passions, and the restless and energetic | Before the expiration of the sixteenth activity which had characterized his century, they had obtained the chief proud and daring chivalry, now took the direction of education throughout the form of religious enthusiasm, and this whole of catholic Europe. They also was excited to the highest pitch by found means of becoming the confessors imagined visions, and apparitions, and of nearly all its sovereigns, and of bringthe full persuasion of a divine call hence- ing under their guidance the consciences forth to show his prowess as the sworn of most persons who were eminent for knight of the Virgin Mary, and the rank and power. Their foreign mischampion of the distressed church. sions were prosecuted with a zeal and Other minds soon became kindled by heroism which would have done honour his ardour. In Paris, after a course of to any cause, had they not been so often study and of severe discipline, he found disgraced by trickery, and fraud, and a few suitable and able associates who persecution. Still their object was fully entered into his plans. They de- gained in the extension of the Romish termined to attempt the construction of church. In India, in Japan, in China, a new order, which, by combined and in South America, both their missionary systematic action, should rally the efforts and their success were remarkdrooping spirits of the holy see, and able. In Europe their power for some give life and vigour to the enfeebled time was almost irresistible. Their inchurch. The great objects originally fluence at Rome was paramount. Their intended were the suppression of heresy, interference with governments was inthe education of youth, and the extension cessant. They mingled themselves up of the papal domains by foreign mis- with all transactions of importance, sions. They met, however, with many whether of public bodies or private discouragements; but, in order to con- individuals, in affairs of a commercial, ciliate the favour of the pope, in addition political, or ecclesiastical nature. All to the three vows of poverty, chastity, authorities, spiritual or secular, either and monastic obedience, they took ano- courted their favour or dreaded their ther, binding them to go to whatever opposition. part of the world his holiness might send them, without burdening him with cost or charge. At length the bull of Paul III., in 1540, established the institution under the name of "the Company of Jesus." And thus, to use the words of Villiers in his Essay on the Reformation, this society rose above the horizon like an awful comet which scatters terrors among the nations." The progress of this community was as astonishing as their rise was singular. Though the original bull limited their number to sixty, this restriction was soon removed, and "in less than half a century after its institution, the society obtained establishments in every country that adhered to the Roman catholic church. In the year 1608, the number of Jesuits had increased to 10,581. In the year 1710, the order possessed 24 professed houses; 59 houses of probation; 340 residences; 612 colleges; 200 missions; 150 seminaries and boarding schools; and consisted of 19,998 Jesuits." &e-Deus æterno consilio opposuit Ignatium."-"To Luther, that disgrace of Germany, that Epicurean wine, that curse of Europe, that monster destructive to the whole earth, hateful to God and man, &c. -God, by his eternal decree has opposed Ignatius." • Robertson's History of Charles V., vol. iii. page 198, note. VOL. X.-FOURTH SERIES. There were, indeed, many causes which combined to give to this order so formidable a power. There never, perhaps, was any society or community of men at once so extensive, so varied, and yet so compact. By the constitution of the society, its supreme government was vested in one individual. No division of opinion weakened the executive. The head was a general, chosen for life. His government was the most absolute monarchy. His decisions were final. His will was law. His power over the funds of the society, over the persons and actions of all its members, was unlimited and uncontrolled. Under this great chief was a gradation of officers, whose authority no subordinate might question. Every superior was as absolute in his sphere as the general was in the government of the whole. One will directed all their movements throughout the states of Europe and in every station abroad. To render the whole system more effective, all its parts were selected and adapted to each other with the greatest care. No one must be admitted, even to his noviciate, in whose body or mind, in whose opinions or character, there was any apparent disqualification for the Y order. The candidate for admission was required to go through a preparatory course of discipline and probation as a test of his fitness for the service, during which the most unreserved and repeated confessions were expected of all his sentiments, and thoughts, and inclinations, and purposes; in addition to which, all his associates were bound to disclose to the superior, every thing which they had noticed of his capabilities and character, and all which they had elicited from him in his most unguarded moments; and the whole, with the remarks of that superior, were continually registered and duly forwarded to the seat of power. And it was not till many years had passed, and a long and cautious trial had been made, that he was fully admitted as a professed father. During the preparatory training, and indeed at any time, those who were deemed, on whatever account, unfit agents of the society, were dismissed; nor was it deemed necessary that any reason should be stated. The general had thus the means of knowing, with great accuracy, the character and qualifications of every member. If an agent were needed for any department of service at home or abroad, if any enterprise were to be attempted which required daring courage, or consummate prudence, or insinuating softness, or unwearied patience, or stoical endurance, it was easy to fix on the man suited to the work. It was always understood where ancient or modern literature, where physical or moral science, where high talents for teaching or for business, were to be found; and a word from the superior was all that was required to secure prompt and implicit obedience. All the members of this new society were taught to consider themselves as the peculiarly devoted servants of the church, acting under their own officers, and destined, not to the seclusion of monks, or to constant employment in devotional exercises, but to mingle with society, and to fill any office or accept any employment, which might further the objects of their order. That no other ecclesiastics might interfere with their plans or their consciences, they were confessed only by priests of own fraternity. And that they might have perfect freedom to pursue their own designs, and accomplish all the secret instructions received from their general, the persons and property of all the members of the society were exempted, by a bull of Paul III., from every kind of superintendence, jurisdiction, and punishment of ordinaries. And all archbishops, and bishops, and every other authority, as well ecclesiastical as secular, were prohibited from obstructing or molesting the companions of Ignatius, their houses, churches, or colleges. Thus constituted, the Jesuits became the most active and powerful auxiliaries which the holy see ever possessed. They were prompt for all service, ready to do and to dare anything in obedience to their superiors, without ever allowing their judgment or their conscience to interfere. And each devoting his life to that particular line of study or of service allotted to him, it is no wonder that this order produced some of the most finished scholars, the finest writers, and the most subtle casuists. So complete was the union of this body that all of talent and acquirement which every individual possessed was the property of the whole, and perfectly at the disposal of those who guided its concerns. that the power and resources of this society might be employed in the most effective manner, reports were regularly transmitted to the general from every part of Europe, and from all their foreign stations, of all that was transpiring and all that was designed. By means of the confessional, they not only acquired access to sovereigns, and statesmen, and men of wealth and power, but they exercised a potent influence over them; so that when at the full height of their power, there was scarcely a monarch in Europe who wielded such a sceptre as that of the general of the Jesuits. And That the members of this society have, by their learning, by what they have done to promote education, and by many valuable publications, conferred benefits on society, cannot be denied. That they have, as foreign missionaries, manifested heroic zeal, and exhibited in their sufferings the constancy of martyrs, must be acknowledged. But the amount of injury inflicted on the interests of humanity, of truth and righteousness, by this formidable body, has been incalculable. It has, we are aware, become almost a fashion,-most strangely so,— in certain quarters, to applaud in the highest strains all the virtues and ex ploits of the Jesuits, to soften down all the enormities with which, age after age, they have been charged, and, as far as possible, to persuade the British public, that with such occasional failings as all societies are liable to, they have been as a body ill-used and grossly calumniated, and are well entitled, in protestant, as well as catholic countries, to very high and general regard. We do not, however, hesitate to express, in the strongest manner, our dissent from what we must deem a spurious candour, a false and mischievous liberality. Considering it as their vocation to make war on all heresy, they have been, especially against the protestants, the most malignant and unscrupulous abettors of persecution, whenever they have possessed the opportunity and the power. Their whole strength has been put out to retain all the absurdities in doctrine and in worship which, in the dark middle ages, sprung up in the papal community, and which thousands of Roman catholics themselves would have rejoiced to see reformed.* They have ever been the declared advocates of the highest and most extravagant prerogatives of the see of Rome, maintaining the absolute supremacy of the pope over all powers, civil and ecclesiastical. Many of them have, indeed, gone so far, and with the tacit acquiescence, if not the publicly expressed approbation, of their highest superiors, as to sanction rebellion against a sovereign who might be pronounced heretical, and to declare or plainly to intimate that regicide, even by private hands, would be no crime. By the doctrines taught by their casuists, the very foundations of morality are sapped, and almost every sin may find a justification or excuse. Artifice and trickery have been so The author of the History of the Jesuits (2 vols. 8vo. London, 1816), says, vol. i. page 392, quoting the History of the Council of Trent by Father Paul, "In the sitting of the 16th of June, 1563, Lainez (who afterwards succeeded Loyola as general of the Jesuits) openly defended the abuses of the court of Rome, which it was wished to reform. He said that the disciple not being above his master, nor the servant above his lord, it followed that the couned had no authority to interfere in this reform. He was interested in defending the greatest abuses of dispensations and indulgences, without which the society itself could not exist. In the same sitting, he contended that, Christ having porer to dispense from every law, the pope his ricar had the same."" Such were their teachings respecting probable opinions, the direction of the intention, mental reservation, and philosophical sin, for a full expla nation of which we must refer to the letters themselves. generally characteristic of this system that ingenious evasions by which truth and honesty are sacrificed are by common consent called Jesuitism. What court of Europe has not been embroiled by the interference of these men? What kingdom has not suffered by the plots and conspiracies fostered by their emissaries? How many were the miseries inflicted on England during the reign of Elizabeth, and James, and the second Charles, by the incessant machinations of these restless agents of Rome? How often were they denounced by the parliaments of France, and the university of Paris, for their corrupt morality, their boundless ambition, and their incessant intrigues? The republics of Venice and Genoa found them intolerable. The estates of Bohemia in their edict of banishment charged them with exciting assassins to murder kings, with interfering in the affairs of states, and with being the authors of all the miseries of Bohemia. At length, all Europe became weary of them; they had proved an intolerable nuisance to society; they were scarcely manageable even by the pope. They were expelled from Portugal in 1759, from France in 1764, from Spain and Naples in 1767, and in 1773 the society itself was abolished by pope Clement XIV. The circumstances which gave rise to the publication of the Provincial Letters were briefly these. Jansen, a man of great learning and piety, bishop of Ypres in Flanders, had employed twenty years of his life in the study of the works of Augustine, with whose anti-Pelagian doctrines he became enamoured. These he collected, and illustrated with great assiduity and talent,in a work called Augustinus, which was published by his friends soon after his death, which happened in 1638. The Jesuits had previously to this been worsted in a controversy with the Dominicans on the subjects of Grace, Predestination, Free Will, and Original Sin, and Clement VIII. had decided in favour of the Augustinian tenets of the Dominicans. On the publication of the work of Jansen, or Jansenius, the Jesuits, who considered it as a formidable attack on their tenets, employed all their artifice and exerted all their power to procure the condemnation of Augustinus by the pope. They succeeded so far as to obtain the prohibition of the book; and in 1642, Urban VIII. pronounced its condemnation. The work, however, was still read, and the doctrines of grace | latent truth. In mathematical studies which it contained were by many cordially and devoutly received, and by none more warmly than the recluses connected with Port Royal.* At this place was an abbey of ancient date, the nuns of which, under the presidency of La Mere Angelique, had acquired great reputation, not only for their austerities, but also for the high tone of their spirituality, and their evangelical views. Around this abbey, though situate in a gloomy forest, were clustered other smaller buildings, occupied by many who sought retirement from the world without being bound by monastic vows. At a kind of farm-house, called Les Granges, were several men of profound learning, who lived in habits of close study relieved oy agricultural employments, from whom issued many important works on education, which, together with their exalted piety and pure morality, greatly increased their reputation. With this band of men were connected Arnauld, brother of La Mere Angelique, Nicole, Sacy the translator of the bible, and others of high distinction in piety and literature. By these the Augustinian sentiments were adopted, and the formal devotions and corrupt morality of the order of Ignatius, then so prevalent, were denounced. The Jesuits beheld, or fancied they beheld, in them, rivals for popular favour, as well as antagonists to their principles, and every method was adopted to crush them as identified with Jansenism. After the abbé St. Cyran, Arnauld, a doctor of the Sorbonne, became the bold, and indefatigable, and able leader of this party. He was, in consequence, the object of the fiercest attack by the disciples of Ignatius. They had endeavoured to procure his expulsion from the Sorbonne, and were on the point of accomplishing their object, when the first of the Provincial Letters appeared, which, though it was known only by a few friends during his life, were written by Pascal. Blaise Pascal is one of those few names which not only survive their own age, but which are destined to live through all time, and to be cherished and admired by every succeeding generation. His genius seemed endowed with an almost intuitive perception of * Some of the religieuses of this establishment had been removed to Paris, on which account the distinction was made of Port Royal de Paris, and Port Royal des Champe. he was a youthful prodigy. He had scarcely arrived at manhood when his brilliant discoveries excited attention through all Europe. Had his health been as robust as his mind was vigorous, had nothing interfered with the application of his extraordinary powers during the usual period of human life, it is impossible to say how greatly the domains of truth and science might have been enlarged, and what subsequent discoveries might have been anticipated. But in addition to the feebleness of his health, and the many and long interruptions which this occasioned, at an early age he became a kind of recluse, and surrendered himself almost exclusively to the exercises of an ascetic devotion. Nursed in the bosom of the Roman catholic church, he entertained the most devout reverence for its doctrine and discipline, its saints and its superstitions. Assuming it as a principle on which it was profane to doubt, and which it was the irreverence of unbelief to question, that the Roman catholic church was the church of Christ, so profound was his regard for all that was sacred and divine, that he dared not incur the dread responsibility of applying his reason to the investigation of its claims, or the discussion of its solemn decisions. As his high attainments and eminent superiority as a philosopher were graced with the most amiable simplicity and sweetness of disposition, so his attachment to a church unscriptural as that of Rome, was combined with the most ardent piety. His faith in the great truths of divine revelation respecting the way of salvation was as strong as his charity was warm and diffusive. All the virtues and graces of "pure and undefiled religion," as far as a very feeble frame, and a mind often half distracted by disease, would admit, shone brightly through all the mists and gloom with which the papal system surrounded him. "His heart," says his biographer, "was the seat of the purest benevolence; and his exertions in alleviating the miseries, and contributing to the happiness of the unfortunate and the indigent, were limited only by the extent of his means.* The sister and a niece of Pascal were nuns of Port Royal des Champs; and * Dr. Rees's Cyclopædia, Article Pascal. See also the Introduction, p. liv. quoted from Le Siecle de Louis XIV. Pascal himself had contracted an intimacy with the distinguished men who had an establishment there. With their high tone of spiritual devotion and evangelical sentiment he fully sympathized. They and their cause were in the greatest extremity when Pascal, with their concurrence, and with their aid in furnishing documents, began in 1656, and continued at intervals of from two to four weeks generally, to publish, under an assumed name, these letters. They instantly attracted attention, and were read with delight by all classes. Abstruse subjects were rendered perfectly clear and bright, reasonings the most abstract became not only intelligible, but interesting. Without the least abatement of the seriousness due to sacred subjects, there was so much ease, so much dexterity, such admirable closeness of logic, with such lively sallies of quiet, playful wit, that all, excepting the Jesuits, were charmed. The disciples of Loyola, however, were overwhelmed with confusion. By turns they stormed about the impiety, and whined about the unmercifulness of this attack, which exposed them to the laughter of the lighthearted, and the reprobation of all thoughtful and honest minds. Everything was done that vexation and anger could suggest to destroy the credit of these letters, but every attempt failed. This haughty and ambitious body had never before met with such an opponent. They at length succeeded in procuring their official condemnation, but as long as a love of truth, and justice, and honesty remains, these letters will be read and valued, and a virtuous indignation will be kept alive against a system which they so effectually expose. tion if he himself would have been competent. The genius of the two languages differs quite as much as that of the French and English people. The best that can be done is an approximation. We may judges, however, of their intrinsic worth, by the estimation in which they have been held by French authors. Voltaire, who had no respect for Pascal's sentiments, declared that "the Provincial Letters were models of eloquence and pleasantry. The best comedies of Moliere have not more wit in them than the first letters; Bossuet has nothing more sublime than the last ones."..."The first work of genius that appeared in prose was the collection of the Provincial Letters. Examples of every species of eloquence can there be found. There is not a single word in it which, after a hundred years, has undergone the change to which all living languages are liable. We may refer to this work the era when our language became fixed. The bishop of Luçon told me, that having asked the bishop of Meaux what work he would most wish to have been the author of, setting his own works aside, Bossuet instantly replied, the Provincial Letters.'" We have not seen either of the translations of the Provincial Letters which had been previously published, but of this we can speak in high terms of commendation. As far as we have compared it with the original, it is faithful and correct, without being servile. The English idiom is fully preserved, while the spirit of the original is caught. In this respect it forms a most refreshing contrast to some translations from the German which have been recently published. The style is lively and vigorous, It is not for us to pronounce a judg- and with scarcely any exceptions, pure ment on these letters; that has already and chaste. There are, however, in this been done by the decision of almost two respect, a few microscopic blemishes, centuries, and the concurrent voice of which we should be pleased to see remen of all nations. We may, however, moved in a future edition, that it may observe that it is extremely difficult, if be in all respects a faithful counternot impossible, to transfer those nice and part of the purity of the original. Such delicate tints of meaning and allusion, are the following Scotticisms:-" will which none but a native can perceive, for shall, "would" for should, “fully those idiomatical peculiarities and graces more," "just because," "nobody almost," which constitute so much of the charm "without making almost a reflection," "almost never, 99 66 of such a work, to any other language. awanting," "anent,' We have seen attempted translations of "found," as a verb intransitive, as Shakespear, and Milton, into French, "Diana generally founds on our fathers, but how much of the peculiarities of "these two conditions are not impleeach was necessarily lost! No man but mented," "you are bound to delate that Pascal himself could do full justice to a wretch to the king and parliament,” translation of his letters, and we ques--perhaps this last and the preceding 93 66 :9 |