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beginning any political application of it, the first CHAP. object of their enthusiasm was a missionary expedition to Palestine, to convert the Turkish and eastern infidels; and they directed their attention wholly to this purpose, till, on going to Venice to engage a ship that could convey them to the Syrian shore, they found that the war then raging between this state and Soliman the Great, precluded all passage to the Holy Land.56 Disappointed in this purpose, their patriarch went to Rome, with his two companions of the greatest capacity, to devote themselves more especially to the cause and objects of the papacy, and to the propagation of the Catholic faith.57 The exertions which they had been hindered from making against the Mahometans, they resolved to direct against the Protestants; and from that time their society,58 which soon after obtained

Venice, they renewed their idea of the Jerusalem expedition. Lainius went to Rome, and obtained the pope's consent to their wishes; but assembling at Venice for their navigation, they could obtain no ship or passage, on account of the war. p. 39.

56 Ignatius, Faber, and Lainius went to Rome, ut sese Romano pontifici cæterorum nomine Catholicæ fidei propagationem et lucra consecrarent.' Orland. 42.

7 They assumed then the name of the Society of Jesus. Orland. 42. The name had been taken sixty years before them; for in 1477 was printed at Florence the Merito Sancto di Dio,' which declares itself to be composed by the bishop Di Fuligna, della congregatione di poveri Jesuati.'

58 Bobadilla was at first destined to these missions; but he falling sick, Francis Xavier, who was the first secretary of the Society, went in his stead. Orland. 50-62. And became distinguished for his exertions, his converts, and the legendary books which he made and circulated on the life of our Saviour and St. Peter. These eastern missions soon stretched into China. Ricci was the first Jesuit who entered it, and he dressed himselflike the Bonzes, and shaved intirely his head and beard. The Dominican, Ildefonzo, a natural son of Philip IV. in his Theatro Jesuitico, attacked their unchristian conformities and management in Japan and China. He states on the authority of a Franciscan, who was there in 1633, that their converts had nothing of Christianity but the baptism. Morale des Jesuites, p. 5. A Jesuit, Gaspar Ferreya, told him, that for thirty years he had never forced the Chinese Christians to hear

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BOOK its allowance and establishment from the pope Paul III., divided itself into two great paths :-one, the conversion of the Pagans in the East Indian hemisphere; and the other, which has made them so formidable in modern history, and which so particularly endangered Elizabeth, the conversion or suppression of all reformers and reformation, and of every sovereign and power that upheld them, or that should adopt their principles.

The obedience of the members of the society was,

mass; and that he knew no Jesuit who did, not even at Christmas and Easter; that he did not oblige them to abstain from meat, not even on Good Friday; nor to confess once a year; but that he left them at liberty in all these things, as works of supererogation. p.7. He also declares, that the Jesuits permitted them to continue their sacrifices to the idol Chin-hoam, and to Kunfuzu [Confucius, in which they offered a swine, a goat, wax candles, wine, flowers, and perfumes. p. 15, 16. Le Pere F. Dias, a Dominican, mentions, that When the Jesuits first entered China, they would not allow these sacrifices; but seeing that nobody would then be baptized, they altered their plan, and permitted them.' ib 31. They invented this device to satisfy their consciences in this allowance of idolatry: they hid a cross among the flowers of these idolatrous altars, and then taught, that if their converts addressed their attention to that, they might perform their ancient rites.' ib.38. Ricci introduced another Jesuit, Jules Aloni, to the emperor, to teach him mathematics, and the art military, in which he was well instructed; and thro this person's acceptability, the order established themselves gradually in the celestial empire.' p. 4. But jesuitism is not destined to be everlasting. While this page is printing, (October 1828,) I read that the final dismissal of their remaining fragments from China has now taken place. The Chinese Chronicle, just arrived in this country, states, that the emperor, who assumed the title of Taou Kwang, Reason's Light or Glory, has broken up the European establishment of imperial astronomers, by sending away the last remnants of French and Portuguese talent at Pekin. Some years ago, Padre L'Amiot was permitted to leave the empire. A short time previous to this, four Italian missionaries were dismissed. And recently the two last remnants of Schaal and Ricci's splendid hopes have been allowed or ordered to go home.' Record, 31 Oct. and the Daily Papers.

59 The language of their constitution is, 'Ut omnes perfectæ obedientiæ se dedant; superiorem, loco Christi agnoscentes et interna reverentia et amore eum persequentes not only in the external execution of what he enjoins, prompte fortiter, and without excuses and murmurs, however difficult or repugnant, but in the interior resignation of the mind, and true abrogation of their own will.' Regulæ Soc. Jesu, p. 11.

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to their general, implicit and unhesitating;" and his CHAP. obedience was made as submissive and absolute to the reigning pope." The more political direction and organization seem to have been given by those, who were its generals after the death of Laines, and peculiarly by Aquaviva, who governed it during the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth. Under him, it became a machine of the most dangerous activity and power. Its ambition aspired to the subjection of the world. It was one of their first principles, that their pupils should be as eager to suffer, as to dare and triumph. Hence they became as

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64

60 The letter of Ignatius, on this obedience, is appended to their rules, dated Rome, 7 Kal. April 1553, in which he lays down, that the obedience of each is to be to the proximos superiores' up to the general; and the general's erga illum quem Deus ipsi præfecit;' that is, his Vicarius on earth, ib. 229, or, The Pope.

61 After Laines, the next general or absolute commander of the society, was Fr. de Borgia, a descendant of the duke of Ghent, who governed it until the end of September 1572. Imago Soc. p. 596. Mercurian followed; and in 1581 Claude Aquaviva, one of the younger sons of the duke of Atri, was appointed its general. He was so great a favorite with Pius V. as to be made his chamberlain. He entered the society of the Jesuits at twenty-five, on 22d July 1567, and governed it for thirty-four years, until his death in 1615, at the age of 72. Moreri.

62 One of the numerous emblems by which it chose to express its principles in its Imago was, an application to itself of the A Archimedes. It is a cherub moving the whole globe by a complication of wheels and screws, which he turns by a handle, with the underwritten motto: Fac pedem figat: et terram movebit.' p. 321. A motto, a machinery, and a purpose, which, as long as the association subsists, ought in no age to be forgotten.

63 Their education and their emblems strenuously inculcated a fervency to endure all things, and to exult in martyrdom. It was a lucky chance that, in the names of their founder, and his most distinguished friend and disciple, they found an anagram which taught this sentiment. Ignatius and Xaverius make, by a transposition of the letters, 'Gavisi sunt vexari;' They rejoice to be tormented.' Im. p. 568. Reading one u as a v, which was an old form of printing this letter, the anagram is complete; and the characters and lives of these two primitive members fully illustrated the idea it expressed. One of their emblems on this point was an ox standing between an altar and a plough, with the sentence, In utrumque paratus -agere et pati.' p. 452. * The Imago particularizes these for the year 1626; Italy, four pro

11.

BOOK formidable as the disciples of the old man of the Syrian mountains, who seems to have been in the recollection of some of the successors of their founder. Within eighty-six years after their foundation, they had rooted themselves in every quarter of the globe, which, as if its imperial masters, they divided into Jesuit provinces: and that society which received the papal bull for its foundation, on condition that it should not exceed sixty members,65 could then enumerate nearly sixteen thousand as the amount of its admitted members; affiliated to each other and to their chiefs with unalterable fidelity and secrecy; sworn to obey him with unrepenting and never criticising devotion; and moving to every place and action with an unhesitating speed, which they themselves compared to the rapid and irresistible lightning. To spread Christianity among the

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vinces; Sicily, two; Sardinia, one ; Spain, France and Germany, each five; Belgium and Poland, each two; and England, one; with colleges, seminaries and residences for Ireland and Scotland. They had five stations in Turkey, and two Greek colonies. In the East Indies, their establishments were at Goa and Malabar: and also in the Philippines, in China, and in Japan. In America, from Canada to Chili, they had seven provinces, colonies and stations. Imago, p. 238-47. 65 The bull of Paul III. dated 5 Kal. October 1540, expressly says, Volumus autem quod in societate hujusmodi usque ad numerum sexaginta personarum et NON ULTRA admitti.' Mercure Jesuite, p. 259. But I observe that Ignatius, in his letter to cardinal Pole from Rome, 24 Jan. 1555, says, In the house of our profession, and in the Roman and German college, all things are going on better and better; for besides sixty persons inhabiting the domum professam, above seventy are in the college, and all sciences are taught, except those of law and medicine, with much fruit to ourselves and the external hearers, who exceed five hundred.' Ep. Poli. v. 5, p. 118; so that he soon enlarged the number of the society in some shape or other. 66 The numbers they state in each, make 15,493 persons in 1626. In the fourteen years which elapsed between that census and the publication of their work in 1640, they declare augmentations to have been made of more colleges and residences in every part. p. 247. They had by that time added ten residentia in Ireland, and call it a vice-provincia. ib.

67 The picture is lightning darting, with the words' Societas et

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heathen, was the operation of the moveable wings CHAP. of their enlarging body; but to combat the reformers and their Reformation in Europe, in every shape and by every means, and at every hazard, was the peculiar battle for which their members zealously prepared themselves, and to which their leaders urged and missioned the self-devoting bands.

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At that period, one of the most unfortunate tendencies of the human mind in the highest ranks, was a recklessness of human slaughter, and the use and patronage of assassination.

This propensity became more dreadful in its practice, when the consecrated orders of life both urged and taught it. We find the cardinal Granville, Philip's minister of state, secretly promoting the murder of the prince of Orange; and the same

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Missiones expedita.' Imago, 324. Another engraved emblem ingeniously implies some of their effecting means. It is a mirror, with the motto Omnibus, omnia.' ib. p. 452. Their engraved image of their prompt obedience to the pope is, a shepherd inciting and sending out his dog, with Emicat ad initium pastores,' p. 322. Another of this sort, for the comparisons which it implies, approaches impiety: It is the Deity giving commands to his angels. p. 325.

68 The Imago avows this, Luthero cum suis opponitur Ignatius et societas,' p. 552; and cites the words of the bull of Gregory XIII. in their support, Fines societatis, fidei propagatio et defensio,' ib.; but they pursued the warfare so implacably as to contrast themselves with Luther and the Protestants, with this manifest and coarse untruth, 'That infamous apostate, from corners and the lowest dregs of the people, brought forward into the field not only men illiterate, but notorious for their impiety and infamous life, and for the corruption of their morals-the foulest harpies of the sacred pages. On the other hand, our society of Jesuits opposes to this a noble legion, ready and quick in hand and tongue.' Imago, 552. Now certainly the patrons of the Reformation comprized some of the noblest, greatest, most learned, and most intelligent persons and minds of Europe, at the time when this sentence was written.

6

69 In his intercepted letter from Madrid, of 6 July 1580, to the provost Morillez, he censures the agent who had mentioned the band imperial contre l'Orangie.' He can no more keep a secret than a woman. It is not a band imperial, but the kings: 25 or 30,000 crowns will be paid to him, qui le donnera vif ou mort; c'est contre lui seul