ness, in order that these associates who have presented to us their humble petition may adopt their plan of life with the more ardour, from the fact of its approval by the apostolic see. We, in virtue of the apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents and certain knowledge, approve, confirm, bless, and give perpetuity to the foregoing exposition, in whole and in every part; and as to the associates themselves, we take them under our protection and that of the holy apostolic see, according to them, however, full liberty and power to construct such regulations as they shall deem conformable to the objects of this Society, the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the edification of our neighbours, notwithstanding the apostolic constitutions and ordinances of the general council, and of our predecessor of happy memory, the pope Gregory X., or all others to the contrary notwithstanding.

"We will, however, that of those who shall desire to make profession of this mode of life, not more than sixty* shall at any one time be admitted or received into the Society.

"Let no one dare to infringe or contradict anything herein contained respecting our approval, favourable reception, concession, and will. Let him who would dare to attempt it know that he would thereby incur the indignation of almighty God, and the ever blessed apostles, Peter and Paul.

"Given at Rome at Saint Marc, the year of the incarnation of our Lord, 1540, the fifth of the calends of October, the sixth of our pontificate."

Don Ignatius de Loyola, then in his forty-ninth year, was unanimously elected the first general of the "Society of Jesus," on the 17th April, 1541.

J. Crétineau Joly says, "Never has any work of man excited so much discussion, or been subjected to so minute investigation, as that which embodies the constitutions and declarations of the Society of Jesus. In all ages, in all coun

*This clog was removed by the Bull of 14th March, 1543. They ultimately became very numerous.

tries, it has evoked adversaries, who, with the view of demonstrating its fundamental defect, use every argument that honest error or that hatred can employ; and, on the other hand, admirers, who, convinced by reflection or led away by zeal (not always in accordance with facts), endeavour rather to justify its faults than to exalt its doctrines and precepts.”

To some it may appear monstrous to confound the founder or the original members of the Society with those who from time to time have made the word "Jesuit" synonymous with all that is odious. That Loyola brought into being a mighty engine cannot be doubted; that his object in bringing it into being was pure seems equally clear; that it was an engine capable of being turned to the worst as well as to the best of purposes is no less so.

It is not therefore surprising to find, notwithstanding the unquestioned virtue and learning of many of the members of the Society, that the Jesuits as a body have, by a mighty concensus of European opinion, been declared dangerous.*

* The society was condemned by the Sorbonne, Paris, 1554.

Expelled from France, 1594; re-admitted, 1604, but, after several decrees, was totally suppressed in France and its property confiscated, 1764.

It was ordered by Parliament to be expelled from England in 1579, 1581, 1586, 1602, and by the Catholic Relief Acts in 1829.

It was expelled from Venice in 1607, from Holland in 1708, from Portugal in 1750, from Spain in 1767.

It was abolished by Clement XIV. 21st July, 1773, but restored by Pius VI. 7th August, 1814.

It was expelled from Belgium in 1818; from Russia in 1820; from Spain in 1820, 1835; from France, 1831, 1845; from Portugal, 1834; from Sardinia, from Austria and other states, 1848; from Italy and Sicily, 1860.

In consequence of the activity of the order on behalf of the papal supremacy, a bill for its expulsion from Germany was passed by the Parliament at Berlin 19th June, promulgated 5th July, 1872.

The expulsion of the Jesuits from Italy decreed 25th June, was carried into execution 20th October-2nd November, 1873.

The order in France was dissolved by a decree of the 30th March, 1880. The decree for their expulsion from France, dated the 30th March, was executed on the 30th June, 1880. (See Haydn's Dictionary of Dates).

MONTAIGNE-1533-1592.*

Referring to the essays of this remarkable man, the Chatelaine des Rochers exclaimed, "Oh, what capital company he is, the dear man! He is my old friend; and just for the reason that he is so, he always seems new. My God! how full is that book of sense!" Balzac said that he had carried human reason as far and as high as it could go, both in politics and in morals. He certainly culled from the writings of the Greeks and Romans, for the benefit of his own time, wisdom then unknown save to the very few, and, by talents never surpassed, made the profound simple.

Some, it is true, and among them men of reputation, have charged Montaigne with licentiousness, impiety, materialism, epicurianism, and egotism. It cannot be denied that there is much in his essays that would not be written by any serious author of our own days, much that makes his essays as a whole unfit for the perusal of the young, and equally unprofitable to all others, not to say, at times, even distasteful; but may not the same be said even of parts of the Old Testament, of the Greek, Roman, and early European classics?

When we remember the age in which Montaigne wrote, when we have read Rabelais, who, be it remembered, was a divine and one of the best of men, and Boccaccio, and other writers of or about the same period, it is not with Montaigne's coarseness, but with his delicacy of reference to matters then freely discussed, though now not even mentioned in polite society, that we are impressed. Speaking of his own times, he says, "Now the ordinary discourse and common table-talk is nothing but boasts of favours received, and the secret liberality of ladies." (III., 102.)

Is it possible that the very object of his plain speaking about

*The matter of this sketch is derived from the "Essays of Montaigne,” translated by Charles Cotton, edited by William Carew Hazlitt. 3 vols. Reeves and Turner, Strand.

sexual matters was, by laying everything bare, to put an end to morbid curiosity and sensual conversation? Speaking of his daughter, then of a marriageable age, he says, "She was one day reading before me in a French book, where she happened to meet the word 'fouteau,' the name of a tree very well known; the woman to whose conduct she is committed stopped her short a little roughly, and made her skip over that dangerous step. I let her alone, not to trouble their rules, for I never concern myself in that sort of government; feminine polity has a mysterious procedure, we must leave it to them; but if I am not mistaken, the conversation of twenty lacqueys could not in six months' time have so imprinted on her fancy the meaning, usage, and all the consequences of the sound of these wicked syllables, as this good old woman did by her reprimand and interdiction." (III., 93.) He says, "Livia was wont to say that to a virtuous woman a naked man was but a statue. The Lacedæmonian women, more virgins when wives than our daughters are, saw every day the young men of their city stripped naked in their exercises, themselves little heeding to cover their thighs in walking, believing themselves, says Plato, sufficiently covered by their virtue without any other robe." (III., 98.) As to his alleged impiety:-Nothing is more manifest on almost every page of his work than the fact that his notions of Deity were not those of the vulgar masses, who are incapable of lofty conceptions whether of God or of man. A perfect master of the many and conflicting creeds of the ancients, and but too familiar with the horrors of the period in which he lived, caused by religious bigotry, he counselled adhesion to the old faith as being an ancient institution, a something known.

In his apology for Raimond de Sebonde, written, unless I am greatly mistaken, mainly for the benefit of the Protestants, and to convince the Catholics that, as no theory is necessarily right, toleration cannot be wrong, he says (II., 324), “I do not easily change, for fear of losing by the bargain; and since I am not capable of choosing, I take other men's choice, and keep

myself in the state wherein God has placed me; I could not otherwise prevent myself from perpetual rolling. Thus have I, by the grace of God, preserved myself entire, without anxiety or trouble of conscience, in the ancient belief of our religion, amidst so many sects and divisions as our age has produced." What he intended by this may possibly be gathered from the following passage which occurs two pages further on :"How long is it that physic has been practised in the world? 'Tis said that a new-comer, called Paracelsus, changes and overthrows the whole order of ancient rules, and maintains that, till now, it has been of no other use but to kill men. I believe that he will easily make this good, but I do not think it were wisdom to venture my life in making trial of his new experiWe are not to believe everyone, says the precept, because everyone can say all things." (II., 326.) Elsewhere he says, "In the present broils of this kingdom, my own interest has not made me blind to the laudable qualities of our adversaries, nor to those that are reproachable in those of men of our party. Others adore all of their own side; for my part, I do not so much as excuse most things in those of mine; a good work has never the worse grace with me for being made against me." (III., 304.)

ments.

A close, constant, and accurate observer of human nature, he studied himself as well as others. With the ancient Greeks and Romans, their doings, their theories, and their sayings, he was as intimate as with his immediate friends, even if not more so. Between what is called learning and wisdom he drew a broad distinction.

Montaigne hated the pedant with a bitter hatred; to him pedants appeared as intellectual blight—the curse of humanity. He could understand man happy in a state of natural simplicity, or in a condition of true enlightenment, but to him, the intermediate condition was appalling-the condition of false light, of ignorant arrogance, of quackery, of pedantry-but let him. speak for himself:-"The Baron de Caupane, in Chalosse, and