Other new orders had preceded it. The earliest was the Oratory of Divine Love. This Society was an outgrowth of a reaction against corruption, and was organized sometime before the Lutheran movement; the purpose of its members, both clergymen and laymen, was to ennoble their lives by religious exercises, by praying and preaching, by frequent recourse to the sacraments, by acts of charity, and so, by means of personal sanctification, to reform the Church. Sadoleto and Giberti were both members. In 1519 the Confraternità della Carità was organized for the purpose of looking after gentlefolks fallen upon evil days, of visiting prisons, and providing burial for the very poor. A few years later, the order of the Teatini was founded by Gaetano di Thiene and Gian Pietro Caraffa. This was the order that called out unsympathetic criticism from Loyola, and so brought about a lack of cordiality between him and Caraffa. The idea of it was to form a society of singleminded priests, bound by a rule, who should devote themselves to administering the sacraments, to preaching, and other religious and ecclesiastical matters, with the special purpose of setting an example to secular priests, and persuading them to return to an apostolic life. The members took the three vows. Poverty was of the first obligation; they were not even to beg, but to wait for alms to be given. Caraffa resigned his two sees and his benefices, and gave away his property; Gaetano was of a tender type, and used to burst into tears at the mystery of the mass. The new order aroused enmity and contempt. After the sack of Rome, the members, of whom there were but twelve, escaped to Venice, where they made close friends with the men in charge of the Hospital for Incurables as well as with Gasparo Contarini, who became Cardinal, Reginald Pole, and other reformers. It was very likely at this hospital that Loyola first heard of them.

In 1525 the Order of the Capuchins, a reformed branch of the Franciscan Order, was organized; its members lived like hermits, and preached repentance to peasants. Another reforming body was the Somaschi, who performed their charitable works in and about Bergamo and Brescia. This too

was about the year 1530. The Order of the Barnabites was founded, in 1533, at Milan; these priests held open-air missions, rather after the fashion of the Salvation Army, as I understand it. I give these details concerning the nature and purposes of these reforming bodies, as evidence that the Society of Jesus-as it was constituted by its charter and constitution-did not start as an original idea out of an inventive mind, but was created or compounded out of ideas that were in the air, and partially in practice. Altogether, there is evidence that there were many healthgiving forces lying about, some showing themselves, some still latent, ready to be applied to the conservation of the old ecclesiastical order, if a man of genius should come forward with the instrument by which they could be put to use. The purpose of this book has been to show how such a man did come forward.

And I shall adduce one more indication of the spiritual atmosphere in Rome which, however alien to any thoughts or feelings that we find in Loyola and his companions, shows how the nobler minds brooded, though not necessarily in an ecclesiastical fashion, over spiritual welfare. I refer to Vittoria Colonna and to Michelangelo. She “di spirto generoso, di natura magnanima, d'ingegno pellegrino, di virtù sola, di creanza nobile e di vita buona" as a contemporary truly says, had come under the influence of Juan Valdés, and was accused of heretical views, as were other pious souls, such as Cardinal Contarini-who constitutes one of the links between that intellectual group and Ignatius Loyola-but in fact, she went no further than a region of poetry and neo-Platonism, where aspiration and upward yearning may have been a little careless of classified dogmas.

Se per salir ad alta e vera luce

Dai bassi, ombrosi e falsi sentier nostri,

È ver che Amor la strada erta dimostri

("Of a verity, Love shows the steep path up to the true light, out from our low, o'ershadowed, wayward ways.”)

Se le dolcezze, che dal vivo fonte
Divino stillan dentro un gentil core,

Apparissero al mondo ancor di fuore,
Con bella pace in puro amor congionte;
Forse sarebbon più palesi e conte

Le cagion da sdegnar ricchezza e onore:
Onde i più saggi, lieti, ebbri d'amore,
Andrebbon con la croce all' erto monte.

("If the sweetness that flows into the humble heart from the living fountain of God, should show itself visible to the world, attended by beauteous peace and pure love; perhaps the reasons for contempt of riches and honors would be more plain and clear, and those more wise would go in joy, and drunk with love, up the steep hill, carrying the cross.")

And Michelangelo cries out:

Mettimi in odio quanto 'l mondo vale,

E quante sue bellezze onoro e colo,
C'anzi morte caparri eterna vita-

Make me to hate all that the world holds dear,
All things of beauty that I love and cherish,
And gain eternal life instead of death.

Or, let me refer to his sonnet wherein he prays for faith:

De', porgi, Signor mio, quella catena
Che seco annoda ogni celeste dono:
La fede dico, a che mi stringo e sprono.

O God, reach down that chain,

To which is knotted every heavenly gift,

True faith, I mean, toward which I strive and strain.

And it was at this time, I think, that Palestrina was chapel master in Santa Maria Maggiore.

There are, I presume, all the time all sorts of forces, physical, chemical, vital, ethical, social and, perhaps, spiritual, lying idle, so far as mankind is concerned, about us; it is the task of genius to discover and put some, at least, of those forces to use. Ignatius was such a genius.

CHAPTER XXIX

IGNATIUS IN ROME

SUCH as I have described in earlier chapters were, in a way, the occupations of the earliest Fathers. Before Ignatius died the Society had houses and colleges, either established or in the making, all over Catholic Europe; kings and princes were its friends and patrons; the Popes were its supporters and protectors, even the dreaded Caraffa, Paul IV, behaved towards the Society in so fatherly a fashion that Ignatius was able to say,-with a little exaggeration that no Pope had done more for it than he; the orthodox bishops of Europe assembled at the Council of Trent, had learned to respect it. In fact, the reputation of the Society had suddenly grown so great that there was danger lest the Fathers should lose their heads. Ignatius had to caution one of them, pretty sharply, not to assume a tone of authority towards Duke Cosimo of Florence, because already an unfriendly report was going about Rome,"Que queremos governar todo el mundo" ("That we want to govern the whole world"); and years before he died, he said, to one of his disciples: "If you live ten years more, you shall see great things." All this accomplishment, big with promise of greater achievements still, could not have been wrought without the talents, the zeal and the tireless energy of los primeros padres; and they were well seconded by their younger associates, Canisius, Araoz, Francisco de la Strada, Domenech, Miron, Miguel de Torres, Nadal, Polanco, Ribadeneira and others. Nevertheless, making full allowance for what these men did, the credit and the glory must be awarded to Ignatius. His was the imperial gift, as Cardinal Newman calls it, "to frame, to organize and to consolidate."

From the time he was elected General until his death, Ignatius, as I have said, virtually never left Rome at all.

His labors may be divided into two main categories: As director of the Jesuit house in Rome, and of various charitable institutions there, he had much to do in the city itself; and, as executive head of a rapidly spreading order, he was concerned with matters all over the world. At first he devoted the greater part of his attention to local duties, but as years went by he must have found it necessary to give more and more time to the superintendence of affairs away from home. I shall, however, leave chronology to one side, and say something of his various occupations in the sequence that shall seem most convenient.

First and foremost in importance comes his correspondence: letters from Jesuit Fathers, wherever they were, and his replies of instruction, suggestion and encouragement; letters from persons in high place outside the Society, both ecclesiastical and secular, and his written in answer; letters from persons of various sorts, with whom the Society, or he personally, had some connection; letters from relations, old friends, acquaintances and such. The table of contents for the volumes of his letters show how far and wide, even in these first years, the Society had stretched its branches, how deep it had pushed its roots. His letters to Popes, kings, princes and cardinals are always marked by extreme deference; they reveal his policy of working with established authority, never against it. In matters of principle, he was very firm; but, if principles were not involved, he always endeavored to win the good will and to conform to the wishes of the great. He knew that it lay with them to favor or obstruct the work of the Society. For instance, King John III wished to establish the Inquisition in Portugal, and at his request, Ignatius made every effort to induce the Apostolic See to grant the necessary charter; but when the King wished members of the Society to assume the office of inquisitors, he refused, for he had made it a principle for the Society not to accept any outside dignities. For this same reason, Jay, Bobadilla and Canisius refused bishoprics, and Lainez and Borgia asked to be excused from accepting a cardinal's hat. Ignatius was fearful lest the mere possibility of such prizes might tempt ambitious men to join the