Lutheranism. But he knew that the disciples of the great Western heresiarch were cunning dialectitians, and logic was a weapon with which he was not very familiar. But reflecting that some skill in this kind of fence was indispensable, he put himself to school to acquire it. A man of thirty-five, he sat down on the same bench with the youth in the public seminary of Barcelona, and began resolutely the study of Latin. From thence he passed in succession to the university of Alcala, ot Salamanca, and, in 1528, of St. Barbara in Paris, devoting himselt at these famous resorts of scholars to the prosecution of the science of theology. He now began to diversify his studies by occasional addresses delivered on the streets, where his passionate harangues never failed to draw round him admiring crowds. These doings brought him at times into collision with the authorities, and even made him to be suspected by the Inquisition. The man and his aims were as yet a mystery. Closer observation, however, soon satisfied both the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities that he was no Lutheran, and he was left undisturbed. All the while he tenaciously pursued his course of severe study and rigorous penance, his austerities and labours cheered at times by enchanting visions and edifying voices, which promised him garlands of never-fading glory in the future. The world saw in him as yet little besides the crazy student and visionary, but the time was drawing nigh when he would drop the mendicant and stand forth as the generalissimo of a great army which he himself was to create, and with which he should fight and conquer in the greatest battle of the age. These were the hopes that sustained him.

He had schooled and disciplined himself, he must now make a beginning with his army. There lived under the same roof with him two youths, also students of theology at the College of St. Barbara, in Paris. The one, Peter Fabre, a simple but enthusiastic youth from the mountains of Savoy; the other,

Francis Xavier, the scion of an ancient and noble house of Navarre. The three were inseparable companions, and Loyola had easy opportunity of spreading out before them, in all its grandeur, the project he was revolving. Where on earth was there glory compared with that of routing the hosts of heresy, and restoring to the Church her former boundless dominion? They listened till they caught his fire; and yearned to share with him the glory of the enterprise. The names of Fabre and Xavier were the first to be enrolled in that army which future years were to see so prodigiously multiplied. By-andby they were joined by six others, and now the infant Jesuithost was swelled to nine. They were few, and yet they were many.

They were enrolled, but they were not yet fit for service. They must be drilled. Loyola made them pass through an ordeal of spiritual and bodily discipline, similar to that which he himself had undergone. He made them go daily to confession and mass. He exercised them with severe bodily penances scourgings and macerations. He compelled them to fast for days on end. The winter was unusually severe. The Seine was a mass of ice. The ground was covered with snow; and a bitter wind swept the streets of Paris, but no relaxation of penance would Loyola allow his disciples. Not one in their number of lashes would he forego, nor abridge by a single hour the length of their abstinences. They must fulfil the number of their days. On the 15th of August—the day of the Assumption of Mary-the little troop, emaciated and worn, we may well believe, but with the light of a great purpose beaming in their eyes-proceeded to the church of Mary, Montmartre, and there swore to prosecute eternal war with heretics, and sealed their oath by receiving the sacrament of the mass. This was in 1534. The name they took to themselves was that of "The Companions of Jesus."

They next set out for Rome, in the hope of obtaining the approval of the Pope. The regulars "black, white, and gray," being already so numerous, it might be doubted whether there was room for a new order. As Loyola drew near the Eternal City he was cheered with a vision which assured him that this time he should not have to shake the dust from his feet over the rejection of his suit. The little troop entered the gates of Rome elate, and threw themselves at the feet of Paul III. The pontiff smiled graciously on them; their offer of service pleased him well, for it was a time of need with the Pope, and the new champions swore to obey him as soldiers obey their general, and to give their service without asking so much as a penny of wages. Paul III. issued his bull on the 15th of September, 1540, and the "Order of Jesus" was constituted.

CHAPTER VI.

The Training of the Jesuits.

THE bull of the Pope, after all, could effect but little. It could add another Order to those already at the service of Rome, but that was nearly all it could do. Beyond the score or so of men who now stood before Paul III., the Order was yet to create. The genius and enthusiasm of Loyola alone could do this. These few individuals he would multiply into an army of thousands; and he would breathe into them such a spirit as was demanded at that hour by the perils; and, we may add, the despair of the Papacy. Loyola would have no half-hearted and timorous soldiers in his army. Every offered recruit he would pass through the fire of a terrible ordeal; and only on finding that he stood the test would he enrol him in the ranks of a host as yet undistinguished, but destined to achieve, in

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due time, a name that would fill all lands with its terror.

The age was one of great mental and moral daring. Uplifted by great principles, and enlarged by sublime aims, and with a great question in debate, men on both sides were girding themselves for toil and suffering, and even for the most horrible deaths. They made light of dungeons, and racks, when they stood between them and the object to which they had devoted themselves. Loyola and his company knew their age, and they resolved to meet its spirit with a spirit of equal devotion and heroism. The work to which the Jesuits were called was beyond measure difficult. They must do what Charles V. had failed to do with all his armies and executioners. But in proportion to the difficulty of the work so must be the length and severity of the preparation for it: and so too the glory of its achievement.

The Jesuits needed a threefold preparation. They must be disciplined in body, disciplined in mind, and disciplined in soul. They must undergo a physical training, an intellectual training, and a spiritual training. Let us bestow a glance at each of these.

They had to be trained in body. On a physical frame, wiry, hardy, and capable of great endurance, must be grafted their qualities of mind and soul. They would have to do the errands of Rome in all climates, and under all outward conditions. They would be required to serve her in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness; amid the ice of the Pole, and under the burning sun of the tropics. This was no service for the sons of luxury. It was no service, in truth, for any one, till first he was master of a body hardened and braced by proper training. Loyola had undergone such training in his own person, and the servant in this respect must be as his master. Long fastings must teach him to endure hunger; the gnawings of the iron girdle, or the frettings of the hair shirt, must teach him to

despise pain; and exposure to all weathers must brave him to do battle with the hail and lightnings of the sky, the crested surges of the deep, or the sands of the burning desert. To all these endurances did Loyola inure his disciples. The warriors who followed Alexander into the then unknown regions of India, and the soldiers who marched at the command of Napoleon into the frosts and drifts of a northern winter, were brave men and thoroughly disciplined; but they were not drilled and hardened to the pitch of Loyola's army. The phalanxes of the Macedonian, and the legions of the Corsican, would have shrunk from tasks, and turned back before dangers against which the troops of Loyola advanced with an unshrinking firmness, and a never-failing courage.

Loyola trained his followers intellectually and socially. He taught them to be willing to serve Rome in all conditions of life in honour and in dishonour, in good report and in bad report; and to accept, with equal readiness, the most splendid post or the most despised position which the interests of the Church might require them to fill. Their vocation, he reminded them, was more truly grand than that of any other of the servants of the papal chair; its importance must be its reward meanwhile its solid and enduring recompense would come hereafter.

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They must acquire a knowledge of all trades and handicrafts; they must study sciences and arts; they must speak all languages. We do not mean that this vast range of accomplishment and capability was exacted on the part of each individual Jesuit, but only on the part of the Order. It must be in itself an epitome of Society. The Order must be able to send forth men for all departments of life-for the plough, for the loom, for the factory, for the bourse, for the school, for the bench of justice, for the army, and for the Church. Its members must wear an infinity of shapes, play an infinity of parts,