the successor of St. Peter, the true Vicar of Christ, the Supreme Head of all the Church, the Pastor and Doctor of all the Faithful. We declare that our Lord Jesus Christ has given him, in the person of St. Peter, authority over the whole Church, and the right to govern and to feed it with the plenitude of power." It is therefore with good reason that your Majesty's father, the most illustrious King David, through his Ambassador, whom he sent to declare his submission to the Roman Pontiff, acknowledged this Holy See to be the mother and head of all the Churches. Now, among all the great actions which preserve the memory of your illustrious father and of your Majesty, his worthy son, this is the principal one and the foundation of all the rest; it will make them endure for ever, so that they shall never be forgotten. The subjects of your Majesty's vast dominions are bound to give perpetual thanks to God for the benefits they have received from you both, whose pains, courage, and zeal for the public good have been truly marvellous. It was your father who was the first to fling himself at the feet of the Pope, and to acknowledge him as a Pastor and Father; and you, in like manner, have been the first for the good of your realm to demand and obtain of the Vicar of Christ a Patriarch who is a legitimate son of this holy See.

If it be, as it surely is, a special and most precious grace to be united in the mystical body of the Catholic Church, which is animated and governed by the Holy Spirit, and this same spirit, according to the testimony of St. Paul and the Evangelist St. John, teaches and suggests to this Church all truth; if it be a most precious gift to possess the light of the true doctrine, and to obey the commandments and the holy prescriptions of the Church, which the Apostle, writing to his disciple Timothy, styles "the house of God, and the pillar and ground of truth" -to which, moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ has promised His assistance for all times when He says, by His Evangelist St. Matthew, Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world;" then these far-distant lands have surely great reason to render thanks to God, our Master and our Creator, for having granted them such a benefit by His divine mercy, through the liberality of this holy See, the zeal of King David your father, and your own distinguished piety and holy desires. And the more so, inasmuch as it may be justly hoped that this union and reconciliation will, by the divine favour, cause an increase of good, not only spiritual but temporal, by the aggrandizement of your already powerful kingdom and by the humiliation of your Majesty's enemies.

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The Priests who are setting out upon this holy enterprise, and especially the Patriarch and his two Coadjutors and successors, are men of a holy and irreproachable life. They have passed through all the probations of this our least Society, and they have been chosen for this work on account of their singular charity and profound learning. They have also the courage which is derived from hope founded in Heaven. Supported by this hope, they will be enabled to endure the pains and labours which they will encounter on their road, and even death itself, and by it they will make a sacrifice of all things for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, the service of your Majesty, and the salvation of souls. They are moved by the sincere desire of making every possible

effort for the salvation and regeneration of mankind, in imitation of the example of Christ our Saviour, Who, for the ransom of the world, of His own will endured sufferings, shame, and death, and has said to us, by His well-beloved Disciple and Evangelist, "I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep." Moved by the example of their Master, these good Priests and Fathers take their journey, eager to succour those who are in danger of losing their faith, not only by their words and by the good counsels and spiritual blessings which, with the grace of God, they take with them, but also, if occasion require, by their death, and so to seal with their blood their doctrine and their holy desires. I hope in our Lord that, thanks to your goodwill, you will receive them with the greater favour, inasmuch as, both in private interviews or in public instructions, they can expound the truths of the faith as Legates of the Holy See. Your Majesty may especially rely upon what the Patriarch shall declare to you, for he holds the place of our Holy Father, the Pope. Whoever rests his faith upon the Patriarch and those who are with him, rests his faith also upon the Catholic Church, in the name of which they interpret the Word of God. As it is right and necessary that all the Faithful humbly bow their head to the sweet yoke of the Church, in obeying her decrees and ordinances, and in submitting their difficulties to the servants whom she has chosen to resolve them, I do not doubt that your Majesty's distinguished piety will take measures in all your States, so that all, of whatever rank and condition they be, shall accept without hesitation the prescriptions and decisions of the Patriarch and of his representatives and companions.

The Book of Deuteronomy relates that it was the custom in the Old Law to have recourse to the Synagogue, which was a figure of the Church, in all doubtful and difficult cases. And the words of our Saviour declare the same-"The Doctors of the Law and the Pharisees sit upon the chair of Moses." Solomon says the same in the Proverbs

"Depart not from the teaching of thy mother," that is, of the holy Church; and again-" Transgress not the ancient landmarks which thy fathers"--that is, the Bishops-"have set.” In short, our Lord Jesus Christ has in so express a manner commanded us to submit to the sentence of the Church, that the Evangelist St. Luke says " He that heareth you heareth Me, and he that despiseth you despiseth Me." St. Matthew says, still more clearly--" He that heareth not the Church let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican. It follows from all this that we must neither listen to nor believe those who advance any assertion contrary to the sense of the Catholic Church, as St. Paul says very markedly in the Epistle to the Galatians-"Though an Angel from Heaven preach a Gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” In one word, this doctrine is taught and established by the holy Doctors of the Church, by the decisions of Councils, and the general sentiment of all the Faithful. The Patriarch, then, and his companions, come to you in the assurance that your Majesty will receive them, as far as possible, with your accustomed piety, and with Christian deference and respect. As for us, the members of this least Society, who live in various parts of many countries, we offer ourselves to your Majesty as your spiritual servants

in Jesus Christ for ever, and we beg you to reckon us as such. We will entreat of the Lord our God, in our prayers and at the altar, as we are on other accounts bound to do, that He may preserve your royal person and your vast dominions, with your good people, in the obedience and love of Jesus Christ, and that He will grant you so to use temporal goods as not to lose eternal ones. May the Lord our God assist us all to do His holy will, and to walk with piety and devotion in the path of truth, giving us, in His infinite mercy, peace and strength so to continue for ever.*

Rome, Feb. 16, 1555.

This letter, the incontestable truth of which is but too well confirmed by the lamentable state of all the Churches separated from Rome, made a great impression upon John III., who would have it read to him, and extolled its principles and lessons with the highest encomiums. We shall say no more of the result of this mission in the sequel, as it does not come within the scope of our history.

* Collection at Rome. The Latin text of this letter, which Maffei first published in his History of the Indies (t. xvi.), seems to be only a translation, though all those who have published it since, and Menchacha too, have taken it for the original, because the Spanish text was unknown to them. I cannot, however, decide whether Maffei gives his own translation, or whether he has only reproduced a translation already existing. It is still more difficult to fix precisely the date of this letter, the original being long since lost in Abyssinia, but it must have been written between the 16th and 23rd of February. Menchacha observes (p. 81) that the first and best editions of this letter bear the date of the 23rd, but Father Tellez, the Portuguese historian, cited by Menchacha himself, gives the 16th of February in his History of Abyssinia (ii., 22), and so does the copy of the Spanish text in the collection of letters at Rome, from which we have given this translation.

CHAPTER VI.

IGNATIUS REFUSES THE REQUEST OF THE BARNABITES TO BE INCORPORATED INTO HIS SOCIETY. HIS RELATIONS WITH THE CARTHUSIANS, ESPECIALLY WITH THE PRIOR OF COLOGNE. THE CARE WHICH HE TOOK IN THE REFORM OF CONVENTS AT BARCELONA.

THE Congregation of Clerks Regular of St. Paul and St. Barnabas, commonly called Barnabites, had not long before been founded at Milan. Labouring zealously and successfully in their vocation, they felt the need of extending the narrow circle of their ministry, and of attaching themselves to the Society of Jesus, a Company yet younger than themselves, but whose progress was drawing the eyes of the world upon it. There existed already amicable relations between them and St. Ignatius. These relations had been brought about by the charitable care with which the Barnabites had entertained in their house Father Miron of the Society, when he fell sick at Milan, on his journey from Paris to Rome. Ignatius had shown his gratitude for this kindness by services which he had rendered in return; and thus in 1552 they further begged him, through the Archbishop of Genoa, Jerome Sauli, to receive them into his Order. Ignatius replied to the Prelate that he fully acknowledged and appreciated the good qualities and the good desire of the Congregation, but that he was persuaded it was more to the glory of God that the two Orders, united in heart, should remain separate in body, and each apart follow its first vocation.* This refusal was only natural, for every Jesuit goes through a long training, and one peculiar to the Institute. It could, therefore, be only prejudicial to the Society (in which agreement and uniformity are an essential condition of

* Orlandini, xii., 13.

existence) to admit into its body a number of men, many of whom were already old, and had followed a different kind of direction. Besides, Ignatius was no longer in a position to consent to this request. He had already twice

refused an offer of the same kind made by the Theatines, and had he consented to the admission of the Barnabites, the Theatines, who had so powerful a protector in Cardinal Caraffa, might not unreasonably have been offended.

The close union which had begun to exist at a very early date between Ignatius and the Carthusians, had stillgreater value in his eyes. During the stay of Faber at Cologne, in 1543, this Father was received in the most kindly manner by the Prior of the Carthusians in that town, Gerard Hamonton, and his Monks, who out of zeal for the Catholic faith were most anxious to support its new defenders. Faber had given them the Spiritual Exercises, and continued after his departure to correspond with the Prior, who was not content with protecting the Society in Cologne, but endeavoured to spread throughout his Order the sentiments of affection with which he himself was animated towards it. It was at his proposition that the General Assembly of the Order, held at the Grand Chartreuse in 1554, passed a resolution to admit the new Society to the participation of all the merits of the Carthusians, and to join the two Orders together by the ties of a common fraternity. The Prior of the Grand Chartreuse, Peter de Leyde, communicated this their decision to St. Ignatius in the name of the Chapter General, in the following letter

Dearly beloved brothers in our Lord,-We have heard of the good report of your exemplary lives and salutary doctrine, of your voluntary poverty and other virtues by which you shine as lights in the midst of the darkness of our deplorable times, by which you recall back to the narrow path of salvation those who wander in the ways of perdition, by which you support the feeble and encourage the strong in the progress.. to perfection, and by which you thus produce in our Lord much fruit for the Catholic Church. We rejoice in our Lord and give Him thanks that in the midst of the persecution under which the Church groans, and which afflicts us to the heart, He has remembered His mercy and has been pleased to raise up and send new labourers into His vineyard. Desirous of aiding you in this holy work according to our feeble powers,. we conjure you by the love of Him Who has given His life for us, not. to receive the grace of God in vain, but to persevere in your holy