The Jesuits, 1534-1921

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 "Œdipus 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."