The peculiarities of their organization were the occasion of much antagonism at the very outset on the part of some of the most eminent men of the Catholic Church. The Inquisition strongly suspected its purposes and doctrines. The name• of the °Society of Jesus" was objec tionable to Pope Sixtus V. Unlike other orders they were to be dispensed from reciting the divine office in common, and were to wear no distinctive habit. The length of probation and the general structure of the society were un usual. The members were first the professed who were relatively few. In them the govern ing power resided, and they were distinguished by a special vow of obedience to the Pope. Then came the spiritual coadjutors, or priests, who did not take the special vow of obedience to the Pope. Preparing for either category were the students or scholastics, and lastly there *ere lay brothers who were to devote themselves to domestic duties. Those who ap plied for admission were to pass two years of noviceship, and not one as in other religious orders, and were then admitted to what are called simple vows which could be easily dis pensed with by proper authority if the subject were subsequently found unfit. Following the noviceship, two years were given to a review of the classical studies; then came three years of philosophy, mathematics and the physical sciences; five years of college teaching and four years of theology, to end only with another year of seclusion and prayer, after which the can didate was permitted to take the solemn vows which bound him irrevocably to the order as a spiritual coadjutor or professed. The proba tion of the lay brothers was protracted to 10 years. The Jesuit renounces by vow all ecclesi astical dignities, and accepts them only in un usual circumstances and by express command of the Pope, under pain of sin in case of re fusal. As the establishment of the Society of Jesus coincided with the Protestant Reforma tion the efforts of the first Jesuits were nat urally directed to combat that movement. Under the guidance of Canisius so much suc cess attended their work in Germany and other northern nations, that, according to Macaulay, Protestantism was effectually checked. In Eng land where Elizabeth had inaugurated a move ment against her Catholic subjects, and previous to that under Henry VIII the Jesuits stopped at no danger to go to the rescue of their brethren in the faith; and what they did there was repeated in other parts of the world. °In spite of oceans and deserts, of hunger and pestilence, of spies and penal laws, of dungeons and racks, of gibbets and quartering blocks, the Jesuits were to be found under dis guise, in every country; scholars, physicians, merchants, servingmen, in the hostile court of Sweden, in the old manor houses of Cheshire, among the hovels of Connaught arguing, in structing, consoling, animating the courage of the timid, holding tip the crucifix before the eyes of the dying.° Such is the testimony of Macaulay, a Prot estant historian. Though many died as martyrs on the scaffolds and in the prisons of England and elsewhere, yet their skill in evading detec tion as well as their courage in living in the midst of their enemies and their great suc cess in winning converts well explain the hatred with which they were regarded in Protestant countries from the beginning, while it gives us the historical origin of the tradition of cunning and deceit which has always been associated with the name of Jesuit.
Under James I they were accused of com plicity in an alleged attempt to blow up both houses of Parliament, and though clearly proven to be innocent of the charge, Father Garnet, who was said to have been cognizant of the plot, was executed, and the accusation is still believed. Guy Fawkes' Day commemorates the event and perpetuates the calumny. It is probably in connection with this occurrence that the supposed Jesuit doctrine of "the end justifying the means" was first accredited to them and the accusation made that "it was their office," as Macaulay assures his readers, "to plot against the thrones and lives of apostate kings, to spread evil rumors, to raise tumults, to inflame civil wars and to arm the lands of the assassin.' The first one who is accused of
formulating the doctrine of the endjustifying the means is Father Wagemann of Innsbruck 1762. Even the murders of Henry III and Henry IV of France were ascribed to them, and under Charles II of. England six Jesuits were accused by Titus Oates of conspiracy and put to death. These and other charges have been repeatedly disproved, yet writers of ro mance, and even writers of history, never fail to find readers credulous enough to accept them as true.
While the Jesuits were propagating the faith in Europe they were sending missionaries to every part of the world to preach the Gospel to heathen nations. Greatest of all these apostles was Saint Francis Xavier whom all Protestant writers unite in glorifying and whom the pagans almost worshipped as a deity. His name is still mentioned with enthusiasm among the pagans in Japan and the Occident. The conversions which he effected and the miracles he wrought almost defy belief. It is a testi mony to the solidity of his teaching that al though Catholicity was apparently obliterated in Japan by a series of bloody persecutions, the French missionaries who entered the country in 1860 found 30,000 Japanese Christians there. In spite of the absence of priests, the doctrines and practices received from Francis Xavier which meant death to profess openly had been handed down from father to son for a period of nearly 300 years. One blot on the reputation of the society in this field was the shameful apostasy of one of their superiors; but he atoned for his sin by a subsequent martyrdom.
In America the French Jesuits undertook the task of evangelizing the Indians, and at one time had 3,000 civilized and christianized Hurons under their control. In what is now New York, Father Jogues was cruelly tortured and slain on the banks of the Mohawk in 1646. In 1649 Gamier, Daniel and others were shot to death; and at the same time De Brebeuf and Lallemant were burned at the stake while their flesh was slashed with knives and their hearts cut out and eaten by the Indians of Lake Su perior. Others died from want and exposure. It was Jogues who discovered Lake George to which he gave the name of Lac du Saint Sacre ment. Later on Le Moyne came upon the salt springs near Syracuse. Marquette discovered the Mississippi which he named the River of the Immaculate Conception. He explored it as far as the mouth of the Arkansas, and return ing home was the first white man with his companions to travel over the territory of what is now the city of Chicago. Wisconsin has erected a statute to his honor. Other Jesuits reached the Pacific coast and established the missions of California which they handed over to the famous Franciscan Junipero Serra when the society was suppressed. English Jesuits had come over with Lord Baltimore; and before that five Spanish members of the order had been slain by the Indians on the banks of the Rappa hannock. The "Relations" of the French Mis sions have been recently published by an Amer ican publishing house and form 72 volumes of missionary and scientific information which the Atlantic Monthly considers the most precious material that could be desired for the history of this country. Similar records have been kept the Jesuits of other nationalities. Mar quettes diary and maps of the discovery of the Mississippi decided the controversy between France and England about the possessions of the western territory.