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It was an evil day for new-born Protestantism, when a French
artilleryman fired the shot that struck down Ignatius Loyola in the
breach of Pampeluna. A proud noble, an aspiring soldier, a graceful
courtier, an ardent and daring gallant was metamorphosed by that
stroke into the zealot whose brain engendered and brought forth the
mighty Society of Jesus. His story is a familiar one: how, in the
solitude of his sick-room, a change came over him, upheaving, like
an earthquake, all the forces of his nature; how, in the cave of
Manresa, the mysteries of Heaven were revealed to him; how he passed
from agonies to transports, 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.
Loyola's training had been in courts and camps: of books he knew
little or nothing. He had lived in the unquestioning faith of one
born and bred in the very focus of Romanism; and thus, at the age of
about thirty, his conversion found him. It was a change of life and
purpose, not of belief. He presumed not to inquire into the
doctrines of the Church. It was for him to enforce those doctrines;
and to this end he turned all the faculties of his potent intellect,
and all his deep knowledge of mankind. He did not aim to build up
barren communities of secluded monks, aspiring to heaven through
prayer, penance, and meditation, but to subdue the world to the
dominion of the dogmas which had subdued him; to organize and
discipline a mighty host, controlled by one purpose and one mind,
fired by a quenchless zeal or nerved by a fixed resolve, yet
impelled, restrained, and directed by a single master hand. The
Jesuit is no dreamer: he is emphatically a man of action; action is
the end of his existence.
It was an arduous problem which Loyola undertook to solve,--to rob a
man of volition, yet to preserve in him, nay, to stimulate, those
energies which would make him the most efficient instrument of a
great design. To this end the Jesuit novitiate and the constitutions
of the Order are directed. The enthusiasm of the novice is urged to
its intensest pitch; then, in the name of religion, he is summoned
to the utter abnegation of intellect and will in favor of the
Superior, in whom he is commanded to recognize the representative of
God on earth. Thus the young zealot makes no slavish sacrifice of
intellect and will; at least, so he is taught: for he sacrifices
them, not to man, but to his Maker. No limit is set to his
submission: if the Superior pronounces black to be white, he is
bound in conscience to acquiesce.
| [Those who wish to know the nature of the Jesuit
virtue of obedience will find it set forth in the famous
Letter on Obedience of Loyola.] |
Loyola's book of Spiritual Exercises is well known. In these
exercises lies the hard and narrow path which is the only entrance
to the Society of Jesus. The book is, to all appearance, a dry and
superstitious formulary; but, in the hands of a skilful director of
consciences, it has proved of terrible efficacy. The novice, in
solitude and darkness, day after day and night after night, ponders
its images of perdition and despair. He is taught to hear, in
imagination, the howlings of the damned, to see their convulsive
agonies, to feel the flames that burn without consuming, to smell
the corruption of the tomb and the fumes of the infernal pit. He
must picture to himself an array of adverse armies, one commanded by
Satan on the plains of Babylon, one encamped under Christ about the
walls of Jerusalem; and the perturbed mind, humbled by long
contemplation of its own vileness, is ordered to enroll itself under
one or the other banner. Then, the choice made, it is led to a
region of serenity and celestial peace, and soothed with images of
divine benignity and grace. These meditations last, without
intermission, about a month, and, under an astute and experienced
directorship, they have been found of such power, that the Manual of
Spiritual Exercises boasts to have saved souls more in number than
the letters it contains.
To this succeed two years of discipline and preparation, directed,
above all things else, to perfecting the virtues of humility and
obedience. The novice is obliged to perform the lowest menial
offices, and the most repulsive duties of the sick-room and the
hospital; and he is sent forth, for weeks together, to beg his bread
like a common mendicant. He is required to reveal to his confessor,
not only his sins, but all those hidden tendencies, instincts, and
impulses which form the distinctive traits of character. He is set
to watch his comrades, and his comrades are set to watch him. Each
must report what he observes of the acts and dispositions of the
others; and this mutual espionage does not end with the novitiate,
but extends to the close of life. The characteristics of every
member of the Order are minutely analyzed, and methodically put on
record.
This horrible violence to the noblest qualities of manhood, joined
to that equivocal system of morality which eminent casuists of the
Order have inculcated, must, it may be thought, produce deplorable
effects upon the characters of those under its influence. Whether
this has been actually the case, the reader of history may
determine. It is certain, however, that the Society of Jesus has
numbered among its members men whose fervent and exalted natures
have been intensified, without being abased, by the pressure to
which they have been subjected.
It is not for nothing that the Society studies the character of its
members so intently, and by methods so startling. It not only uses
its knowledge to thrust into obscurity or cast out altogether those
whom it discovers to be dull, feeble, or unwilling instruments of
its purposes, but it assigns to every one the task to which his
talents or his disposition may best adapt him: to one, the care of a
royal conscience, whereby, unseen, his whispered word may guide the
destiny of nations; to another, the instruction of children; to
another, a career of letters or science; and to the fervent and the
self-sacrificing, sometimes also to the restless and uncompliant,
the distant missions to the heathen.
The Jesuit was, and is, everywhere,--in the school-room, in the
library, in the cabinets of princes and ministers, in the huts of
savages, in the tropics, in the frozen North, in India, in China, in
Japan, in Africa, in America; now as a Christian priest, now as a
soldier, a mathematician, an astrologer, a Brahmin, a mandarin,
under countless disguises, by a thousand arts, luring, persuading,
or compelling souls into the fold of Rome.
Of this vast mechanism for guiding and governing the minds of men,
this mighty enginery for subduing the earth to the dominion of an
idea, this harmony of contradictions, this moral Proteus, the
faintest sketch must now suffice. A disquisition on the Society of
Jesus would be without end. No religious order has ever united in
itself so much to be admired and so much to be detested. Unmixed
praise has been poured on its Canadian members. It is not for me to
eulogize them, but to portray them as they were.
This site includes some historical
materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language
of a particular period or place. These items are presented as part of the
historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in
any way endorse the stereotypes implied.
The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, 1867
Jesuits
in North America
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