Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits
as not necessary for him to see the path of duty and follow it. As one bound to the service of his sovereign by the title of honor and nobility, he retired to the citadel, when the town surrender
gure, sawed off while he looked on. In the loneliness and tedium of a sick-room, he whiled away the hours by dreaming of his ambitions and his aspirations, and he sought to feed them with suitable nourishment. He wanted a romance to read. There was none to be had. So, instead of the novel which was not forthcoming, he took what they gave him, the Life of Christ, and the Lives of some who had served Christ faithfully. The soldier of the field and of blood felt the objects of his ambition change; he became a soldier of the spirit and eternal li
vent, for the perpetual memory of the future: "Blessed Ignatius of Loyola here, with many prayers and tears, devoted himself to God and the Virgin. Here, as wi
not tall; he was fair in complexion and ruddy in cheek. His bare head was somewhat bald. Altogether he was of a fine and grave presence, and most reserved in look. He scarcely raised his eyes from the ground. Coming up, he asked if there were a hospital anywhere which might serve him for shelter. Regarding his noble and fair features, the lady, as became a Christian woman, offered her services; if he would follow her company, she would provide for him, in the best way possible. Courteously and thankfully he accepted her
not barely natural but supernatural, is not very intelligible to the world at large. Still less the heroic degree of the same. Both however claim to be estimated by their own proper motives and principles. When they enter into the very subject, which the biographer means to treat, it appertains to his art not to ignore the objective
, whose chivalry had a charm for him up to the day many years later, when, with his first associates of the Company, he endeavored once more to cross over from Italy to Palestine. H
does mere piety place in his hands the instruments for such work; nor, if study alone can give the means of apostolic zeal, can he consider himself exempt from the law, that he must labor to acquire what are only the results of labor. He w
even supposing his earlier pursuits to have been more in harmony with his present life of letters, he is not an apt pupil. However, he labors conscientious
logian whom he consulted, Ignatius acquiesced, in accordance with his unvarying rule, to follow competent direction. How unfortunate thi
on alms as ever; and others lived on the alms which he received. It was the year 1626. He entered upon the study o
tly odious. The result was a juridical process against him, which issued in a complimentary verdict, the Vicar of the diocese pronouncing him and his companions quite blameless. But restrictions were imposed regarding his future ministrations, since Ignatius was not yet in holy orders. During a term of four
did he find men of the university embracing his Institute, but, two years after that, the whilom persecuted pilgrim received, in a single twelvemonth, thirty-four Doctors into the Society, all from that one seat of le
ation for himself and his doctrine as he had received at Alcalà, but with a similar restriction on his action, he thought it was not worth his while to repeat the same experiences at the same cost. So, in spite of all the eloquence of dissuasion brought to bea
itted on the persons of travellers, were recently reported. But these and other considerations of the kind had no weight with Loyola, to stay him in a course once deliberately adopted. Accepting some alms fr
he had suffered repeated arrest for setting people beside themselves, for moving them to give up all they had in behalf of piety, or charity, and inducing them to go and live on alms themselves; nay, perhaps throw in their lives, talents and acquirements, to serve others gratis. The founder of the Jesuits, hims
out this one man in Spain, France, and Italy.10 Wherever he came, in after life, it passed as a proverb among the Fathers, that his appearance was the sure harbinger of a storm, soon to break out against them somewhere, in the social or religious world. He braved all this fury in his own manner, weighing as deliberately every word he spoke, a
ad sense. If, however, he cannot defend the proposition in any way, let him inquire of the speaker himself; and, if then the speaker is found to be mistaken in sentime
tous service of the Jesuits; that they affected a kind of literary empire, under the spur of an intolerable ambition; that they were lightly tinctured, and had just sipped of many things, of which they had nothing solid to offer; yes, that they wanted to have it believed there was no sanctuary of the Muses, no shrine of sacred or human wisdom in existence, outside of their own colleges; that, from these offices of theirs, all arts and sciences came forth, done up in the best s
had often in his mouth: Deus faxit ne unquam male loquantur et vera dicant! "God grant they never talk ill of me and be saying the truth!" Indeed, as there is no use in trying to change men, for they will never be born anew, Ignatius looked rather in another direction for the solution of difficulties; expecting that troubles, which defied other treatment, might still not survive their authors. Speaking of a powerful adversary, who was raising a great storm at Toledo and Alcalà, and who
at Paris, where some of the most precious element