Читать книгу Notes on Noses онлайн

27 страница из 47

Those who attribute to the founder of the Jesuits the characteristics of that powerful Order, both over-estimate and calumniate the man, Ignatius Loyola. He foresaw none of the power and eminence which his successors would attain; he contemplated neither their conquests, their influence, wealth, nor extensive domination.

The wounded soldier on his miserable pallet devising conquests over Satan, composing his Spiritual Exercises, and framing his celebrated Constitutions, contemplated for himself and his followers a scene of action wholly different from that into which they were finally—accidentally or Providentially, who shall say?—determined. His ambition contemplated no worldly fame; he sought not riches nor the applause of men. He proposed only to carry the Christian warfare into the country of the infidel, and in poverty and “perfect obedience to the Holy See” to rescue souls from perdition. The original object of his Order was the noble one of preaching the Gospel among the Mahometans, especially in the Holy Land; and for this specific object, his Spiritual Exercises and his Constitutions were composed, and his Order founded. It was for this purpose that the Pope sanctioned the formation of the Society, and its members were on the point of departure for Asia when war broke out between the Turks and the Christians.