the son of a nobleman of Guipuscoa, was born in the year 1491. He was made a page at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, where he distinguished himself in every accomplishment proper to a soldier and courtier; and more than this, it is affirmed that he was noted for the correctness of his behaviour, his respect for religion, and his strict regard to truth. At this early age he gave proof, we are told, of that sagacity which made him, through life, master of the most hidden dispositions of those around him; and of that tact which enabled him to bend all dispositions to his will. He had reached his twenty-ninth year when an incident, so often related, gave a turn to his mind, his purposes, and his course of life; a turn to which, as to an incidental cause, we must trace an evolution deeply affecting the condition of Christendom through three centuries.

The wound, which had spoiled this young gentleman's fortunes as a soldier and as a man of the gay world, had been received at the siege of Pampeluna. The constitutional force of his will, which was displayed in submitting to the cure of a badly set fracture, brought him near to death; but at the last moment he is restored by an immediate intervention—so he believes—of the "Prince of the Apostles." A recovery protracted through many months, and which, as he did not doubt, had taken its rise in a miracle of grace, brought him into acquaintance with books of piety; and the fervour of his temperament, thenceforward, took a corresponding turn. The infinite, the unseen, and the eternal, were accepted by him in place of whatever perishes in the using, and which clogs even in the moment of possession. The limping soldier becomes, not because it was his only alternative, but with the full and free choice of his soul, the man of prayer and of unconditional devotion to the most arduous religious enterprises.

It is of some importance to remark that, on the probable supposition of Loyola's knowledge of Christian history having been derived from one of those picture-book Gospels which were in the hands of the laity at that time, we have a clue to the fragmentary and exceptive character of his first and chief literary work, the *Spiritual Exercises*. Of Christianity he seems to have known just the main incidents of the life of Christ; but little or nothing of those principles which are to be gathered from the apostolic writings at large. Yet although, even to the last, he was only a slender theologian, he had become, as if by intuition and in the first stage of his religious progress, a profound master of human nature, a skilfully exact physician of souls, a prudent director of the religious conscience, and a master of all varieties of waywardness in religious feeling. It is on this ground that we find him what we should look for in the founder of a religious order.

That difficult subject, the devotion of some of the most eminent Romish saints to the worship and service of the "Blessed Virgin," meets us at the threshold of Loyola's personal history. Easy it may be to deal with this problem in the instance of men like St Bernard, or Bonaventura, or Ignatius Loyola, on principles purely psychological: the perplexity which meets us springs from the endeavour to make so gross a form of polytheism consist with genuine piety, in the Christian sense of the term. In this place we do not attempt a solution of such a problem; but yet, a passing reference to it belongs to even the most hasty sketch of the Jesuit institute, which has ever shown itself preeminently the "religion of Mary." The personal consequences, as they affected the sentiments of this gallant Spaniard and soldier, when he dedicated himself to the "Most Blessed Virgin," are quite intelligible. It is also easy to see, when we look to the ripened Jesuitism of a later time, that a scheme of life founded upon the dethronement of the individual conscience, and the neutralization of genuine morality, should well consist with a sensuous conception of a female divinity, displacing the religious idea of the Eternal and Infinite Being inflexibly true and holy. There is no mystery thus far; but rather a satisfaction in finding that an ethical system such as that of the "Society" has consorted, as if by instinct, with a theology so deeply corrupted.

It was in the year 1522—a year memorable in the history of the German reformation—that Loyola, by a formal act, dedicated himself, body and soul, to the service of the "Blessed Mother of God;" and it was about this time, we are told, that he composed the book—if book it can be called—entitled *Spiritual Exercises*, and of which book something more must presently be said. But an ambition, or a philanthropy, which should embrace the human family, had already begun to develop itself within him; and its early promptings led him to undertake nothing less arduous than the conversion of the people of the East, even the Mohammedan nations, Turks, Arabians, Persians. To carry out this vast project his first step was a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The many adventures which befell him in this journey, from which he returned in 1524, we must leave where it may be found, on the ample pages of his biographers. In the end the followers of the false prophet were necessarily abandoned to their errors, and then it was Christendom which he chose as the field of his mission; and on this ground he encountered no similar disappointment, for although the Mohammedan nations remained unconverted, yet he lived to see them environed on all sides, E. and W., by his agents, and, as it were, beleaguered by his institute.

A settled purpose, large in its bearing, must at this time have lodged itself firmly in his mind; for to secure success in the prosecution of it, he submitted himself, being then in his thirtieth year, to the irksome drudgery of acquiring the learning with which he had formed no acquaintance in his boyhood. If what has been related of their master's course at this time by his disciples be simply true, the humiliations he underwent, the assiduity he displayed, and the proficiency which he made in his college training, afford proof the most striking of a force of mind which must—which could not but, prevail against all difficulties that were not absolutely insurmountable. During these years of personal preparation he continued to exercise his peculiar gifts, both as a spiritual adviser, and as a popular instructor.

About this time when Loyola's course of theological study in the University of Paris was drawing to its close, he looked about for some who should be his companions and coadjutors in carrying forward the scheme which he had already devised for reforming the Catholic world. There can be no doubt that he possessed, in a very eminent degree, the rare faculty which has enabled a few men to surround themselves with, and permanently to retain in their service, minds of superior strength and of more varied accomplishments. Several of those who, to the last, yielded the place of power and honour to Ignatius Loyola, seem to have been more than his equals in grasp of intellect, while they far surpassed him in learning and in knowledge of the Jesuitism.

Of these eminent men who became, at length, the Fathers of the Society, the chief were,—Peter Faber, a Savoyard, a man of fervent temper, and devout from boyhood; the heroic Francis Xavier, the illustrious apostle of the Indies, who achieved a high renown for himself independently of Loyola, though not formally alienated from him; James Laynez, who succeeded him as general of the order, and of whose intelligence and astuteness the Jesuit polity was, as it seems, mainly the product—he is believed to have compiled a principal part of the Constitutions of the Society;—Alphonsus Salmeron; Nicolas Alphonsos, surnamed Bobadilla, a man of a penetrating spirit, and a master in the knowledge of human nature; and Simon Rodriguez d'Arevedo, a Spaniard of noble birth, and many accomplishments, as well as ardent piety and devotedness.

To these, who were Loyola's earliest associates, were added others in course of time. One of the most noted of these was Claude le Jay; and it was by their aid, and as yielding themselves unweariedly to the will of the master mind, that this band of devotees digested their scheme of life, fixed themselves in their purpose in relation to the church and the world, and imparted coherence and consistency to their individual labours. It was these men who, in concert, framed the Society of Jesus, and who, by that undiverted intensity of purpose which marked them, launched it on its course—a course of unexampled efficiency and power. From this time forward we almost lose the clue whereby to trace Loyola's individual mind, as the mover of the Jesuit polity, or as the mainspring of the Society; for it appears that two, at least, of his companions—Laynez and Faber—lent him the forces and the treasures of their minds entire, and without conditions, as to any share of fame or visible authority; they were content to witness the success of the great enterprise to which they had committed themselves, and to witness in silence its fast-spreading triumphs.

This band of men, dedicating themselves by a solemn act, to the "service of the Saviour," and imploring the protection and favour of "Mary, the Queen of Virgins," constituted themselves as a religious body, by vows and solemnities, on the 15th of August in the year 1534. But this act did not constitute them a "religious order," in the authentic sense which that phrase carries in the Church of Rome. To obtain the Papal sanction, which was needed for this purpose, Loyola sent forward certain of his friends to Rome in the year 1537; and there, for a length of time, they urged their suit with the sovereign pontiff, Paul III. What was at first asked was the apostolic sanction and benediction in behalf of a missionary pilgrimage to the Holy Land—a boon at length accorded. While awaiting at Venice an opportunity for passing over the seas, the three friends, Loyola, Laynez, and Faber, are believed to have matured the principles of the institute, and to have digested those maxims, so peculiar, when brought to bear upon the consciences of the Jesuit agents, and upon secular interests, which have seemed to contradict the first principles of morals, and to tend to the subversion of civil society. Yet these men must be thought of as sincere and devout, and as in a sense philanthropists.

These "Fathers," after a year of waiting at Venice, found they might excuse themselves from the mission they had proposed, namely, to convert the Mohammedan nations, and instead of so impracticable a task they turned themselves toward that of renovating the Catholic world. A new application at Rome for authority was now needed; and in this instance Loyola himself took the lead, as the originator of the order, "the Company of Jesus," and having at length obtained this grace, he thenceforward exercised the sway belonging to him as its "General." The profession made at this time included not merely the three vows of "obedience, poverty, and charity;" but that of an unreserved submission to the papal will, in all cases, and a dedication of body and soul to the service of the church, and to the maintenance of the papal authority, especially as it was at that time imperilled by the prevalent heresy of which Martin Luther had been the mover. This last condition, although not verbally expressed, was no doubt clearly understood, and distinctly kept in view, as well by the Jesuit fathers in offering themselves to the service of the papal authority, as by this authority in accepting so timely an aid. The papal bull which constituted the Society as a religious order, by Paul III., is dated 1540. It was not until after the date of this authentic recognition that Loyola's election as superior, or general, for life was formally made and openly recognised.