Beacon Lights of History Volume Vi Part 7

"For thus spake aged Latimer: I tarry by the stake, Not trusting in my own weak heart, But for the Saviour's sake.

Why speak of life or death to me, Whose days are but a span?

Our crown is yonder,--Ridley, see!

Be strong and play the man!

G.o.d helping, such a torch this day We'll light on English land, That Rome, with all her cardinals, Shall never quench the brand!"

The triumphs of Gardiner and Bonner too were short. Mary died with a bruised heart and a crushed ambition. On her death, and the accession of her sister Elizabeth, exiles returned from Geneva and Frankfort to advocate more radical changes in government and doctrine. Popular enthusiasm was kindled, never afterwards to be repressed.

The great ideas of the Reformation began now to agitate the mind of England,--not so much the logical doctrines of Calvin as the emanc.i.p.ating ideas of Luther. The Renaissance had begun, and the two movements were incorporated,--the religious one of Germany and the Pagan one of Italy, both favoring liberality of mind, a freer style of literature, restless inquiries, enterprise, the revival of learning and art, an intense spirit of progress, and disgust for the Dark Ages and all the dogmas of scholasticism. With this spirit of progress and moderate Protestantism Elizabeth herself, the best educated woman in England, warmly sympathized, as did also the ill.u.s.trious men she drew to her court, to whom she gave the great offices of state. I cannot call her age a religious one: it was a merry one, cheerful, inquiring, untrammelled in thought, bold in speculation, eloquent, honest, fervid, courageous, hostile to the Papacy and all the bigots of Europe. It was still rough, coa.r.s.e, sensual; when money was scarce and industries in their infancy, and material civilization not very attractive. But it was a great age, glorious, intellectual, brilliant; with such statesmen as Burleigh and Walsingham to head off treason and conspiracy; when great poets arose, like Jonson and Spenser and Shakspeare; and philosophers, like Bacon and Sir Thomas Browne; and lawyers, like Nicholas Bacon and c.o.ke; and elegant courtiers, like Sidney and Raleigh and Ess.e.x; men of wit, men of enterprise, who would explore distant seas and colonize new countries; yea, great preachers, like Jeremy Taylor and Hall; and great theologians, like Hooker and Chillingworth,--giving polish and dignity to an uncouth language, and planting religious truth in the minds of men.

Elizabeth, with such a constellation around her, had no great difficulty in re-establis.h.i.+ng Protestantism and giving it a new impetus, although she adhered to liturgies and pomps, and loved processions and fetes and banquets and b.a.l.l.s and expensive dresses,--a worldly woman, but progressive and enlightened.

In the religious reforms of that age you see the work of princes and statesmen still, rather than any great insurrection of human intelligence or any great religious revival, although the germs of it were springing up through the popular preachers and the influence of Genevan reformers. Calvin's writings were potent, and John Knox was on his way to Scotland.

I pa.s.s by rapidly the reforms of Elizabeth's reign, effected by the Queen and her ministers and the convocation of Protestant bishops and clergy and learned men in the universities. Oxford and Cambridge were then in their glory,--crowded with poor students from all parts of England, who came to study Greek and Latin and read theology, not to ride horses and row boats, to put on dandified airs and sneer at lectures, running away to London to attend theatres and flirt with girls and drink champagne, beggaring their fathers and ruining their own expectations and their health. In a very short time after the accession of Elizabeth, which was hailed generally as a very auspicious event, things were restored to nearly the state in which they were left by Cranmer in the preceding reign. This was not done by direct authority of the Queen, but by acts of Parliament. Even Henry VIII. ruled through the Parliament, only it was his tool and instrument. Elizabeth consulted its wishes as the representation of the nation, for she aimed to rule by the affections of her people. But she recommended the Parliament to conciliatory measures; to avoid extremes; to drop offensive epithets, like "papist" and "heretic;" to go as far as the wants of the nation required, and no farther. Though a zealous Protestant, she seemed to have no great animosities. Her particular aversion was Bonner,--the violent, blood-thirsty, narrow-minded Bishop of London, who was deprived of his see and shut up in the Tower, put out of harm's way, not cruelly treated,--he was not even deprived of his good dinners. She appointed, as her prerogative allowed, a very gentle, moderate, broad, kind-hearted man to be Archbishop of Canterbury,--Parker, who had been chaplain to her mother, and who was highly esteemed by Burleigh and Nicholas Bacon, her most influential ministers. Parliament confirmed the old act, pa.s.sed during the reign of Henry VIII., making the sovereign the head of the English Church, although the t.i.tle of "supreme head" was left out in the oath of allegiance, to conciliate the Catholic party. To execute this supremacy, the Court of High Commission was established,--afterwards so abused by Charles I. The Church Service was modified, and the Act of Uniformity was pa.s.sed by Parliament, after considerable debate. The changes were all made in the spirit of moderation, and few suffered beyond a deprivation of their sees or livings for refusing to take the oath of supremacy.

Then followed the Thirty-nine Articles, setting forth the creed of the Established Church,--substantially the creed which Cranmer had made,--and a new translation of the Bible, and the regulation of ecclesiastical courts.

But whatever was done was in good taste,--marked by good sense and moderation,--to preserve decency and decorum, and repress all extremes of superst.i.tion and license. The clergy preached in a black gown and Genevan bands, using the surplice only in the liturgy; we see no lace or millinery. The churches were stripped of images, the pulpits became high and prominent, the altars were changed to communion-tables without candles and symbols. There was not much account made of singing, for the lyric version of the Psalms was execrable. For the first time since Chrysostom and Gregory n.a.z.ianzen, preaching became the chief duty of the clergyman; and his sermons were long, for the people were greedy of instruction, and were not critical of artistic merits. Among other things of note, the exiles were recalled, who brought back with them the learning of the Continent and the theology of Geneva, and an intense hatred for all the old forms of superst.i.tion,--images, crucifixes, lighted candles, Catholic vestments,--and a supreme regard for the authority of the Scriptures, rather than the authority of the Church.

These men, mostly learned and pious, were not contented with the restoration as effected by Elizabeth's reformers,--they wanted greater simplicity of wors.h.i.+p and a more definite and logical creed; and they made a good deal of trouble, being very conscientious and somewhat narrow and intolerant. So that, after the re-establishment of Protestantism, the religious history of the reign is chiefly concerned with the quarrels and animosities within the Church, particularly about vestments and modes of wors.h.i.+p,--things unessential, minute, technical,--which led to great acerbity on both sides, and to some persecution; for these quarrels provoked the Queen and her ministers, who wanted peace and uniformity. To the Government it seemed strange and absurd for these returned exiles to make such a fuss about a few externals; to these intensified Protestants it seemed harsh and cruel that Government should insist on such a rigid uniformity, and punish them for not doing as they were bidden by the bishops.

So they separated from the Established Church, and became what were called Nonconformists,--having not only disgust of the decent ritualism of the Church, but great wrath for the bishops and hierarchy and spiritual courts. They also disapproved of the holy days which the Church retained, and the prayers and the cathedral style of wors.h.i.+p, the use of the cross in baptism, G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers, the confirmation of children, kneeling at the sacrament, bowing at the name of Jesus, the ring in marriage, the surplice, the divine right of bishops, and some other things which reminded them of Rome, for which they had absolute detestation, seeing in the old Catholic Church nothing but abominations and usurpations, no religion at all, only superst.i.tion and anti-Christian government and doctrine,--the reign of the beast, the mystic Babylon, the scarlet mother revelling in the sorceries of ancient Paganism. These terrible animosities against even the shadows and resemblances of what was called Popery were increased and intensified by the persecution and ma.s.sacres which the Catholics about this time were committing on the Protestants in France and Germany and the Low Countries, and which filled the people of England,--especially the middle and lower cla.s.ses,--with fear, alarm, anger, and detestation.

I will not enter upon the dissensions which so early crept into the English Church, and led to a separation or a schism, whatever name it goes by,--to most people in these times not very interesting or edifying, because they were not based on any great ideas of universal application, and seeming to such minds as Bacon and Parker and Jewell rather narrow and frivolous.

The great Puritan controversy would have no dignity if it were confined to vestments and robes and forms of wors.h.i.+p, and hatred of ceremonies and holy days, and other matters which seemed to lean to Romanism. But the grandeur and the permanence of the movement were in a return to the faith of the primitive Church and a purer national morality, and to the unrestricted study of the Bible, and the exaltation of preaching and Christian instruction over forms and liturgies and antiphonal chants; above all, the exaltation of reason and learning in the interpretation of revealed truth, and the education of the people in all matters which concern their temporal or religious interests, so that a true and rapid progress was inaugurated in civilization itself, which has peculiarly marked all Protestant countries having religious liberty. Underneath all these apparently insignificant squabbles and dissensions there were two things of immense historical importance: first, a spirit of intolerance on the part of government and of church dignitaries,--the State allied with the Church forcing uniformity with their decrees, and severely punis.h.i.+ng those who did not accept them,--in matters beyond all worldly authority; and, secondly, a rising spirit of religious liberty, determined to a.s.sert its glorious rights at any cost or hazard, and especially defended by the most religious and earnest part of the clergy, who were becoming Calvinistic in their creed, and were pus.h.i.+ng the ideas of the Reformation to their utmost logical sequence. This spirit was suppressed during the reign of Elizabeth, out of general respect and love for her as a Queen, and the external dangers to which the realm was exposed from Spain and France, which diverted the national mind. But it burst out fiercely in the next reigns, under James and Charles, about the beginning of the seventeenth century. And this is the last development of the Reformation in England to which I can allude,--the great Puritan contest for liberty of wors.h.i.+p, running, when opposed unjustly and cruelly, into a contest for civil liberty; that is, the right to change forms and inst.i.tutions of civil government, even to the dethronement of kings, when it was the expressed and declared will of the people, in whom was vested the ultimate source of sovereignty.

But here I must be brief. I tread on familiar ground, made familiar by all our literature, especially by the most brilliant writer of modern times, though not the greatest philosopher: I mean that great artist and word-painter Macaulay, whose chief excellence is in making clear and interesting and vivid, by a world of ill.u.s.tration and practical good-sense and marvellous erudition, what was obvious to his own objective mind, and obvious also to most other enlightened people not much interested in metaphysical disquisitions. No man more than he does justice to the love of liberty which absolutely burned in the souls of the Puritans,--that glorious party which produced Milton and Cromwell, and Hampden and Bunyan, and Owen and Calamy, and Baxter and Howe.

The chief peculiarity of those Puritans--once called Nonconformists, afterwards Presbyterians and Independents--was their reception of the creed of John Calvin, the clearest and most logical intellect that the Reformation produced, though not the broadest; who reigned as a religious dictator at Geneva and in the Reformed churches of France, and who gave to John Knox the positivism and sternness and rigidity which he succeeded in impressing upon the churches of Scotland. And the peculiar doctrines which marked Calvin and his disciples were those deduced from the majesty of G.o.d and the comparative littleness of man, leading to and bound up with the impotence of the will, human dependence, the necessity of Divine grace,--Augustinian in spirit, but going beyond Augustine in the subtlety of metaphysical distinctions and dissertations on free-will election, and predestination,--unfathomable, but exceedingly attractive subjects to the divines of the seventeenth century, creating a metaphysical divinity, a theology of the brain rather than of the heart, a brilliant series of logical and metaphysical deductions from established truths, demanding to be received with the same unhesitating obedience as the truths, or Bible declarations, from which they are deduced. The greatness of human reason was never more forcibly shown than in these deductions; but they were carried so far as to insult reason itself and mock the consciousness of mankind; so that mankind rebelled against the very force of the highest reasonings of the human intellect, because they pushed logical sequence into absurdity, or to dreadful conclusions: _Decretum quidem horribile fateor_, said the great master himself.

The Puritans were trained in this theology, which developed the loftiest virtues and the severest self-constraints; making them both heroes and visionaries, always conscientious and sometimes repulsive; fitting them for gigantic tasks and unworthy squabbles; driving them to the Bible, and then to acrimonious discussions; creating fears almost mediaeval; leading them to technical observation of religious duties, and transforming the most genial and affectionate people under the sun into austere saints, with whom the most ascetic of monks would have had but little sympathy.

I will not dwell on those peculiarities which Macaulay ridicules and Taine repeats,--the hatred of theatres and a.s.semblies and symbolic festivals and bell-ringings, the rejection of the beautiful, the elongated features, the cropped hair, the unadorned garments, the proscription of innocent pleasures, the nasal voice, the cant phrases, the rigid decorums, the strict discipline,--these, doubtless exaggerated, were more than balanced by the observance of the Sabbath, family prayers, temperate habits, fervor of religious zeal, strict morality, allegiance to duty, and the perpetual recognition of G.o.d Almighty as the sovereign of this world, to whom we are responsible for all our acts and even our thoughts. They formed a n.o.ble material on which every emanc.i.p.ating idea could work; men trained by persecutions to self-sacrifice and humble duties,--making good soldiers, good farmers, good workmen in every department, honest and st.u.r.dy, patient and self-reliant, devoted to their families though not demonstrative of affection; keeping the Sunday as a day of wors.h.i.+p rather than rest or recreation, cheris.h.i.+ng as the dearest and most sacred of all privileges the right to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d according to the dictates of conscience enlightened by the Bible, and willing to fight, even amid the greatest privations and sacrifices, to maintain this sacred right and transmit it to their children. Such were the men who fought the battles of civil liberty under Cromwell and colonized the most sterile of all American lands, making the dreary wilderness to blossom with roses, and sending out the shoots of their civilization to conserve more fruitful and favored sections of the great continent which G.o.d gave them, to try new experiments in liberty and education.

I need not enumerate the different sects into which these Puritans were divided, so soon as they felt they had the right to interpret Scripture for themselves. Nor would I detail the various and cruel persecutions to which these sects were subjected by the government and the ecclesiastical tribunals, until they rose in indignation and despair, and rebelled against the throne, and made war on the King, and cut off his head; all of which they did from fear and for self-defence, as well as from vengeance and wrath.

Nor can I describe the counter reformation, the great reaction which succeeded to the violence of the revolution. The English reformation was not consummated until const.i.tutional liberty was heralded by the reign of William and Mary, when the nation became almost unanimously Protestant, with perfect toleration of religious opinions, although the fervor of the Puritans had pa.s.sed away forever, leaving a residuum of deep-seated popular antipathy to all the inst.i.tutions of Romanism and all the ideas of the Middle Ages. The English reformation began with princes, and ended with the agitations of the people. The German reformation began with the people, and ended in the wars of princes. But both movements were sublime, since they showed the force of religious ideas. Civil liberty is only one of the sequences which exalt the character and dignity of man amid the seductions and impediments of a gilded material life.

AUTHORITIES.

Todd's Life of Cranmer; Strype's Life of Cranmer; Wood's Annals of the Oxford University; Burnet's English Reformation; Doctor Lingard's History of England; Macaulay's Essays; Fuller's Church History; Gilpin's Life of Cranmer; Original Letters to Cromwell; Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury; Butler's Book of the Roman Catholic Church; Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography; Turner's Henry VIII.; Froude's History of England; Fox's Life of Latimer; Turner's Reign of Mary.

IGNATIUS LOYOLA.

A.D. 1491-1556.

RISE AND INFLUENCE OF THE JESUITS.

Next to the Protestant Reformation itself, the most memorable moral movement in the history of modern times was the counter-reformation in the Roman Catholic Church, finally effected, in no slight degree, by the Jesuits. But it has not the grandeur or historical significance of the great insurrection of human intelligence which was headed by Luther. It was a revival of the pietism of the Middle Ages, with an external reform of manners. It was not revolutionary; it did not cast off the authority of the popes, nor disband the monasteries, nor reform religious wors.h.i.+p: it rather tended to strengthen the power of the popes, to revive monastic life, and to perpetuate the forms of wors.h.i.+p which the Middle Ages had established. No doubt a new religious life was kindled, and many of the flagrant abuses of the papal empire were redressed, and the lives of the clergy made more decent, in accordance with the revival of intelligence. Nor did it disdain literature or art, or any form of modern civilization, but sought to combine progress with old ideas; it was an effort to adapt the Roman theocracy to changing circ.u.mstances, and was marked by expediency rather than right, by zeal rather than a profound philosophy.

This movement took place among the Latin races,--the Italians, French, and Spaniards,--having no hold on the Teutonic races except in Austria, as much Slavonic as German. It worked on a poor material, morally considered; among peoples who have not been distinguished for stamina of character, earnestness, contemplative habits, and moral elevation,--peoples long enslaved, frivolous in their pleasures, superst.i.tious, indolent, fond of fetes, spectacles, pictures, and Pagan reminiscences.

The doctrine of justification by faith was not unknown, even in Italy.

It was embraced by many distinguished men. Contarini, an ill.u.s.trious Venetian, wrote a treatise on it, which Cardinal Pole admired. Folengo ascribed justification to grace alone; and Vittoria Colonna, the friend of Michael Angelo, took a deep interest in these theological inquiries.

But the doctrine did not spread; it was not understood by the people,--it was a speculation among scholars and doctors, which gave no alarm to the Pope. There was even an attempt at internal reform under Paul III. of the ill.u.s.trious family of the Farnese, successor of Leo X.

and Clement VII., the two renowned Medicean popes. He made cardinals of Contarini, Caraffa, Sadoleto, Pole, Giberto,--all men imbued with Protestant doctrines, and very religious; and these good men prepared a plan of reform and submitted it to the Pope, which ended, however, only in new monastic orders.

It was then that Ignatius Loyola appeared upon the stage, when Luther was in the midst of his victories, and when new ideas were shaking the pontifical throne. The desponding successor of the Gregorys and the Clements knew not where to look for aid in that crisis of peril and revolution. The monastic orders composed his regular army, but they had become so corrupted that they had lost the reverence of the people. The venerable Benedictines had ceased to be men of prayer and contemplation as in the times of Bernard and Anselm, and were revelling in their enormous wealth. The cloisters of Cluniacs and Cistercians--branches of the Benedictines--were filled with idle and dissolute monks. The famous Dominicans and Franciscans, who had rallied to the defence of the Papacy three centuries before,--those missionary orders that had filled the best pulpits and the highest chairs of philosophy in the scholastic age,--had become inexhaustible subjects of sarcasm and mockery, for they were peddling relics and indulgences, and quarrelling among themselves.

They were hated as inquisitors, despised as scholastics, and deserted as preachers; the roads and taverns were filled with them. Erasmus laughed at them, Luther abused them, and the Pope reproached them. No hope from such men as these, although they had once been renowned for their missions, their zeal, their learning, and their preaching.

At this crisis Loyola and his companions volunteered their services, and offered to go wherever the Pope should send them, as preachers, or missionaries, or teachers, instantly, without discussion, conditions, or rewards. So the Pope accepted them, made them a new order of monks; and they did what the Mendicant Friars had done three hundred years before,--they fanned a new spirit, and rapidly spread over Europe, over all the countries to which Catholic adventurers had penetrated, and became the most efficient allies that the popes ever had.

This was in 1540, six years after the foundation of the Society of Jesus had been laid on the Mount of Martyrs, in the vicinity of Paris, during the pontificate of Paul III. Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde Loyola, a Spaniard of n.o.ble blood and breeding, at first a page at the court of King Ferdinand, then a brave and chivalrous soldier, was wounded at the siege of Pampeluna. During a slow convalescence, having read all the romances he could find, he took up the "Lives of the Saints," and became fired with religious zeal. He immediately forsook the pursuit of arms, and betook himself barefooted to a pilgrimage. He served the sick in hospitals; he dwelt alone in a cavern, practising austerities; he went as a beggar on foot to Rome and to the Holy Land, and returned at the age of thirty-three to begin a course of study. It was while completing his studies at Paris that he conceived and formed the "Society of Jesus."

From that time we date the counter-reformation. In fifty years more a wonderful change took place in the Catholic Church, wrought chiefly by the Jesuits. Yea, in sixteen years from that eventful night--when far above the star-lit city the enthusiastic Loyola had bound his six companions with irrevocable vows--he had established his Society in the confidence and affection of Catholic Europe, against the voice of universities, the fears of monarchs, and the jealousy of the other monastic orders. In sixteen years, this ridiculed and wandering Spanish fanatic had risen to a condition of great influence and dignity, second only in power to the Pope himself; animating the councils of the Vatican, moving the minds of kings, controlling the souls of a numerous fraternity, and making his influence felt in every corner of the world.

Before the remembrance of his pa.s.sionate eloquence, his eyes of fire, and his countenance of seraphic piety had pa.s.sed away from the minds of his own generation, his disciples "had planted their missionary stations among Peruvian mines, in the marts of the African slave-trade, among the islands of the Indian Ocean, on the coasts of Hindustan, in the cities of j.a.pan and China, in the recesses of Canadian forests, amid the wilds of the Rocky Mountains." They had the most important chairs in the universities; they were the confessors of monarchs and men of rank; they had the control of the schools of Italy, France, Austria, and Spain; and they had become the most eloquent, learned, and fas.h.i.+onable preachers in all Catholic countries. They had grown to be a great inst.i.tution,--an organization instinct with life, a mechanism endued with energy and will; forming a body which could out.w.a.tch Argus with his hundred eyes, and outwork Briareus with his hundred arms; they had twenty thousand eyes open upon every cabinet, every palace, and every private family in Catholic Europe, and twenty thousand arms extended over the necks of every sovereign and all their subjects,--a mighty moral and spiritual power, irresponsible, irresistible, omnipresent, connected intimately with the education, the learning, and the religion of the age; yea, the prime agents in political affairs, the prop alike of absolute monarchies and of the papal throne, whose interests they made identical. This a.s.sociation, instinct with one will and for one purpose, has been beautifully likened by Doctor Williams to the chariot in the Prophet's vision: "The spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels; wherever the living creatures went, the wheels went with them; wherever those stood, these stood: when the living creatures were lifted up, the wheels were lifted up over against them; and their wings were full of eyes round about, and they were so high that they were dreadful. So of the inst.i.tution of Ignatius,--one soul swayed the vast ma.s.s; and every pin and every cog in the machinery consented with its whole power to every movement of the one central conscience."

Luther moved Europe by ideas which emanc.i.p.ated the millions, and set in motion a progress which is the glory of our age; Loyola invented a machine which arrested this progress, and drove the Catholic world back again into the superst.i.tions and despotisms of the Middle Ages, retaining however the fear of G.o.d and of h.e.l.l, which some among the Protestants care very little about.

What is the secret of such a wonderful success? Two things: first, the extraordinary virtues, abilities, and zeal of the early Jesuits; and, secondly, their wonderful machinery in adapting means to an end.

The history of society shows that no body of men ever obtained a wide-spread ascendancy, never secured general respect, unless they deserved it. Industry produces its fruits; learning and piety have their natural results. Even in the moral world natural law a.s.serts its supremacy. Hypocrisy and fraud ultimately will be detected; no enduring reputation is built upon a lie; sincerity and earnestness will call out respect, even from foes; learning and virtue are lights which are not hid under a bushel. Enthusiasm creates enthusiasm; a lofty life will be seen and honored. Nor do people intrust their dearest interests except to those whom they venerate,--and venerate because their virtues s.h.i.+ne like the face of a G.o.ddess. We yield to those only whom we esteem wiser than ourselves. Moses controlled the Israelites because they venerated his wisdom and courage; Paul had the confidence of the infant churches because they saw his labors; Bernard swayed his darkened age by the moral power of learning and sanct.i.ty. The mature judgments of centuries never have reversed the judgments which past ages gave in reference to their master minds. All the pedants and sophists of Germany cannot whitewash Frederic II. or Henry VIII. No man in Athens was more truly venerated than Socrates when he mocked his judges. Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, appeared to contemporaries as they appear to us. Even Hildebrand did not juggle himself into his theocratic chair. Was.h.i.+ngton deserved all the reverence he enjoyed; and Bonaparte himself was worthy of the honors he received, so long as he was true to the interests of France.

So of the Jesuits,--there is no mystery in their success; the same causes would produce the same results again. When Catholic Europe saw men born to wealth and rank voluntarily parting with their goods and honors; devoting themselves to religious duties, often in a humble sphere; spending their days in schools and hospitals; wandering as preachers and missionaries amid privations and in fatigue; encountering perils and dangers and hards.h.i.+ps with fresh and ever-sustained enthusiasm; and finally yielding up their lives as martyrs, to proclaim salvation to idolatrous savages,--it knew them to be heroic, and believed them to be sincere, and honored them in consequence. When parents saw that the Jesuits entered heart and soul into the work of education, winning their pupils' hearts by kindness, watching their moods, directing their minds into congenial studies, and inspiring them with generous sentiments, they did not stop to pry into their motives; and universities, when they discovered the superior culture of educated Jesuits, outstripping all their a.s.sociates in learning, and shedding a light by their genius and erudition, very naturally appointed them to the highest chairs; and even the people, when they saw that the Jesuits were not stained by vulgar vices, but were hard-working, devoted to their labors, earnest, and eloquent, put themselves under their teachings; and especially when they added gentlemanly manners, good taste, and agreeable conversation to their unimpeachable morality and religious fervor, they made these men their confessors as well as preachers. Their lives stood out in glorious contrast with those of the old monks and the regular clergy, in an age of infidel levities, when the Italian renaissance was bearing its worst fruits, and men were going back to Pagan antiquity for their pleasures and opinions.

That the early Jesuits blazed with virtues and learning and piety has never been denied, although these things have been poetically exaggerated. The world was astonished at their intrepidity, zeal, and devotion. They were not at first intriguing, or ambitious, or covetous.

They loved their Society; but they loved still more what they thought was the glory of G.o.d. _Ad majoram Dei gloriam_ was the motto which was emblazoned on their standard when they went forth as Christian warriors to overcome the heresies of Christendom and the superst.i.tions of idolaters. "The Jesuit missionary," says Stephen, "with his breviary under his arm, his beads at his girdle, and his crucifix in his hands, went forth without fear, to encounter the most dreaded dangers.

Martyrdom was nothing to him; he knew that the altar which might stream with his blood, and the mound which might be raised over his remains, would become a cherished object of his fame and an expressive emblem of the power of his religion." "If I die," said Xavier, when about to visit the cannibal Island of Del Moro, "who knows but what all may receive the Gospel, since it is most certain it has ever fructified more abundantly in the field of Paganism by the blood of martyrs than by the labors of missionaries,"--a sublime truth, revealed to him in his whole course of protracted martyrdom and active philanthropy, especially in those last hours when, on the Island of Sanshan, he expired, exclaiming, as his fading eyes rested on the crucifix, _In te Domine speravi, non confundar in eternum_. In perils, in fastings, in fatigues, was the life of this remarkable man pa.s.sed, in order to convert the heathen world; and in ten years he had traversed a tract of more than twice the circ.u.mference of the earth, preaching, disputing, and baptizing, until seventy thousand converts, it is said, were the fruits of his mission.[1] "My companion," said the fearless Marquette, when exploring the prairies of the Western wilderness, "is an envoy of France to discover new countries, and I am an amba.s.sador of G.o.d to enlighten them with the Gospel." Lalemant, when pierced with the arrows of the Iroquois, rejoiced that his martyrdom would induce others to follow his example. The missions of the early Jesuits extorted praises from Baxter and panegyric from Liebnitz.

[Footnote 1: I am inclined to think that this statement is exaggerated; or, if true, that conversion was merely nominal.]

And not less remarkable than these missionaries were those who labored in other spheres. Loyola himself, though visionary and monastic, had no higher wish than to infuse piety into the Catholic Church, and to strengthen the hands of him whom he regarded as G.o.d's vicegerent.

Somehow or other he succeeded in securing the absolute veneration of his companions, so much so that the sainted Xavier always wrote to him on his knees. His "Spiritual Exercises" has ever remained the great text-book of the Jesuits,--a compend of fasts and penances, of visions and of ecstasies; rivalling Saint Theresa herself in the rhapsodies of a visionary piety, showing the chivalric and romantic ardor of a Spanish n.o.bleman directed into the channel of devotion to an invisible Lord. See this wounded soldier at the siege of Pampeluna, going through all the experiences of a Syriac monk in his Manresan cave, and then turning his steps to Paris to acquire a university education; a.s.sociating only with the pious and the learned, drawing to him such gifted men as Faber and Xavier, Salmeron and Lainez, Borgia and Bobadilla, and inspiring them with his ideas and his fervor; living afterwards, at Venice, with Caraffa (the future Paul IV.) in the closest intimacy, preaching at Vicenza, and forming a new monastic code, as full of genius and originality as it was of practical wisdom, which became the foundation of a system of government never surpa.s.sed in the power of its mechanism to bind the minds and wills of men. Loyola was a most extraordinary man in the practical turn he gave to religious rhapsodies; creating a legislation for his Society which made it the most potent religious organization in the world. All his companions were remarkable likewise for different traits and excellences, which yet were made to combine in sustaining the unity of this moral mechanism. Lainez had even a more comprehensive mind than Loyola. It was he who matured the Jesuit Const.i.tution, and afterwards controlled the Council of Trent,--a convocation which settled the creed of the Catholic Church, especially in regard to justification, and which admitted the merits of Christ, but attributed justification to good works in a different sense from that understood and taught by Luther.

Aside from the personal gifts and qualities of the early Jesuits, they would not have so marvellously succeeded had it not been for their remarkable const.i.tution,--that which bound the members of the Society together, and gave to it a peculiar unity and force. The most marked thing about it was the unbounded and unhesitating obedience required of every member to superiors, and of these superiors to the General of the Order,--so that there was but one will. This law of obedience is, as every one knows, one of the fundamental principles of all the monastic orders from the earliest times, enforced by Benedict as well as Basil.

Still there was a difference in the vow of obedience. The head of a monastery in the Middle Ages was almost supreme. The Lord Abbot was obedient only to the Pope, and he sought the interests of his monastery rather than those of the Pope. But Loyola exacted obedience to the General of the Order so absolutely that a Jesuit became a slave. This may seem a harsh epithet; there is nothing gained by using offensive words, but Protestant writers have almost universally made these charges. From their interpretation of the const.i.tutions of Loyola and Lainez and Aquaviva, a member of the Society had no will of his own; he did not belong to himself, he belonged to his General,--as in the time of Abraham a child belonged to his father and a wife to her husband; nay, even still more completely. He could not write or receive a letter that was not read by his Superior. When he entered the order, he was obliged to give away his property, but could not give it to his relatives.[2] When he made confession, he was obliged to tell his most intimate and sacred secrets. He could not aspire to any higher rank than that he held; he had no right to be ambitious, or seek his own individual interests; he was merged body and soul into the Society; he was only a pin in the machinery; he was bound to obey even his own servant, if required by his Superior; he was less than a private soldier in an army; he was a piece of wax to be moulded as the Superior directed,--and the Superior, in his turn, was a piece of wax in the hands of the Provincial, and he again in the hands of the General.

"There were many gradations in rank, but every rank was a gradation in slavery." The Jesuit is accused of having no individual conscience. He was bound to do what he was told, right or wrong; nothing was right and nothing was wrong except as the Society p.r.o.nounced. The General stood in the place of G.o.d. That man was the happiest who was most mechanical.

Every novice had a monitor, and every monitor was a spy.[3] So strict was the rule of Loyola, that he kept Francis Borgia, Duke of Candia, three years out of the Society, because he refused to renounce all intercourse with his family.[4]

[Footnote 2: Ranke.]

[Footnote 3: Steinmetz, i. p. 252.]

[Footnote 4: Nicolini, p. 35.]