The Jesuits, 1534-1921

Meantime, residences and colleges were being established in the cities of Al-Oran, Constantine and Algiers, but when at the instance of the bishop, Father Schimbri opened a little house in the neighborhood of Selif and was ingratiating himself with the natives, the authorities demanded his immediate recall. Later, when the bishop solicited leave to begin a native mission he was denounced in Paris for influencing minors, because he had asked some Lazarists to teach a few vagabond Arab children; but the government, whose disrespect for religion was a by-word with the natives, had no scruple in building Moslem schoolhouses, allowing a French general to pronounce an eulogy of Islamism in the pulpit of a mosque. While it forbade religious processions, it provided a ship to carry Arabian pilgrims to Mecca. It was so scrupulously careful of the Moslem conscience that it forbade the nuns to hang up a crucifix in the hospital when these holy women were nursing sick Mohammedans.

In 1864 there were Jesuit chaplains in two of the forts, and from there they ventured among the natives with whom they soon became popular. That was too much to put up with, so they were ordered to discontinue, because, forsooth, they were attacking the right of freedom of conscience. The result of this governmental policy was that in the revolt of the Kabyles in 1871 the leaders of the insurgents were the Arab students who had been given exclusively lay and irreligious instructions in Fort Napoleon. Father Brou says (viii, 218) that MacMahon who was governor of the colony was opposed to Cardinal Lavigerie's efforts to Christianize the natives, but that Napoleon III supported the cardinal, who after his victory, installed the Jesuits in the orphanage and also made Father Terasse novice master of the community of White Fathers, which was then being founded; two others were commissioned to put themselves in communication with the tribes of the Sahara and when they reported that everything was favorable the new Order began its triumphant career. That was in 1872. When Vice-Admiral de Guéydon was made governor he willingly permitted the cardinal to employ Jesuits as well as White Fathers in the work among the Kabyles, but de Guéydon was quickly removed from office and the old methods of persecution were resumed. When the year 1880 arrived and the government was busy closing Jesuit houses, the single one left to them in Algeria was seized.

Portugal graciously made a gift to Spain of the Island of Fernando Po in the Gulf of Guinea. Brou calls it "an island of hell," with heat like a lime-kiln, and reeking with yellow fever. It was inhabited by a race of negroes called Boubis, who were dwarfs, with rickety limbs, malformed, tattooed from head to foot, smeared with a compound of red clay and oil, speaking five different dialects, each one unintelligible to speakers of the others; they had been charged with poisoning the streams so as to get rid of the Portuguese and were trying to kill the Spaniards by starvation. It cannot have been brotherly love that suggested this Portuguese present. To this lovely spot Queen Isabella of Spain invited the Jesuits in 1859, and they accepted the offer. They lived among the blacks, unravelled the tangle of the five dialects and won the affection of the natives. Their success in civilizing these degraded creatures was such that whenever a quarrel broke out in any of the villages the governor had only to send his staff of office and peace descended on the settlement. In other words the missionaries had made Fernando Po a Paraguay. This condition of things lasted twelve years, but when Isabella descended from her throne the first act of the revolutionists was to expel the Jesuits from the mission.

Leo XIII had ordered the General, Father Beckx to begin a seminary at Cairo. It was opened with twelve pupils. Three years afterwards occurred the Turkish massacre of Damascus and Libanus and the bombardment of Alexandria by the English. In consequence of all this the seminarians fled to Beirut, and after the war a college was begun at the deserted establishment of the Lazarists at Alexandria. Cairo was near by, but there was such an antagonism between the two cities that two distinct colleges with different methods and courses had to be maintained. Cairo was Egyptian in tone; Alexandria was French. Meanwhile, a mission was established on the Nile at Nineh which was some distance south of Cairo. In this mission the young priests trained at Beirut were employed, and they proved to be such excellent apostles that Leo XIII made three of them bishops and thus laid the foundation of the United Coptic hierarchy. In 1905 there were 20,000 United Copts in Egypt, four-fifths of whom had been reclaimed from the schism. This is all the more remarkable because the Protestants had spent enormous amounts of money in schools, hospitals, and asylums.

Madagascar was originally called the Island of St. Lawrence, because it was first sighted on the festival day of the great martyr by Diego Diaz, who with Cabral, the Portuguese discoverer, was exploring the Indian Ocean in the year 1500. A Portuguese priest was massacred there in 1540; in 1585 a Dominican was poisoned by the natives, and in the seventeenth century two Jesuits came from Goa with a native prince who had been captured by the Portuguese. Their benevolence toward the prince secured them permission to preach Christianity for a while, but when their influence began to show itself, they were, in obedience to a royal order, absolutely avoided by the natives so that one starved to death; the other succeeded in reaching home. The Lazarists came in 1648, but remained only fourteen months, two of their number having died meantime. Other attempts were made, but all ended in disaster to the missionaries. Nothing more was done until the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1832 Fathers de Solages and Dalmond were sent out, but they had been anticipated by the Protestant missionaries who, as early as 1830, had 32 schools with 4,000 pupils. De Solages soon succumbed and Dalmond continued to work on the small islands off the coast until 1843, when he returned to Europe to ask Father Roothaan to send him some Jesuits. Six members of the Society together with two Fathers of the Holy Ghost responded to the call, but they could get no farther than the islands of Nossi-Bé or St. Mary's and Réunion, or Bourbon as it was called.

The Queen Ranavalo, who was a ferocious and bloodthirsty pagan, had no use for any kind of evangelists, Protestant or Catholic, but there was a Frenchman named Laborde in the capital, who was held in high esteem by her majesty, because he was a cannon-founder, a manufacturer of furniture and a maker of soap. Besides these accomplishments to recommend him, he had won the esteem of the heir-apparent. Incidentally Laborde put the prince in relation with the missionaries off the coast. A short time afterwards, there appeared in the royal city another Frenchman who could make balloons, organize theatrical representations, and compound drugs. He was accepted in the queen's service. He was a Jesuit in disguise. His name was Finaz, and he continued to remain at Tananarivo until 1857, when the violence of the queen, who was insanely superstitious, brought about an uprising against her which was organized by the Protestant missionaries. She prevailed against the rebels, and as a consequence all Europeans were expelled from the island, and among them Father Finaz. He could congratulate himself that he had at least learned the language and made himself acquainted with the inhabitants.

Four years later (1861), the queen died, and King Radama II ascended the throne; whereupon six Jesuits opened a mission in Tananarivo. They soon had 2 schools with 400 pupils and numberless catechumens, but their success was not solid, for the Malgassy easily goes from one side to another as his personal advantage may dictate. Radama was killed, and then followed a forty years' struggle between the French and the English to get control of the island. The English prevailed for a time and, in 1869, Protestantism was declared to be the state religion. The number of evangelists multiplied enormously, but they were merely government agents and knew next to nothing about Christian truth or morality. The confusion was increased, when to the English parsons were added American Quakers and Norwegian Lutherans. The Evangelical statistics of all of them in 1892 were most imposing. Thus the Independents claimed 51,033 and the Norwegians 47,681, with 37,500 children in their schools. The names were on the lists, but the school-houses were often empty, and in the interim between the different official visits of the inspectors often no instruction was given. Against this the Catholics had only 22 chapels and 25 schools, and they were mostly in the neighborhood of Tananarivo.

France was subsequently the dominant influence in Madagascar but, as in the mother country religion was tabooed, there was little concern about it in the colonies. When the Franco-Prussian war showed the weakness of France, the respect for the alleged religion of France vanished, especially when a crusade began against the Catholic schools. Nevertheless the faithful continued to grow in number, and in 1882 they were reckoned at 80,000 with 152 churches, 44 priests, 527 teachers and 2,000 pupils. War broke out in 1881, and the missionaries were expelled but returned after hostilities ceased, and found that their neophytes, under the guidance of a princess of the royal blood, had held firmly to their religion, notwithstanding the closing of the schools and the sacking of the churches. After these troubles, conversions increased, and in 1894 there were 75 Jesuit priests in the island; and, besides the primary schools which had increased in number, a college and nine high schools as well as a printing house and two leper hospitals were erected. Added to this, an observatory was built and serious work began in geographical research, cartography, ethnography, natural history, folklore and philology.

Just at the height of this prosperity, a persecution began. The missionaries were expelled, their buildings looted, and the observatory wrecked. In 1896 the bishop counted 108 of his chapels which had been devastated, but in 1897 General Galieni arrived, and the queen vanished from the scene. After that the faith prospered, and in the year 1900 alone there were 94,998 baptisms. In 1896 Propaganda divided Madagascar into three vicariates: one entrusted to the Lazarists; another to the Fathers of the Holy Ghost; and a third to the Jesuits of the provinces of Toulouse and Champagne. In the Jesuit portion, the latest statistics give 160,08 °Christians and 170,000 catechumens, with 74 priests, 8 scholastics and 11 lay-brothers. The chief difficulty to contend with is the gross immorality of the people who are, in consequence, almost impervious to religious teaching, and at the same time easily captured by the money that pours into the country from England and Norway. The French officials, of course, cannot be expected to further the cause of Catholicity.

In 1877, when Bishop Ricards of Grahamstown in South Africa asked the Jesuits to accept the Zambesi Mission, Father Weld ardently took up the work, and in April, 1879, Father Depelchin, a Belgian, started from Kimberly, with eleven companions for Matabeleland, over which King Lo Benguela ruled. It was a five months' journey and the missionaries did not arrive at the royal kraal until September 2. But as the prospects of conversion of the much-married king and his followers were not particularly bright, only one part of the expedition remained with Lo Benguela, while two others struck for the interior. There several of the strongest missionaries sickened and died. The work went on, however, for ten weary years when the king told them to stop teaching religion and show the people how to till the soil. Otherwise they must go. They accepted the offer, of course, for it got them a better means of imparting religious instruction.

Then a quarrel broke out between the British, the Portuguese, the Boers and Lo Benguela for the possession of Mashonaland. The British as usual won the fight, but when Cecil Rhodes came to the kraal, to arrange matters, Lo Benguela ordered all the whites out of his dominion and the Fathers withdrew. A new difficulty then arose between the English and Portuguese, and the mission was divided between Upper and Lower Zambesi, the latter being assigned to the Portuguese Jesuits. There was trouble with the natives of both sections for some time, and then the Anglo-Boer war broke out, so that for twenty-five years very little apostolic progress was made. In Upper Zambesi or Rhodesia, as it is called, there are at present 40 Jesuit priests and 24 brothers, and 3 missionaries of Mariannhill, with 115 nuns, 20 churches or chapels, and 30 schools of which 26 are for natives, and about 5,00 °Catholics. Naturally speaking the result scarcely warrants the outlay but the purpose is supernatural and intelligible only from that point of view. In Lower Zambesi, which was given to the Portuguese Jesuits, there have been no troubles because it is garrisoned by Portuguese soldiers; the four stations in that district with their thirty-five Fathers were doing splendid work when the Portuguese revolution occurred; the Jesuits were then expelled, but twenty-six Fathers of the Divine Word took their place.

The early days of the Zambesi mission evoked splendid manifestations of the old heroic spirit of the Society. Thus we read of one of the missionaries, a Father Wehl, who was separated from his companions and wandered for twenty-six days in the bush, luckily escaping the wild beasts and finally falling into the hands of some Kaffirs who were about to put him to death, when he was saved by the opportune arrival of an English gold-hunter. But starvation and disease had shattered his health and his mind was gone. Six months afterwards he died.

Meantime his two companions Father Law and Brother Hedley found shelter among the natives, but had to live in a clay hut which was a veritable oven. They both fell sick of fever; little or no food was given them, and they slowly starved to death. They lay along side of each other, neither being able to assist his companion, and when finally the Father breathed his last, all the poor lonely brother could do was to place a handkerchief on the face, but when he removed the covering in the morning, he found that the rats had been eating the flesh. The dead missionary lay there for some time because the superstitious natives would not touch the corpse; when finally a rope was tied around it, they dragged it out of the hut and left it in the forest. For three weeks after this horrible funeral the poor brother had to fight off the rats that were attacking himself; at last the chief took pity on him and had him carried on a litter to a band of other missionaries who were approaching. When his friends saw him they burst into tears. He had not changed his clothes for five months and they were in tatters. His whole body was covered with sores and ulcers and the wounds were filled with vermin. He was in a state of stupor when he arrived, but strange to say he recovered. His dead companion, the priest, had been a naval officer, and was a convert to the Faith and the grandson of one of the lord chancellors of England.

The Congo mission was organized by the Belgium Jesuits in 1885, under the auspices of Leopold II of Belgium, who had established the Congo Free State. His majesty requested the Fathers to assist him, but he gave them no financial aid whatever, though he was pointedly asked to do so. The Congo Free State begins 400 miles from the Atlantic ocean and extends to Central Africa. Leopold's plan was to abolish slavery within the boundaries of this domain; then to make the adult male population his soldiers, and meantime to place the orphans and abandoned children in asylums which the missionaries would manage. Some of these establishments were to be supported from the public revenues, others by charity. The whole hope of the mission was in these orphanages, for nothing could be expected from the adult population. The boys were to be taught a trade and then married at the proper time. These households were to be visited and supervised by the missionaries.

It was an excellent plan, but it was opposed by the Belgian anti-clericals, who objected to giving so much power to priests. A number of English Protestants also busied themselves in spreading calumnies about these settlements and brought their accusations to court, where sentence was frequently given without hearing the accused. The charges were based on alleged occurrences in three out of the forty-four mission stations. The persecution became so acute that the Jesuits appealed to the king and received the thanks of his majesty and the government for the work they had performed, but the calumnies were not retracted, until May 26, 1906, when a formal document was issued by the Free State declaring that it greatly esteemed the work performed by the Catholic missionaries in the civilization of the State. In the following year on May 22, it added: "Since it is impossible to do without the missionaries in the conversion of the blacks, and as their help is of the greatest value in imparting instruction, we recommend that the mission be made still more efficacious by granting them a subsidy for the upkeep of their institutions." At the beginning of 1913, the Jesuits had seven stations and forty missionaries. In spite of all this, however, the work of systematic calumniation still continues.

The great war of 1914 brought absolute ruin on all the missions of Asia and Africa. Thus France called to the army every French priest or lay brother who was not crippled by age and infirmity, and made him fight in the ranks as a common soldier or a stretcher bearer in the hospital or on the battlefield. This was the case not only with the Jesuits, but with other religious orders and the secular priesthood. Nor was this call to the colors restricted to those who were in the French colonies; it affected all priests or brothers of French birth who were laboring in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Belgian Congo, Angola, Zambesi, Canada, Haiti, the United States or South America. Sixty priests or brothers had to leave Japan. Out of forty-three missionaries of the Society of African Missions who were in Egypt, half had to leave. Of the twenty-two who were on the Ivory Coast sixteen were mobilized. Indeed, four bishops were summoned to the ranks, Mgrs. Moury of the Ivory Coast, Terrien of Benin, Perros of Siam, and Hermel of Haiti. There were at the outbreak of the war thirty-five Jesuits from the Levant in the army, besides others from Madagascar, Madura and China.

CHAPTER XXVII

COLLEGES

Responsibility of the Society for loss of Faith in Europe – The Loi Falloux – Bombay – Calcutta – Beirut – American Colleges – Scientists, Archæologists, Meteorologists, Seismologists, Astronomers – Ethnologists.

The Society of Jesus is frequently charged with being responsible for the present irreligious condition of the Latin nations, of France in particular, because, having had the absolute control of education in the past, it did not train its pupils to resist the inroads of atheism and unbelief.

In the first place, the charge is based on the supposition that the Society had complete control of the education of Catholic countries, which is not the case. Thus, for instance, Montesquieu, one of the first and most dangerous of the assailants of the Church in the eighteenth century, was educated by the Oratorians. As much as thirty-seven years before the French Revolution, namely, in 1752, Father Vitelleschi, the General of the Society, addressed the following letter to the Jesuits throughout the world:

"It is of supreme importance that what we call the scholæ inferiores (those namely below philosophy and theology) should be looked after with extreme solicitude. We owe this to the municipalities which have established colleges for us, and entrusted to us the education of their youth. This is especially incumbent upon us at the present time, when such an intense desire for scholastic education everywhere manifests itself, and has called into existence so many schools of that kind. Hence, unless we are careful, there is danger of our colleges being considered unnecessary. We must not forget that for a long time there were almost no other Latin schools but ours, or at least very few; so that parents were forced to send their sons to us who otherwise would not have done so. But now in many places, many schools are competing with ours, and we are exposing ourselves to be regarded as not up to the mark, and thus losing both our reputation and our scholars. Hence, our pupils are not to be detained for too long a period by a multiplication of courses, and they must be more than moderately imbued with a knowledge of the Classics. If they have not the best of masters, it is very much to be feared that they will betake themselves elsewhere and then every effort on our part to repair the damage will be futile."

In the second place, after the year 1762, that is twenty-seven years before the Revolution, there were not only no Jesuit colleges at all in France, but no Jesuits, and consequently there was an entire generation which had been trained in schools that were distinctly and intensely antagonistic to everything connected with the Society. Furthermore, it is an undeniable fact, provable by chronology, that the most conspicuous men in that dreadful upheaval, namely, Robespierre, Desmoulins, Tallien, Fréron, Chenier and others were educated in schools from which the Jesuits had been expelled before some of those furious young demagogues were born. Danton, for instance, was only three years old in 1762; Marat was a Protestant from Geneva, and, of course, was not a Jesuit pupil; and Mirabeau was educated by private tutors. The fact that Robespierre and Desmoulins were together at Louis-le-Grand has misled some into the belief that they were Jesuit students, whereas the college when they were there had long been out of the hands of the Society. The same is true of Portugal and Spain. The Society had ceased to exist in Portugal as early as 1758, and in Spain in 1767.

Far from being in control of the schools of France, the whole history of the French Jesuits is that of one uninterrupted struggle to get schools at all. Against them, from the very beginning, were the University of Paris and the various parliaments of France, which represented the highest culture of the nation and bitterly resented the intrusion of the Society into the domain of education.

Not only is this true of the period that preceded but also of the one that followed the French Revolution. It was only in 1850, namely seventy-seven years after the Suppression of the Society, that the Jesuits, in virtue of the Loi Falloux, were permitted to open a single school in France. The wonder is that the incessant confiscations and suppressions which followed would permit of any educational success whatever. Nevertheless, in the short respites that were allowed them they filled the army and navy with officers who were not only conspicuous in their profession but, at the same time, thoroughgoing Catholics. Marshal Foch is one of their triumphs. Indeed it was the superiority of their education that provoked the latest suppression of the Jesuit schools in France.

It is this government monopoly of education in all the Continental countries that constitutes the present difficulty both for the Society of Jesus and for all the other teaching orders. Thus after 1872, the German province had not a single college in the whole extent of the German Empire. It could only attempt to do something beyond the frontiers. It has one in Austria, a second in Holland, and a third in Denmark. Austria has only one to its credit; Hungary one and Bohemia another. The province of Rome has one; Sicily two, one of which is in Malta, and Malta is English territory; Naples had three and Turin four, but some of these have already disappeared. All the splendid colleges of France were closed by Waldeck-Rousseau in 1890. Spain has five excellent establishments, but they have no guarantee of permanency. Belgium has thirteen colleges, packed with students, but the terrible World War has at least for a time depleted them. Holland has three colleges of its own. England four, and Ireland three.

The expulsions, however, have their compensations. Thus when the Jesuits were expelled from Germany by Bismarck, the English government welcomed them to India, and the splendid college of Bombay was the result. Italy also benefited by the disaster. Not to mention other distinguished men, Father Ehrle became Vatican librarian, and Father Wernz, rector of the Gregorian University and subsequently General of the Society. In South America, the exiles did excellent work in Argentina and Ecuador. The Jesuits of New York gave them an entrance into Buffalo, and from that starting-point they established a chain of colleges in the West, and later, when conditions called for it, they were assimilated to the provinces of Maryland, New York and Missouri, thus greatly increasing the efficiency of those sections of the Society.

When driven out of their country, the Portuguese Jesuits betook themselves to Brazil, where their help was greatly needed; the Italians went to New Mexico and California; and the French missions of China and Syria benefited by the anti-clericalism of the home government; for Zikawei became an important scientific world-centre and Beirut obtained a university. The latter was, until the war broke out, a great seat of Oriental studies.

The most imposing institutions in Beirut, a city with a population of over 150,000, made up of Mussulmans, Greeks, Latins, Americans and Jews, are those of the Jesuits. They maintain and direct outside of Beirut 192 schools for boys and girls with 294 teachers and 12,000 pupils. There is, in the city, a university with a faculty of medicine (120 students) founded in 1881 with the help of the French government; its examinations are conducted before French and Ottoman physicians and its diplomas are recognized by both France and Turkey. The university has also a seminary (60 students) for all the native Rites. Up to 1902 it had sent out 228 students including three patriarchs, fifteen bishops, one hundred and fifteen priests and eighty-three friars. Its faculty of philosophy and theology grants the same degrees as the Gregorian University in Rome. Its faculty of Oriental languages and sciences, founded in 1902, teaches literary and conversational Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic and Ethiopic; the comparative grammar of the Semitic languages; the history and geography of the Orient; Oriental archæology; Græco-Roman epigraphy and antiquities. Its classical college has 400 pupils and its three primaries 600. A printing-house, inaugurated in 1853, is now considered to be the foremost for its output in that part of the world. Since 1871 it has published a weekly Arabic paper, and since 1898 a fortnightly review in the same language, the editors of which took rank at once among the best Orientalists. Besides continually adding to their collection of philological papers, they contribute to many scientific European reviews. (The Catholic Encyclopedia, II, 393.)

There are Jesuit colleges, also, throughout India, such as the great institutions of Bombay and Calcutta with their subsidiary colleges, and further down the Peninsula are Trichinopoly, all winning distinction by their successful courses of study. Indeed the first effort the Society makes in establishing itself in any part of the world, where conditions allow it, is to organize a college. If they would relinquish that one work they would be left in peace.

An interesting personage appears in connection with the University of Beirut: William Gifford Palgrave. It is true that one period of his amazing career humiliated his former associates, but as it is a matter of history it must needs be told.

He was the son of an eminent English Protestant lawyer, Sir Francis Palgrave, and had Jewish blood in his veins. He was born in 1826, and after a brilliant course of studies at Oxford began his romantic career as a traveller. He went first to India and was an officer of Sepoys in the British army. While there, he became a Catholic, and afterwards presented himself at the novitiate of Negapatam as an applicant for admission. Unfortunately his request was granted, and forthwith he changed his name to Michael Cohen, as he said to conceal his identity. This was a most amazing mask; for Palgrave would have escaped notice, whereas everyone would immediately ask, who is this Jesuit Jew? How he was admitted is a mystery, especially as he proclaimed his race so openly.

After his novitiate he was sent to Rome to begin his theology – another mystery. Why was he not compelled to study philosophy first like everyone else? Then he insisted that Rome did not agree with his health, and he was transferred to Beirut to which he betook himself, not in the ordinary steamer, but in a sailing vessel filled with Mussulmans. On the way, he picked up Arabic. Inside of a year, namely in 1854, he was made a priest and given charge of the men's sodality which he charmed by his facility in the use of the native tongue; in the meantime he made many adventurous journeys to the interior to convert the natives, but failed every time. In 1860 he was sent to France for his third year of probation under the famous Father Fouillot, whom he fascinated by his scheme of entering Arabia Petrea as its apostle. He succeeded in getting Louis Napoleon to give him 10,000 francs on the plea that he would thus carry out the scheme of the Chevalier Lascaris whom Napoleon Bonaparte had sent to the East.

At Rome, he found the Father General quite cold to the proposition, and when he had the audacity to ask Propaganda for permission to say Mass in Arabic, he was told: "Convert your Arabs first and then we shall see about the Mass." The brother who was to go with him fell ill, and the General then insisted that he should not attempt the journey without a priest as companion; whereupon Palgrave persuaded the Greek Bishop of Zahlé to ordain one of the lay professors of the college, after a few days' instruction in moral theology. Fortunately this improvised priest turned out well, and he became His Beatitude Mgr. Geraigri, patriarch of the Greek Melchites.

In 1862 the travellers set out by way of Gaza in Palestine, Palgrave as a physician, the other as his assistant. They covered the entire Arabian peninsula and were back again in Beirut at the end of fourteen months. Palgrave had made no converts, and was himself a changed man. Even his sodalists remarked it. What had happened no one ever knew. In 1864 he was sent to Maria-Laach in Germany, where the saintly Father Behrens wrestled with him in vain for a while, but he left the Society and passed over to Protestantism, securing meanwhile an appointment as Prussian consul at Mossul. In the following year he published an account of his travels and the book was a European sensation. In it he made no secret of his having been a member of the Society, which he says was "so celebrated in the annals of courageous and devoted philanthropy. The many years I spent in the East were the happiest of my life." In 1884 he was British consul at Montevideo and remained there till 1888 when he died.

For twenty years he seemed never to have been ashamed of his apostasy, but three or four years before his death the grace of God found him. The change was noticed on his return from a trip to England. He had become a Catholic again. He went to Mass and received Holy Communion. Although a government official, he refused to go to the Protestant Church even for the queen's jubilee, in spite of the excitement caused by his absence. He died of leprosy. A Jesuit attended him in his last sickness, and he was buried with all the rites of the Church. These details are taken from a recent publication by Father Jullien, S. J., entitled "Nouvelle mission de la Compagnie de Jésus en Syrie" (II, iii.)

The great difficulty that confronts educators of youth in our times, is state control. In the United States it has not yet gone to extremes, but every now and then one can detect tendencies in that direction. Meantime the Society has developed satisfactorily along educational lines. According to the report of October 10, 1916 (Woodstock Letters, V 45), there were 16,438 students in its American colleges and universities. Of these 13,301 were day scholars and 3,137 boarders. There were 3,943 in the college departments, 10,502 in the high schools and 1,416 in the preparatory. Besides all this, there were commercial and special sections numbering 737. The total increase over the preceding year was 523.

The Maryland-New York provinces had 1,848 students of law, 341 of medicine, 127 of dentistry, 122 of pharmacy. Missouri had 786 students of law, 643 of medicine, 776 of dentistry, 245 of pharmacy, 126 of engineering, 530 of finance, 240 of sociology, 425 of music, 43 of journalism, and 61 in the nurse's training school. New Orleans had a law school of 81 and California one of 232 students.

It is sometimes urged as an objection to Catholic colleges that they give only a Classical education, and are thus not keeping pace with the world outside. To show that the objection has no foundation in fact, it would be sufficient to enter any Jesuit college which is at all on its feet, and see the extensive and fully equipped chemical and physical laboratories, the seismic plants and in some cases the valuable museums of natural history which they possess. If it were otherwise, they would be false to all their traditions; for the Society has always been conspicuous for its achievements in the natural sciences. It has produced not only great mathematicians and astronomers, but explorers, cosmographers, ethnologists, and archæologists. Thus, for instance, there would have been absolutely no knowledge of the aborigines of North America, their customs, their manner of life, their food, their dress, their superstitions, their dances, their games, their language had it not been for the minute details sent by the missionaries of the old and new Society to their superiors. In every country where they have been, they have charted the territories over which they journeyed or in which they have labored, described their natural features, catalogued their fauna and flora, enriched the pharmacopeia of the world with drugs, foodstuffs and plants, and have located the salts and minerals and mines.

That this is not idle boasting may be seen at a glance in Sommervogel's "Bibliothèque des écrivains." Thus the names of publications on mathematics fill twenty-eight columns of the huge folio pages. Then follow other long lists on hydrostatics and hydraulics, navigation, military science; surveying; hydrography and gnomics; physics, chemistry and seismology call for thirty columns; medical sciences; zoology, botany, geology, mineralogy, paleontology, rural economy and agriculture require eight. Then there are two columns on the black art. The fine arts including painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, music, equitation, printing and mnemonics take from column 927 to 940.

According to this catalogue, the new Society has already on its lists one hundred and sixty-four writers on subjects pertaining to the natural sciences: physics, chemistry, mineralogy, zoology, botany, paleontology, geography, meteorology, astronomy, etc. The names of living writers are not recorded. Nor does this number include the writers who published their works during the Suppression, as de Mailla, who in 1785 issued in thirteen volumes a history of China with plans and maps, the outcome of an official survey of the country – a work entrusted by the emperor to the Jesuits. Father de Mailla was made a mandarin for his share of the work.

The extraordinary work on the zoology of China by the French Jesuit, Pierre Heude, might be adduced as an illustration of similar work in later times. He began his studies in boyhood as a botanist, but abandoned that branch of science when he went to the East. While laboring as a missionary there for thirty years he devoted every moment of his spare time to zoology.

He first travelled along all the rivers of Middle and Eastern China to classify the fresh-water molluscs of those regions. On this subject alone he published ten illustrated volumes between 1876 and 1885. His treatise "Les Mollusques terrestres de la vallée du Fleuve Bleu" is today the authority on that subject. He then directed his attention particularly to the systematic and geographical propagation of Eastern Asiatic species of mammals, as well as to a comparative morphology of classes and family groups, according to tooth and skeleton formations. His fitness for the work was furthered by his extremely keen eye, his accurate memory, and the enormous wealth of material which he had accumulated, partly in the course of his early travels and partly in later expeditions, which carried him in all directions. These expeditions covered chiefly the eight years from 1892 to 1900. They took him to the Philippines which he visited three times; to Singapore, Batavia, the Celebes, the Moluccas, New Guinea, Japan, Vladivostock, Cochin-China, Cambodia, Siam, and Tongking. He carried on his work with absolute independence of method. He contented himself with the facts before him and sought little assistance from authorities; nor did he fear to deduce theoretical conclusions from his own observations which flatly contradicted other authorities. He continued his scientific work until shortly before his death which occurred at Zikawei on January 3, 1902. (The Catholic Encyclopedia, VII, 308.)

Albers in his "Liber Sæcularis" maintains that "in the cultivation of the natural sciences, the restored Society won greater fame than the old," and that "a glance at the men whom the Italian provinces alone have produced would be sufficient to convince the doubter." Angelo Secchi, of course, stands out most prominently, and a little later Father Barello, who with the Barnabite Denza established the Meteorological Observatory of Malta. Giambattista Pianciani was regarded with the greatest veneration in Rome because of his vast erudition as a scientist, as were Caraffa, Mancini and Foligni for their knowledge of mathematics. Marchi was the man who trained the illustrious de Rossi, as an archæologist, and also the Jesuit Raffaele Garrucci whose "Monumenta delle arte cristiane primitive nella metropoli del Cristianesimo" laid the foundations of the new study of archæology. The writings of Father Gondi and Francis Tongiorgi have also contributed much to advancement in those fields of knowledge.

Faustino Arévalo was one of the exiles from Spain at the time of the Suppression. He was born at Campanario in Estremadura in 1747, and entered the Society in 1761. Six years afterwards he was deported to Italy by Charles III. In Rome he won the esteem and confidence of Cardinal Lorenzano, who proved to be his Mæcenas by bearing the expense of Arévalo's learned publications. He was held in high honor in Rome, and was appointed to various offices of trust, among them that of pontifical hymnographer and theologian of the penitenziaria, thus succeeding the illustrious Muzzarelli. When the Society was restored, he returned to Spain and was made provincial of Castile. One of his works was the "Hymnodia hispanica," a restoration of ancient Spanish hymns to their original metrical, musical and grammatical perfection. This publication was much esteemed by Cardinal Mai and Dom Guéranger. It was accompanied by a curious dissertation on the Breviary of Cardinal Quignonez. He also edited the poems of Prudentius and Dracontius and those of a fifth century Christian of Roman Africa. Besides this, he has to his credit four volumes of Jouvancy's "Gospel History," the works of Sedulius and St. Isidore and a Gothic Missal. He stands in the forefront of Spanish patristic scholars, and has shed great lustre on the Church of Spain by his vast learning, fine literary taste and patriotic devotion to the Christian writers of his fatherland.

The founder of the science of archæology, according to Hurter, was Stefano Antonio Morcelli. He was a member of the old Society and re-entered it when it was restored. Even before the Suppression, which occurred twenty years after his entrance, he had established an archæological section in the Kircher Museum of Rome. When he found himself homeless, in consequence of the publication of the Brief of Clement XIV, he was made the librarian of Cardinal Albani. He refused the Archbishopric of Ragusa and continued his literary labors in Rome. His first publication was "The Style of Inscriptions." In the town of Chiari, his birthplace, to which he afterwards withdrew, he founded an institution for the education of girls, reformed the entire school system, devoted his splendid library to public use, and restored many buildings and churches. Meantime his reputation as master of epigraphic style increased and he was placed in a class of his own above all competitors. Besides his many works on his special subject, he gave to the world five volumes of sermons and ascetic treatises. When the Society was re-established he again took his place in its ranks, and died in Brescia in 1822 at the age of eighty-four. Hurter classifies him as also a historian and geographer.

Nor was Morcelli an exception. Fathers Arthur Martin and Charles Cahier are still of great authority as archæologists, chiefly for their monograph in which, as government officials, they described the Cathedral of Bourges; and likewise for their "Mélanges archéologiques," in which the sacred vessels, enamels and other treasures of Aix-la-Chapelle and of Cologne are discussed. They also wrote on the antique ivories of Bamberg, Ratisbon, Munich and London; on the Byzantine and Arabian weavings; and on the paintings and the mysterious bas-reliefs of the Roman and Carlovingian periods. Their works appeared between 1841 and 1848.

A very famous Jesuit archæologist died only a few years ago, and the French government which had just expelled the Jesuits erected a monument at Poitiers to perpetuate his memory. He was Father Camille de la Croix. He was a scion of the old Flemish nobility and was born in the Château Saint-Aubert, near Tournai in Belgium, but he passed nearly all his life in France, and hence Frenchmen considered him as one of their own. He got his first schooling in Brugelette, and, when that college was given up, went with his old masters to France. In 1877 we find him mentioned in the catalogue as a teacher and writer of music. Three years later, the French provinces had been dispersed by the government, and he was then docketed as an archæologist at the former Jesuit college of Poitiers.

De la Croix's success as a discoverer was marvellous. Near Poitiers he found vast Roman baths, five acres in extent, whose existence had never even been suspected. There were tombs of Christian martyrs; a wonderful crypt dating from the beginning of the Christian era; a temple dedicated to Mercury, with its sacred wells, votive vases etc. At Sauxay, nineteen miles from Poitiers, he unearthed the ruins of an entire Roman colony; a veritable Pompeii with its temple of Apollo, its theatres, its palaces, its baths etc. He had the same success at Nantes, Saint-Philibert, and Berthouville; – the French government supplying him with the necessary funds. The "Gaulois" said of him that "in his first ten years he discovered more monuments than would have made twenty archæologists famous." Meantime he lived in a wooden cabin, on the banks of the Clain, and there he died at the age of eighty, on April 14, 1900; and there also the French government built his monument. At the dedication, all the scientific men of the country were present, and the King of Belgium sent a representative.

Although the well-known François Moigno severed his connection with the Society, it was only after he had achieved greatness while yet in its ranks. He entered the novitiate on September 2, 1822, when he was eighteen years of age. He made his theological studies at Montrouge, and in his spare moments devoted himself to the study of the natural sciences. At the outbreak of the Revolution of 1830, he went with his brethren to Brieg in Switzerland, where he took up the study of languages, chiefly Hebrew and Arabic. When the troubles subsided in France he was appointed professor of mathematics in Paris at the Rue des Postes, and became widely known as a man of unusual attainments. He was on intimate terms with Cauchy, Arago, Ampère and others. He was engaged on one of his best known works: "Leçons de calcul différentiel et de calcul intégral" and had already published the first volume when he left the Society. He had been a Jesuit for twenty-one years. He was then made chaplain of Louis-le-Grand, one of the famous colleges owned by the Jesuits before the Suppression, and became the scientific editor of "La Presse" in 1850; of "Le Pays" in 1851, and in the following year, founded the well-known scientific journal "Cosmos," followed by "Les Mondes" in 1862, editing meanwhile "Les Actualités scientifiques." As a matter of fact, it was the Society that had formed him and enabled him to publish his greatest works.