doctrines. In France the persecutions kept up until the King's desire for an understanding with the German Protestants compelled him to become lenient; and it is said that the Pope, Paul III, protested to the King against such cruelty.

Of all this turmoil, passion and punishment, there is no mention in the lives of these early Jesuits, nor any reference to the new doctrines, further than that Ignatius rescued Xavier from contamination, and persuaded Bobadilla to forsake the classics for theology. Nevertheless this contact with the world of religious revolt affected Ignatius profoundly. He probably recked little of hangings and burnings; punishment for treason is always cruel, and it is expedient that a few human bodies shall suffer torture for a few minutes in order to save multitudes of souls for all eternity. But he must have brooded over the awful thought that damnation might burst in from Germany and spread over the Latin world in the manner in which it was spreading far and wide among Teutonic peoples. Had the reforming movement remained within the Church, going no further than Lefèvre d'Étaples went, seeking the spirit of Christ as it appears in the New Testament and yet clinging to forms and dogmas hallowed by time and the passion of many generations, it is conceivable that Loyola might have looked upon Reform without repugnance, might have felt a greater confidence in the free search for God, and less in the strait and narrow way of tradition, that he was to help still further straiten and narrow. He might have avoided the difficulty of reconciling determinism and moral responsibility by ascribing to God the mobility, the variety, the unexpectedness that may be supposed to belong to an infinite being. He might have modified his teaching that men should do right for fear of hell and hope of heaven, since Lefèvre d'Étaples, who also accepted the mystic way of purgation, illumination and union with God, says: "Les larmes, gectées par crainte d'enfer ou pour la perte de paradis simplement, sont . . . larmes demye-perdues."

But such speculations are beside the mark, for the fanatical reformers outraged public opinion and took a posi

tion that could only, as it turned out, be maintained by force of arms. Ignatius drew in his sympathies, and in so doing, as I have said, intensified them; he conceived his dogma of obedience-sicut ac cadaver-and went to work is if he were a smith hammering hot iron on an anvil, and disciplined his handful of Christian soldiers as Philip of Macedon drilled his phalanx. The nature of the Society of Jesus was (as I think) in great measure determined by Loyola's experience of the Lutheran heresy in Paris; and for this reason I have dwelt so long upon it.

CHAPTER XV

THE VOW AT MONTMARTRE AND NEW DISCIPLES (1534-1536)

THE little company consisted now, as I have said, of the master, and six devoted disciples, who were convinced that through him they had found the true way to serve their God. All were of one mind. They would take the vow of chastity, and the vow of poverty; after being invested with priesthood they would take no fees for performing any sacred office; they were not, however, while at the University, to deprive themselves of the means of study. They were to remain in Paris long enough to complete the theological course, and then go to Venice and take ship for the Holy Land, where they would spend their lives, devoting themselves to the service of souls; but, if it should happen that on account of war with the Turks no ship was sailing, they would wait at Venice for a year in hope, and on the expiration of the year betake themselves to Rome and put themselves at the Pope's disposal to do whatever he might bid them do for the good of human souls.

This was no sudden resolution, no flare up of religious zeal, no spurt of unstable emotion, but the matured purpose of a man who had now spent thirteen years preparing himself to prove his love of God, a purpose thought over, prayed over, and communicated solemnly to young men carefully chosen, and by them put to the test of examination and discussion, and confirmed by the peace which contemplation of the fulfillment of that purpose brought to their souls. The earlier companions, the three in Spain, and the first three in Paris, had started off at too great a pace, and had lost their wind; but these had received their training under Loyola's eye, and started off slow but sure, and like good athletes of the Lord, they would run the race to the end.

On August 15, 1534, the feast of the Assumption, at daybreak, Loyola and his companions, their minds made up and their hearts light, took their way from the Quartier Latin across the Pont St. Michel, through la Cité, across Pont du Change and through la Ville, and out of the city gates to the hill of Montmartre, on whose top the great church of the Sacré Cœur now stands. They mounted to the deserted little chapel of St. Denis, about halfway up the hill. Nobody else was there. Lefèvre, the only one of them already a priest, celebrated mass, and then taking the host in his hand, stood facing them; and each of the six, advancing in turn, fell on his knees, pronounced the vows agreed upon in a loud voice, and received the consecrated wafer. Lefèvre then did the same. The ceremony over, they left the chapel and walked round to the other side of the hill and down to the fountain, to which according to the story St. Denis had carried his own bleeding head in his hands and where he washed it. Here they spent the day magna animorum lætitia, in great joy of soul, talking of nothing but the service of God, and at sundown went home, praising and blessing the Lord. Might this not have been St. Francis and his companions at the Portiuncula in Umbria? I will quote Balzac's feeling about it: "Who is there that would not admire the extraordinary spectacle of this union of seven men animated by a noble purpose, who turn toward Heaven, and under the roof of a chapel lay down their worldly wishes and hopes, and consecrate themselves to the happiness of their fellow men? They offer themselves as a sacrifice to the work of charity, that shall give them no property, nor power, nor pleasure; they renounce the present for the future, looking forward only to a hereafter in Heaven and content with no happiness on earth beyond what a pure conscience can bestow."

Long years afterwards, Father Rodriguez said: "These First Fathers gave themselves up to God, and held nothing back. They renounced their own wills so completely, they offered their oblation with so much joy, putting all their hope in the divine mercy, that when I think of it, I am all emotion, my piety swells and my wonderment grows and

grows." And Ribadeneira, who used to listen respectfully while the First Fathers recalled these happy days, and is therefore perhaps a better witness, for he had already seen and tasted the fruits before he was told of the blossoms, says in his memorial:

They went about with a burning desire in their hearts to serve God. And they were comforted and quickened in their good purpose by the vow of poverty, by familiar intercourse day by day with one another, by sweet peace, by concord, love, and the sharing of what they had and by the communion of their hearts. And they imitated the usage of the ancient Holy Fathers and invited one another to dinner, according to their means, and took advantage of the occasion to talk of the spirit, and urge one another to a contempt of this world and a desire for things divine. These means were so efficacious, that all the while they stayed in Paris to finish their theological studies there was no faintness nor lukewarmness in their zeal for perfection, rather it went on growing with marked increase day by day.

Ignatius himself fell into very poor health. His lack of proper food disarranged all the processes of digestion. He suffered very much, and the physicians said his one chance was to go back to Spain and try the effect of his native air. He was the more willing to accede, as it was necessary to transact some business there on behalf of his Spanish disciples and to see their families, before they should put the plan of renouncing ordinary life into operation. But before following Ignatius to Spain, it will be as well to introduce the three new-comers who joined the little group in Paris after his departure, and rounded out the full number of the ten primeros padres, as they were afterwards called in all

reverence.

The first of the three is Claude Jay, who was born at Mieussy, a little town in Haute Savoie. He was a year or two older than his compatriot Father Lefèvre, and must have been born about 1504. Little is known of his boyhood, but it is said that he came "de bien bonne maison.”