and right that the Divine Majesty should continually impart to your soul heavenly delights and shed on it the most holy consolations, that you may produce perfect spiritual fruit in abundance and with a continual increase, for the greater glory of the Divine Goodness. I see and hear from all sides that your Majesty edifies your people by the good odour of your virtues, and I confide that they are not mistaken in the good opinion they have of you. I perceive each day new motives to make me ardently desire that all the undertakings of your Majesty may have the most complete success, to the greater glory of the Master of all, and I do not cease to recommend them in my poor and unworthy prayers to the Divine Goodness, Who can by His aid do what I have asked of Him daily for so many years. If this letter appear to you too long, or too bold, please to pardon me for the love and regard of God our Lord. But after having had an interview with Don Diego de Azevedo, to pay him my homage as your Majesty's representative, and otherwise urged by my devotedness to you, I could not refrain from writing to you and declaring my thoughts and desires for the greater glory of God our Master and Creator.

Rome, February 18, 1549.

He had particularly at heart, after the vacancy of the Holy See, that a Pope should be chosen capable of encountering the difficulties of the times, and we have preserved to us a letter addressed to the members of the Society in Belgium, in which he orders them, as he had done already at other times, to pray for a happy choice of a successor to Paul III. He wrote himself on this subject to St. Francis Borgia. He says: "The vacancy of the Holy See makes us ardently desirous of seeing elected a truly Apostolic Pastor. May God be pleased to have pity upon His Church, and give it a Head who may be as good for it in general as he will be, we may reasonably hope, for this our little Society, whoever he may be that shall be named."

He exacted from his associates the same course of conduct. Thus in a letter to Le Jay, who had been sent by the Pope's orders to Hercules, Duke of Ferrara, and who wrote for advice how to conduct himself, he says to him, "that he desires both he himself, as well as all the Society, to be useful to the Duke, who has been one of the first of all secular Princes to show himself favourable to it, and that he rejoices in having an opportunity of showing his gratitude to him. He wishes that Le Jay should consider himself as entirely dependent upon the orders of the Duke, and that while he is at Ferrara he should look upon him as his Superior, whenever he should have recourse to him, either

for the promotion of the glory of God, or for his own advantage and that of his subjects.*

In order to avoid all conflict between his duty and the requests of powerful and influential personages, he forbade all the Religious of the Society to write to him through the mediation of any secular or ecclesiastical lord, to obtain by this means any office or mission whatever; he wished thus to avoid the danger of offending a powerful intercessor, in case he could not comply with his request. This measure was not inspired by the design of gaining the favour of the great or their influence, but by the same thought which made him forbid all his Religious to mix in politics, so that being free from all worldly cares, they might with greater purity and freedom fulfil the mission they had received from God. Thus when it happened that any of the Society said or did a thing that might compromise the keeping of so wise a rule, he showed himself more severe upon it than on any other fault. He acted thus with regard to Laynez in a circumstance which we will narrate. He was preaching one day at St. Paul's, in the presence of Ignatius and some Spaniards who were at Rome, and allowed himself to make some allusions to a case of simony which had been made public. The Saint, much displeased, gave him a severe reprimand on the way back to the House, and threatened to give him a severe penance for not having been able to refrain his tongue, adding that indiscreet words of this kind uttered from the pulpit would be easily misinterpreted, and make people believe that they wished to accuse the Pope's officials.

He showed in a still more striking manner his displeasure with Bobadilla, who had taken in the dispute on the subject of the interim in Germany a more active part than became a member of the Society. The opposition which he had showed to this political expedient adopted by Charles V. was so displeasing to Charles' Minister, that in spite of the authority he had at Court he obtained an order from the Emperor commanding Bobadilla to quit Germany.

It is true that this false peace imposed on the Church by the temporal power was disapproved of at Rome, and satisfied no one; but Ignatius was much displeased with the Orlandini, vii., 35.

*

conduct of Bobadilla in the matter, and that all the world might know it, he would not admit him into the House upon his return, so as to give some kind of satisfaction to the Emperor, and lest the Emperor might hinder the other members of the Society in the exercise of their ministry.

We close here the documents which may serve to characterize St. Ignatius. But we must be allowed in conclusion to cast a parting glance upon the remarkable man whom we have endeavoured to portray chiefly from his own writings. Two periods are clearly discernible in his life; the decisive moment between the two was that when giving up the idea of founding a Religious Order for the East, and more especially for Palestine, he took up his abode at Rome. From that day forward a remarkable development of the character and capacities of the Saint becomes visible. His natural powers took a fresh and higher flight; for the experience he had acquired, and which had been so necessary for him, enabled him to use to greater advantage the noble qualities he had received from God, and to direct them to an end which embraced in its scope the gravest interests of mankind. Reuniting in a whole with a wonderful harmony the inspirations he had first received and the purely natural gifts bestowed on him by Providence, he applied them to the founding of an Institute corresponding admirably to the wants of the age, and offering the guarantees of a long duration. With unexampled strength of mind, and in the most unfavourable circumstances, he passed through a course of painful study in order to apply for the good of the Church this powerful engine of civilization to the world, and to unite in closer bonds faith and science, between which heresy has in all times endeavoured to make a complete separation. He extended to poor heathen nations the blessings of Christian life, and if the rulers of these countries have not been wise enough to make use of his zeal for the regeneration and social progress of these countries, it has not been his fault, nor that of the Fathers whom he has sent on those missions.

But St. Ignatius contributed besides to the development of charitable institutions for the relief of the needy of every kind; and these owe to him a method of more appropriate application to the various wants of humanity. He at first

gave his attention to the relief of the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned, that he might draw them forth out of that state of moral and corporal misery in which they had been left to languish. It was this spirit of his that afterwards raised up holy Communities which devoted themselves exclusively to these important duties. It was he and his associates who sowed the first seeds of those ameliorations and the progress of humane institutions which are a feature of our times. Whoever is willing to agree with truth and justice, cannot deny what we here say, nor dispute the influence which St. Ignatius has exerted on modern times as a benefactor of humanity. Urban VIII., in the Bull of the Saint's canonization, has taken pains to set forth his merits in this regard, and we think we cannot better conclude this work than by quoting the words of this Pope, which gives a kind of resumé of the life of Ignatius as the founder of the Society

He ceased not to succour the poor and sick in the hospitals, distributing to them the alms he had received from charitable persons; and from the commencement of his conversion he gave himself, in a most especial manner, to the catechising of children and the ignorant. It was he who, by his example, introduced the custom of visiting and consoling the imprisoned. He founded missions in all the countries of the world, built churches and colleges, especially in the City of Rome, where, without counting the public school, in which all frequenters of it are gratuitously taught, he established the German College, the Homes for Orphans and Catechumens, the Convents of St. Martha and St. Catherine, and other pious institutions. He settled disputes, gave wise counsel, composed the Spiritual Exercises, exhorted the Faithful to frequent the Sacraments, reconciled enemies and made them pray for one another. All these things evidently show how much he loved his neighbour for the sake of God.