difficulty owing to the fact that the Society now existed also outside Russia; but the Italian Jesuits chose three of their number residing in White Russia to represent them. Siestrzencewicz tried to make mischief by insinuating that the fact that the Jesuits were now in communication with other countries was dangerous to Russia. Alexander hesitated at first to sign the ukase allowing the election, but eventually he did so. The meeting was held and Fr. Brzozowski was elected General. He was a typical Pole, generous, high-minded, and warm-hearted. He would, no doubt, have made a good General in times of peace, but he lacked the keen penetration and foresight which Fr. Gruber possessed and which were necessary in those difficult days. The history of the Society during his government is intimately bound up with the political events in Europe and with the story of Napoleon's triumphs and downfall. In 1806, when the French, after defeating the Russians, prepared to take up their winter quarters in Warsaw, Alexander published an edict that all foreigners residing in Russia should swear not to help the French, and not to hold any correspondence with countries occupied by the enemy. This oath was taken by all the foreigners at the Polotsk College. After the interview between the Emperors at Erfurt in 1808, the Tzar reviewed the Russian troops in Polotsk, where they were encamped in great numbers; and a General, in full dress, covered with decorations, came to the Jesuit college to order the Tzar's dinner there during his stay in the camp. During the campaign of 1812 the college at Polotsk became the headquarters of each army in turn. In July the Jesuits gave shelter to the Russian General, Beningsen, retreating before the French. The next visitors were Oudinot, Murat, and their suites. They stayed nearly two months before continuing their fatal march after the Russians who were drawing them on to certain destruction. And that same winter they received the conquering General Wittgenstein and the Tzar Alexander. The colleges were turned into barracks and hospitals, and in return for this hospitality the soldiers pillaged and destroyed everything. The Jesuits had to endure the greatest hardships and, as a result of the fatigues and privations of those days, thirtythree of their number died, many of them distinguished men whose places could not easily be filled. Their loss was especially felt when it came to inaugurating the Academy of Polotsk. For the Jesuits, tired of the continual struggle with the professors of Wilna University, asked Alexander to let them give it up and found an academy of their own at Polotsk instead. The Tzar, who was anxious just then to conciliate the Poles lest they should go over to the French, willingly agreed to this idea and in 1812 the Academy was opened. Meanwhile the dawn was approaching for the Society in the rest of the world. The vanquished Napoleon set free Pius VII. from his prison in Fontainebleau, and a few months later, on the 7th August, 1814, the Society of Jesus was formally restored. The General, Fr. Brzozowski, now naturally wished to make Rome his headquarters. He applied to the Tzar for permission to leave, and felt so sure of his consent that he ordered the carriage and provisions for the journey. But he was destined never to undertake it. The news of the re-establishment of the Order had not been favourably received in St. Petersburg, especially among the Illuminati and the friends of Siestrzencewicz, and a strong party was forming against them. A new element entered into the situation. The Napoleonic wars had drawn England and Russia together and one of the first fruits of this friendship was the opening of a branch of the London Bible Society in St. Petersburg. The Russian Minister, Galitzine, immediately took the new Society under his protection and did everything in his power to increase its sphere of influence. Side by side with him worked the Illuminati, who were spreading rapidly, under the patronage of the Tzar himself. Even the Archbishop Siestrzencewicz, still apparently influenced by his Protestant upbringing, joined the Bible Society and issued a pastoral recommending his clergy to do likewise. Galitzine wished to see the movement taken up by the aristocracy of St. Petersburg, but to make it popular with them, he saw that it would be necessary to win over the Jesuits. So he invited the General of the Society to imitate the Archbishop's example. Naturally Fr. Brzozowski refused, and from that time dates a coolness on the part of the Minister. Matters grew worse soon after, when a nephew of Galitzine, who had been a pupil at the Jesuit College, announced his intention of becoming a Catholic. The Jesuits had all along been careful not to influence the religious beliefs of their schismatic pupils. Proselytism was forbidden by a law of Catherine the Great and, apart from that, ordinary prudence forbade it in the circumstances in which they were placed. Nevertheless the Minister was furious and accused the Jesuits of proselytism. They thereupon decided that in future only Catholic pupils should be received in their colleges. VOL. XLII.-No. 498 47 But their doom was already sealed. Things were at this stage, when Alexander arrived back from the Congress of Vienna, where he had fallen under the influence of Mme. Krüdner, and his religious mania was at its height. This extraordinary woman had made him believe that he was destined to bring about the lasting peace and happiness of European nations by uniting all denominations in one common religion. Galitzine took advantage of the Tzar's frame of mind to turn him against the Jesuits as being fanatics, opposed to the religious uniformity which Alexander hoped to realise. So successful was Galitzine, that the Emperor signed the ukase, expelling the Jesuits from St. Petersburg, on December 20th, 1815. The following night the Governor, with a troop of soldiers, took possession of the college, and sentinels were placed at the gates. The Jesuits had no idea what their fate was to be, whether prison or Siberia was before them. The whole of the next day they were kept prisoners in their rooms and in the evening each was given an officer's uniform. Early next morning a squadron of cavalry halted at the college gates, where a number of sledges were drawn up. In spite of the intense cold of the winter night the streets were lined with Catholics, many of whom had spent the night there waiting to bid the Jesuits good-bye. The prisoners were ordered into the sledges. Still uncertain of their destination they waited anxiously for the word of command. "To the south," came the order, and the Jesuits rejoiced, for they understood then that they were to be taken to their colleagues at Polotsk. Their enemies would have preferred to see them hunted out of Russia altogether, but Alexander could not bring himself to send into exile an old man so widely loved and revered as Fr. Brzozowski, a man, too, with whom he himself had been on such friendly terms. But when the General died, in 1820, Galitzine and Siestrzencewicz began again to agitate for the expulsion of the Jesuits, and eventually prevailed on the Tzar to sign a ukase turning them out of the Empire. When this news reached the provinces, the grief of the people was great. As the Jesuits left their colleges with the escort of soldiers and police that was to bring them as far as the frontier, they passed through crowds of weeping friends. At one place, Uzwald, the people barred the road so as not to let them pass, and the soldiers had to force a way through them with drawn swords. In this way, the 358 Jesuits that comprised the Society in White Russia were brought to the frontier. Some continued the journey towards Italy, others through Austria to Western Europe. The greater number settled in Galicia, where ultimately the Emperor Francis allowed them to open a college. But the Jesuit province of White Russia, which had harboured them so safely in the days of persecution, ceased to exist. As Fr. Zalenski says: "the waters of the deluge had receded and the ark which God had prepared for the Society was no longer needed." THOUGHTS FROM THOMAS DAVIS * IMAGINATION, depth, and manliness are needed in a national literature; but before all things, better than all other excellence, the condition of all health is truth. [Of Grattan] No other orator is so uniformly animated. No other orator has brightened the depths of political philosophy with such vivid and lasting light. No writer in the language, except Shakespeare, has so sublime and suggestive a diction. His force and vehemence are amazing-far beyond Chatham, far beyond Fox, far beyond any orator we can recall. * No enemy speaks slightingly of Irish music, and no friend need fear to boast of it. A people without a language of its own is only half a nation. A nation should guard its language more than its territories'tis a surer barrier, and more important frontier, than fortress or river. We want to win Ireland and keep it. But to be able to keep it, and use it, and govern it, the men of Ireland must know what it is, what it was, and what it can be made. They must study her history, perfectly know her present state, physical and moral-and train themselves up by science, poetry, music, industry, skill, and by all the studies and accomplishments of peace and war. I shall not now reprove your neglect of Irish History. I shall say nothing of it but this, that I never heard of any famous nation which did not honour the names of its departed great, *This is his centenary year. He was born on the 24th October, 1814. study the fasti, and the misfortunes-the annals of the land, and cherish the associations of its history and theirs. The national mind should be filled to overflowing with such thoughts. They are more enriching than mines of gold, or ten thousand fields of corn, or the cattle of a thousand hills, more ennobling than palaced cities stored with the triumphs of war or art, more supporting in danger's hour than colonies or fleets or armies. The history of a nation is the birth-right of her sons-who strips them of that "takes that which not enriches him, but makes them poor indeed." * If a union of all Irish born men ever be accomplished, Ireland will have the greatest and most varied materials for an illustrious nationality, and for a tolerant and flexible character in literature, manners, religion, and life, of any nation on earth. If Ireland's wrongs were borne for this-if our feuds and our weary sapping woes were destined to this ending-then blessed be the griefs of the past! His sickness to the healed-his pining to the happy lover-his danger to the rescued, are faint images of such a birth from such a chaos. It is something-the cheer of an invisible friend to have, even for a moment, heard the hope. It must abide in the souls of the Irish, guaranteeing the moderation of the Catholicwakening the aspirations of the Orangemen. There it is—a cross on the sky. IMMACULATE IMMACULATE, Immaculate Is she on whom the angels wait No rose that blossoms soon or late Sorrows and trials she has known, Immaculate. MAGDALEN Rock. |