"THE COMPANY OF JESUS": ITS FOUNDER

AND ASSOCIATES.

The fact that this year marks the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the permanent settlement of the Jesuits in this country quickens the interest in the history of this remarkable order.

In the February number of this Review, Rev. J. H. Allen, treating of the "Papal Reaction in the Sixteenth Century," dwells upon the prominence of the Jesuits in this reaction, and discusses, with his rare ability and justness, the virtues and the vices of the Roman Catholic system. With no thought of trenching upon his ground, the purpose of this article is to refresh the memory by a sketch of the founder of this "Company of Jesus" and a few of his remarkable associates, who were able to make it what it was in its best days, though not able to avert the results which must ever attend such a complete subjection of the will, conscience, and soul to the dominion of one mind.

Mr. Allen's article includes this quotation from Macaulay: "In the Order of Jesus was concentrated the quintessence of the Catholic spirit; and the history of the Order of Jesus is the history of the great Catholic reaction." To this, we would add Dr. Littledale's testimony in the Encyclopædia Britannica, "The whole honors in the counterreformation belong to the Jesuits singly."

To those who would give the Theatines under Caraffa, 1524, a share in this reaction, the major influence must still be granted to the Jesuits. It was this order, in the days of the Protestant Reformation, that most vigorously sustained a counter-reformation within the Romish Church, which, according to the confession of her own historians, needed it badly enough.

As the curtain of history rises at the beginning of the sixteenth century, it reveals the Church of Rome, as far as its outward power and prosperity were concerned, at its highest. From Europe's most northern cape to the far extending peninsular of Italy, the theory of a Universal

Church was almost unquestioned. If, here and there, a voice was raised in feeble protest, it was quickly suppressed, if loud enough to be heard. "Nobody doubted, scarcely, in Europe, that a general Father, clothed in infallible wisdom, and armed with powers directly committed to him for guidance or punishment of mankind, was the heaven-sent arbiter of differences, the rewarder of faithful kings, the corrector of unruly nations." * Not unnaturally, with this enormous power there was an accompaniment of vice that, unchecked, must have completed its own ruin.

To the long list of immoralities, simony was added,— the granting of indulgences by the pope for money. This alone brought untold millions into the pope's coffers, who, not satisfied, would still augment the stream by granting remission from sin to those who would make a pilgrimage to Rome. This brought to the Eternal City, it is said, two hundred thousand in a month; and, on one occasion, the treasures these pilgrims brought with them were raked up into piles. The most magnificent and gigantic works were begun, among them the building of the great St. Peter's Church, unrivalled among the cathedrals of the world. Rome the magnificent was also Rome the profligate. Among the

throng that poured into the city at this time (1510) was a modest German monk, sent, it may be, on some business of his convent, or perhaps to fulfil a vow. With his heart thrilled with the expectancy of the glory which was before him, with almost speechless reverence, we can imagine him treading the streets of the city of the infallible pontiff. Alas! alas! the true vision of Rome was such as to awaken horror in the pious monk's mind. "In terror and dismay, he left the city of iniquity within a fortnight of his arrival, and hurried back to the quiet of his convent," a sadder, but a wiser man.

Seven years passed. In the meantime, the poor monk had become a doctor of divinity, professor in the University of Wittenberg. On the eve of the Festival of All Saints, Oct. 31, 1517, all Germany was startled, as by a thunder-bolt from

White's Christian Centuries, p. 420.

series of At last,

a clear sky, with a printed sermon supporting a propositions against the granting of indulgences. the man had come who dared publicly to arraign the Church. That man for the hour was Martin Luther, who had made a pilgrimage to Rome seven years before, and who is reported to have said, long afterward: "I would not for a hundred thousand florins have missed seeing Rome. I should have always felt an uneasy doubt whether I was not, after all, doing injustice to the pope. As it is, I am quite satisfied on that point."

I have seen in an old book a picture representing Luther writing in his confinement at Wartburg, with a pen, one end of which reached to the city of Rome in the distance. The characters he was there inscribing leaped from his burning lips with a power sufficient to awaken all Christendom to a sense of the enormous villanies practised upon them by the Romish Church. Her hour of judgment had come; and swift destruction might have followed hard upon it, but for the "Company of Jesus," so called at first, which has rendered incalculable service to Roman Catholicism.

The appearance of Ignatius Loyola on the page of history at this time is a striking illustration with Luther of how necessity makes great men.

The Romish Church must be reformed to save it, and its reformation must come from within its ranks.

As it fell to the lowly monk to lead in the great protestation which resulted in a rupture from the mother Church, so it fell to this Spanish gentleman of noble birth, distinguished for his bravery in war and for a lofty conception of a mission, to lead in the work of at least trying to reclaim his church from its errors. His father's home was a castle on the river Urola, about a mile from the town of Azpeitia, in the province of Guipuzcoa; and in this somewhat royal family seat Ignatius, the youngest son, was born in the year 1491. He was trained to the profession of arms, and was a true type of the chivalry of his time, so distinguished for accomplishments and high sense of honor. In his soul burned the spirit of courage, and he longed to make his

name famous for brilliant prowess in arms.

But he was

destined for a greater work than any opportunities his sovereign, Charles V., could have given him in which to win renown. In consequence of severe wounds received in a gallant defence of Pampeluna against the French in 1521, all his cherished plans for future military glory were laid aside, though not at once, for he suffered all a mortal could to regain the perfect use of his limbs (twice endured the opening of his wounds, and submitted to the tortures of the rack without a murmur). All this suffering was but the introduction to another field greater than that of martial glory. The nature of this man, as that of all the knight errantry of Charles V.'s time, was strongly imbued with a religious spirit; and, as he lay upon his weary couch of pain, chafing for health and strength to once more take up arms, to while away the tedious hours, he read the life of Christ and of some of the saints.

It was not long before a remarkable change came over him, not of belief, but of life and purpose. He conceived the idea of renouncing his military ambition, forsaking home and friends and every worldly tie to consecrate himself to the faith; in other words, to become a soldier of the Cross.

Accordingly, having partially recovered his strength, he left his former methods of life no more to return to them, and in preparation for his great work, so different from his former life, devoted himself to fasting, penance, and prayer.. His self-inflicted tortures were only equalled by the East Indian devotee. He hung up his arms and armor before a shrine of the Virgin, donned a hermit's garb, and fled to the wilderness and hid himself in the fastness of the mountains. He lived in a cave. He arose at midnight, spent seven hours in prayer upon his knees, twice daily he scourged himself, and for one whole week abstained from eating, till forbidden by his confessor from resorting to such practices. He was so depressed at times with a sense of sin that he contemplated suicide to free him from his misery; but finally, after waking from a dream, he resolved to banish forever the thought of his past life.

He placed implicit trust in a woman who told him he would yet see Christ; and he was afterwards "satisfied that he did see Jesus and the Virgin with his bodily eyes, and that the mystery of the Trinity was revealed to him by divine inspiration." Henceforth, says one of his biographers, “there was no more need of testimony of Scripture for him; he would have died for the faith unhesitatingly, the truth of which he now saw with his eyes." "He passed from agonies to transports," writes Francis Parkman, "from transports to the calm of a determined purpose. The soldier gave himself to a new warfare. In the forge of his great intellect, heated, but not disturbed, by the intense. fires of his zeal, was wrought the prodigious enginery whose power has been felt to the uttermost confines of the world."*

The days of his self-immolation were succeeded by a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he meant to stay, but was ordered back to Spain by the Pope, whose eagle eye was upon him. Here was a man not to be lost sight of, though not yet deemed ready for service. He was forbidden to preach until he had passed four years in the study of theology, under which requisition he went at once to the most celebrated university in the world then, at Paris, where he lived a life of poverty and self-abnegation, barely saved from starvation by a miserable pittance received from some friends in Spain. Under great difficulties, Loyola, as student, obtained a smattering of the languages; but combined with his studies he showed a desire to communicate his religious views to his companions, one of whom, Peter Faber, he easily converted.

His next convert was a most noted one, being no less than Francis Xavier of Navarre, a most remarkable young man, of noble family, talented, rich, handsome in person, a favorite at the king's court, and a professor of languages at the University. This work of drawing men to him went on till five more, distinguished for talents and position, named Lefèvre, Laynez, Bobadilla, Salmeron, and Rodriguez,

Jesuits of North America, p. 8.