SD36 Protestant clergymen were substituted for the Catholics who had held of- fice under Mary. Elizabeth\'s first Parliament gave to the queen the power though not the title of supreme head of the Engl PDF

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Protestant clergymen were substituted for the Catholics who had held of- fice under Mary. Elizabeth's first Parliament gave to the queen the power though not the title of supreme head of the English church. Elizabeth's position in regard to the religious question was first threatened by events in Sc...

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In 1538 Loyola summoned his disciples to Rome, and there they worked out the principles of their order. The pope then incorporated these in a bull in which he gave his sanction to the new society. The organi zation was to be under the abso- lute control of a g eneral, who was to be chosen for life by the genera l assembly of the order. Loyola had been a soldier, and he laid great and constant stress upon the source of all efficient military discipline, namely, absolute and unquestioning obedience. This he declared to be the mother of all virtue and happiness. Not only were all the members to obey the pope as Christ's representative on earth, and undertake without hesitation any journey, no matter how distant or perilous, which he might command, but each was to obey his superiors in the order as if he were receiving directions from Christ in person. He must have no will or preference of his own, but must be as the staf which supports and aids its bearer in any way in which he sees fit to use it. This admirable organization and incomparable disci- pline were the great secret of the later influence of the Jesuits. The object of the society was to cultivate piety and the love of God, especially through example. The members were to pledge themselves to lead a pure life of poverty and devotion. Their humility was to show itself in face and attitude, so that

their very appearance should attract those with whom they came in contact to the service of God. The methods adopted by the society for reaching its ends are of the utmost importance. A great number of its members were priests, who went about preaching, hearing confession, and encouraging devotional exercises. But the Je- suits were teachers as well as preachers and confessors. They clearly perceived the advantage of bringing young people under their influence, and they became the schoolmasters of Catholic Europe. So successful were their methods of instruction that even Protestants sometimes sent their children to them. It was originally proposed that the number of persons admitted to the order should not exceed sixty, but this limit was speedily removed, and before the death of Loy- ola over a thousand persons had joined the society. Under his successor the num- ber was trebled, and it went on increasing for two centuries. The founder of the order had been, as we have seen, attracted to missionary work from the first, and the Jesuits rapidly spread not only over Europe, but throughout the whole world. Francis Xavier, one of Loyola's original little band, went to Hindustan, the Moluc- cas, and Japan. Brazil, Florida, Mexico, and Peru were soon fields of active mis- sionary work at a time when Protestants scarcely dreamed as yet of carrying Christianity to the heathen. We owe to the Jesuits' reports much of our

knowledge of the condition of America when white men first began to explore Canada and the Mississi ppi valley, for the followers of Loyola boldly penetrated into regions un- known to Europeans, and settled among the natives with the purpose of bringing the Gospel to them. Dedicated as they were to the service of the pope, the Jesuits early directed their energies against Protestantism. They sent their members into Germany and the Netherlands, and even made strenuous eforts to reclaim England. Their success was most apparent in southern Germany and Austria, where they became the con- fessors and confidential advisers of the rulers. They not only succeeded in check- ing the progress of Protestantism, but were able to reconquer for the pope districts in which the old faith had been abandoned. Protestants soon realized that the new order was their most powerful and dan- gerous enemy. Their apprehensions produced a bitter hatred which blinded them to the high purposes of the founders of the order and led them to attribute an evil purpose to every act of the Jesuits. The Jesuits' air of humility the Protestants de- clared to be mere hypocrisy under which they carried on their intrigues. The...