CHAPTER XI

CULTURE

Colleges--Their Popularity--Revenues--Character of education:

Classics; Science; Philosophy; Art--Distinguished Pupils--Poets:

Southwell; Balde; Sarbievius; Strada; Von Spee; Gresset; Beschi.

--Orators: Vieira; Segneri; Bourdaloue.--Writers: Isla;

Ribadeneira; Skarga; Bouhours etc.--Historians--Publications--

Scientists and Explorers--Philosophers--Theologians--Saints.

To obviate the suspicion of any desire of self-glorification in the

account of what the Society has achieved in several fields of endeavor

especially in that of science, literature and education it will be safer

to quote from outside and especially from unfriendly sources.

Fortunately plenty of material is at hand for that purpose.

Böhmer-Monod, for instance, in "Les Jésuites" are surprisingly generous

in enumerating the educational establishments possessed by the Society

at one time all over Europe, though their explanation of the phenomenon

leaves much to be desired. In 1540, they tell us, "the Order counted

only ten regular members, and had no fixed residence. In 1556 it had

already twelve provinces, 79 houses, and about 1,000 members. In 1574

the figures went up to seventeen provinces, 125 colleges, 11 novitiates,

35 other establishments of various kinds, and 4,000 members. In 1608

there were thirty-one provinces, 306 colleges, 40 novitiates, 21

professed houses, 65 residences and missions, and 10,640 members. Eight

years afterwards, that is a year after the death of its illustrious

General Aquaviva, the Society had thirty-two provinces, 372 colleges, 41

novitiates, 123 residences, 13,112 members. Ten years later, namely in

1626, there were thirty-six provinces, 2 vice-provinces, 446 colleges,

37 seminaries, 40 novitiates, 24 professed houses, about 230 missions,

and 16,060 members. Finally in 1640 the statistics showed thirty-five

provinces, 3 vice-provinces, 521 colleges, 49 seminaries, 54 novitiates,

24 professed houses, about 280 residences and missions and more than

16,000 members."

Before giving these "cold statistics," as they are described, the

authors had conducted their readers through the various countries of

Europe, where this educational influence was at work. "Italy," we are

informed, "was the place in which the Society received its programme and

its constitution, and from which it extended its influence abroad. Its

success in that country was striking, and if the educated Italians

returned to the practices and the Faith of the Church, if it was

inspired with zeal for asceticism and the missions, if it set itself to

compose devotional poetry and hymns of the Church, and to consecrate to

the religious ideal, as if to repair the past, the brushes of its

painters and the chisels of its sculptors, is it not the fruit of the

education which the cultivated classes received from the Jesuits in the

schools and the confessionals? Portugal was the second fatherland of the

Society. There it was rapidly acclimated. Indeed, the country fell, at

one stroke, into the hands of the Order; whereas Spain had to be won

step by step. It met with the opposition of Spanish royalty, the higher

clergy, the Dominicans. Charles V distrusted them; Philip II tried to

make them a political machine, and some of the principal bishops were

dangerous foes, but in the seventeenth century the Society had won over

the upper classes and the court, and soon Spain had ninety-eight

colleges and seminaries richly endowed, three professed houses, five

novitiates, and four residences, although the population of the country

at that time was scarcely 5,000,000.

"In France a few Jesuit scholars presented themselves at the university

in the year 1540. They were frowned upon by the courts, the clergy, the

parliament, and nearly all the learned societies. It was only in 1561,

after the famous Colloque de Poissy, that the Society obtained legal

recognition and was allowed to teach, and in 1564 it had already ten

establishments, among them several colleges. One of the colleges, that

of Clermont, became the rival of the University of Paris, and

Maldonatus, who taught there, had a thousand pupils following his

lectures. In 1610 there were five French provinces with a total of

thirty-six colleges, five novitiates, one professed house, one mission,

and 1400 members. La Flèche, founded by Henry IV, had 1,200 pupils. In

1640 the Society in France had sixty-five colleges, two academies, two

seminaries, nine boarding-schools, seven novitiates, four professed

houses, sixteen residences and 2050 members.

"In Germany Canisius founded a boarding school in Vienna, with free

board for poor scholars, as early as 1554. In 1555 he opened a great

college in Prague; in 1556, two others at Ingolstadt and Cologne

respectively, and another at Munich in 1559. They were all founded by

laymen, for, with the exception of Cardinal Truchsess of Augsburg, the

whole episcopacy was at first antagonistic to the Order. In 1560 they

found the Jesuits their best stand-by, and in 1567 the Fathers had

thirteen richly endowed schools, seven of which were in university

cities. The German College founded by Ignatius in Rome was meantime

filling Germany with devoted and learned priests and bishops, and

between 1580 and 1590 Protestantism disappeared from Treves, Mayence,

Augsburg, Cologne, Paderborn, Münster and Hildesheim. Switzerland gave

them Fribourg in 1580, while Louvain had its college twenty years

earlier.

"In 1556 eight Fathers and twelve scholastics made their appearance at

Ingolstadt in Bavaria. The poison of heresy was immediately ejected, and

the old Church took on a new life. The transformation was so prodigious

that it would seem rash to attribute it to these few strangers; but

their strength was in inverse proportion to their number. They captured

the heart and the head of the country, from the court and the local

university down to the people; and for centuries they held that

position. After Ingolstadt came Dillingen and Würzburg. Munich was

founded in 1559, and in 1602 it had 900 pupils. The Jesuits succeeded in

converting the court into a convent, and Munich into a German Rome. In

1597 they were entrusted with the superintendence of all the primary

schools of the country, and they established new colleges at Altoetting

and Mindelheim. In 1621 fifty of them went into the Upper Palatinate,

which was entirely Protestant, and in ten years they had established

four new colleges.

"In Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola there was scarcely a vestige of the

old Church in 1571. In 1573 the Jesuits established a college at Grätz,

and the number of communicants in that city rose immediately from 20 to

500. The college was transformed into a university twelve years later,

and in 1602 and 1613 new colleges were opened at Klagenfurth and Leoben.

In Bohemia and Moravia they had not all the secondary schools, but the

twenty colleges and eleven seminaries which they controlled in 1679

proved that at least the higher education and the formation of

ecclesiastics was altogether in their hands, and the seven

establishments and colleges on the northern frontier overlooking

Lutheran Saxony made it evident that they were determined to guard

Bohemia against the poison of heresy." The writer complains that they

even dared to dislodge "Saint John Huss" from his niche and put in his

place St. John Nepomucene, "who was at most a poor victim, and by no

means a saint." Böhmer's translator, Monod, adds a note here to inform

his readers that the Jesuits invented the legend about St. John

Nepomucene, and induced Benedict XIII to canonize him.

Finally, we reach Poland where, we are informed that "the Jesuits

enjoyed an incredible popularity. In 1600 the college of Polotsk had 400

students, all of whom were nobles; Vilna had 800, mostly belonging to

the Lithuanian nobility, and Kalisch had 500. Fifty years later, all the

higher education was in the hands of the Order, and Ignatius became,

literally, the _preceptor Poloniæ_, and Poland the classic land of the

royal scholarship of the north, as Portugal was in the south.

"In India, there were nineteen colleges and two seminaries; in Mexico,

fourteen colleges and two seminaries; in Brazil, thirteen colleges and

two seminaries; in Paraguay, seven colleges," and the authors might have

added, there was a college in Quebec, which antedated the famous Puritan

establishment of Harvard in New England, and which was erected not "out

of the profits of the fur trade," as Renaudot says in the Margry

Collection, but out of the inheritance of a Jesuit scholastic.

After furnishing their readers with this splendid list of houses of

education, the question is asked: "How can we explain this incredible

success of the Order as a teaching body? If we are to believe the sworn

enemies of the Jesuits, it is because they taught gratuitously, and thus

starved out the legitimate successors of the Humanists. That might

explain it somewhat, they say, especially in southern Italy, where the

nobleman is always next door to the lazzarone, but it will by no means

explain how so many princes and municipalities made such enormous

outlays to support those schools; for there were other orders in

Catholic countries as rigidly orthodox as the Jesuits. No; the great

reason of their success must be attributed to the superiority of their

methods. Read the pedagogical directions of Ignatius, the great

scholastic ordinances of Aquaviva, and the testimony of contemporaries,

and you will recognize the glory of Loyola as an educator. The expansion

is truly amazing; from a modest association of students to a world-wide

power which ended by becoming as universal as the Church for which it

fought; but superior to it in cohesion and rapidity of action--a world

power whose influence made itself felt not only throughout Europe, but

in the New World, in India, China, Japan; a world power on whose service

one sees at work, actuated by the same spirit, representatives of all

races and all nations: Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, French, Germans,

English, Poles and Greeks, Arabians, Chinamen and Japanese and even red

Indians; a world power which is something such as the world has never

seen."

Another explanation is found in the vast wealth which "from the

beginning was the most important means employed by the Order." We are

assured that the Jesuits have observed on this point such an absolute

reserve that it is still impossible to write a history or draw up an

inventory of their possessions. But, perhaps it might be answered that

if an attempt were also made to penetrate "the absolute reserve" of

those who have robbed the Jesuits of all their splendid colleges and

libraries and churches and residences which may be seen in every city

of Europe and Spanish America, with the I.H.S. of the Society still on

their portals, some progress might be made in at least drawing up an

inventory of their possessions.

As a matter of fact the Jesuits have laid before the public the

inventories of their possessions and those plain and undisguised

statements could easily be found if there was any sincere desire to get

at the truth. Thus Foley has published in his "Records of the English

Province" (Introd., 139) an exact statement of the annual revenues of

the various houses for one hundred and twenty years. Dühr in the

"Jesuiten-fabeln" (606 sqq.) gives many figures of the same kind for

Germany. Indeed the Society has been busy from the beginning trying to

lay this financial ghost. Thus a demand for the books was made as early

as 1594 by Antoine Arnauld who maintained that the French Jesuits

enjoyed an annual revenue of 1,200,000 livres, which in our day would

amount to $1,800,000. Possibly some of the reverend Fathers nourished

the hope that he might be half right, but an official scrutiny of the

accounts revealed the sad fact that their twenty-five colleges and

churches with a staff of from 400 to 500 persons could only draw on

60,000 livres; which meant at our values $90,000 a year--a lamentably

inadequate capital for the gigantic work which had been undertaken.

Arnaulds under different names have been appearing ever since.

How this "vast wealth" is accumulated, might also possibly be learned by

a visit to the dwelling-quarters of any Jesuit establishment, so as to

see at close range the method of its domestic economy. Every member of

the Society, no matter how distinguished he is or may have been,

occupies a very small, uncarpeted room whose only furniture is a desk, a

bed, a wash-stand, a clothes-press, a prie-dieu, and a couple of

chairs. On the whitewashed wall there is probably a cheap print of a

pious picture which suggests rather than inspires devotion. This room

has to be swept and cared for by the occupant, even when he is advanced

in age or has been conspicuous in the Society, "unless for health's sake

or for reasons of greater moment he may need help." The clothing each

one wears is cheap and sometimes does service for years; there is a

common table; no one has any money of his own, and he has to ask even

for carfare if he needs it. If he falls sick he is generally sent to an

hospital where, according to present arrangements, the sisters nurse him

for charity, and he is buried in the cheapest of coffins, and an

inexpensive slab is placed over his remains.

Now it happens that this method of living admits of an enormous saving,

and it explains how the 17,000 Jesuits who are at present in the Society

are able not only to build splendid establishments for outside students,

but to support a vast number of young men of the Order who are pursuing

their studies of literature, science, philosophy, and theology, and who

are consequently bringing in nothing whatever to the Society for a

period of eleven years, during which time they are clothed, fed, cared

for when sick, given the use of magnificent libraries, scientific

apparatus, the help of distinguished professors, travel, and even the

luxuries of villas in the mountains or by the sea during the heats of

summer. It will, perhaps, be a cause of astonishment to many people to

hear that this particular section of the Order, thanks to common life

and economic arrangements, could be maintained year after year when

conditions were normal at the amazingly small outlay of $300 or $400 a

man. Of course, some of the Jesuit houses have been founded, and devoted

friends have frequently come to their rescue by generous donations, but

it is on record that in the famous royal foundation of La Flèche,

established by Henry IV, where one would have expected to find plenty of

money, the Fathers who were making a reputation in France by their

ability as professors and preachers and scientific men were often

compelled to borrow each other's coats to go out in public. Such is the

source of Jesuit wealth. "They coin their blood for drachmas."

Failing to explain the Jesuits' pedagogical success by their wealth, it

has been suggested that their popularity in the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries arose from the fact that it was considered to be

"good form" to send one's boys to schools which were frequented by

princes and nobles; but that would not explain how they were,

relatively, just as much favored in India and Peru as in Germany or

France. Indeed there was an intense opposition to them in France,

particularly on the part of the great educational centres of the

country, the universities: first, because the Jesuits gave their

services for nothing, and secondly because the teaching was better, but

chiefly, according to Boissier, who cites the authority of three

distinguished German pedagogues of the sixteenth century--Baduel, Sturm,

and Cordier--"because to the disorder of the university they opposed the

discipline of their colleges, and at the end of three or four years of

higher studies, regularly graduated classes of upright, well-trained

men." (Revue des Deux Mondes, Dec., 1882, pp. 596, 610).

Compayré, who once figured extensively in the field of pedagogical

literature, finds this moral control an objection. He says it was making

education subsidiary to a "religious propaganda." If this implies that

the Society considers that the supreme object of education is to make

good Christian men out of their pupils, it accepts the reproach with

pleasure; and, there is not a Jesuit in the world who would not walk

out of his class to-morrow, if he were told that he had nothing to do

with the spiritual formation of those committed to his charge.

Assuredly, to ask a young man in all the ardor of his youth to sacrifice

every worldly ambition and happiness to devote himself to teaching boys

grammar and mathematics, to be with them in their sports, to watch over

them in their sleep, to be annoyed by their thoughtlessness and

unwillingness to learn; to be, in a word, their servant at every hour of

the day and night, for years, is not calculated to inflame the heart

with enthusiasm. The Society knows human nature better, and from the

beginning, its only object has been to develop a strong Christian spirit

in its pupils and to fit them for their various positions in life. It is

precisely because of this motive that it has incurred so much hatred,

and there can be no doubt that if it relinquished this object in its

schools, it would immediately enjoy a perfect peace in every part of the

world.

Nor can their educational method be charged with being an insinuating

despotism, as Compayré insists, which robs the student of the most

precious thing in life, personal liberty; nor, as Herr describes it, "a

sweet enthrallment and a deformation of character by an unfelt and

continuous pressure" (Revue universitaire, I, 312). "The Jesuit," he

says, "teaches his pupils only one thing, namely to obey," which we are

told, "is, as M. Aulard profoundly remarks, the same thing as to please"

(Enquête sur l'enseignement secondaire, I, 460). In the hands of the

Jesuit, Gabriel Hanotaux tells us, the child soon becomes a mechanism,

an automaton, apt for many things, well-informed, polite,

self-restrained, brilliant, a doctor at fifteen, and a fool ever after.

They become excellent children, delightful children, who think well,

obey well, recite well, and dance well, but they remain children all

their lives. Two centuries of scholars were taught by the Jesuits, and

learned the lessons of Jesuits, the morality of the Jesuits, and that

explains the decadence of character after the great sixteenth century.

If there had not been something in our human nature, a singular resource

and things that can not be killed, it was all up with France, where the

Order was especially prosperous.

As an offset to this ridiculous charge, the names of a few of "this army

of incompetents," these men marked by "decadence of character," might be

cited. On the registers of Jesuit schools are the names of Popes,

Cardinals, bishops, soldiers, magistrates, statesmen, jurists,

philosophers, theologians, poets and saints. Thus we have Popes Gregory

XIII, Benedict XIV, Pius VII, Leo XIII, St. Francis of Sales, Cardinal

de Bérulle, Bossuet, Belzunce, Cardinal de Fleury, Cardinal Frederico

Borromeo, Fléchier, Cassini, Séquier, Montesquieu, Malesherbes, Tasso,

Galileo, Corneille, Descartes, Molière, J. B. Rousseau, Goldoni,

Tournefort, Fontenelle, Muratori, Buffon, Gresset, Canova, Tilly,

Wallenstein, Condé, the Emperors Ferdinand and Maximilian, and many of

the princes of Savoy, Nemours and Bavaria. Even the American

Revolutionary hero, Baron Steuben, was a pupil of theirs in Prussia, and

omitting many others, nearly all the great men of the golden age of

French literature received their early training in the schools of the

Jesuits.

It is usual when these illustrious names are referred to, for someone to

say: "Yes, but you educated Voltaire." The implied reproach is quite

unwarranted, for although François Arouet, later known as Voltaire, was

a pupil at Louis-le-Grand, his teachers were not at all responsible for

the attitude of mind which afterwards made him so famous or infamous.

That was the result of his home training from his earliest infancy. In

the first place, his mother was the intimate friend of the shameless and

scoffing courtesan of the period, Ninon de l'Enclos, and his god-father

was Chateauneuf, one of the dissolute abbés of those days, whose only

claim to their ecclesiastical title was that, thanks to their family

connections, they were able to live on the revenues of some

ecclesiastical establishment. This disreputable god-father had the

additional distinction of being one of Ninoñ's numerous lovers. It was

he who had his _fileul_ named in her will, and he deliberately and

systematically taught him to scoff at religion, long before the

unfortunate child entered the portals of Louis-le-Grand. Indeed,

Voltaire's mockery of the miracles of the Bible was nothing but a

reminiscence of the poem known as the "Moïsade" which had been put in

his hands by Chateauneuf and which he knew by heart. The wonder is that

the Jesuits kept the poor boy decent at all while he was under their

tutelage. Immorality and unbelief were in his home training and blood.

Another objection frequently urged is that the Jesuits were really

incapable of teaching Latin, Greek, mathematics or philosophy, and that

in the last mentioned study they remorselessly crushed all originality.

To prove the charge about Latin, Gazier, a doctor of the Sorbonne,

exhibited a "Conversation latine, par Mathurin Codier, Jésuite."

Unfortunately for the accuser, however, it was found out that Codier not

only was not a Jesuit, but was one of the first Calvinists of France.

Greek was taught in the lowest classes; and in the earliest days the

Society had eminent Hellenists who attracted the attention of the

learned world, such as: Gretser, Viger, Jouvancy, Rapin, Brumoy, Grou,

Fronton du Duc, Pétau, Sirmond, Garnier and Labbe. The last mentioned

was the author of eighty works and his "Tirocinium linguæ græcæ" went

through thirteen or fourteen editions. At Louis-le-Grand there were

verses and discourses in Greek at the closing of the academic year.

Bernis says he used to dream in Greek. There were thirty-two editions of

Gretser's "Rudimenta linguæ græcæ," and seventy-five of his

"Institutiones." Huot, when very young, began a work on Origen, and

Bossuet, when still at college, became an excellent Greek scholar. They

were both Jesuit students.

"The Jesuits were also responsible for the collapse of scientific

studies," says Compayré (193,197). The answer to this calumny is easily

found in the "Monumenta pedagogica Societatis Jesu" (71-78), which

insists that "First of all, teachers of mathematics should be chosen who

are beyond the ordinary, and who are known for their erudition and

authority." This whole passage in the "Monumenta," was written by the

celebrated Clavius. Surely it would be difficult to get a man who knew

more about mathematics than Clavius. It will be sufficient to quote the

words of Lalande, one of the greatest astronomers of France, who, it may

be noted incidentally, was a pupil of the Jesuits. In 1800 he wrote as

follows: "Among the most absurd calumnies which the rage of Protestants

and Jansenists exhale against the Jesuits, I found that of La Chalotais,

who carried his ignorance and blindness to such a point as to say that

the Jesuits had never produced any mathematicians. I happened to be just

then writing my book on 'Astronomy,' and I had concluded my article on

'Jesuit Astronomers,' whose numbers astonished me. I took occasion to

see La Chalotais, at Saintes, on July 20, 1773, and reproached him with

his injustice, and he admitted it."

"As for history," says Compayré, "it was expressly enjoined by the

'Ratio' that its teaching should be superficial." And his assertion,

because of his assumed authority, is generally accepted as true,

especially as he adduces the very text of the injunction which says:

"Historicus celerius excurrendus," namely "let historians be run through

more rapidly." Unfortunately, however, the direction did not apply to

the study of history at all, but to the study of Latin, and meant that

authors like Livy, Tacitus, and Cæsar were to be gone through more

expeditiously than the works of Cicero, for example, who was to be

studied chiefly for his exquisite style. In brief, the charge has no

other basis than a misreading, intentional or otherwise, of a school

regulation.

The same kind of tactics are employed to prove that no philosophy was

taught in those colleges, in spite of the fact that it was a common

thing for princes and nobles and statesmen to come not only to listen to

philosophical disputations in the colleges, in which they themselves had

been trained, but to take part in them. That was one of Condé's

pleasures; and the Intendant of Canada, the illustrious Talon, was fond

of urging his syllogisms against the defenders in the philosophical

tournaments of the little college of Quebec. Nor were those pupils

merely made to commit to memory the farrago of nonsense which every

foolish philosopher of every age and country had uttered, as is now the

method followed in non-Catholic colleges. The Jesuit student is

compelled not only to state but to prove his thesis, to refute

objections against it, to retort on his opponents, to uncover sophisms

and so on. In brief, philosophy for him is not a matter of memory but of

intelligence. As for independence of thought, a glance at their history

will show that perhaps no religious teachers have been so frequently

cited before the Inquisition on that score, and none to whom so many

theological and philosophical errors have been imputed by their enemies,

but whose orthodoxy is their glory and consolation.

Their failure to produce anything in the way of painting or sculpture

has also afforded infinite amusement to the critics, although it is like

a charge against an Academy of Medicine for not having produced any

eminent lawyers, or vice versa. It is true that Brother Seghers had

something to do with his friend Rubens, and that a Spanish coadjutor was

a sculptor of distinction, and that a third knew something about

decorating churches, and that two were painters in ordinary for the

Emperor of China, but whose masterpieces however have happily not been

preserved. Hüber, an unfriendly author, writing about the Jesuits, names

Courtois, known as Borgognone, by the Italians, who was a friend of

Guido Reni; Dandini, Latri, Valeriani d'Aquila and Castiglione, none of

whom, however, has ever been heard of by the average Jesuit. An eminent

scholar once suggested that possibly the elaborate churches of the

Compañía, which are found everywhere in the Spanish-American

possessions, may have been the work of the lay-brothers of the Society.

But a careful search in the menologies of the Spanish assistancy has

failed to reveal that such was the case. That, however, may be a piece

of good fortune, for otherwise the Society might have to bear the

responsibility of those overwrought constructions, in addition to the

burden which is on it already of having perpetrated what is known as the

"Jesuit Style" of architecture. From the latter accusation, however, a

distinguished curator of the great New York Metropolitan Museum of Art,

Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke, in an address to an assembly of artists and

architects, completely exonerated the Society. "The Jesuit Style," he

said, "was in existence before their time, and," he was good enough to

add, "being gentlemen, they did not debase it, but on the contrary

elevated and ennobled it and made it worthy of artistic consideration."

So, too, the Order has not been conspicuous for its poets. One of them,

however, Robert Southwell, was a martyr, and wore a crown that was

prized far more by his brethren than the laurels of a bard. He was born

at Norfolk on February 21, 1561, and entered the Society at Rome in

1578. Singularly enough, the first verses that bubbled up from his

heart, at least of those that are known, were evoked by his grief at not

being admitted to the novitiate. He was too young to be received, for he

was only seventeen, and conditions in England did not allow it; but his

merit as a poet may be inferred from an expression of Ben Jonson that he

would have given many of his works to have written Southwell's "Burning

Babe," and, according to the "Cambridge History of Literature" (IV,

129), "though Southwell may never have read Shakespeare, it is certain

that Shakespeare read Southwell." Of course, his poems are not numerous,

for though he may have meditated on the Muse while he was hiding in out

of the way places during the persecutions, he was scarcely in a mood to

do so when he was flung into a filthy dungeon, or when he was stretched

on the rack thirteen different times as a prelude to being hanged, drawn

and quartered at Tyburn.

Eleven years after that tragedy, Jacob Balde was born in the imperial

free town of Ensisheim in Alsace. He studied the classics and rhetoric

in the Jesuit college of that place, and philosophy and law at

Ingolstadt, where he became a Jesuit on July 1, 1624. To amuse himself,

when professor of rhetoric, he wrote his mock-heroic of the battle of

the frogs and mice, "Batrachomyomachia." His mastery of classical Latin

and the consummate ease with which he handled the ancient verse made him

the wonder of the day. "His patriotic accents," says Herder, "made him a

German poet for all time." The tragedies of the Thirty Years War urged

him to strive to awaken the old national spirit in the hearts of the

people. He was chiefly a lyrist, and was hailed as the German Horace,

but he was at home in epic, drama, elegy, pastoral poetry and satire. Of

course, he wrote in Latin, which was the language of the cultured

classes, for German was then too crude and unwieldy to be employed as a

vehicle for poetry. His works fill eight volumes.

No less a personage than Isaac Watts, the English hymnologist, makes

Mathias Sarbiewski (Sarbievius), the Pole, another Horace, though his

poetry was mostly Pindaric. Grotius puts him above Horace (Brucker,

505). He was a court preacher, a companion of the king in his travels, a

musician and an artist. He wrote four books of lyrics, a volume of

epodes, another of epigrams, and there is a posthumous work of his

called "Silviludia." His muse was both religious and patriotic, and

because of the former, he was called by the Pope to help in the revision

of the hymns of the Breviary; and for that work he was crowned by King

Wladislaw. His prose works run into eight volumes. There are twenty-two

translations of his poems in Polish, and there are others in German,

Italian, Flemish, Bohemian, English and French.

Gosse in his "Seventeenth Century Studies" says that Famian Strada who

wrote "The Nightingale" was not professedly a poet but a lecturer on

rhetoric. "The Nightingale" was first published in Rome in 1617 in a

volume of "Prolusiones" on rhetoric and poetry, and occurs in the sixth

lecture of the second course. "This Jesuit Rhetorician," Gosse informs

us, "had been trying to familiarize his pupils with the style of the

great Classic poets, by reciting to them passages in imitation of Ovid,

Lucretius, Lucian and others. 'This,' he told them 'is an imitation of

the style of Claudian,' and so he gives us the lines which have become

so famous. That a single fragment in a schoolbook should so suddenly

take root and blossom in European literature, when all else that its

voluminous author wrote and said was promptly forgotten, is very curious

but not unprecedented." In England, the first to adopt the poem was John

Ford in his play of "The Lover's Melancholy" in 1629; Crashaw came next

with his "Music's Duel," Ambrose Philips essayed it a century later; and

in our own days, François Coppée introduced it with charming effect in

his "Luthier de Crémone."

The French Jesuit Sautel was a contemporary of Strada and Balde. He was

considered the Ovid of his time, and was as remarkable for the holiness

of his life as for his unusual poetical ability.

About this time, there was a German Jesuit, named Jacob Masen or

Masenius, who was a professor of rhetoric in Cologne, and died in 1681.

Among his manuscripts found after his death were three volumes, the

first of which was a treatise on general literature, the second a

collection of lyrics, epics, elegies etc., and the third a number of

dramas. In the second manuscript was an epic entitled "Sarcotis." The

world would never have known anything about "Sarcotis" had not a

Scotchman, named Lauder, succeeded in finding it, somewhere, about 1753,

i. e. seventy-two years after Masen's death. He ran it through the press

immediately, to prove that Milton had copied it in his "Paradise Lost."

Whereupon all England rose in its wrath to defend its idol. Lauder was

convicted of having intercalated in the "Sarcotis," a Latin translation

of some of the lines of "Paradise Lost," and had to hide himself in some

foreign land to expiate his crime against the national infatuation. Four

years later (1757), Abbé Denouart published a translation of the genuine

text of "Sarcotis." The poem was found to be an excellent piece of work,

and like "Paradise Lost," its theme was the disobedience of Adam and

Eve, their expulsion from Paradise, the disasters consequent upon this

sin of pride. Whether Milton ever read "Sarcotis" is not stated.

Frederick von Spee is another Jesuit poet. He was born at Kaiserwerth on

the Rhine on February 25, 1591, entered the Society in 1610, and

studied, taught and preached for many years like the rest of his

brethren. An attempt to assassinate him was made in 1629. He was in

Treves, when it was stormed by the imperial forces in 1635, witnessed

all its horrors, and died from an infection which he caught while

nursing the sick and wounded soldiers in the hospital. It was only in

the stormy period of his life that he wrote in verse. Two of his works,

the "Goldenes Tugendbuch," and the "Trutznachtigal" were published after

his death. The former was highly prized by Leibniz as a book of

devotion. The latter, which has in recent times been repeatedly

reprinted and revised, occupies a conspicuous place among the lyrical

collection of the seventeenth century. His principal work, however, the

one, in fact, which gave him a world-wide reputation, (a result he was

not aiming at, for the book was probably published without his consent),

is the "Cautio Criminalis," which virtually ended the witchcraft trials.

It is written in exquisite Latin, and describes with thrilling vividness

and cutting sarcasm the horrible abuses in the prevailing legal

proceedings, particularly the use of the rack. The moral impression

produced by the work soon put a stop to the atrocities in many places,

though many a generation had to pass before witch-burning ceased in

Germany.

Perhaps it may be worth while to mention the wonderful Beschi, a

missionary in Madura, whose Tamil poetry ordinary mortals will never

have the pleasure of enjoying. Besides writing Tamil grammars and

dictionaries, as well as doctrinal works for his converts, not to speak

of his books of controversy against the Danish Lutherans who attempted

to invade the missions, he wrote a poem of eleven hundred stanzas in

honor of St. Quiteria, and another known as the "Unfading Garland,"

which is said to be a Tamil classic. It is divided into thirty-six

cantos, containing in all 3615 stanzas. Baumgartner calls it an epic

which for richness and beauty of language, for easy elegance of metre,

true poetical conception and execution, is the peer of the native

classics, while in nobility of thought and subject matter it is superior

to them as the harmonious civilization of Christianity is above the

confused philosophical dreams and ridiculous fables of idolatry. It is

in honor of St. Joseph. His satire known as "The Adventures of Guru

Paramarta" is the most entertaining book of Tamil literature. Beschi

himself translated it into Latin; it has also appeared in English,

French, German and Italian.

These are about the only poets of very great prominence the Society can

boast of; but though she rejoices in the honor they won, she regards

their song only as an accidental attraction in the lives of those

distinguished children of hers. What she cherishes most is the piety of

Sarbiewski and Balde, the martyrdom of charity gladly accepted by von

Spee, the missionary ardor of Beschi, and the blood offering made by

Southwell to restore the Faith to his unhappy country.

Apart from these, Gresset also may be claimed as a Jesuit poet, but

unfortunately it was his poetry that blasted his career as an apostle,

for the epicureanism of one of his effusions compelled his dismissal

from the Society. His brilliant talents counted for nothing in such a

juncture. He left the Order with bitter regret on his part, but never

lost his affection for it, and never failed to defend it against its

calumniators. His "Adieux aux Jésuites" is a classic. In vain Voltaire

and Frederick the Great invited him to Potsdam. He loathed them both,

and withdrew to Amiens, where he spent the last eighteen years of his

life in seclusion, prayer and penance, never leaving the place except

twice in all that time. On both occasions it was to go to the French

Academy, of which his great literary ability had made him a member. In

1750 he founded at Amiens the Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters

which still exists. It is said that before he died he burned all his

manuscripts, and one cannot help regretting that instead of publishing

he had not committed to the flames the poem that caused his withdrawal

from the Society. For Gresset the Jesuits have always had a great

tenderness, and it might be added here that he is a fair sample of most

of those who, for one reason or another, have severed their connection

with the Society. There have been only a few instances to the contrary,

and even they repented before they died.

In the matter of oratory, the Society has had some respectable

representatives as for example, that extraordinary genius, Vieira, the

man whose stormy eloquence put an end to the slavery of the Indians in

Brazil, and whose "Discourse for the success of the Portuguese arms,"

pronounced when the Dutch were besieging Bahia in 1640, was described by

the sceptical Raynal to be "the most extraordinary outburst of

Christian eloquence." He is considered to have been one of the world's

masters of oratory of his time, and to have been equally great in the

cathedrals of Europe and the rude shrines of the Maranhão. He was

popular, practical, profoundly original and frequently sublime. He has

left fifteen volumes of sermons alone. Though brought up in Brazil he is

regarded as a Portuguese classic.

Paolo Segneri, who died in 1694, is credited with being, after St.

Bernardine of Siena and Savonarola, Italy's greatest orator. For

twenty-seven years he preached all through the Peninsula. His eloquence

was surpassed only by his holiness, and to the ardor of an apostle he

added the austerities of a penitent. He has been translated into many

languages, even into Arabic.

Omitting many others, for we are mentioning only the supereminently

great, there is a Bourdaloue, who is entitled by even the enemies of the

Society the _prédicateur des rois et le roi des prédicateurs_ (the

preacher of kings and the king of preachers.) For thirty-four years he

preached to the most exacting audience in the world, the brilliant

throngs that gathered around Louis XIV, and till the end, it was almost

impossible to approach the church when he was to occupy the pulpit.

Lackeys were on guard days before the sermon. The "Edinburgh Review" of

December, 1826, says of him: "Between Massillon and Bossuet, at a great

distance certainly above the latter, stands Bourdaloue, and in the vigor

and energy of his reasoning he was undeniably, after the ancients,

Massillon's model. If he is more harsh, and addressed himself less to

the feelings and passions, it is certain that he displays a fertility of

resources and an exuberance of topics, either for observation or

argument, which are not equalled by any orator, sacred or profane. It is

this fertility, this birthmark of genius, that makes us certain of

finding in every subject handled by him, something new, something which

neither his predecessors have anticipated nor his followers have

imitated."

To this Protestant testimony may be added that of the Jansenist

Sainte-Beuve in his "Causeries du Lundi." His estimate of Bourdaloue is

as follows: "I know all that can be said and that is said about Bossuet.

But let us not exaggerate. Bossuet was sublime in his 'Funeral

Orations', but he had not the same excellence in his sermons. He was

uneven and unfinished. In that respect, even while Bossuet was still

living, Bourdaloue was his master. That was the opinion of their

contemporaries, and doubtless of Bossuet himself. Unlike Bossuet,

Bourdaloue did not hold the thunders in his hand, nor did the lightnings

flash around his pulpit, nor, like Massillon, did he pour out perfumes

from his urn. But he was the orator, such as he alone could have been,

who for thirty-four years in succession could preach and be useful. He

did not spend himself all at once, did not gain lustre by a few

achievements, nor startle by some of those splendid utterances which

carry men away and evoke their plaudits; but he lasted; he built up with

perfect surety; he kept on incessantly, and his power was like an army

whose work is not merely to gain one or two battles, but to establish

itself in the heart of the enemy's country and stay there. That is the

wonderful achievement of the man whom his contemporaries called 'The

Great Bourdaloue', and whom people obstinately persist in describing as

'the judicious and estimable Bourdaloue.'

"He had what was called the _imperatoria virtus_, that sovereign quality

of a general who rules every alignment and every step of his soldiers,

so that nothing moves them but his command. Such is the impression

conveyed by the structure of his discourses; by their dialectical form,

by their solid demonstrations, which move forward from the start, first

by pushing ahead the advance corps, then dividing his battalions into

two or three groups, and finally establishing a line of battle facing

the consciences of his hearers. On one occasion, when he was about to

preach at St. Sulpice there was a noise in the church because of the

crowd, when above the tumult the voice of Condé was heard, shouting, as

Bourdaloue entered the pulpit: 'Silence! Behold the enemy!'"

We may subjoin to these two appreciations the judgment of the Abbé

Maury, himself a great orator. He is cited by Sainte-Beuve: "Bourdaloue

is more equal and restrained than Bossuet in the beauty and incomparable

richness of his designs and plans, which seem like unique conceptions in

the art and control of a discourse wherein he is without a rival; in his

dialectic power, in his didactic and steady progress, in his ever

increasing strength, in his exact and serried logic, and in the

sustained eloquence of his ratiocination, in the solidity and opulence

of his doctrinal preaching he is inexhaustible and unapproachable."

Sainte-Beuve adds to this eulogy: "Bourdaloue's life and example

proclaim with a still louder emphasis, that to be eloquent to the end,

to be so, both far and near, to wield authority and to compel attention,

whether on great or startling, simple or useful themes, you must have

what is the principle and source of it all, the virtue of Bourdaloue."

With the exception of Padre Isla, the satirist, and Baltasar Gracián,

author of "Worldly Wisdom" and of "El Criticón," which seems to have

suggested Robinson Crusoe to Defoe, the Society has not produced any

very remarkable prose writer in the lighter kind of literature, and

perhaps even their style in other kinds of writing may have suffered

because of the intensity and rapidity with which they were compelled to

work. Nevertheless some of them are said to be classics in their

respective languages as, for instance, Vieira in Portuguese, Ribadeneira

in Spanish, and Skarga in Polish. The Frenchman, Dominique Bouhours, is

perhaps the one who is most remarkable in this respect. Petit de

Julleville in his "Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française"

says that "Bouhours was incontestably the master of correct writing in

his generation. The statutes of the Jesuits prevented him from being an

Academician, but he 'was something better,' as someone said when the

Father was striving to evade him: 'Academiam tu mihi solus facis--For me

you constitute the Academy.' Not only in his Order was he considered the

official censor, under whose eyes all sorts of writings had to pass,

even those of Maimbourg and Bourdaloue, but people came from all parts

of the literary world to consult him. Saint-Evremond and Bossuet were

only too glad to be guided by him. The President Lamoigno submitted to

him his official pronouncements, and Racine sent his poems with the

request to 'mark the faults that might have been made in the language of

which you are one of the most excellent judges.' In the history of the

French language Bouhours left no date--he made an epoch."

The Jesuits were also literary arbiters in countries and surroundings

where there was no Bouhours. Thus the Society had four or five hundred

grammarians and lexicographers of the languages of almost every race

under the sun. Wherever the missionaries went, their first care was to

compile a dictionary and make a grammar of the speech of the natives

among whom they were laboring, and if the learned world at present knows

anything at all of the language of vast numbers of aboriginal tribes

who have now vanished from the earth, it is due to the labors of the

Jesuit missionaries.

But this was only an infinitesimal part of their literary output. In his

"Bibliothèque des écrivains de la compagnie de Jésus," which is itself a

stupendous literary achievement, Sommervogel has already drawn up a list

of 120,000 Jesuit authors and he has restricted himself to those who

have ceased from their labors on earth and are now only busy in reading

the book of life. Nor do these 120,000 authors merely connote 120,000

books; for some of these writers were most prolific in their

publications. The illustrious Gretser, for instance, "the Hammer of

Heretics," as he was called, is credited with two hundred and

twenty-nine titles of printed works and thirty-nine MSS. which range

over the whole field of erudition open to his times: archæology,

numismatics, theology, philology, polemics, liturgy, and so on. Kircher,

who died in 1680, wrote about everything. During the time he sojourned

in Rome, he issued forty-four folio volumes on subjects that are

bewildering in their diversity and originality: hieroglyphics,

astronomy, astrology, medico-physics, linguistics, ethnology, horoscopy,

and what not else besides. We owe to him the earliest counting-machine,

and it was he who perfected the Aeolian harp, the speaking tube, and the

microscope.

We have chosen these great men merely as examples of the literary

activity of the Society during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Indeed, this inundation of books grew so alarming in its proportions

that the enemies of the Church complained that it was a plot of the

Jesuits who, being unable to suppress other books, had determined to

deluge the world with their own publications.

In the domain of church history they have, it is true, nothing to

compare, in size, with the thirty volumes of the Dominican Natalis

Alexander; the thirty-six of Fleury; or the twenty-eight of the "España

Sagrada" of the Augustinian Flórez, which, under his continuator, Risco,

reached forty volumes. Bérault-Bercastel, indeed, wrote twenty-eight,

but it was after the Society was suppressed. Perhaps they refrained from

entering that field because they regarded it to be sufficiently covered,

or because, in order to devote one's self to historical work, one needs

leisure, great libraries, and security of possession. Their absorbing

pedagogical and missionary work left leisure to but a few Jesuits in

those stirring times, and they were besides being continually despoiled

of the great libraries they had gathered, and never sure of having a

roof over their heads the day after a work might be begun. Seizures and

expulsions form a continual series in the Society's history. On the

other hand, they were making history by their explorations, and the

letters they sent from all parts of the world which according to rule

they were compelled to write, furnish to-day and for all time, the most

invaluable historical data for every part of the globe. As a matter of

fact, they had not even time to write an account of their own Order.

Cordara, Orlandini, Jouvancy, and Sacchini cover only limited periods,

and as has been remarked above, it was not until Father Martín ordered a

complete series of histories of the various sections of the Society that

the work was undertaken. This is planned on a much vaster scale than the

older writers ever dreamt of, and some of the volumes have already been

published.

In profane history, however, the versatile Famian Strada distinguished

himself in 1632 by his "Wars of Flanders," and the work was continued by

two of his religious brethren, Dondini and Gallucio. Clavigero's

"Ancient History of Mexico," in three quarto volumes, published after

the Suppression, is a notable work, as are also his "History of

California," and a third on the "Spanish Conquest." Alegre's three

volumes, "History of the Society of Jesus in New Spain" is of great

value. Mariana's complete "History of Spain," in twenty-five books, is

still recognized as an authority, and it will be of interest to know

that as late as 1888 a statue was erected at Talavera, in honor of the

same tumultuous writer, who was incarcerated for his book on "Finance."

Charlevoix's voluminous histories of New France, of Japan, of Paraguay,

and of Santo Domingo are also worthy of consideration. Bancroft

frequently refers to him as a valuable historian, and John Gilmary Shea

insists that he is too generally esteemed to need commendation.

There is, however, an historical work of the Society which has no peer

in literature: the great hagiological collection known as the "Acta

Sanctorum" of the Bollandists, which was begun in the first years of the

seventeenth century, and is still being elaborated. It consists at

present of sixty-four folio volumes. This vast enterprise was conceived

by the Belgian Father Rosweyde, but is known as the work of the

Bollandists, from the name of Rosweyde's immediate successor, Bollandus.

When the first volume, which was very diminutive when compared with the

present massive tomes, was sent to Cardinal Bellarmine, he exclaimed:

"this man wants to live three hundred years." He regarded the plan as

chimerical, but it has been realized by a self-perpetuating association

of Jesuits living at Brussels. When one member is worn out or dies,

someone else is appointed to fill the gap, and so the work goes on

uninterruptedly. The two first volumes, containing pages, which appeared

in 1643, aroused the enthusiasm of the scientific world, and Pope

Alexander VII publicly testified that "there had never been undertaken

a work more glorious or more useful to the Church."

In other fields of work the Society has not been idle. Even the acrid

"Realencyclopädie fur protestantische Theologie und Kirche" says (VIII,

758), "the Order has not lacked scholars. It can point to a long series

of brilliant names among its members, but they have only given real aid

to the advancement of science in those spheres which have close

connection with the doctrines of the Church, such as mathematics, the

natural sciences, chronology, explanation of classical writers and

inscriptions. The service of Jesuit astronomers like Christopher

Schlüssel (Clavius), the corrector of the calendar; Christopher

Schreiner, the discoverer of the sun spots; Francesco Da Vico, the

discoverer of a comet and observer of the transit of Venus; Angelo

Secchi, the investigator of the sun, and a meteorologist, are

universally acknowledged. And no less credit is given to the services of

the Order afforded by the optician Grimaldi; and that much praised

all-round scholar and universal genius (Doctor centum artium) Athanasius

Kircher. Among the classical writers is Angelo Mai."

This is certainly not a bad list from an unfriendly source, and possibly

might be helped out by a few suggestions. Thus Otto Hartig, the

Assistant Librarian of the Royal Library of Munich, tells us in "The

Catholic Encyclopedia" that Ritter very justly traces the source and

beginning of modern geography to the "Acta Sanctorum" of the Jesuit

Bollandists, who gathered up the crude notes of the journeys of the

early missionaries with their valuable information about the customs,

language and religion of the inhabitants on the frontiers of the Roman

Empire, along the Rhine and Danube, of the British Isles, Russia,

Poland, the Faröe Islands, Iceland and the Far East. Another signal

contribution to geography was the "Historia natural y moral de las

Indias" of José d'Acosta, one of the most brilliant writers on the

natural history of the New World and the customs of the Indians. The

first thorough exploration of Brazil was made by Jesuit missionaries led

by Father Ferre (1599-1632). The Portuguese priests, Alvares and

Bermudes, who went to Abyssinia on an embassy to the king of that

country, were followed by the Jesuits. Fernandes crossed southern

Abyssinia in 1613, and set foot in regions which until recently were

closed to Europeans. Páez and Lobo were the first to reach the sources

of the Blue Nile, and as early as the middle of the seventeenth century,

they with Almeida, Menendes and Teles drew up a map of Abyssinia which

is considered the best produced before the time of Abbadie (1810-97).

The Jesuit missionaries, Machado, Affonso and Paiva, in 1630 endeavored

to establish communications between Abyssinia and the Congo; Ricci and

Schall, both of whom were learned astronomers, made a cartographic

survey of China. Ricci is commonly known as the Geographer of China, and

is compared to Marco Polo. Andrada was the first to enter Tibet, a feat

which was not repeated until our own times. The Jesuits of Canada, among

whom was Marquette, were the first to furnish the learned world with

information about upper North America; Mexico and California as far as

the Rio Grande, were travelled by Kino (1644-1711), Sedlmayer (1703-79)

and Baegert (1717-77); and the Jesuit, Wolfgang Beyer, reached Lake

Titicaca between 1752 and 1766--eighty years before the celebrated

globe-navigator Meyer arrived there. Ramion sailed up the Cassiquiare,

from the Río Negro to the Orinoco in 1744, and thus anticipated La

Condamine, Humboldt, and Bonpland. Samuel Fritz in 1684 established the

importance of the Maranhão as the main tributary of the Amazon, and drew

the first map of the country. Techo (1673), Harques (1687), and Durán

(1638) told the world all about Paraguay, and d'Ovaglia (1646) about

Chile. Gruber and d'Orville reached Lhasa from Pekin, and went down into

India through the Himalaya passes.

Possibly it is worth while here to give more than a passing notice to

the ascent of the Nile in the seventeenth century, made by the noted

Pedro Páez, a Spanish Jesuit. He left an account of it which Kircher

published in his "OEdipus Ægyptiacus" but which James Bruce angrily

described as an invention. Bruce claims that he himself was the first to

explore the river. But Bruce followed Páez by at least 150 years. The

question is discussed at length by two writers in the "Biographie

universelle," under the titles "Bruce" and "Paez."

Páez was born at Olmeda in 1564. He entered the Society when he was

eighteen years of age and was sent to Goa in 1588. He was assigned to

attempt an entry of Abyssinia; to facilitate his work, he assumed the

dress of an Armenian. He had to wait a year for a ship at Ormuz, and

when, at last, he embarked he was captured by an Arab pirate,

ill-treated and thrown into prison. As he was unable to procure a

ransom, he spent seven years chained to the oar as a galley slave, but

was finally set free and reached Goa in 1596. He was then employed in

several missions of Hindostan, but again set out for Abyssinia which he

reached in 1603. To acquaint himself with the language of the people he

buried himself in a monastery of Monophysite monks, and then began to

give public lessons in the city. His success as a teacher attracted

attention, and he was finally called before the emperor, where his

eloquence and correctness of speech captivated and ultimately helped to

convert the monarch. A grant of land was given him at Gorgora where he

built a church. The question of the sources of the Nile was frequently

discussed, and in 1618 Páez ascended the river. He was thus the first

modern European to make the attempt. He told the story in the two large

octavos, which at the time of the Suppression could be found in most of

the libraries of the Society. Bruce asserts, however, that nothing is

said in these volumes about the discovery, and he accuses Kircher of

imposture. But, says the writer in the "Biographie universelle," the

fact is that between the account of Páez and that of Bruce there is

scarcely any difference except in a few insignificant details; so that

if Bruce is right, so also are Páez and Kircher. Páez explored the river

as early as 1618, whereas Bruce arrived there only in 1772, that is 154

years later. "Bruce," says another writer "makes it clear that someone

had preceded him and displays his temper in every line."

The great English work, "The Dictionary of National Biography," handles

Bruce more severely. "He was in error," it says, "in regarding himself

as the first European who had reached these fountains. Pedro Páez, the

Jesuit, had undoubtedly done so in 1615, and Bruce's unhandsome attempt

to throw doubt on the fact only proves that love of fame is not

literally the last infirmity of noble minds, but may bring much more

unlovely symptoms in its train. He was endowed with excellent abilities,

but was swayed to an undue degree by self-esteem and thirst for fame. He

was uncandid to those he regarded as rivals, and vanity and the passion

for the picturesque led him to embellish minor particulars and perhaps

in some instances to invent them. He delayed for twelve years the

composition of his narrative and then dictated it to an amanuensis,

indolently omitting to refer to the original journals and hence

frequently making a lamentable confusion of facts and dates. His report

is highly idealised and he will always be the poet of African travel."

The book did not appear till 1790. The missionary success of Páez

consisted in uniting schismatical Abyssinia to Rome in 1624. He died

shortly afterwards, and, when the depraved Emperor Basilides mounted the

throne in 1634, the Jesuit missionaries were handed over to the axe of

the executioner. Páez, it may be remarked, was not the only one whom

Bruce vilified. After Páez came the Portuguese Jesuit Jeronimo Lobo, a

very interesting and lengthy account of whose daring missionary work may

be found in the "Biographie universelle." The writer tells us that Lobo

published his narrative in 1659, and that it was again edited by the

Royal Society of London in 1688. Legrand translated it into French in

1728, and Dr. Samuel Johnson gave a compendious translation of it in

1734. The complete book was reprinted in 1798, and in the preface the

editors take Bruce to task for his treatment of both Páez and Lobo. It

is worthy of remark that the notice of "Bruce" in the "Encyclopedia

Britannica" (ninth edition) does not say a single word either of Páez or

Lobo, although both had attracted so much notice in the modern literary

world.

It was due to the Jesuits that France established subventions for

geographical research. In 1651 Martino Martini, kinsman of the

celebrated Eusebio Kino, published his "Atlas Sinensis", which Richtoven

described as "the fullest geographical description of China that we

have." Kircher published his famous "China illustrata" in 1667. Verbiest

was the imperial astronomer in China, and so aroused the interest of

Louis XIV that he sent out six Jesuit astronomers at his own expense

and equipped them with the finest instruments. One of these envoys,

Gerbillon, explored the unknown regions north of China, and he, with

Buvet, Régis and Jarton and others, made a survey of the Great Wall, and

then mapped out the whole Chinese empire (1718). Manchuria and Mongolia

as far as the Russian frontier and Tibet to the sources of the Ganges

were included. The map ranks as a masterpiece even to-day. It consists

of 120 sheets, and it has formed the basis of all the native maps made

since then. De Halde edited all the reports sent to him by his brethren,

and published them in his "Description géographique, historique,

politique, physique et chronologique de l'empire de Chine et de la

Tartarie chinoise." The material for the maps in this work was prepared

by d'Anville, the greatest geographer of the time, but he was not a

Jesuit. In addition to these works, were written fifteen volumes by the

missionaries of Pekin about the history and customs of the Chinese, and

published in Paris.

These Jesuit astronomers and geographers were associate members of all

the learned societies of Europe, and were especially serviceable to

those bodies in being able to determine the longitude and latitude of

the places they described. Between 1684 and 1686 they fixed the exact

position of the Cape of Good Hope and of Louveau in Siam. As early as

1645 Riccioli attempted to determine the length of a degree of

longitude. Similar work was done by Thoma in China, Boscovitch and Maire

in the Papal States, Leisganig in Austria; Mayer in the Palatinate, and

Beccaria and Canonica in northwestern Italy. Veda published the first

map of the Philippines about 1734. Mezburg and Guessman made maps of

Galicia and Poland, Andrian of Carinthia, and Christian Meyer of the

Rhine from Basle to Mainz. Riccioli, a distinguished reformer of

cartography, published his "Almagestum novum", and his "Geographia et

hydrographia reformata" as early as 1661. Kircher gave the world his

"Arsmagnetica" and "Mundus subterraneus" about the same time, and made

the ascent of Etna and Stromboli at the risk of his life, to measure

their craters. His theory of the interior of the earth was accepted by

Leibniz and by the entire Neptunist school of geology. He was the first

to attempt to chart the ocean currents. Heinrich Scherer of Dillingen

(1620-1704) devoted his whole life to geography, and made the first

orographical and hydrographical synoptic charts. Johann Jacob Hemmer was

the founder of the first meteorological society, which had contributors

from all over the world. This list is sufficiently glorious.

Perhaps it might be noted here that these eminent men were not primarily

seeking distinction or aiming at success in the sciences to which they

devoted themselves. That consideration occupied only a secondary place

in their thoughts and the glory they achieved was sought exclusively to

enable them the more easily to reach the souls of men. But on the other

hand, that motive inspired them with greater zeal in the prosecution of

their work than a merely human purpose would have done. Assuredly, it

would have been much more comfortable for Ricci and Schall and Verbiest

and Grimaldi to be looking through telescopes in the observatories of

Europe than at Canton or Pekin, where every moment they were in danger

of having their heads cut off. As a matter of fact, after more than

forty years of service for China's education in mathematics and

astronomy, the only reward that Father Schall reaped was, as we have

seen, to be dragged to court, though he was paralyzed and speechless,

and to be condemned to be hacked to pieces.

It is quite true that the philosophers of the Society have never evolved

any independent philosophical or theological thought, in the modern

acceptation of that term. That is, they have never acted like the

captain of a ship who would throw his charts and compass overboard, and

insist that North is South because he thinks it so. The aim of

philosophy is intellectual truth and not the extravagances of a

disordered imagination. Contrary to the modern superstition, Catholic

philosophers are not hampered in their speculations by authority, nor

are they compelled in their study of logic, metaphysics and ethics to

draw proofs from revelation. Philosophy is a human not a divine science,

but on the other hand, Catholic philosophy is prevented from going over

the abyss by the possession of a higher knowledge than unassisted human

reason could ever attain. Thus protected, it speculates with an

audacity, of which those who are not so provided can have no conception.

For them philosophy runs through the whole theological course, and when

Holy Scripture, the pronouncements of the Church, and the utterances of

the Fathers have established the truth of the particular doctrine which

is under consideration, then reason enters, and elevated, ennobled,

fortified and illumined, it walks secure in the highest realms of

thought. Three entire years are given to the explicit study of it, in

the formation of the Jesuit scholastic, and it continues to be employed

throughout his four or five years of theology. Both sciences are

fundamental in the Society's studies, and it has not lacked honor in

either. But as philosophy is subsidiary and ancillary, it will be

sufficient to set forth what is said about the Society's theologians.

Dr. Joseph Pohle writing in "The Catholic Encyclopedia" tells us that

controversial theology was carried to the highest perfection by Cardinal

Bellarmine. Indeed, there is no theologian who has defended almost the

whole of Catholic theology against the attacks of the Reformers with

such clearness and convincing force. Other theologians who were

remarkable for their masterly defence of the Catholic Faith were the

Spanish Jesuit Gregory of Valencia (d. 1603) and his pupils Adam Tanner

(d. 1635) and Jacob Gretser (d. 1625). Nor can there be any question

that Scholastic theology owes most of its classical works to the Society

of Jesus. Molina was the first Jesuit to write a commentary on the

theological "Summa" of St. Thomas, and was followed by Cardinal Toletus

and those other brilliant Spaniards, Gregory of Valencia, Suárez,

Vasquez, and Didacus Rúiz. Suárez, the most prominent among them, is

also the foremost theologian the Society of Jesus has produced. His

renown is due not only to the fertility and wealth of his literary

productions, but also to his clearness, moderation, depth and

circumspection. He had a critic, both subtle and severe, in his

colleague, Gabriel Vásquez. Didacus Rúiz wrote masterly treatises on God

and the Trinity, as did Christopher Gilles; and they were followed by

Harruabal, Ferdinand Bastida, Valentine Herice, and others whose names

will be forever linked with the history of Molinism. During the

succeeding period, John Præpositus, Caspar Hurtado, and Antonio Pérez

won fame by their commentaries on St. Thomas. Ripalda wrote the best

treatise on the supernatural order. To Leonard Lessius we owe some

beautiful treatises on God and his attributes. Coninck made the Trinity,

the Incarnation, and the Sacraments his special study. Cardinal John de

Lugo, noted for his mental acumen and highly esteemed as a moralist,

wrote on the virtue of Faith and the Sacraments of Penance and the

Eucharist. Claude Tiphanus is the author of a classical monograph on

the notions of personality and hypostasis, and Cardinal Pallavicini,

known as the historiographer of the Council of Trent, won repute as a

dogmatic theologian by several of his writings (XIV, 593-94).

With regard to moral theology, Lehmkhul tells us that in the middle of

the eighteenth century there arose a man who was, so to say, a blessing

of Divine Providence. Owing to the eminent sanctity which he combined

with solid learning, he definitely established the system of moral

theology which now prevails in the Church. That man was St. Alphonsus

Maria Liguori, who was canonized in 1839, and declared a Doctor of the

Church in 1871. In his youth he was imbued with the stricter principles

of moral theology, but as he himself confesses, the experience of

fifteen years of missionary life and careful study brought him to

realize the falseness and the evil consequences of the system in which

he had been educated, and the necessity of a change. He, therefore, took

the "Medulla" of the Jesuit, Hermann Busembaum, subjected it to a

thorough examination, confirmed it by internal reasons and external

authority, and then published a work which was received with universal

applause, and whose doctrine is entirely on Probabilistic principles.

This approval and appropriation of Busembaum's teaching by one who has

been made a Doctor of the Church is a sufficient vindication of the

doctrine of Probabilism, for which the Society suffered so much, and is

at the same time a magnificent tribute to the greatness of Busembaum,

"whose book," Lehmkuhl contents himself with saying, "was widely used,"

whereas forty editions of it had been issued during the author's own

life, which happened to be an entire century before the publication of

Liguori's great work. Busembaum's "Medulla" was printed in 1645, and

Liguori's "Moral Theology" in 1748. Up to 1845, there were 200 editions

of Busembaum; that is, one edition for every year of its existence. In

the history of moral theology Sánchez, Layman, Azor, Castro Palao,

Torres, Escobar also may be cited as leading lights.

In Scripture there are the illustrious names of Maldonado, Ribera,

Prado, Pereira, Sancio and Pineda. Of the saintly Cornelius a Lapide

(Vanden Steen) a Protestant critic, Goetzius, said in 1699: "He is the

most important of Catholic Scriptural writers." His "Commentary of the

Apocalypse" has been translated into Arabic. In ascetical theology, St.

Ignatius is a leader in modern times; and his "Spiritual Exercises" form

a complete system of asceticism. With him are a great number of his

sons, whose names are familiar in every religious house, such as

Bellarmine, Rodríguez, Alvarez de Paz, Gaudier, da Ponte, Lessius,

Lancicius, Surin, Saint-Jure, Neumayr, Dirckink, Scaramelli, Nieremberg

and many others. Finally, it can not be denied that the Society has

hearkened to the second rule of the Summary of its Constitutions, which

is read publicly and with an unfailing regularity every month of the

year, in every one of its houses throughout the world, namely: that "the

End of this Society is not only to attend to the salvation and

perfection of our own souls, with the divine grace, but with the same,

seriously to employ ourselves in procuring the salvation and perfection

of our neighbor."

The canonization of saints proceeds very slowly in the modern Church.

Years and years are spent in preliminary investigations of the life, the

holiness, the doctrines, and the miracles of the one who is to be

presented to the public recognition of the Church. Theologians and

canonists have to pass on all those points and those who testify speak

only under the most solemn oaths and the threat of dire censure if they

witness to what they know to be false. Infinite labor has been expended

before the question is presented to the Holy See. Very many of these

causes never reach even that stage, for everywhere, in its progress,

stands an official called the Promoter of the Faith, but popularly known

as the "Devil's Advocate," whose work consists in doing his utmost to

throw obstacles in the way of the canonization. Nevertheless, the

Society has a sufficient number on its roll of fame, in spite of its

comparatively brief and perpetually perturbed existence, to convince the

world that it is not the maleficent organization that it is credited

with being.

At the head of the list come the two friends, Ignatius and Xavier, dying

within four years of each other: the latter in 1552, the former in 1556.

The third is Borgia, who died in 1572. He had set aside all the honors

of the world, except that of actual royalty, in order to take the lowest

place in the Society, but he became its chief. In charming contrast with

these three great men, are the three boy saints: Stanislaus, Aloysius,

and Berchmans, dying respectively in 1568, 1591 and 1621. Stanislaus,

the little Polish noble, travelled all the way from Vienna to Rome on

foot, a distance of 1500 miles, to enter the novitiate. He had no money,

or guide, or friends, but he arrived safely, for the angels gave him

Communion on his journey, and he has ever since been the darling of the

beginners in religious life. Aloysius was of princely blood, but died

nursing the sick in the hospital. He is the patron of youthful purity,

and was never a priest, though an unwise writer makes a missionary of

him. The third, John Berchmans, was neither prince nor noble. On the

contrary, it used to be the delight of foreigners, when rambling through

the little Flemish town of Diest, to see the name of "Berchmans" on the

humble shops of hucksters and grocers, and to fancy that some of the

little lads who clattered about in their sabots, on their way to school,

were relatives of his. His sanctity has made his family name famous in

the world. His beatification was especially welcome, because, as

Berchmans was the very incarnation of the Jesuit rule, the Order cannot

have been the iniquitous organization it is frequently said to be.

Then there are three Japanese Jesuits who were crucified at Nagasaki in

1597; and in 1616 came Alfonso Rodríguez, who had prepared Peter Claver

to be the Apostle of the negro slaves in America, and who went quietly

from his post at the gates of the College of Minorca to the gates of

heaven. Peter Claver had to wait for thirty-eight years before going to

join his venerable friend. Besides the two St. Francises of the early

days, there are two more of that name in the Society: the Frenchman,

John Francis Regis, who died in 1640, and the Italian, Francis

Hieronymo, whose work ended in 1716. They were both preachers to the

most abandoned classes. Hieronymo could gather as many as 15,000 men to

a regular monthly Communion, and when he entered the royal convict

ships, he converted those sinks of iniquity into abodes of peace and

resignation.

It may be noted here that St. Francis Regis had a distinction peculiarly

his own. Long after his canonization as a saint, he was proclaimed to

have been actually expelled from the Society, and that the public

disgrace was prevented only by his death, which occurred before the

official papers arrived from Rome. This accusation is trident-like in

its wounding power or purpose. It transfixes Regis, and kills his

reputation for virtue; then it inflicts a gash on the Society by making

it present to the Church, as worthy of being raised to the altars, a

man whom it was unwilling to keep in its own houses; finally, it assails

the Church and attempts to show that no respect should be had for its

decrees of canonization. It was almost unnecessary for the learned

Bollandist, Van Ortroy, to show that there is no foundation whatever for

this story of the dismissal of St. John Francis Regis from the Society

of Jesus.

Such are the canonized Jesuits. The Blessed are more numerous. There are

ninety-one of them. First in time are the forty Portuguese martyrs under

Ignatius de Azevedo, who were slain by the French Huguenots in a harbor

of the Azores in the year 1570. Then follow the English witnesses to the

Truth. The first to die was Thomas Woodhouse, who was executed in 1573.

Between that date and 1582 four others were put to death; among them the

illustrious Edmund Campion. Of those who died in the persecutions of

Japan, between 1617 and 1627, there are thirty-one Japanese as well as

European Jesuits. Rudolf Aquaviva was put to death in Madura in 1583,

and John de Britto in 1693. Two Hungarians, Melchior Grodecz and Stephen

Pongracz were slain in Hungary in 1619, and Andrew Bobola was butchered

by the Cossacks in 1657. There are others among the Society's Blessed

who were not martyred, but would have been willing to win their crown in

that way, if God so wanted. They are Peter Faber, the first priest of

the Society; Peter Canisius, the Apostle of Germany; and the Italian

Antonio Baldinucci, a great missionary who used to whip himself to

blood, to move the hearts of the hardened sinners around him, and who

lighted bonfires of bad books and pictures and playing cards in the

public squares to impress his excitable fellow-countrymen. His

missionary methods were somewhat like those of Savonarola.

Those who are ranked as Venerable are fifty in number, including Claude

de la Colombiére, the Apostle of the devotion to the Sacred Heart;

Cardinal Bellarmine; Nicholas Lancicius, the well-known ascetical

writer; Julien Maunoir, the apostle of his native Brittany; and José

Anchieta, the thaumaturgus of Brazil. There are, however, a great many

others under consideration, among them being the heroes of North

America--Jogues, Goupil, Lalande, Brébeuf, Lalemant, Garnier, Daniel,

Chabanel--who were slain by the Iroquois. In the conclaves of 1605,

which elected Clement VIII and Leo XI, Bellarmine was very seriously

considered as a possible pope, but the fact that he was a Jesuit was an

obstacle in the eyes of many. When he died in 1621, there was a general

expectation that he would be canonized for his extraordinarily holy

life. In fact, Urban VIII who was so rigid in such matters placed him

among the "Venerable" six years after his death. His case was

re-introduced for beatification in 1675, 1714, 1752 and 1832, but

nothing was done chiefly because it would have angered the French

regalist politicians, as his name was associated with a doctrine most

obnoxious to them. In 1920 the case was again taken up.

We omit the countless thousands of Jesuits who ever since the Society

was established have striven in every possible way to realize its

ideals; the heroes who have hurried with delight to the most disgusting

and dangerous missions they could find in the farthermost parts of the

world; who have died by thousands of disease and exhaustion in the

pest-laden ships that carried them to their destination or flung them

dead on some desolate coast; or those who have been slain by savages or

devoured by wild beasts; or who died of starvation in the forests and

deserts where they were hunting for souls; or have given their lives

with joy for the privilege of ministering to the plague-stricken. Nor

do we mention here the great phalanxes of the unknown who, without a

single regret for what they might have been in the world, have

endeavored to obey, to some extent, at least, that startling admonition

that they hear so often: _Ama nesciri et pro nihilo reputari_: "Love to

be unknown and to be reputed as nothing,"--the men who have truly lived

up to that ideal in the repulsiveness of hospitals and jails and

asylums, or in the ceaseless drudgery and obscurity of the class-room

and the unchanging routing of household occupations.

These men have seen themselves time and time again robbed of all their

possessions, hounded out of their own countries and cities as if they

were criminals, their names branded with infamy and a by-word for all

that is vile, and they understood better and better, as time went on,

what is meant by that page which stares at them from their rule book and

which is entitled: "The Sum and Scope of Our Constitutions," and which

tells them: "We are men crucified to the world, and to whom the world is

crucified; new men who have put off their own affections to put on

Christ, dead to themselves to live to justice; who, with St. Paul, in

labors, in watching, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in

long-suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Ghost, in charity unfeigned,

in the word of truth, shew themselves ministers of God; and, by the

armor of justice, on the right hand and on the left, by honor and

dishonor, by evil report and good report, by good success and ill

success, press forward with great strides to their heavenly country, and

by all means possible, and with all zeal, urge on others also, ever

looking to God's greatest glory."