The New Conspiracy Against the Jesuits Detected and Briefly Exposed Part 3

Bausset, bishop of Meth, in a Life of Fenelon, published so lately as the year 1809, pa.s.ses a comprehensive and eloquent eulogium on the society, of which the following sentences form but a part: "Wherever the Jesuits were heard of they preserved all cla.s.ses of society in a spirit of order, wisdom, and consistency. Called, at the commencement of the society, to the education of the princ.i.p.al families of the state, they {146} extended their cares to the inferior cla.s.ses, and kept them in the happy habits of religious and moral virtue."--"They had the merit of attracting honour to their religious character, by a severity of manners, a temperance, a n.o.bility, and a personal disinterestedness, which even their enemies could not deny them. This is the fairest answer they can make to satires, which accuse them of relaxed morality."--"These men, who were described as so dangerous, so powerful, so vindictive, bowed, without a murmur, under the terrible hand that crushed them[58]."

JUAN AND ULLOA.

The very names of these travellers suggest the virtues and the praises of the Jesuits. It was from their volumes that Robertson took his account of the settlement of Paraguay, and I do not think it necessary here to extend their testimony.

{147}

RICHELIEU.

When the four ministers of Charenton presented very heavy accusations against the Jesuits to Louis XIII, cardinal Richelieu answered them all: for the sake of brevity, I shall extract only his reply on the charge of regicide. "As to what you say of their doctrine, with respect to the power they attribute to the pope over kings, you would have spoken very differently of it, if, instead of learning it from the _private writings_ of a few particulars, you had collected it from the mouth of their general, who, in the year 1610, made a public and solemn declaration, by which he not only disapproves, but forbids all those of his order, under very severe penalties, to teach or maintain it lawful, under what pretext of tyranny soever, to attempt upon the persons of kings and princes." {148}

ABBE RAYNAL.

To the foregoing testimonies, let us add that of one of the bitterest enemies of Christianity. "The magnificence of the ceremonies," says Raynal, "attracts the Indians to the churches, where they find pleasure and piety united. There it is that religion is amiable, and it is at first in her ministers that she there gains love. Nothing equals the purity of the morals, the mild and tender zeal, the paternal solicitude, of the Jesuits of Paraguay. Every pastor is truly the father, as well as the director of his paris.h.i.+oners. There his authority is not felt, for he orders, prohibits, and punishes, only what is punished, prohibited, and ordered by the religion, which all of them, as well as he, wors.h.i.+p and cherish."--"A government in which n.o.body is idle, n.o.body works to excess; in which food is wholesome, plentiful, and impartially partaken by all the citizens, who are conveniently lodged, conveniently clothed; in {149} which old persons, widows, orphans, and the sick, find a succour unknown in any other part of the globe; in which every one marries according to inclination, and without interest; and where large families are a comfort, without a possibility of becoming a burthen; in which the debauchery inseparable from idleness, that equally corrupts opulence and poverty, never accelerates the degradation, or rather the decline of human life; in which fact.i.tious pa.s.sions are never excited, and well-regulated desires never thwarted; in which the advantages of commerce are enjoyed; without danger of contagion from the vices attendant on luxury; in which well-stored magazines, and mutual gratuitous succours among nations, rendered brothers by the same religion, afford a secure resource against the want that the uncertainty or inclemency of the seasons may produce; in which criminal justice has never been under the melancholy necessity of condemning a single criminal to death, to ignominy, or to punishment of any duration; and in which the very name of a tax or of a lawsuit is {150} unknown." Listen, I pray, to this account, from a quarter so unsuspected, of "the _slavery_ in which the Jesuits held the Indians of Paraguay, and the _atrocities_ which they exercised there;" for such is the language of their a.s.sailant, whom one must be surprised to find unacquainted with the writings of such an author as Raynal.

THE BISHOPS OF FRANCE.

There are forty-five names of bishops subscribed to a reply made by them to certain articles proposed for their examination by Louis XV. Their judgment is given at considerable length, and the testimony of it is too valuable to be abridged. I have already referred the reader to the doc.u.ment, printed at length, in the Appendix, at the end of this volume; to enable him, however, to judge here of the importance of it, I will insert the articles in this place. {151}

The first is: "Of what use the Jesuits may be in France; the advantages or inconveniences that may attend the various functions, which they exercise under our authority."

The second: "How the Jesuits behave, in their instructions, and in their own conduct, with regard to certain opinions, which strike at the safety of the king's person; as, likewise, with regard to the received doctrine of the clergy of France, contained in the declaration of the year 1682; and, in general, with regard to their opinions on the other side of the Alps."

The third: "The conduct of the Jesuits, with regard to their subordination to bishops; and whether, in the exercise of their functions, they do not encroach on the pastoral rights and privileges."

The fourth: "Whether it may not be convenient to moderate and set bounds to the {152} authority, which the general of the Jesuits exercises in France."

The replies fully substantiate the utility of the society, the purity of their doctrine, the regularity of their conduct, and the consistency of their government with their duty to their king and country[59].

Such, then, is the nature of the authorities, that rank in favour of the Jesuits; and the reader, by comparing them with the inveterate and corrupt spirits, which have been dragged from obscurity to destroy them a second time, will be able to estimate their respective value, and the motives of the new conspirators against them.

Perhaps enough has incidentally appeared, in the preceding pages, to inform the reader of the {153} chief crimes imputed to the society of the Jesuits, and to satisfy his mind of the falsehood of the imputations, as well as of the baseness and wickedness of the means contrived for attaching them upon those devoted victims. Many of the imputations are also removed in the following Letters. And when I consider, that the judgment of the bishops of France affords, on these points, a complete refutation of the slanders which have been lavished upon the society, I feel, that I should be wasting time, and abusing the attention of my reader, with unnecessary repet.i.tion.

A brief notice, however, of some of the princ.i.p.al charges against the society, may not be unacceptable here. Let us inquire into those of ambition, commerce, and sedition.

In the searches which I have made, it appears to me, both from narrative of facts, and from reasoning on the nature of things, that the society of the Jesuits have been most basely slandered, as well as inhumanly treated. What {154} was their ambition? The glory of G.o.d, and the edification of man.

But, say their enemies, how were these pursued? and were they always the real objects? The Jesuits are accused of shaping their course to the richest and most commodious countries; with extending the limits of the church to enlarge the circle of their commerce; with preaching sedition; with raising, on the cross, a throne to their ambition rather than to Christ. What do we learn from reason, and from fact? The roads to all ecclesiastical honours, all political employments, are shut to Jesuits, who renounce the former by a formal vow, and are prohibited the latter by the most rigorous penalties[60]. The countries, where we hear of Jesuits, are inhabited by cannibals, by Hurons, Iroquois, Canadians, Illinoise, Negroes, Ethiopians, Laplanders, Tartars; they are barren deserts, eternal snows, burning sands, gloomy forests; there did these _ambitious_ men live on wild herbs and bitter {155} roots, and cover themselves with leaves, or the skins of wild beasts; there did they run from cave to cave by day, and sleep at night in the hollows of rocks. Are these the abodes of luxury and wealth? It is indeed a glorious ambition to make men happy, to teach, and to save: such is the ambition displayed by the Jesuits, and the throne they raised on the cross was one of faith, hope, and charity.

With respect to commerce. By the canons of the church, it is forbidden to ecclesiastics, and, certainly, for good reasons. Commerce is a profession, a pursuit, to which men devote their time, for the purpose of obtaining a livelihood, and of ama.s.sing fortunes. It is a pursuit inconsistent with the habits and duties of the ministers of religion. This is the imputation meant to be thrown on the Jesuits, and which Pombal, their great enemy, and the enemy of every virtue, endeavoured to fix upon them. It was not difficult for them to repel this charge. They had a depot at Lisbon, where {156} they kept effects, which served them instead of money. These things were sold, as a proprietor of land would sell his corn, to support the brothers of the order in America, who, having no income, could only be supplied with commodities, in those savage countries. If this did not militate against the spirit that prohibits commerce to priests, as little did the kind of traffic which was superintended by the missionaries in Paraguay, and which was, in fact, a species of piety. With what delight does one read the account of it, in the Voyage of Juan and Ulloa. "The Jesuits take upon them the sole care of disposing of the manufactures and products of the Guaranies Indians, designed for commerce; these people being naturally careless and indolent, and, doubtless, without the diligent inspection and pathetic exhortations of the fathers, would be buried in sloth and indigence. The case is very different in the missions of the Chiquitos, who are industrious, careful, and frugal; and their genius so happily adapted to commerce, as not to stand in need of any factors. {157} The priests in the villages of this nation are of no expense to the crown, the Indians themselves rejoicing in maintaining them, and join in cultivating a plantation, filled with all kinds of grain and fruits, for the priest; the remainder, after this decent support, being applied to purchase ornaments for the churches. That the Indians may never be in any want of necessaries, it is one part of the minister's care to have always in readiness a stock of different kinds of tools, stuffs, and other goods; so that all who are in want repair to him, bringing, by way of exchange, wax, of which there are here great quant.i.ties, and other products. And this barter is made with the strictest integrity, that the Indians may have no reason to complain of oppression, and that the high character of the priests, for justice and sanct.i.ty, may be studiously preserved. The goods received in exchange are, by the priests, sent to the superior of the missions, who is a different person from the superior of the Guaranies; and, with the produce, a fresh stock of goods is laid in. The {158} princ.i.p.al intention of this is, that the Indians may have no occasion to leave their own country, in order to be furnished with necessaries; and, by this means, are kept from the contagion of those vices, which they would naturally contract in their intercourse with the inhabitants of other countries, where the depravity of human nature is not corrected by such good examples and laws[61]." This is the commerce, the only commerce carried on by the Jesuits; a commerce, that the apostles themselves would have maintained as a duty. I speak of the society, and of their spirit as a body; for I am not ignorant of the scandal which was brought upon them by the conduct of P. Lavalette, who, under pretence of augmenting the revenues of St. Peter's, ruined the mission at Martinique, and the cause of the Jesuits in France. What numerous body can be answerable for every individual of it? The circ.u.mstances attending the conduct of Lavalette are not very clear; but to contend {159} for his innocence is not necessary to the character of the order, the purity and integrity of which, however, derive a new demonstration from the very effect produced by his misconduct, be the guilt of that what it may, for it exonerates all the other Jesuit missionaries from the charge of trading. This charge had long existed, previous to Lavalette's affair: long before had hatred been upon the watch, and calumny active: long before had both the old and new world been full of Jesuit missionaries, and every where were they exposed to the scrutinizing looks of their enemies: no sooner was Lavalette denounced, than all eyes were turned upon him, and immediately all Europe rang with his name.

Scarcely had that of the bold navigator, who discovered, or that of the sanguinary captain, who conquered America, travelled so rapidly, or with so much noise. Innumerable libels issued from the press, and nothing equalled the celebrity of the subject. What is the evident inference? This: that, although their enemies were so vigilant in observing, so skilful in {160} detecting, so eager to expose such of the missionaries, who, in spite of their inst.i.tute, should become merchants, yet Lavalette was the only one that had ever afforded them a shadow of proof for such a charge.

The accusation of preaching sedition, and sowing the seeds of revolt, is equally unmerited. It is true, that the Jesuits were a.s.siduous in preventing all personal intercourse between the Indians and the Spaniards and Portugueze, for which they were charged with a seditious intention of throwing off the Spanish government. I know not that the throwing off of governments should shock modern philosophers, or the modification of religion disturb their brain; but I know, that very different motives are a.s.signed for this a.s.siduity of the Jesuits, in excluding the Europeans from the Indians; motives, which merit honour here and crowns of glory hereafter. The reader will thank me for communicating them in the simple and affecting language of the Spanish travellers last cited. "The {161} missionary fathers will not allow any of the inhabitants of Peru, whether Spaniards or others, Mestizos or even Indians, to come within their missions in Paraguay. Not with a view of concealing their transactions from the world; or that they are afraid lest others should supplant them of part of the products and manufactures; nor for any of those causes, which, even with less foundation, envy has dared to suggest; but for this reason, and a very prudent one it is, that their Indians, who being as it were new born from savageness and brutality, and initiated into morality and religion, may be kept steady in this state of innocence and simplicity. These Indians are strangers to sedition, pride, malice, envy, and other pa.s.sions, which are so fatal to society. But, were strangers admitted to come among them, their bad examples would teach them what at present they are happily ignorant of; but should modesty, and the attention they pay to the instructions of their teachers, be once laid aside, the s.h.i.+ning advantages of these settlements would soon come {162} to nothing; and such a number of souls, who now wors.h.i.+p the true G.o.d in the beauty of holiness, and live in tranquillity and love (of which such slender traces are seen among civilized nations), would be again seduced into the paths of disorder and perdition."--"Hence it is, that the Jesuits have inflexibly adhered to their maxim of not admitting any foreigners among them: and in this they are certainly justified by the melancholy example of the other missions of Peru, whose decline from their former happiness and piety is the effect of an open intercourse[62]." It is also true, that the Indians did revolt, if that term can be applied to an act rendered unavoidable by the horrid avarice and despotism, which had conspired to sacrifice these happy and innocent tribes; but so far were the Jesuits from being instigators of the revolt, that they were in danger of being the victims of it, of which they were well aware. The facts would form a long and interesting {163} narrative; but it is only necessary, at present, to state a few particulars. A notion had been generated in the imagination of Pombal, the Portugueze minister, that, in the region of those happy settlements, there were mines of gold, unknown to the inhabitants. On these he cast his eyes, and commenced an intrigue for exchanging that territory with Spain, for others, at the immense distance of three hundred leagues. This being effected, he resolved, that the whole Indian population of Paraguay should be transported. The Jesuits were ordered to dispose the people to transmigrate. They, at first, ventured to represent modestly the difficulty of such a removal, and to conjure the officers of government to consider, what an undertaking it was, to transport, over such wildernesses, thirty thousand souls, with their cattle and effects, to a distance of nearly a thousand miles: they were sharply told, that obedience and not expostulation was expected. The consequences present a history, that might draw tears from the most obdurate. Now would have been the time for the {164} Jesuits to establish their empire, had the project imputed to them been founded. What was their conduct? Rather than become rebels, these faithful and humble subjects laboured earnestly to prevail upon the Indians to obey the mandate. Their exertions, however great, were not satisfactory, and new commands for haste were issued; a few months were allowed for an undertaking, which, if it could be executed at all, required years. This precipitation ruined the whole. The poor creatures, who were to be torn from their habitations, driven to extremities, began to distrust their own missionaries, and suspected them of acting in concert with the officers of Spain and Portugal. From that moment they looked upon them only as so many traitors, who were seeking to deliver them up to their old inveterate enemies. In the course of a short time, peace, order, and happiness, gave way to war, confusion, and misery. Those Indians, previously so flexible, so docile, insensibly lost that spirit of submission and simplicity, which had distinguished them, {165} and they every where prepared to make a vigorous resistance. The contest lasted a considerable time, during which the Indians experienced some success, but were ultimately defeated; some of them burnt their towns and betook themselves in thousands to the woods and mountains, where they perished miserably. After surveying all the plains, searching all the forests, digging all the mountains, sounding all the lakes and rivers, to establish the limits of the country, no mines were found, and the director of the scheme, Gomez, finding himself the dupe of his mad imagination and puerile credulity, wished it possible to conceal his shame and prevent his disgrace, by having the treaty between the two courts annulled. He even descended so low as to beseech the Jesuits themselves to endeavour to effect the annulling of it. They, of course, paid no attention to the entreaties of a man, whose insatiable avidity had caused the ruin of thirty thousand of their fellow creatures; and it was not till Charles III succeeded to the crown of Spain, that the treaty, {166} of which he had never approved, was annulled. There was now an end to the war in Paraguay, so fatal to its once happy, pious, and virtuous population, who, in consequence of it, lost not only their property, but their innocence, their piety, their docility, their gentleness, their simplicity, which were superseded by European debauchery, hypocrisy, and perfidy; vices that formed a new and almost insurmountable obstacle to the progress of religion, in those immense regions, where, for so many years, it had flourished[63].

Having shown the pious nature of the ambition, which inflamed the zeal of the Jesuits; the paternal nature of the commerce, which consisted in necessary commodities, taken in barter for the provision of their establishments, and not in rich products, of various countries, freighted on wealthy speculations; and having {167} shown also that their conduct, in excluding Europeans from the Paraguay settlements, was not the effect of a seditious disposition, I should now conclude this chapter, did I not, as I proceed, feel more and more a desire to remove the prejudices, which an extraordinary combination of pa.s.sions and talents, operating on the progress of human affairs, has spread over the character of men, who appear to me to have been actuated by the sublimest motives, such as might be attributed to angels; the glory of G.o.d, and the benefit of mankind. The picture drawn by the abbe Barruel of one of the ex-Jesuits, who was murdered at Avignon, in one of the revolutionary ma.s.sacres, is a genuine and convincing representation of a celestial spirit, which never could have been nourished in a corrupt society, which must have owed its qualities to an exalted one. This portrait cannot but be viewed with love and admiration, and the reader would think an apology for placing it before him superfluous. {168}

"Avignon and the Comtat had been declared, by the a.s.sembly, united to France. Jourdan, surnamed _Coup-tete_, was at Avignon with his banditti.

The unfortunate persons shut up in the prisons were devoted by him to death. An immense pit was opened to serve as their grave, and loads of sand were carried thither to cover the bodies. There were six hundred prisoners in the castle: the hour was fixed for putting them to death and throwing them, one after the other, into the pit. There was, at Avignon, a virtuous priest, one of those men for whom we feel, on earth, a veneration, like that paid to the saints in heaven. His name was Nolhac; he had formerly been rector of the noviciat of the Jesuits at Thoulouse, and was now eighty years old. For thirty years he had been the parish priest of St.

Symphorien, a parish, which he had taken in preference, from its being that of the poor. During all these years, spent in the town, he had been the father and refuge of the indigent, the consoler of the afflicted, the adviser and friend of the {169} inhabitants, and he would not listen to their entreaties, to quit the place, on the arrival of the jacobins with Jourdan and his banditti. He could never resolve to leave his parishoners, deprived of their minister, in the beginning of the troubles of the schism, and far less to leave them, deprived of the consolations of religion, while under the tyranny of the banditti. Martyrdom, the glory of shedding his blood for Jesus Christ, for his church, or for the faithful, were, to him, but the accomplishment of desires and wishes, which, all his life, had been formed in his soul, and with which he knew how to inspire his disciples, when he was directing them in the paths _of perfection_. His life itself had been but a martyrdom, concealed by a countenance always serene, and always beaming angelic joy, with peace of conscience. His body, clothed with the hair-s.h.i.+rt, had needed the strong const.i.tution, with which nature had endowed him, to support him under the mortifications, watchings, and fasts he endured, through all the activity of a minister and the austerity of {170} an anchorite. Daily at prayer and meditation long before light; daily visiting the sick and the poor, whom he never left without administering, together with spiritual consolations, temporal comforts, confided to his hands by the faithful; always poor as to himself, but rich for others, it was at length time to consummate the sacrifice of a life wholly devoted to charity and to his G.o.d.

"M. Nolhac, whom the banditti themselves had hitherto held sacred, was sent prisoner to the castle the very day before that on which the six hundred victims were to be put to death. His appearance among those unhappy persons, who all knew and revered him, was that of a consoling angel; his first words were those of an apostle of souls, sent in order to prepare them for appearing before the judge of the quick and the dead: 'I come to die with you, my children: we are all going together to appear before G.o.d.

How I thank him for having sent me to prepare your souls to appear at his {171} tribunal! Come, my children, the moments are precious; to-morrow, perhaps to-day, we shall be no longer in this world; let us, by a sincere repentance, qualify ourselves to be happy in the other. Let me not lose a single soul among you. Add to the hope, that G.o.d will receive myself into his bosom, the happiness of being able to present you to him, as children all of whom he charges me to save, and to render worthy of his mercy.' They throw themselves at his knees, embrace, and cling to them. With tears and sobs they confess their faults: he listens to them, he absolves them, he embraces them with that tenderness, which he always manifested to sinners.

He had the satisfaction of finding them all impressed by his paternal exhortations. Already had that unspeakable pleasure, that peace which only G.o.d can give, as in Heaven he ratifies the absolution of his minister on Earth, taken place of fear on their countenances, when the voices of the banditti were heard calling out those, who were to be the first victims, for {172} whom they waited at the gate of the fort. There, on the right and on the left, stood two a.s.sa.s.sins, each having an iron bar in his hands, with which they struck their victims, as they came out, with all their force and killed them. The bodies were then delivered to other executioners, who mangled the limbs and disfigured them with sabres, to render it impossible for the children and friends of the persons to distinguish them. After this, the remains were thrown into the infernal pit, called the ice-house. Meanwhile, M. Nolhac, within the prison, continued exhorting and embracing the unhappy prisoners, and encouraging them to go as they were called. He was fortunate enough to be the last, and to follow into the presence of his G.o.d the six hundred souls, who had carried to Heaven the tidings of his heroic zeal and unshaken fort.i.tude[64]."--Nolhac was a Jesuit!

{173}

CHAPTER III.

_Of the Order of the Jesuits, with the prominent features of the Inst.i.tute._

How many men are there, who never knew more of Jesuits than their name, that have, from the hideous caricatures, which have been drawn of them, imbibed such prejudices, and admitted such horrible impressions against the society, as to render it a wonder, and with some a scandal, that any person should dare to make the slightest attempt towards their vindication. On the perusal of this volume, I trust, that the wonder and the scandal will appear to be, that men should have so suffered their reason to be imposed upon, and their feelings betrayed, as to be tamely led into the views of the destroyers, {174} not only of this religious order, but of religion itself, and of social order. I will endeavour here to give a faithful miniature of the n.o.ble original, which, under distorted features, we have been invited to ridicule and to detest. I do not, however, pretend to offer to the reader a deep-reasoned discussion, but only a slight sketch of the much traduced inst.i.tute of the Jesuits, and of the pursuits and past successes of the men, who devoted themselves to it.

Jesuits were never much known in this kingdom. They were never more than a small detachment of missionary priests, privately officiating to the scattered catholics, like other priests, sent from the English seminaries of Rome, Douay, Valladolid, and Lisbon. They were distinguished only by more pointed severity of the ancient penal statutes, which the wisdom and liberality of the legislature has considerably relaxed. This greater severity arose, not from their conduct, but from the general prejudice against their order; and, in England, this {175} prejudice kept pace with the esteem in which they were held in all catholic countries. Formerly, every enemy of catholic religion was their foe declared. Their perseverance and their successes still provoked new hostilities. It is the remark of Sponda.n.u.s, that no set of men were ever so violently opposed, or ever so successfully triumphed over opposition. Their a.s.siduity, in their multifarious relations to the public, in all countries, where they had settlements; in their schools and seminaries, in pulpits and confessionals, in hospitals and workhouses, in the cultivation of sciences, in national and foreign missions; all this professional business afforded them a large field for exertion, and enabled them to recommend themselves to kings, prelates, and magistrates, by signal services to the public, and thus to blunt the stings of envy and the shafts of malice. The small number, which frequented England for nearly two hundred years, in the face of the penal laws, had no such field of action. They were confined to administer the rites of religion to their brethren {176} in private houses; they were necessitated to live separate; they were forced to disguise their profession and character, and frequently their very names; they lived under the laws, and they were not protected by the laws; they knew, that the distorted character, drawn of them by their foreign enemies, obtained ready credit in this country, without inquiry or examination; and, as they could neither act nor speak in their own defence, it has happened, that the notion of a Jesuit is to this day _vulgarly_ (I take the word in its full meaning) a.s.sociated with the idea of every crime.

In foreign countries, the Jesuits formed a conspicuous body, to which no man was wholly indifferent. They could not be viewed with the eye of contempt. They were highly esteemed, and they were bitterly hated. In all catholic countries, the esteem and respect, which they enjoyed, were fully established. They were every where considered as pure and holy in their morals and conduct, eminently zealous for {177} religion, and highly serviceable to the public. Their enemies, at all times, were either open separatists from the catholic church, or secret enemies of it, who formed parties for its destruction; or they were rivals, who vied with them in some branches of the public administration of religion. From these sources proceeded, at different times, that undigested ma.s.s of criminations, unsubstantiated by proof, which are so inconsistently collected in the new conspiracy against the Jesuits. It is evidently folly to imagine, that a large body of men, connected with the public by a thousand links, surrounded by jealous enemies, could possibly be a band of unprincipled knaves, impostors, and miscreants. The universal favour of the bulk of so many polished nations forbids, at once, such an idea. Popes, kings, prelates, magistrates, everywhere protected and employed them. Bishops and their clergy everywhere regarded them as their most useful auxiliaries in the sacred ministry, because they professedly exercised every duty of it, except that of _governing_ the church; {178} and this they renounced by vow. The people, in all towns, even in villages, felt their gratuitous services. A hundred years ago, if the public voice had been individually collected in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Poland, undoubtedly, they would rather have parted with any other, perhaps with most other religious bodies, than with the society of Jesuits alone. A hundred years ago, all the continental sovereigns in Europe would have concurred in the same sentiment. With them they advised in all concerns of religion; to them they listened as preachers; to them they intrusted the instruction of their children, their own consciences, their souls. In those days, not only kings, but ministers of kings, and the great bulk of their n.o.bles and people, believed in religion. They were sons of men, who had fought hard battles in France and Germany, in defence of catholic unity, against confederate sects, who had conspired to overturn it. Voltaire had not yet appeared among them. Religion was not yet presented to them as an object of ridicule. They {179} deemed of religion with reverence and awe, and they believed it to be the firmest support of the state and of the throne. They venerated its ministers, and among them the Jesuits, because they knew, that their inst.i.tute was well calculated to form its followers to the active service of the altars, which they respected.

An idea of the inst.i.tute of the Jesuits cannot be formed without consulting the original code; and the first inspection of it shows the author to have been a man of profound thinking, and eminently animated with the spirit of religious zeal. _Ad majorem Dei gloriam_ was the motto of Ignatius of Loyola, the main principle of all his conduct. He conceived, that a body of men, a.s.sociated to promote G.o.d's greater glory, must profess to imitate, not one or two, but, universally, all the astonis.h.i.+ng virtues of the Redeemer; and, in planning his inst.i.tute, he compressed them all into one ruling motion of _zeal_, which, in his ideas, was the purest emanation of charity, the summit of {180} Christian perfection. He everywhere employs his first principle, as the universal bond, or link, that must unite his society with G.o.d, and with their neighbours; and every prescription of his inst.i.tute is a direct consequence of it. _The greater glory of G.o.d_ is the first object that occurs on opening the inst.i.tute. It is the first thing, on which every candidate is questioned; and, if he be accepted, the first thing to which he is applied. This alone decides upon the admission and dismission of subjects; this regulates their advancement in virtue and letters, the preservation of their health, the improvement of their talents, the distribution and allotment of their employments. Masters must teach, and students must learn, only to advance the greater glory of G.o.d: this is the rule of superiors, who command; the motive of subjects, who obey: this alone is considered in the establishment of domestic discipline, in the formation of laws and rules: it is the bond, which connects all, the spring, which moves all; every impulse given to the society must {181} proceed from this; this alone must accelerate or slacken its progress; for this alone it must be maintained; every person in it, every thing in it, prayer and action, labour and rest, rules and exceptions, punishments and rewards, favours and refusals; in a word, every thing in the inst.i.tute of Ignatius has one motive, one end, one common motto, _The greater glory of G.o.d_; with this it commences, with this it ends.

Whatever may be the sentiments of persons, of different religious persuasions, of this plan of sanct.i.ty, certain it is, that the idea of it presents something n.o.ble; and, in the principles of the catholic church, it embraces the height of sanct.i.ty. To men acting upon such a principle, no virtue could ever be foreign, because every virtue in its turn might be wanted to promote G.o.d's greater glory. The aim of Ignatius was, first, to form them into perfect Christians; and hence he prescribes and requires, in all his a.s.sociates, the full practice of evangelical poverty, perfect purity, and intire obedience to lawful {182} authority; and these virtues must be sanctioned by vow. He requires, that all and each should emulate the other great evangelical counsels, such as mortification of the senses, refusal of dignities and honourable distinctions, perfect disinterestedness in their several functions, &c. He conceived, that G.o.d's glory would be procured by the practice of these exalted virtues; but, faithful to his principle, he judged that G.o.d's _greater_ glory required the communication, the diffusion of them among his neighbours. He earnestly wished to bring all men to know and adore the Son of G.o.d; and, in forming his a.s.sociates for this ministry, he was not content to teach them to be saints, he would make them apostles. To the other obligations, which he laid upon them, he added the solemn vow of missions, binding them, whenever required, to carry the name of G.o.d, in the primitive spirit, to the extremities of the globe.

It would be an extravagant exaggeration to a.s.sert, that all the followers of Ignatius {183} emulated such high gifts: but it has been allowed, in general, by the best judges in the catholic church, and, in great measure, by persons of other communions, that a large portion of the founder's original spirit was infused into the society, which he formed; and that Jesuits, cultivated by the mode of government and rules of life which he established, achieved feats in every country, which religion must revere, and sound policy commend. Their inst.i.tute does not stop short of any perfection, which the author of it thought attainable by human weakness. He prescribes in it a variety of means, which his followers must employ, to yield service to all, who surround them; and, though all could not be performed by each, he strongly confided, that his order would never be dest.i.tute of men qualified to execute every thing that he prescribed. Some things are exacted of all and each, others are to be suited to the different talents of the men employed; and the common education, which he gives to all, qualifies each to succeed in his respective department. Every {184} person, conversant in the affairs of the catholic church, will allow, that, by the constant attention of the superiors, not any means of helping the public, which the founder had prescribed, was neglected by the body of Jesuits; and the general utility resulting from all this was precisely the thing, that distinguished this body in the catholic church, and won for it the protection of popes and bishops, the countenance of kings and princes, the respect and esteem of nations.

As St. Ignatius, in his pursuit of absolute perfection, thought no virtue foreign to his inst.i.tute, so he judged no service, which churchmen could yield to the public, foreign to his society. Without pretending to enumerate the various duties and occupations, which he recommends to its members, I select only a few, upon which he enters into more detailed instructions, and to which he specially calls the attention of all superiors, the zeal of all their subjects. They are, good example; prayer; works of {185} charity to the poor, the imprisoned, the diseased; the writing of books of piety and religious instruction; the use of the sacrament of penance; preaching; pious congregations; spiritual retreats; national and foreign missions; and education of youth in public and gratuitous schools. In the catholic scheme of religion, each of these things is deemed important; and the united voice of all, who knew Jesuits, gives them the full credit of having, during their existence in a body, cultivated, with success, each of these several branches. Their preachers were heard and admired in every country; their tribunals of penance were crouded; the sick and dying were always secure of their attendance, when demanded; their books of devotion were everywhere read with confidence; the good example, resulting from the purity of their morals, secured them, even in the last fatal persecution, from inculpation, it disabled the malice of calumny. In the impossibility of criminating living Jesuits, their worst enemies could only revile the dead. Hospitals, workhouses, and lazarets, were the constant scenes {186} of their zeal; their attendance on them was reckoned an appropriate duty of their society. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the plague successively ravaged every country in Europe, many hundreds of Jesuits are recorded to have lost their lives in the service of the infected. Several perished, in the same exercise of charity, in the last century, at Ma.r.s.eilles and Messina; and, during the late retreat of the French army from Moscow, not less than ten Jesuits died of fatigue and sickness, contracted in the hospitals crouded with those French prisoners, who, a little before, had ejected them from their princ.i.p.al college, at Polosk, after having plundered it of every valuable.

It would be tedious to insist upon every point; but something I must say on the articles of missions and public schools, the two princ.i.p.al scenes of their zeal.

With respect to missions, the Jesuits might truly apply to themselves the verse,

Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?

aeN. lib. i.

{187} Their perseverance in this field of zeal was universally admired; it secured success during more than two centuries; and the latest missionary expeditions of their society proved, that the original spirit was not decayed. Whoever had caught it from the inst.i.tute of Ignatius was a scholar without pride; a man disengaged from his own conveniences; indifferent to his employment, to country, to climate; submissive to guidance; capable of living alone, and of edifying in public; happy in solitude, content in tumult; never misplaced. In a word, great purity of manners, cultivated minds, knowledge without pretensions, close study without recompence, obedience without reasoning though not without reason, love of labour, willingness to suffer, and, finally, fervor of zeal; such were the qualifications, which Ignatius's discernment directed his successors in government to seek, to select, or to form; and it is an acknowledged truth, that, at every period of the society, they always found men of this description to lead out their sacred expeditions to the four quarters of {188} the world. These men planted Christian faith in the extremities of the East, in j.a.pan, in the Molucca islands; they announced it in China, in the hither and further India, in Ethiopia and Caffraria, &c. Others, in the opposite hemisphere, appeared on the snowy wastes of North America; and, presently, Hurons were civilized, Canada ceased to be peopled only by barbarians. Others, almost in our own days, nothing degenerate, succeeded to humanize new hard-featured tribes, even to a.s.semble them in Christian churches, in the ungrateful soil of California, to which angry Nature seems to have denied almost every necessary for the subsistence of the human species. They were but a detachment from the body of their brethren, who, at the same time, were advancing, with rapid progress, through Cinaloa, among the unknown hordes of savages, who rove through the immense tracts to the north of Mexico, which have not yet been trodden by the steps of any evangelical herald. Others, again, in greater numbers, from the school of Ignatius, with the most inflexible {189} perseverance, amidst every species of opposition, continued to gather new nations into the church, to form new colonies of civilized cannibals, for the kings of Spain and Portugal, in the horrid wilds of Brazil, Maragnon, and Paraguay. Here truly flowed the milk and honey of religion and human happiness. Here was realized more than philosophy had dared to hope, more than Plato, in his republic, or the author of Utopia, had ever ventured to imagine. Here was given the demonstration, from experience, that pure religion, steadily practised, is the only source of human happiness. The new settlements, called _Reductions_, of Brazil and Paraguay, were real fruits of the zeal of the Jesuits. Solipsian empires, and gold mines to enrich the society, existed only in libels[65].

{190}

The Jesuits were advancing, with gigantic strides, to the very centre of South America, they were actually civilizing the Abiponian barbarians, when their glorious course was interrupted by the wretched policy of Lisbon and Madrid. The missionaries of South America were all seized like felons, and s.h.i.+pped off, as so many convicts, to the ports of old Spain, to be still farther transported to Corsica, and, finally, to the coasts of the pope's states. One of these venerable men, Martin Dobrizhoffer, who had spent eighteen years among the South American tribes, has given, in his _Historia de Abiponibus_, the best account, that exists, of the field of his arduous mission. His work is here mentioned, because it is not unknown in England, and his testimony[66] proves the persuasion of the best men at Buenos Ayres, in 1767, when the Jesuits were dismissed, that, if they had been at all times properly supported, by the courts of Lisbon and Madrid, especially {191} against the self interested European settlers, not a barbarian, not an infidel, would then have been left in the whole extent of South America. "This," says the author, "was boldly advanced from the pulpit at Buenos Ares, in the presence of the royal governor, and of a thronged auditory, and it was proved with a strength of argument, that subdued all doubt, and wrought universal conviction." The impression must have been strengthened by the subsequent dissolution of all the _Reductions_, in consequence of the inability of the royal officers to subst.i.tute other missionaries to those, whom they had ejected[67].

Different was the providence of the superiors {192} in the old society, to perpetuate the race and regular succession of those wonderful men. If they had sent out from Europe subjects already formed to every virtue and every science, their virtues and their learning would have been almost useless, without the knowledge and practical use of the barbarous idioms of the Indian tribes. Every young Jesuit in Europe was first trained, during two full years of noviciate, to the exact practice of religious virtues. He was next applied, during five years, still in strict domestic discipline, to the several studies of poetry, rhetoric, logic, physics, metaphysics, natural history, and mathematics. Seven years of preparation qualified these proficients to commence schoolmasters, during five or six succeeding years, in the several colleges of their respective provinces. It was generally at this {193} period of their religious career, that several young Jesuits, instead of being employed to teach schools, were detached from the several European provinces, to the Asiatic colleges of Goa, or Macao, or to the American colleges of Mexico, Buenos Ayres, or Cordova in Tuc.u.maw, where, in expectation of priesthood, they made a close study of the barbarous languages, which they were afterwards to speak in their missions. These were usually selected from the number of those, who had spontaneously solicited such a destination; and the number of these pious volunteers being always considerable, the succession of missionaries in the society of Jesuits could never fail. But it is time to say something of their schools.

The education of youth in schools is one of the prominent features of the Jesuits' inst.i.tute. Their founder saw, that the disorders of the world, which he wished to correct, spring chiefly from neglect of education. He perceived, that the fruits of the other spiritual functions of {194} his society would be only temporary, unless he could perpetuate them through every rising generation, as it came forward in succession. Every professed Jesuit was bound by a special vow, to attend to the instruction of youth; and this duty was the peculiar function, the first important mission, of the younger members, who were preparing themselves for profession. Even the two years of noviciate mainly contributed to the same purpose. They were not lost to the sciences, since novices were carefully taught the science upon which they all depend. The religious exercises of that first period tended to give them that steadiness of character and virtue, without which no good is achieved in schools. They then acquired a fondness for retirement, a love of regularity, a habit of labour, a disgust of dissipation, a custom of serious reflection, docility to advice, a sentiment of honour and self-respect, with a fixed love of virtue; every thing requisite to support and advance the cultivation of letters and of science in future years. It has been already observed, {195} that the serious studies, which filled five years after the noviciate, were calculated, in conjunction with strict religious discipline, to form them for the serious business of conducting a school of boys during the five or six years, which were to succeed: and, in the discharge of this duty, they were bound to know and to follow, under the direction of a prefect of studies in every college, the excellent doc.u.ments prescribed in the inst.i.tute for masters.

It is not possible in a short compa.s.s to enumerate these instructions; but the mention of a few may suffice to prove, that nothing was forgotten. The object of Ignatius, in charging his society with the management of boys and youths, as it is announced in various parts of the inst.i.tute, was to form and perfect their will, their conscience, their morals, their manners, their memory, imagination, and reason. Docility is the first virtue required in a child: and, to subdue stiff tempers, the remedies prescribed in the Jesuits' inst.i.tute are, impartiality in the {196} master, honourable distinctions, and mortifying humiliations, applied with judgment and discretion: then, steady attention to maintain the established discipline and economy of the school, which is a constant, and therefore a powerful check upon the unruly. To secure it, says the text, hope of reward and fear of disgrace are more powerful than blows; and, if the latter become unavoidable, punishment must never be inflicted with that precipitation, which gives to justice an air of violence. In inquiring into trespa.s.ses, too nice and minute investigation must be avoided, because it inspires mistrust. The art of dissembling small faults is often a safe means to prevent great ones. Gentle means must always be first employed; and, if ever fear and repentance must be impressed, the hand of some indifferent person must be called into action; the hand of the master must be used only to impress grat.i.tude and respect. If his hand is never to be the instrument of pain, his voice must never be the organ of invective. He must employ {197} instruction, exhortation, friendly reproach, but never contumelious language, haughtiness, and affronts: he must never utter words to boys, which would degrade them in the eyes of their companions, or demean them in their own. In the distribution of rewards, no distinction must be known, but that of merit. The very suspicion of partiality to character, fortune, or rank, would frustrate the effect of the rewards bestowed, and provoke indocility, jealousy, and disgust, in those who received none. Nothing so quickly overturns authority, and withers the fruit of zealous labours, even in virtuous masters, as the appearance of undue favour. The masters's equal attention is due to all; he must interest himself equally for the progress of all; he must never check the activity of any by indifference, much less irritate their self-love by contempt.

It were easy to multiply, from the inst.i.tute, instructions prescribed to masters, to insure success in this first part of education, the {198} bridling of the rebel will of youth; but Ignatius knew, that these things would never be enforced by young masters, who had not learned the art of bridling their own. Discipline might bind boys to outward respect, but only religion and virtue can make them love the yoke; and no yoke is ever carried with perseverance unless it be borne with pleasure. Religion is the most engaging and most powerful restraint upon rising and growing pa.s.sions; and to imprint it deeply in the heart was the main business of the Jesuit schools. The rest was accessory and subordinate. The principles of religion were there instilled, while the elements of learning were unfolded. Maxims of the Gospel were taught together with profane truths; the pride of science was tempered by the modesty of piety; the master's labour was directed, as much to form the conscience, as to improve the memory, and regulate the imagination of his disciples. The inst.i.tute directed him to instil a profound respect for G.o.d; to begin and end his lessons by prayer; to cherish the {199} piety of the devout; to avail himself of it as a means to attract the thoughtless to imitation; and, by a special rule, he was charged to instruct his scholars in all duties of religion by weekly catechisms, carefully adapted to their capacity. The ecclesiastical historian, Fleury, remarks, in the preface to his historical catechism, that, if the youth of his age was incomparably better instructed than the youth of past ages, the obligation was owing princ.i.p.ally to the catechisms of the Jesuits' school. He had heard them during the six years of his education in Clermont college.

Ignatius places herein the capital point of education: and he well knew, that where the grand motives of religion are not employed, an a.s.sembly of men will commonly be a collection of vice, especially in unexperienced youth, when growing pa.s.sions always seek communication, in order to authorise themselves by example. To this point, then, he directs the rules of his subjects employed in education; to {200} this he calls the attention of every professor, the vigilance of every prefect of studies, of every master, the solicitude of every rector, the inspection of every provincial.

The wise framers of the _Ratio Studiorum_, which is adopted into the inst.i.tute, explaining his ideas still farther, require every master to study the temper and character of his pupils; to distract their pa.s.sions by application; to fire their little hearts with laudable emulation. For this, they must encourage the diffident and modest, curb the forward and presumptuous: for this they must a.s.sign to merit alone those scholastic appellations of dignity, those t.i.tles of _emperor_ and _praetor_, puerile indeed in themselves, but not less important to boys than are the sounds of t.i.tles, and colours of ribbands to men. On the same principle, in much frequented colleges, each cla.s.s was divided into two rival cla.s.ses, usually distinguished by the opposite banners of Rome and Carthage, which mutually dreaded, provoked, and defied each other, in cla.s.sical duels, or in general trials of skill, each whetting his {201} memory on the edge of that of his rival; and then would often flow those precious tears of emulation, which watered rising genius, expanding it to fertility. Hence, again, are prescribed those public and solemn annual rewards, distributed with pomp and show, which reduced the self-love of youth to the love of virtue; which enamoured them of study by the prospect of success, and, by raising a desire of pleasing, really taught them how to please.