will enable the thoughtful reader to apply the principle in all its bearings. It was to show the nature of blind obedience and its reward. A certain holy man was ordered by his Superior to water a dry stick set upright in the ground. He obeyed without a question, or a thought of a question-and behold! the stick put forth branches and grew a beautiful tree!

True, we read that "for no reason in the world, for the pleasure of no man, was any evil to be done;" but were we to judge what was evil? Did the holy man referred to judge what seemed to be absurd, useless? The will of the Superior is "as it were the will of God;" and were we to question His morality? If "there was a way which seemeth good unto man, but leadeth unto death," there might also be a way which seemeth evil unto a man but which leadeth unto life! ...

Now, then, for the cardinal points: the north, south, east, and west of this mighty argument! Consider the fact of twenty thousand men thus obedient to the will of one man-the General of the Society! From the highest official next in succession-the provincials in their respective countries in every region of the world, the masters of colleges, the professed, the simple socii, the lay-brothers,— down to the aspirant Novice: all ready, eager to obey the will of this one man, without a question or a thought of a question-as if he were God himself! Consider the possibility of this man being bought over * Const. Part vi. c. 1, § 1.

or bribed, or from himself possessed of some" Napoleonic idea," to bring all his forces to act on any given point: all his forces of intellect, eloquence, secret influence of the confessional; in a word all the arts, human and divine, at his command! I ask, who shall resist this man? It is not a question whether such has been or will be the case, but whether such might not be the case? To say that there would be some honest, worthy men among them, who might question the morality of the mandate, is quite beside the question; the majority must always yield a blind obedience, for this is essential to the very existence of the Society. The love for the Society has been shown to exist to an unlimited extent: all desire its advancement and prosperity. Each member, therefore, is satisfied that every mandate of the General will tend to those grand objects of desire; and, consequently, as his temporal welfare depends on the temporal welfare of the Society, his own individual interest is involved in blind obedience; for it is not to be supposed that the inculcation of a splendid "indifference to all things," has anything to do with the prosperous condition of the Society: to that, indeed, the Jesuit must not be indifferent.

135

CHAPTER IX.

ECONOMICS OF THE NOVITIATE—THE MASTER,
MINISTER, MONITORS.

THE day's occupation, has doubtless given the reader an idea of the training pursued in the Novitiate. In that article I have alluded to many matters on which I have now to enlarge.

It was a common axiom with us, that he who went through his novitiate with perfect satisfaction to his superiors, would give the best proof of a true vocation to the Society. It is in the Novitiate that the Jesuit learns the fundamental principles of his art in after life, he has but to apply or enlarge on those principles-all, of course, in accordance with the direction of holy obedience; for I need not say that a carte blanche in the portfolio of a Jesuit sent out on his "mission," is quite out of the question. He can do nothing without the "permission of his superiors."*

Every ordinary duty, then, which he has after

* Debet iis à Superiore dari instructio in scriptis-non tantùm de negotiis, sed etiam de personis. C. P. vii. c. 2; ibid. N.

wards to perform, has its representative in the Novitiate. This will appear in the sequel. The Novice studies to learn these duties; meanwhile the Superior studies the Novice: hence the terms novitiate and probation are synonymous. To speak anatomically, his mentality is dissected from his cranium down to the metatarsal bones; the keen scalpel laying open every viscus, every organ; and the judgment thereon being deliberately weighed and recorded, as if only a dead body was on the table. But I forget -IGNATIUS, on his deathbed, enjoined every Jesuit to be in the hands of his Superior, perinde ac cadaver, just like a carcass.

The character, attainments, qualifications of every Jesuit are thoroughly known to his Superior ;* and not only to his Superior, but to the General himself, though constantly resident in Rome. This must not be understood to mean a mere general idea of these attainments, qualifications, and character; but a real, certain knowledge, resulting from repeated tests on a thousand different occasions. A statement of the age, attainments, character, country, and, I think, "form and figure," of every member, even in the Novitiate, is annually, immediately after the "manifestation of conscience," sent to the General at Rome, by the various provincials from every part of the world where the Society is, as in England, established.

Besides, in these annual reports, the state of religion, prospects of the Society, &c. &c., in the respec

* Oportet eos esse notissimos Superiori. Ex. c. 4-35.

tive countries, are given with the same precision.* Letters, also, in Latin, occasionally pass between the Novices of one country and those of another. This correspondence, of course, is only intended to unite the confraternity more closely together; and as such it is "part of the system." We wrote a letter to the Roman Novices whilst I was at Hodder; and having had much to do with the Latin construction (the matter was furnished by the Novices of the second. year), I can answer for some of the hopes therein fervently breathed, as bearing the fruit of fulfilment in these days of Tractarian conversion. If our JOSHUAS only could go forth to smite AMALek, we could stand on the top of the hill, and hold up our hands in prayer for victory against the "heretics," whose land we piously coveted: for it was a "good land, that beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon !" For this consummation we prayed daily for this all Roman Catholics pray daily and they will continue to pray till they enter the promised Canaan, and "mass be sung in Westminster Abbey !"

"Novices are sometimes interchanged: thus an Englishman might be sent to the Roman Novitiate. Some of the Jesuits at Stonyhurst passed their novitiate at Rome. The utility of this is obvious. Foreign languages are acquired without loss of time: not that the languages are grammatically studied in such circumstances; but most assuredly a facility of expression is therein acquired; and we may rest assured * Vide INSTR. Xviii. pro CONSULT.