_Of the Order of the Jesuits, with the prominent features of the
Institute._
How many men are there, who never knew more of Jesuits than their name,
that have, from the hideous caricatures, which have been drawn of them,
imbibed such prejudices, and admitted such horrible impressions against the
society, as to render it a wonder, and with some a scandal, that any person
should dare to make the slightest attempt towards their vindication. On the
perusal of this volume, I trust, that the wonder and the scandal will
appear to be, that men should have so suffered their reason to be imposed
upon, and their feelings betrayed, as to be tamely led into the views of
the destroyers, {174} not only of this religious order, but of religion
itself, and of social order. I will endeavour here to give a faithful
miniature of the noble original, which, under distorted features, we have
been invited to ridicule and to detest. I do not, however, pretend to offer
to the reader a deep-reasoned discussion, but only a slight sketch of the
much traduced institute of the Jesuits, and of the pursuits and past
successes of the men, who devoted themselves to it.
Jesuits were never much known in this kingdom. They were never more than a
small detachment of missionary priests, privately officiating to the
scattered catholics, like other priests, sent from the English seminaries
of Rome, Douay, Valladolid, and Lisbon. They were distinguished only by
more pointed severity of the ancient penal statutes, which the wisdom and
liberality of the legislature has considerably relaxed. This greater
severity arose, not from their conduct, but from the general prejudice
against their order; and, in England, this {175} prejudice kept pace with
the esteem in which they were held in all catholic countries. Formerly,
every enemy of catholic religion was their foe declared. Their perseverance
and their successes still provoked new hostilities. It is the remark of
Spondanus, that no set of men were ever so violently opposed, or ever so
successfully triumphed over opposition. Their assiduity, in their
multifarious relations to the public, in all countries, where they had
settlements; in their schools and seminaries, in pulpits and confessionals,
in hospitals and workhouses, in the cultivation of sciences, in national
and foreign missions; all this professional business afforded them a large
field for exertion, and enabled them to recommend themselves to kings,
prelates, and magistrates, by signal services to the public, and thus to
blunt the stings of envy and the shafts of malice. The small number, which
frequented England for nearly two hundred years, in the face of the penal
laws, had no such field of action. They were confined to administer the
rites of religion to their brethren {176} in private houses; they were
necessitated to live separate; they were forced to disguise their
profession and character, and frequently their very names; they lived under
the laws, and they were not protected by the laws; they knew, that the
distorted character, drawn of them by their foreign enemies, obtained ready
credit in this country, without inquiry or examination; and, as they could
neither act nor speak in their own defence, it has happened, that the
notion of a Jesuit is to this day _vulgarly_ (I take the word in its full
meaning) associated with the idea of every crime.
In foreign countries, the Jesuits formed a conspicuous body, to which no
man was wholly indifferent. They could not be viewed with the eye of
contempt. They were highly esteemed, and they were bitterly hated. In all
catholic countries, the esteem and respect, which they enjoyed, were fully
established. They were every where considered as pure and holy in their
morals and conduct, eminently zealous for {177} religion, and highly
serviceable to the public. Their enemies, at all times, were either open
separatists from the catholic church, or secret enemies of it, who formed
parties for its destruction; or they were rivals, who vied with them in
some branches of the public administration of religion. From these sources
proceeded, at different times, that undigested mass of criminations,
unsubstantiated by proof, which are so inconsistently collected in the new
conspiracy against the Jesuits. It is evidently folly to imagine, that a
large body of men, connected with the public by a thousand links,
surrounded by jealous enemies, could possibly be a band of unprincipled
knaves, impostors, and miscreants. The universal favour of the bulk of so
many polished nations forbids, at once, such an idea. Popes, kings,
prelates, magistrates, everywhere protected and employed them. Bishops and
their clergy everywhere regarded them as their most useful auxiliaries in
the sacred ministry, because they professedly exercised every duty of it,
except that of _governing_ the church; {178} and this they renounced by
vow. The people, in all towns, even in villages, felt their gratuitous
services. A hundred years ago, if the public voice had been individually
collected in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Poland,
undoubtedly, they would rather have parted with any other, perhaps with
most other religious bodies, than with the society of Jesuits alone. A
hundred years ago, all the continental sovereigns in Europe would have
concurred in the same sentiment. With them they advised in all concerns of
religion; to them they listened as preachers; to them they intrusted the
instruction of their children, their own consciences, their souls. In those
days, not only kings, but ministers of kings, and the great bulk of their
nobles and people, believed in religion. They were sons of men, who had
fought hard battles in France and Germany, in defence of catholic unity,
against confederate sects, who had conspired to overturn it. Voltaire had
not yet appeared among them. Religion was not yet presented to them as an
object of ridicule. They {179} deemed of religion with reverence and awe,
and they believed it to be the firmest support of the state and of the
throne. They venerated its ministers, and among them the Jesuits, because
they knew, that their institute was well calculated to form its followers
to the active service of the altars, which they respected.
An idea of the institute of the Jesuits cannot be formed without consulting
the original code; and the first inspection of it shows the author to have
been a man of profound thinking, and eminently animated with the spirit of
religious zeal. _Ad majorem Dei gloriam_ was the motto of Ignatius of
Loyola, the main principle of all his conduct. He conceived, that a body of
men, associated to promote God's greater glory, must profess to imitate,
not one or two, but, universally, all the astonishing virtues of the
Redeemer; and, in planning his institute, he compressed them all into one
ruling motion of _zeal_, which, in his ideas, was the purest emanation of
charity, the summit of {180} Christian perfection. He everywhere employs
his first principle, as the universal bond, or link, that must unite his
society with God, and with their neighbours; and every prescription of his
institute is a direct consequence of it. _The greater glory of God_ is the
first object that occurs on opening the institute. It is the first thing,
on which every candidate is questioned; and, if he be accepted, the first
thing to which he is applied. This alone decides upon the admission and
dismission of subjects; this regulates their advancement in virtue and
letters, the preservation of their health, the improvement of their
talents, the distribution and allotment of their employments. Masters must
teach, and students must learn, only to advance the greater glory of God:
this is the rule of superiors, who command; the motive of subjects, who
obey: this alone is considered in the establishment of domestic discipline,
in the formation of laws and rules: it is the bond, which connects all, the
spring, which moves all; every impulse given to the society must {181}
proceed from this; this alone must accelerate or slacken its progress; for
this alone it must be maintained; every person in it, every thing in it,
prayer and action, labour and rest, rules and exceptions, punishments and
rewards, favours and refusals; in a word, every thing in the institute of
Ignatius has one motive, one end, one common motto, _The greater glory of
God_; with this it commences, with this it ends.
Whatever may be the sentiments of persons, of different religious
persuasions, of this plan of sanctity, certain it is, that the idea of it
presents something noble; and, in the principles of the catholic church, it
embraces the height of sanctity. To men acting upon such a principle, no
virtue could ever be foreign, because every virtue in its turn might be
wanted to promote God's greater glory. The aim of Ignatius was, first, to
form them into perfect Christians; and hence he prescribes and requires, in
all his associates, the full practice of evangelical poverty, perfect
purity, and intire obedience to lawful {182} authority; and these virtues
must be sanctioned by vow. He requires, that all and each should emulate
the other great evangelical counsels, such as mortification of the senses,
refusal of dignities and honourable distinctions, perfect disinterestedness
in their several functions, &c. He conceived, that God's glory would be
procured by the practice of these exalted virtues; but, faithful to his
principle, he judged that God's _greater_ glory required the communication,
the diffusion of them among his neighbours. He earnestly wished to bring
all men to know and adore the Son of God; and, in forming his associates
for this ministry, he was not content to teach them to be saints, he would
make them apostles. To the other obligations, which he laid upon them, he
added the solemn vow of missions, binding them, whenever required, to carry
the name of God, in the primitive spirit, to the extremities of the globe.
It would be an extravagant exaggeration to assert, that all the followers
of Ignatius {183} emulated such high gifts: but it has been allowed, in
general, by the best judges in the catholic church, and, in great measure,
by persons of other communions, that a large portion of the founder's
original spirit was infused into the society, which he formed; and that
Jesuits, cultivated by the mode of government and rules of life which he
established, achieved feats in every country, which religion must revere,
and sound policy commend. Their institute does not stop short of any
perfection, which the author of it thought attainable by human weakness. He
prescribes in it a variety of means, which his followers must employ, to
yield service to all, who surround them; and, though all could not be
performed by each, he strongly confided, that his order would never be
destitute of men qualified to execute every thing that he prescribed. Some
things are exacted of all and each, others are to be suited to the
different talents of the men employed; and the common education, which he
gives to all, qualifies each to succeed in his respective department. Every
{184} person, conversant in the affairs of the catholic church, will allow,
that, by the constant attention of the superiors, not any means of helping
the public, which the founder had prescribed, was neglected by the body of
Jesuits; and the general utility resulting from all this was precisely the
thing, that distinguished this body in the catholic church, and won for it
the protection of popes and bishops, the countenance of kings and princes,
the respect and esteem of nations.
As St. Ignatius, in his pursuit of absolute perfection, thought no virtue
foreign to his institute, so he judged no service, which churchmen could
yield to the public, foreign to his society. Without pretending to
enumerate the various duties and occupations, which he recommends to its
members, I select only a few, upon which he enters into more detailed
instructions, and to which he specially calls the attention of all
superiors, the zeal of all their subjects. They are, good example; prayer;
works of {185} charity to the poor, the imprisoned, the diseased; the
writing of books of piety and religious instruction; the use of the
sacrament of penance; preaching; pious congregations; spiritual retreats;
national and foreign missions; and education of youth in public and
gratuitous schools. In the catholic scheme of religion, each of these
things is deemed important; and the united voice of all, who knew Jesuits,
gives them the full credit of having, during their existence in a body,
cultivated, with success, each of these several branches. Their preachers
were heard and admired in every country; their tribunals of penance were
crouded; the sick and dying were always secure of their attendance, when
demanded; their books of devotion were everywhere read with confidence; the
good example, resulting from the purity of their morals, secured them, even
in the last fatal persecution, from inculpation, it disabled the malice of
calumny. In the impossibility of criminating living Jesuits, their worst
enemies could only revile the dead. Hospitals, workhouses, and lazarets,
were the constant scenes {186} of their zeal; their attendance on them was
reckoned an appropriate duty of their society. During the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, when the plague successively ravaged every country
in Europe, many hundreds of Jesuits are recorded to have lost their lives
in the service of the infected. Several perished, in the same exercise of
charity, in the last century, at Marseilles and Messina; and, during the
late retreat of the French army from Moscow, not less than ten Jesuits died
of fatigue and sickness, contracted in the hospitals crouded with those
French prisoners, who, a little before, had ejected them from their
principal college, at Polosk, after having plundered it of every valuable.
It would be tedious to insist upon every point; but something I must say on
the articles of missions and public schools, the two principal scenes of
their zeal.
With respect to missions, the Jesuits might truly apply to themselves the
verse,
Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?
AEN. lib. i.
{187} Their perseverance in this field of zeal was universally admired; it
secured success during more than two centuries; and the latest missionary
expeditions of their society proved, that the original spirit was not
decayed. Whoever had caught it from the institute of Ignatius was a scholar
without pride; a man disengaged from his own conveniences; indifferent to
his employment, to country, to climate; submissive to guidance; capable of
living alone, and of edifying in public; happy in solitude, content in
tumult; never misplaced. In a word, great purity of manners, cultivated
minds, knowledge without pretensions, close study without recompence,
obedience without reasoning though not without reason, love of labour,
willingness to suffer, and, finally, fervor of zeal; such were the
qualifications, which Ignatius's discernment directed his successors in
government to seek, to select, or to form; and it is an acknowledged truth,
that, at every period of the society, they always found men of this
description to lead out their sacred expeditions to the four quarters of
{188} the world. These men planted Christian faith in the extremities of
the East, in Japan, in the Molucca islands; they announced it in China, in
the hither and further India, in Ethiopia and Caffraria, &c. Others, in the
opposite hemisphere, appeared on the snowy wastes of North America; and,
presently, Hurons were civilized, Canada ceased to be peopled only by
barbarians. Others, almost in our own days, nothing degenerate, succeeded
to humanize new hard-featured tribes, even to assemble them in Christian
churches, in the ungrateful soil of California, to which angry Nature seems
to have denied almost every necessary for the subsistence of the human
species. They were but a detachment from the body of their brethren, who,
at the same time, were advancing, with rapid progress, through Cinaloa,
among the unknown hordes of savages, who rove through the immense tracts to
the north of Mexico, which have not yet been trodden by the steps of any
evangelical herald. Others, again, in greater numbers, from the school of
Ignatius, with the most inflexible {189} perseverance, amidst every species
of opposition, continued to gather new nations into the church, to form new
colonies of civilized cannibals, for the kings of Spain and Portugal, in
the horrid wilds of Brazil, Maragnon, and Paraguay. Here truly flowed the
milk and honey of religion and human happiness. Here was realized more than
philosophy had dared to hope, more than Plato, in his republic, or the
author of Utopia, had ever ventured to imagine. Here was given the
demonstration, from experience, that pure religion, steadily practised, is
the only source of human happiness. The new settlements, called
_Reductions_, of Brazil and Paraguay, were real fruits of the zeal of the
Jesuits. Solipsian empires, and gold mines to enrich the society, existed
only in libels[65].
{190}
The Jesuits were advancing, with gigantic strides, to the very centre of
South America, they were actually civilizing the Abiponian barbarians, when
their glorious course was interrupted by the wretched policy of Lisbon and
Madrid. The missionaries of South America were all seized like felons, and
shipped off, as so many convicts, to the ports of old Spain, to be still
farther transported to Corsica, and, finally, to the coasts of the pope's
states. One of these venerable men, Martin Dobrizhoffer, who had spent
eighteen years among the South American tribes, has given, in his _Historia
de Abiponibus_, the best account, that exists, of the field of his arduous
mission. His work is here mentioned, because it is not unknown in England,
and his testimony[66] proves the persuasion of the best men at Buenos
Ayres, in 1767, when the Jesuits were dismissed, that, if they had been at
all times properly supported, by the courts of Lisbon and Madrid,
especially {191} against the self interested European settlers, not a
barbarian, not an infidel, would then have been left in the whole extent of
South America. "This," says the author, "was boldly advanced from the
pulpit at Buenos Ares, in the presence of the royal governor, and of a
thronged auditory, and it was proved with a strength of argument, that
subdued all doubt, and wrought universal conviction." The impression must
have been strengthened by the subsequent dissolution of all the
_Reductions_, in consequence of the inability of the royal officers to
substitute other missionaries to those, whom they had ejected[67].
Different was the providence of the superiors {192} in the old society, to
perpetuate the race and regular succession of those wonderful men. If they
had sent out from Europe subjects already formed to every virtue and every
science, their virtues and their learning would have been almost useless,
without the knowledge and practical use of the barbarous idioms of the
Indian tribes. Every young Jesuit in Europe was first trained, during two
full years of noviciate, to the exact practice of religious virtues. He was
next applied, during five years, still in strict domestic discipline, to
the several studies of poetry, rhetoric, logic, physics, metaphysics,
natural history, and mathematics. Seven years of preparation qualified
these proficients to commence schoolmasters, during five or six succeeding
years, in the several colleges of their respective provinces. It was
generally at this {193} period of their religious career, that several
young Jesuits, instead of being employed to teach schools, were detached
from the several European provinces, to the Asiatic colleges of Goa, or
Macao, or to the American colleges of Mexico, Buenos Ayres, or Cordova in
Tucumaw, where, in expectation of priesthood, they made a close study of
the barbarous languages, which they were afterwards to speak in their
missions. These were usually selected from the number of those, who had
spontaneously solicited such a destination; and the number of these pious
volunteers being always considerable, the succession of missionaries in the
society of Jesuits could never fail. But it is time to say something of
their schools.
The education of youth in schools is one of the prominent features of the
Jesuits' institute. Their founder saw, that the disorders of the world,
which he wished to correct, spring chiefly from neglect of education. He
perceived, that the fruits of the other spiritual functions of {194} his
society would be only temporary, unless he could perpetuate them through
every rising generation, as it came forward in succession. Every professed
Jesuit was bound by a special vow, to attend to the instruction of youth;
and this duty was the peculiar function, the first important mission, of
the younger members, who were preparing themselves for profession. Even the
two years of noviciate mainly contributed to the same purpose. They were
not lost to the sciences, since novices were carefully taught the science
upon which they all depend. The religious exercises of that first period
tended to give them that steadiness of character and virtue, without which
no good is achieved in schools. They then acquired a fondness for
retirement, a love of regularity, a habit of labour, a disgust of
dissipation, a custom of serious reflection, docility to advice, a
sentiment of honour and self-respect, with a fixed love of virtue; every
thing requisite to support and advance the cultivation of letters and of
science in future years. It has been already observed, {195} that the
serious studies, which filled five years after the noviciate, were
calculated, in conjunction with strict religious discipline, to form them
for the serious business of conducting a school of boys during the five or
six years, which were to succeed: and, in the discharge of this duty, they
were bound to know and to follow, under the direction of a prefect of
studies in every college, the excellent documents prescribed in the
institute for masters.
It is not possible in a short compass to enumerate these instructions; but
the mention of a few may suffice to prove, that nothing was forgotten. The
object of Ignatius, in charging his society with the management of boys and
youths, as it is announced in various parts of the institute, was to form
and perfect their will, their conscience, their morals, their manners,
their memory, imagination, and reason. Docility is the first virtue
required in a child: and, to subdue stiff tempers, the remedies prescribed
in the Jesuits' institute are, impartiality in the {196} master, honourable
distinctions, and mortifying humiliations, applied with judgment and
discretion: then, steady attention to maintain the established discipline
and economy of the school, which is a constant, and therefore a powerful
check upon the unruly. To secure it, says the text, hope of reward and fear
of disgrace are more powerful than blows; and, if the latter become
unavoidable, punishment must never be inflicted with that precipitation,
which gives to justice an air of violence. In inquiring into trespasses,
too nice and minute investigation must be avoided, because it inspires
mistrust. The art of dissembling small faults is often a safe means to
prevent great ones. Gentle means must always be first employed; and, if
ever fear and repentance must be impressed, the hand of some indifferent
person must be called into action; the hand of the master must be used only
to impress gratitude and respect. If his hand is never to be the instrument
of pain, his voice must never be the organ of invective. He must employ
{197} instruction, exhortation, friendly reproach, but never contumelious
language, haughtiness, and affronts: he must never utter words to boys,
which would degrade them in the eyes of their companions, or demean them in
their own. In the distribution of rewards, no distinction must be known,
but that of merit. The very suspicion of partiality to character, fortune,
or rank, would frustrate the effect of the rewards bestowed, and provoke
indocility, jealousy, and disgust, in those who received none. Nothing so
quickly overturns authority, and withers the fruit of zealous labours, even
in virtuous masters, as the appearance of undue favour. The masters's equal
attention is due to all; he must interest himself equally for the progress
of all; he must never check the activity of any by indifference, much less
irritate their self-love by contempt.
It were easy to multiply, from the institute, instructions prescribed to
masters, to insure success in this first part of education, the {198}
bridling of the rebel will of youth; but Ignatius knew, that these things
would never be enforced by young masters, who had not learned the art of
bridling their own. Discipline might bind boys to outward respect, but only
religion and virtue can make them love the yoke; and no yoke is ever
carried with perseverance unless it be borne with pleasure. Religion is the
most engaging and most powerful restraint upon rising and growing passions;
and to imprint it deeply in the heart was the main business of the Jesuit
schools. The rest was accessory and subordinate. The principles of religion
were there instilled, while the elements of learning were unfolded. Maxims
of the Gospel were taught together with profane truths; the pride of
science was tempered by the modesty of piety; the master's labour was
directed, as much to form the conscience, as to improve the memory, and
regulate the imagination of his disciples. The institute directed him to
instil a profound respect for God; to begin and end his lessons by prayer;
to cherish the {199} piety of the devout; to avail himself of it as a means
to attract the thoughtless to imitation; and, by a special rule, he was
charged to instruct his scholars in all duties of religion by weekly
catechisms, carefully adapted to their capacity. The ecclesiastical
historian, Fleury, remarks, in the preface to his historical catechism,
that, if the youth of his age was incomparably better instructed than the
youth of past ages, the obligation was owing principally to the catechisms
of the Jesuits' school. He had heard them during the six years of his
education in Clermont college.
Ignatius places herein the capital point of education: and he well knew,
that where the grand motives of religion are not employed, an assembly of
men will commonly be a collection of vice, especially in unexperienced
youth, when growing passions always seek communication, in order to
authorise themselves by example. To this point, then, he directs the rules
of his subjects employed in education; to {200} this he calls the attention
of every professor, the vigilance of every prefect of studies, of every
master, the solicitude of every rector, the inspection of every provincial.
The wise framers of the _Ratio Studiorum_, which is adopted into the
institute, explaining his ideas still farther, require every master to
study the temper and character of his pupils; to distract their passions by
application; to fire their little hearts with laudable emulation. For this,
they must encourage the diffident and modest, curb the forward and
presumptuous: for this they must assign to merit alone those scholastic
appellations of dignity, those titles of _emperor_ and _praetor_, puerile
indeed in themselves, but not less important to boys than are the sounds of
titles, and colours of ribbands to men. On the same principle, in much
frequented colleges, each class was divided into two rival classes, usually
distinguished by the opposite banners of Rome and Carthage, which mutually
dreaded, provoked, and defied each other, in classical duels, or in general
trials of skill, each whetting his {201} memory on the edge of that of his
rival; and then would often flow those precious tears of emulation, which
watered rising genius, expanding it to fertility. Hence, again, are
prescribed those public and solemn annual rewards, distributed with pomp
and show, which reduced the self-love of youth to the love of virtue; which
enamoured them of study by the prospect of success, and, by raising a
desire of pleasing, really taught them how to please.
The institute proceeds to remove from youth every species of bad example.
It directs the prefect and the master how to dissolve growing friendships,
that might be dangerous; it forbids the public explanation of books, or of
single passages, which might mislead active imaginations; it ordains a
scrutiny of all books, that come into the pupil's use; it charges the
master to watch every trespass against the rules of civility and good
manners. Falsehood and detraction, swearing, and foul words, are to be
quickly corrected, or not tolerated within the {202} college. It is, again,
the master's particular duty to form the manners of his pupils to decency,
modesty, and politeness; to correct their errors in language, their faults
in pronunciation, their awkwardness in gestures, their coarseness in
behaviour, not less than to cultivate their memory and regulate their
imagination. For this purpose the institute, without neglecting modern
languages, prescribes, for the justest reasons, the study of Latin and
Greek, in the purest models of Athens and ancient Rome. It joins to these
the study of history, and its concomitants, geography, chronology, and
mythology; and all this must precede the introduction of youth into the
regions of eloquence and poetry, where sportive imagination may amuse and
feed itself for a while with brilliant images and expressive language: but
the institute teaches how to reduce all this to the standard of reason and
sound judgment, by the succeeding study of philosophy and mathematics; and
these, in their turn, are the preparation for the deeper discussions of
theology, which lifts the {203} soul out of the narrow sphere of human
science, and enables the mind, and, still more, the heart, to make
excursions into the immensity of God.
The short sketch, which is here presented, of education among the Jesuits,
is enough to convince us, that no system was ever more solid, more
calculated to produce eminent men, in every department of civil and
ecclesiastical life. Undoubtedly it did produce a succession of them during
two hundred years; and it thus verified the decisive sentence of Bacon, _Ad
paedagogicam quod attinet, brevissimum foret dictu. Consule scholas
Jesuitarum_[68]. Perhaps the real value of the system is still better
proved by the miserable state of degradation, into which public education
and public morals have sunk in catholic countries, since its utter
suppression.
{204}
But the founder of the Jesuits is not satisfied with suggesting what is
right; he provides, what is still more necessary, proper masters to enforce
it. He gives them two years of only spiritual, and five others of spiritual
and literary education, to train them to their important task. With this he
trusts, that their conduct will be irreproachable, that they will be worthy
to be trusted with the grand interests of letters and of morals. He expects
them to be docile, modest, and willing to be guided by their elders, who
have successfully completed their course. They must be young enough to gain
the confidence of children, and firm enough to command respect. To animate
them to assiduity in duty, they must be provided with all necessary books;
they must be stimulated to zeal by the prospect of _God's greater glory_;
they must, therefore, be perfectly weaned from self-interest; they are
required to yield continual service to persons, from whom they must receive
none; they must impart virtue and knowledge, but never sell {205} either;
they must inspire gratitude, and never profit by it; they must prove
themselves deserving of every thing, and accept nothing[69].
The society, in every period of its existence, possessed, in every country,
many excellent and distinguished professors and masters, in every science
which it professed to teach; and the {206} uniformity and steadiness of
their education raised the bulk of its masters much above the rate of
decent mediocrity. It is apparent, that, in the conducting of public
education throughout a large kingdom, a body of men, well compacted
together, and properly trained to the work, must possess superior
advantages; and the world has long since agreed, that no other body of men
ever did, or could furnish so many able and useful teachers, as the society
of Jesuits constantly presented for the public service. There were, no
doubt, elsewhere, masters, able to balance, perhaps to eclipse, the
reputation of those of the society; but these men were seldom found, except
in the first chairs of great universities; they did not diffuse learning
throughout a kingdom, and the succession of them was not uniformly
continued. The Jesuits were universally spread throughout a country, and
every town had a chance of enjoying their best masters. Even in the first
universities it has been allowed, that the Jesuits' schools were of use to
the other colleges, and reciprocally {207} received great advantages from
them. The spirit of laudable emulation stimulated both to generous
exertions, and the general interests of learning were thereby promoted.
During the five or six years which the Jesuits employed in teaching, many
of them obtained renown, and all, it may be presumed, had acquired the
ready use of the Latin language; had discovered the bent of their talents;
and had attained maturity of judgment and love of application. At the end
of their course these masters, aged from twenty-five to thirty years, were
now once more remanded to the benches, and applied, during four years, to
the study of theology, under able professors, in the principal city and
college of their province; thus forming a perpetual colony of forty or
fifty mature and improved students, such as rival colleges could seldom
equal. "At Paris," says cardinal de Maury, "the great college of the
Jesuits was a central point, which attracted the attention of all the best
writers, and of persons {208} of distinction in every rank. It was a kind
of permanent literary tribunal, which the celebrated Piron, in his emphatic
language, used to style _La chambre ardente des reputations literaires_;
always dreaded by men of letters, as the principal source and focus of
public opinion in the capital[70]." What the cardinal asserts of Paris, was
equally true of Rome, Vienna, Lisbon, and other great cities, which
possessed the colleges of higher studies of the society. I conclude with
remarking, that, if any part of what is prescribed in the institute had
been retrenched from the education of Jesuits, their society would not have
deserved such commendations from Piron and cardinal de Maury[71].
If the outlines of education, which have been {209} here traced from the
book of the Jesuits' institute[72], do not win approbation, they may be
presented to the reader, at least, as an object of curiosity. Serious men
will, perhaps, think them more deserving of attention than are many of the
ephemeral vagaries, which modern adventurers in the art of training youth
daily obtrude upon the public. The Jesuits' system is recommended by the
experimental success of two centuries; and, whether the plan was originally
conceived, or only adopted and methodised, by Ignatius and his followers,
certain it is, that, from the close of the council of Trent to the opening
of the Gallic revolution, the main principles, on which it rests, even the
practical details of it, with little variation, pervaded the education of
the catholic clergy in all distinguished seminaries, whether directed by
Jesuits or by others; and they may, therefore, be regarded as {210} the
source of all the virtue and learning which adorned the catholic church in
that period, and which the Gallic revolutioners were sworn to destroy. If
these antichristian conspirators first doomed the Jesuits to annihilation,
it was because their schools were widely diffused through Europe, and were
marked by them as hotbeds of every thing which they chose to term
fanaticism, bigotry, and superstition; that is to say, zeal, faith, and
devotion. These were to be extirpated, to make room for fanaticism,
bigotry, and superstition of another kind; those of equality, reason, and
philosophy. And mark with what avidity they seized upon the spurious maxim,
which had been attributed to the Jesuits, "that it was lawful to do evil,
that their expected good might come:" falsehood, forgery, blasphemy, false
witness, murder, regicide; every crime that a bad heart could suggest, a
perverted head direct, or a venal arm perpetrate, was resorted to, to
attain that _summum bonum_, jacobinism. They had before them the _Monita
Secreta_ and the Institute, and they chose the {211} former for the basis
of their constitutions. I need not repeat the infamous doctrines collected
in that forgery, which was published at the end of the pamphlet, that
induced me to undertake to write these pages, and of which Clericus has
given us an account in the following Letters; suffice it to say, by way of
contrast, that horrors are there piled high one upon another, and said to
be the secret code of regulations of men, who profess to take the institute
of Ignatius for their guide, a code replete with piety and virtue. I have
already said enough to silence the remark, that men may profess only and
not act, for I have shown, that, if ever men acted up to their professions,
the Jesuits have; but it will be an agreeable task to put some of the
points of the institute, which have been distorted, into the view in which
truth requires they should be seen.
First, let us glance an eye over the contents of this institute. It
contains, not only what the founder wrote, but likewise all the papal {212}
bulls and briefs granted to the society; all the decrees and canons of the
several congregations, which form laws in the society; several
instructions, precepts, and ordinations, issued by different generals, and
adopted by general congregations, for universal practice; the general
_Ratio Studiorum_; the privileges granted to the society by the holy see;
the particular rules prescribed for every office in the society, and for
every class of men in it, as priests, missionaries, preachers, students,
&c. The groundwork of all this is what the founder himself wrote; _viz._ an
_Examen Generale_ to be proposed to candidates for admittance;
_Constitutiones Societatis Jesu_; an epistle _De Virtute Obedientiae_; a
book of _Spiritual Exercises_; and, finally, many of the particular rules
of offices. The Prague edition of the Institute, anno 1757, two small folio
volumes, lies before me, and I have taken a good deal of fruitless trouble
to find out some propositions denounced by the enemies of the Jesuits,
without reference to the page or chapter. I have found nothing but what
reflects {213} honour on the code. The objects of it are the glory of God,
the general good of man, and the preservation of the society. In pursuance
of the first of these, the members make vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience; they mortify their senses, renounce worldly honours, and preach
the Gospel. The means they use for the second consist of example, prayer,
works of charity, pious publications, preaching, educating youth, and
sending forth missions. For the third object, their preservation, they have
appropriate rules of union, discipline, reputation, freedom from party, and
moderation[73].
Such is the code which has been so misrepresented. It is impossible, within
the bounds of a pamphlet, and, indeed, I have already stretched into the
latitude of a book, to give an adequate notion of it, and to combat the
opinions which have gone abroad against it. These opinions {214} are so
many adopted prejudices, the refutation of which is completely given in the
_Apologie de l'Institut_, to which I must refer the reader, who will find
in it many extracts from the institute itself; and I shall here briefly
notice the vow of obedience, and the imputed despotism of the general,
about which so much has been said.
"Their blind obedience! To be as unresisting as _a dead body_, or as
tractable as _a stick_ in the hands of an old man![74]." This language,
taken disjointedly, is among the bugbears held up by the new conspirators
against the Jesuits. It must surely be allowed, that obedience is necessary
in every institution, where training the mind is an object, and the
institute is not reprehensible for excluding wilful argumentation, while it
allows every one the use of his reason. _Blind obedience_ is not required
for the commission of a crime, but in duties known to be pious {215} and
moral, in actions evidently laudable. Nor is the expression of the text
_caeca obedientia_, but _caeca quadam obedientia_[75]. The rule is for the
better training of the young and the inexperienced; and what school does
not proceed upon it to the extent required by the institute, which excepts
whatever is criminal, or morally wrong? It literally prescribes, that this
_kind_ of _blind obedience_ shall, nevertheless, be conformable to justice
and to charity; _omnibus in rebus ad quas potest cum charitate se
obedientia extendere_[76]. Nay, the order of the superior is not only to be
examined, to see that it is free from a capital sin, but from any sin
whatever; _in omnibus quae a superiore disponuntur ubi definiri non possit
(quemadmodum dictum est) aliquod peccati genus intercedere_[77]. In a word,
discussion is not forbidden by the institute, but in cases where it is
evident that there is no sin; {216} _ubi non cerneretur peccatum_[78]; a
doctrine continually repeated on this head, _quemadmodum dictum est_, that
is, _in quibus nullum manifestum est peccatum_[79]. Where now is the horror
of this obedience? It will seem a paradox to say, that the rigour of it
arises from the mildness of the Jesuit government: but it is not less the
fact; for, as all violent measures and corporal punishments are excluded
from the society, a prompt moral obedience is absolutely necessary to its
existence. It thus becomes an amiable, as well as an indispensable law.
But the despotism of the general? The obedience, which the Jesuits owe
their general, is the same as that which they pay to their ordinary
superiors. It flows from the same source, and tends to the same end. Having
demonstrated the slavery of it to be a chimera, the despotism of the
general naturally vanishes with {217} it. The nature of the society
required, that it should be under a single chief: to have given to separate
houses independent chiefs would have destroyed the great objects depending
upon a union of councils. It was no cenobitical order devoted chiefly to
working out their own salvation; but one, whose members were to be spread
over the whole world, to promote the glory of God and the good of man. The
institute, however, takes great care, that the chief should not be a
despot: it gives him no slaves, nor even subjects, but friends, children,
and counsellors[80]; mildness is the sceptre it bestows upon him, and
charity the throne[81]; it {218} equally prohibits the superior to govern
by violence and the inferior to obey through fear[82]. The general is
elected by the whole society, who first swear to choose only him, whom they
believe to be the most worthy of the office[83]. There is nothing arbitrary
or changeable in the {219} authority of the general: it is subjected by the
institute to stable and invariable laws, and his duties are minutely
prescribed. If he deviates from them, it provides for his removal[84]. Far
from being a despot, he is not even exempted from the superintendance of a
monitor chosen by the society, who observes his conduct, tells him of his
faults, points out his duties, and is consequently compelled not to excuse
him in any point[85]. In spiritual affairs, the general is subject to the
pope; in temporal matters, to the government under which he lives; and, in
what {220} concerns himself personally, or the society solely, to a general
meeting of the order[86]. Though elected for life, he may be deposed for
several reasons stated in the institute; and the same hands that clothed
him with power may strip him of it[87]. It has been said, that the motive
for appointing a single chief was the facility it offers for promoting more
certainly the ends of ambition. The institute strongly condemns ambition in
individuals, and still more strongly in the general[88]. One great {221}
charge against the power of the general is, that his authority may injure
that of sovereigns, by withdrawing their subjects from their obedience: on
the contrary, he is expressly forbidden, by the institute, to take from a
state any Jesuit whatever, without the knowledge of the sovereign[89]. The
annulling of contracts is another source of abuse, founded on a mistaken
passage in the institute, where it is said; "Although the general, by his
open letters to particular superiors, confers on them an ample power in
that respect, yet that power may be restricted and limited by private
letters." This passage has no reference to contracts, and relates only to
the power given openly to local superiors to dismiss improper persons; and
there can be no objection to the private limiting of that power. But the
most obnoxious charge of all is, that the general of the Jesuits maintains
spies everywhere, for the purpose of diving into the secrets of courts, and
into the {222} affairs of private families. The institute contains a rule
directly the reverse of this assertion, a rule by which he is expressly
prohibited from meddling in affairs that do not concern the society, even
under any pretext of piety or religion[90].
After all, then, the general of the Jesuits is not such a monster as he has
been painted, and it is absurd to suppose, that a learned and sensible old
man, who, about to give an account of his ministry to God, has but a few
years to fill the office, should consider it as the spring of every kind of
crime; it is absurd to suppose, that the brethren of the order, who have
sacrificed every thing on earth to the hope of finding under the empire of
the institute the greatest perfection of the Christian character, should
believe, that they are obliged, by virtue of that very institute, to commit
the greatest sins man is capable of; and it is absurd to {223} suppose,
that, if a general were mad enough to abuse his power, there would not be
found a pope wise enough, or Jesuits virtuous enough to depose him,
conformably to the laws of the church and of the institute.
Formerly, when the Jesuits had powerful protectors, the practice was to
turn them into ridicule; now, that they have powerful enemies, the object
is to stigmatize them with every vice. Nothing is more difficult, or more
delicate, than to parry ridicule; but, to refute abuse, one has only to
expose it.
In the present state of the continental powers, it seems hardly possible,
that the society of Jesuits should recover its ancient importance, but
their destruction must ever be lamented; and, since their unrelenting
enemies have tempted the public curiosity to inquire into their history,
this chapter shall be closed with a brief account of the final catastrophe
of that small portion of their body, which for two {224} hundred years was
connected with England, by the common bonds of country, language, and
blood.
About the year 1590, the English Jesuits obtained, from the liberality of
Philip II of Spain, the foundation of their principal college at St. Omer;
and, soon after, the bishop of that city conferred upon them an ancient
abbey, with its demesnes, situated in the neighbouring small town of
Watten. A few years later, they acquired the foundation of their college at
Liege, from Maximilian the elector of Bavaria, and likewise a smaller
settlement in the city of Ghent. In these several houses, they applied
themselves to the education of British catholic youth, and to the formation
of missionaries. In 1762, the two first-mentioned of these establishments
were subjected to confiscation by the unsparing _arrets_ of the parliament
of Paris. The inhabitants could obtain no mercy, on the consideration of
being foreigners admitted on the public faith; they were all ejected, {225}
without the smallest allowance for their support, or even for their return
to their native soil. They presented themselves to the Austrian government
of the Netherlands, at Bruxelles; they were admitted under an _octroi_, the
most solemn act of that government, and they established themselves in the
city of Bruges. In 1773, on the appearance of pope Clement XIV's
destructive brief, they were once more unmercifully pillaged, in despite of
the public faith, pledged in the _octroi_; and here the fangs of fiscal
avarice were sharpened to an uncommon edge, because it was the persuasion
of that despotic government, that, being Jesuits, they deserved no pity,
and, being English, they must be rich. At the same period, their large
college at Liege was stript of all its income, by the two courts of Munich
and Rome, and the inmates of the house were also here turned adrift,
without any allowance for their personal subsistence. In this utter
distress, a few of these persecuted men, who remained at Liege, not quite
dispirited by their calamities, were encouraged by the prince {226} bishop
of Liege, to form, within the old college, a school and a seminary of
priests. The plan was sanctioned by a brief of pope Pius VI; they found
friends, and unremitting labour and industry during twenty years advanced
their work to a degree of consistency, which merited the approbation and
confidence of the public. But all this was of no avail. Utter destruction
was to be their doom. In 1794, when the French armies, by one general
sweep, overturned, in the Low Countries, every thing that related to the
religion of Jesus Christ, they were finally dislodged and scattered; their
house and all their valuables were left to the disposal of those outrageous
freebooters; waggon-loads of their best books were converted into wadding
for the cannon; their mathematical and optical cabinet was pillaged; they
retired in sorrow, each to seek a refuge, with hardly a hope of seeing
better days. Thus terminated the English province of the society of Jesus.
A few of these ancient men, who have weathered the whole storm, are still
alive, {227} comforting their old age with the late public testimony of the
head of the church, that they deserved a better fate. Having availed
themselves of the indulgence of the British government, on leaving the
Netherlands they sought an asylum in their own country. They here subsist,
in the security of conscious innocence, fearless of the prejudices and
malice of a few unprovoked foes, who know not how to harrass them but by
the old weapons of misrepresentation and slander. They have pledged their
allegiance to their king and country, in the comprehensive oath of 1791;
they meddle not with general or county politics; _they seek no offices of
state_, that remaining stumbling block in the way of the catholic nobility
and gentry; they attend solely to their own professional concerns; and, as
peaceable and loyal subjects, they may justly expect protection for their
persons and for their property. Friends of the government and of the
country, friends of monarchy, friends of public tranquillity, friends of
order and {228} subordination, friends of religion, friends of morality,
friends of letters, shall they not be protected? Ignorance, prejudice, and
passion, shall not prevail against such men.
* * * * *
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