tenderly commended Ignatius and his companions, to His care, and Jesus welcomed them, and said to Ignatius with a loving look: Ego vobis Romæ propitius ero (I will be a friend to you in Rome). And having finished his prayers, Loyola, all joy, said to Lefèvre and Lainez: "My brothers, I do not know what God wishes of us, whether we shall die on the cross or under torture; but of this I am sure, come what may, Jesus will stand our friend." And he recounted to them what he had seen and heard. This vision contributed not a little to confirm them in the choice of name, Company of Jesus, which they finally adopted when the Company was formally founded. This name also avoided the offense to his humility caused by people here and there who fell into the way of calling his companions Ignatians, or The Company of Ignatius, or by some such phrase. He used to declare afterwards, that, even if the brethren had opposed the name instead of joyfully acclaiming it, he would have insisted, he was so sure that it was God's wish, and he informed all who joined them that they were entering the Company and service of Jesus Christ, enlisting under the banner of that great Captain, and must carry His cross, and fix their eyes on Him.

CHAPTER XIX

TRIBULATIONS (1538)

BUT in spite of the promise of divine support, the way was not smooth, and Loyola foresaw that it would not be. When they got to Rome he said: "I see that the windows have their shutters up." The great affair that lay before them was the foundation of the Order; but first I will give some account of how Loyola and his brethren employed their time, and then of the accusations cast up at them and of their deliverance and triumph, and after that I shall return to the story of the foundation.

It seems that Loyola must have been preceded or accompanied by a reputation highly to his credit, for very soon he was sufficiently familiar with several men of consequence to lay before them the Spiritual Exercises. Chief of these was Cardinal Contarini, a man of saintly life, one of the leaders of the reformation within the Church, and a relation of the Contarini who had already become Loyola's friend; he used to go about saying that he found Father Ignatius a most sympathetic teacher, and wrote out a copy of the Spiritual Exercises with his own hand. Dr. Ortiz went further. In order to be able to practise the exercises apart from the interruptions of business and friendship, he took Loyola to Monte Cassino, stayed there forty days, and followed the whole course of spiritual instruction. So keenly did he feel, as he says, "What a difference there is between the study that prepares us to instruct others and that which teaches us to guide ourselves!" All his life he remained a firm friend of the Society, and even, it is said, felt a strong inclination to join it, but corpulency rendered him unable to perform the physical duties imposed by the rules, and probably the world had too many just claims upon him to permit him to abandon it. While at Monte Cassino a

vision appeared to Loyola, which, had it not been explicitly referred to in his own Memoirs, one would be inclined to look upon as a sort of pious repetition, or echo, created out of the imagination by credulous disciples, of a very similar vision that had been vouchsafed to St. Benedict, when he was at Monte Cassino, a thousand years before. "I saw," Loyola says, "the Bachelor Hoces enter into Heaven; I wept but felt great comfort of spirit; and I beheld this so vividly that to deny it, would be a downright lie.” Ignatius had known that Hoces was ill at Padua, and had expected him to die, but the vision is said to have taken place at the very hour of his death.

Already before Loyola went to Monte Cassino, Paul III, who was trying to set on its feet the college of La Sapienza, which had been wrecked in the sack of Rome, had appointed Lefèvre to teach sacred scripture there, and Lainez to teach scholastic theology; and after the other brothers joined them in the spring of 1538, all laid out their work with greater regard to a common purpose. They all lived together in a house, which had been lent them, near Santa Trinità dei Monti, begged food and what else they needed, and preached in various churches throughout the city. Ignatius preached in the Spanish language at Santa Maria of Montserrat, the national Spanish church, near the Palazzo Farnese; Jay, in French I surmise, at San Lodovico, the French church next to Palazzo Madama, where the Emperor's daughter, Margaret of Parma, was living; Lefèvre in San Lorenzo in Damaso, a church appurtenant to the palace now known as the Cancelleria, while Lainez, Rodriguez, Salmerón and Bobadilla, preached elsewhere, all five in Italian. Part of the good that preaching in Italian accomplished, as they themselves perceived, was their own mortification, por mortificacion del predicador; afterwards, when they had better mastered the language, they did good to the congregation, and even in the earlier days, as they thought, they planted seeds of spiritual fruit, and at any rate made themselves known and talked about. Schoolmasters took their pupils to hear them, and many persons came to confession and communion. Ignatius must have been a remarkable

preacher. Sincerity and passionate love of souls are the parents of true eloquence. Dr. Ortiz considered himself fortunate not to have missed any of his sermons; and another theologian, Dr. Arce, used to say that he had never heard so virile a preacher, for he spoke as one that had authority and not as the scribes.

Besides preaching, the practical labors of charity were the especial care of the brethren. It was just ten years since the terrible sack of Rome, and in consequence the rich still suffered discomforts, and the poor privations. The biographers speak in particular of Loyola's tireless activity in matters of charity; to this I shall return in a later chapter. By his influence a certain rich man contributed generously to the Jesuit charities, and also to the needs of the little band of Fathers, so that they were released from the burden of begging alms for themselves and left free to attend to higher things; and, later on, this same generous friend by his labors more than by his purse enabled them to procure a church of their own, and to build a house on the site where the church of the Gesù now stands. In the meantime the Fathers had moved from the neighborhood of Santa Trinità dei Monti, and lodged in an ampler house near a tower, Torre de la Melangola, bordering upon the ground once covered by the Circus Flaminius. The need of charity was doubled by a great famine in the land, and many poor people, according to report, were found dead of hunger and cold in the streets. The Fathers converted their new building into a sort of charitable lodging-house, and took in the destitute. Soon the number cared for reached a hundred, then two, three, and even four hundred. These poor people were housed and kept warm, the feebler had what beds there were, while the more robust slept on straw. As many as could be were fed, and all were preached to and prayed over. This work was noised abroad, and well to do citizens came to see how they could help, and some if they had nothing else to spare, gave their coats and cloaks. Even alms intended for the Fathers were spent in charity. This state of affairs lasted till the next year's harvest. In all more than 3000 persons were taken in and looked after. Besides their

care of this household, the Fathers, and also some new comers who joined them, went about the hospitals and private houses, ministering both to body and soul. I shall return to the matter of Loyola's practical philanthropy hereafter; but it is impossible to touch upon these two years prior to the granting of the charter without saying a word as to the faithful, laborious, and self-sacrificing devotion shown by Ignatius and his Companions to the sick and destitute. At the same time one must remember that to Loyola, men's bodies were mere temporary houses of clay, but their souls the everlasting temples of God's holy spirit. Loyola himself was always mindful of the benefits received by those who serve others; the more his zeal to serve souls, the closer he came to God, as he says, sempre crescendo in devotione, id est, in facilità di trovare Iddio. With this, I leave the aspect of his work as a practical philanthropist, and go back to the ill wind of misunderstanding, dislike and jealousy, that blew about his head. Father Polanco begins his account of it, "Cum Satanas, . . ." but I shall start a little differently.

The storm arose in this fashion. An Augustinian monk, from Piedmont, a great preacher, who was at that time preaching in Rome, seemed to the Jesuits to be larding his sermons with Lutheran doctrines; thereupon, they did what they believed to be their duty, by unmasking him from their pulpits and refuting his teachings. For some reason or other, that we can but guess at, certain Spaniards, connected with the papal curia, espoused the monk's side, and spread evil reports about the Jesuits; and they also got hold of a rascally Spaniard, Michael by name, who had known Ignatius and the others in Paris. This Michael had wished to join their Society, but as he did not seem a suitable person, he was refused. Encouraged, apparently, by the friends of the monk, he went about saying publicly that Ignatius had been condemned as a heretic in Spain, in Paris and in Venice, and implied, if he did not say, that they were all runaways and had been obliged to take refuge in Italy, and he also did what he could to bring the Spiritual Exercises into bad odor. People began to look askance at