according to your ability, so that no one leaves, after your speech, less disposed to peace than he was at first. If the matters which shall be discussed are of a nature to force you to speak, express your opinion with modesty and serenity.

Always conclude with these words: Better advice, or every other equivalent, excepted.

"In fine, be well persuaded of one thing, which is, that befittingly to treat the important questions of the divine and human sciences, it is very advantageous to discourse seated, and calmly, and not hastily, and, as it were, superficially. You must not, therefore, regulate the order and time of the discussion by your leisure and convenience, but take the hour of the party who wishes to confer with you, so that he may more easily advance to the point to which God wishes to lead him . . . . In hearing confessions, think that all you say to your penitents may be published on the house-tops.