Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?Æn.lib. i.
Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?Æn.lib. i.
Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?
Æn.lib. i.
Their perseverance in this field of zeal was universally admired; it secured success during more than two centuries; and the latest missionary expeditions of their society proved, that the original spirit was not decayed. Whoever had caught it from the institute of Ignatius was a scholar without pride; a man disengaged from his own conveniences; indifferent to his employment, to country, to climate; submissive to guidance; capable of living alone, and of edifying in public; happy in solitude, content in tumult; never misplaced. In a word, great purity of manners, cultivated minds, knowledge without pretensions, close study without recompence, obedience without reasoning though not without reason, love of labour, willingness to suffer, and, finally, fervor of zeal; such were the qualifications, which Ignatius's discernment directed his successors in government to seek, to select, or to form; and it is an acknowledged truth, that, at every period of the society, they always found men of this description to lead out their sacred expeditions to the four quarters ofthe world. These men planted Christian faith in the extremities of the East, in Japan, in the Molucca islands; they announced it in China, in the hither and further India, in Ethiopia and Caffraria, &c. Others, in the opposite hemisphere, appeared on the snowy wastes of North America; and, presently, Hurons were civilized, Canada ceased to be peopled only by barbarians. Others, almost in our own days, nothing degenerate, succeeded to humanize new hard-featured tribes, even to assemble them in Christian churches, in the ungrateful soil of California, to which angry Nature seems to have denied almost every necessary for the subsistence of the human species. They were but a detachment from the body of their brethren, who, at the same time, were advancing, with rapid progress, through Cinaloa, among the unknown hordes of savages, who rove through the immense tracts to the north of Mexico, which have not yet been trodden by the steps of any evangelical herald. Others, again, in greater numbers, from the school of Ignatius, with the most inflexibleperseverance, amidst every species of opposition, continued to gather new nations into the church, to form new colonies of civilized cannibals, for the kings of Spain and Portugal, in the horrid wilds of Brazil, Maragnon, and Paraguay. Here truly flowed the milk and honey of religion and human happiness. Here was realized more than philosophy had dared to hope, more than Plato, in his republic, or the author of Utopia, had ever ventured to imagine. Here was given the demonstration, from experience, that pure religion, steadily practised, is the only source of human happiness. The new settlements, calledReductions, of Brazil and Paraguay, were real fruits of the zeal of the Jesuits. Solipsian empires, and gold mines to enrich the society, existed only in libels[65].
The Jesuits were advancing, with gigantic strides, to the very centre of South America, they were actually civilizing the Abiponian barbarians, when their glorious course was interrupted by the wretched policy of Lisbon and Madrid. The missionaries of South America were all seized like felons, and shipped off, as so many convicts, to the ports of old Spain, to be still farther transported to Corsica, and, finally, to the coasts of the pope's states. One of these venerable men, Martin Dobrizhoffer, who had spent eighteen years among the South American tribes, has given, in hisHistoria de Abiponibus, the best account, that exists, of the field of his arduous mission. His work is here mentioned, because it is not unknown in England, and his testimony[66]proves the persuasion of the best men at Buenos Ayres, in 1767, when the Jesuits were dismissed, that, if they had been at all times properly supported, by the courts of Lisbon and Madrid, especiallyagainst the self interested European settlers, not a barbarian, not an infidel, would then have been left in the whole extent of South America. "This," says the author, "was boldly advanced from the pulpit at Buenos Ares, in the presence of the royal governor, and of a thronged auditory, and it was proved with a strength of argument, that subdued all doubt, and wrought universal conviction." The impression must have been strengthened by the subsequent dissolution of all theReductions, in consequence of the inability of the royal officers to substitute other missionaries to those, whom they had ejected[67].
Different was the providence of the superiorsin the old society, to perpetuate the race and regular succession of those wonderful men. If they had sent out from Europe subjects already formed to every virtue and every science, their virtues and their learning would have been almost useless, without the knowledge and practical use of the barbarous idioms of the Indian tribes. Every young Jesuit in Europe was first trained, during two full years of noviciate, to the exact practice of religious virtues. He was next applied, during five years, still in strict domestic discipline, to the several studies of poetry, rhetoric, logic, physics, metaphysics, natural history, and mathematics. Seven years of preparation qualified these proficients to commence schoolmasters, during five or six succeeding years, in the several colleges of their respective provinces. It was generally at thisperiod of their religious career, that several young Jesuits, instead of being employed to teach schools, were detached from the several European provinces, to the Asiatic colleges of Goa, or Macao, or to the American colleges of Mexico, Buenos Ayres, or Cordova in Tucumaw, where, in expectation of priesthood, they made a close study of the barbarous languages, which they were afterwards to speak in their missions. These were usually selected from the number of those, who had spontaneously solicited such a destination; and the number of these pious volunteers being always considerable, the succession of missionaries in the society of Jesuits could never fail. But it is time to say something of their schools.
The education of youth in schools is one of the prominent features of the Jesuits' institute. Their founder saw, that the disorders of the world, which he wished to correct, spring chiefly from neglect of education. He perceived, that the fruits of the other spiritual functions ofhis society would be only temporary, unless he could perpetuate them through every rising generation, as it came forward in succession. Every professed Jesuit was bound by a special vow, to attend to the instruction of youth; and this duty was the peculiar function, the first important mission, of the younger members, who were preparing themselves for profession. Even the two years of noviciate mainly contributed to the same purpose. They were not lost to the sciences, since novices were carefully taught the science upon which they all depend. The religious exercises of that first period tended to give them that steadiness of character and virtue, without which no good is achieved in schools. They then acquired a fondness for retirement, a love of regularity, a habit of labour, a disgust of dissipation, a custom of serious reflection, docility to advice, a sentiment of honour and self-respect, with a fixed love of virtue; every thing requisite to support and advance the cultivation of letters and of science in future years. It has been already observed,that the serious studies, which filled five years after the noviciate, were calculated, in conjunction with strict religious discipline, to form them for the serious business of conducting a school of boys during the five or six years, which were to succeed: and, in the discharge of this duty, they were bound to know and to follow, under the direction of a prefect of studies in every college, the excellent documents prescribed in the institute for masters.
It is not possible in a short compass to enumerate these instructions; but the mention of a few may suffice to prove, that nothing was forgotten. The object of Ignatius, in charging his society with the management of boys and youths, as it is announced in various parts of the institute, was to form and perfect their will, their conscience, their morals, their manners, their memory, imagination, and reason. Docility is the first virtue required in a child: and, to subdue stiff tempers, the remedies prescribed in the Jesuits' institute are, impartiality in themaster, honourable distinctions, and mortifying humiliations, applied with judgment and discretion: then, steady attention to maintain the established discipline and economy of the school, which is a constant, and therefore a powerful check upon the unruly. To secure it, says the text, hope of reward and fear of disgrace are more powerful than blows; and, if the latter become unavoidable, punishment must never be inflicted with that precipitation, which gives to justice an air of violence. In inquiring into trespasses, too nice and minute investigation must be avoided, because it inspires mistrust. The art of dissembling small faults is often a safe means to prevent great ones. Gentle means must always be first employed; and, if ever fear and repentance must be impressed, the hand of some indifferent person must be called into action; the hand of the master must be used only to impress gratitude and respect. If his hand is never to be the instrument of pain, his voice must never be the organ of invective. He must employinstruction, exhortation, friendly reproach, but never contumelious language, haughtiness, and affronts: he must never utter words to boys, which would degrade them in the eyes of their companions, or demean them in their own. In the distribution of rewards, no distinction must be known, but that of merit. The very suspicion of partiality to character, fortune, or rank, would frustrate the effect of the rewards bestowed, and provoke indocility, jealousy, and disgust, in those who received none. Nothing so quickly overturns authority, and withers the fruit of zealous labours, even in virtuous masters, as the appearance of undue favour. The masters's equal attention is due to all; he must interest himself equally for the progress of all; he must never check the activity of any by indifference, much less irritate their self-love by contempt.
It were easy to multiply, from the institute, instructions prescribed to masters, to insure success in this first part of education, thebridling of the rebel will of youth; but Ignatius knew, that these things would never be enforced by young masters, who had not learned the art of bridling their own. Discipline might bind boys to outward respect, but only religion and virtue can make them love the yoke; and no yoke is ever carried with perseverance unless it be borne with pleasure. Religion is the most engaging and most powerful restraint upon rising and growing passions; and to imprint it deeply in the heart was the main business of the Jesuit schools. The rest was accessory and subordinate. The principles of religion were there instilled, while the elements of learning were unfolded. Maxims of the Gospel were taught together with profane truths; the pride of science was tempered by the modesty of piety; the master's labour was directed, as much to form the conscience, as to improve the memory, and regulate the imagination of his disciples. The institute directed him to instil a profound respect for God; to begin and end his lessons by prayer; to cherish thepiety of the devout; to avail himself of it as a means to attract the thoughtless to imitation; and, by a special rule, he was charged to instruct his scholars in all duties of religion by weekly catechisms, carefully adapted to their capacity. The ecclesiastical historian, Fleury, remarks, in the preface to his historical catechism, that, if the youth of his age was incomparably better instructed than the youth of past ages, the obligation was owing principally to the catechisms of the Jesuits' school. He had heard them during the six years of his education in Clermont college.
Ignatius places herein the capital point of education: and he well knew, that where the grand motives of religion are not employed, an assembly of men will commonly be a collection of vice, especially in unexperienced youth, when growing passions always seek communication, in order to authorise themselves by example. To this point, then, he directs the rules of his subjects employed in education; tothis he calls the attention of every professor, the vigilance of every prefect of studies, of every master, the solicitude of every rector, the inspection of every provincial. The wise framers of theRatio Studiorum, which is adopted into the institute, explaining his ideas still farther, require every master to study the temper and character of his pupils; to distract their passions by application; to fire their little hearts with laudable emulation. For this, they must encourage the diffident and modest, curb the forward and presumptuous: for this they must assign to merit alone those scholastic appellations of dignity, those titles ofemperorandprætor, puerile indeed in themselves, but not less important to boys than are the sounds of titles, and colours of ribbands to men. On the same principle, in much frequented colleges, each class was divided into two rival classes, usually distinguished by the opposite banners of Rome and Carthage, which mutually dreaded, provoked, and defied each other, in classical duels, or in general trials of skill, each whetting hismemory on the edge of that of his rival; and then would often flow those precious tears of emulation, which watered rising genius, expanding it to fertility. Hence, again, are prescribed those public and solemn annual rewards, distributed with pomp and show, which reduced the self-love of youth to the love of virtue; which enamoured them of study by the prospect of success, and, by raising a desire of pleasing, really taught them how to please.
The institute proceeds to remove from youth every species of bad example. It directs the prefect and the master how to dissolve growing friendships, that might be dangerous; it forbids the public explanation of books, or of single passages, which might mislead active imaginations; it ordains a scrutiny of all books, that come into the pupil's use; it charges the master to watch every trespass against the rules of civility and good manners. Falsehood and detraction, swearing, and foul words, are to be quickly corrected, or not tolerated within thecollege. It is, again, the master's particular duty to form the manners of his pupils to decency, modesty, and politeness; to correct their errors in language, their faults in pronunciation, their awkwardness in gestures, their coarseness in behaviour, not less than to cultivate their memory and regulate their imagination. For this purpose the institute, without neglecting modern languages, prescribes, for the justest reasons, the study of Latin and Greek, in the purest models of Athens and ancient Rome. It joins to these the study of history, and its concomitants, geography, chronology, and mythology; and all this must precede the introduction of youth into the regions of eloquence and poetry, where sportive imagination may amuse and feed itself for a while with brilliant images and expressive language: but the institute teaches how to reduce all this to the standard of reason and sound judgment, by the succeeding study of philosophy and mathematics; and these, in their turn, are the preparation for the deeper discussions of theology, which lifts thesoul out of the narrow sphere of human science, and enables the mind, and, still more, the heart, to make excursions into the immensity of God.
The short sketch, which is here presented, of education among the Jesuits, is enough to convince us, that no system was ever more solid, more calculated to produce eminent men, in every department of civil and ecclesiastical life. Undoubtedly it did produce a succession of them during two hundred years; and it thus verified the decisive sentence of Bacon,Ad pædagogicam quod attinet, brevissimum foret dictu. Consule scholas Jesuitarum[68]. Perhaps the real value of the system is still better proved by the miserable state of degradation, into which public education and public morals have sunk in catholic countries, since its utter suppression.
But the founder of the Jesuits is not satisfied with suggesting what is right; he provides, what is still more necessary, proper masters to enforce it. He gives them two years of only spiritual, and five others of spiritual and literary education, to train them to their important task. With this he trusts, that their conduct will be irreproachable, that they will be worthy to be trusted with the grand interests of letters and of morals. He expects them to be docile, modest, and willing to be guided by their elders, who have successfully completed their course. They must be young enough to gain the confidence of children, and firm enough to command respect. To animate them to assiduity in duty, they must be provided with all necessary books; they must be stimulated to zeal by the prospect ofGod's greater glory; they must, therefore, be perfectly weaned from self-interest; they are required to yield continual service to persons, from whom they must receive none; they must impart virtue and knowledge, but never selleither; they must inspire gratitude, and never profit by it; they must prove themselves deserving of every thing, and accept nothing[69].
The society, in every period of its existence, possessed, in every country, many excellent and distinguished professors and masters, in every science which it professed to teach; and theuniformity and steadiness of their education raised the bulk of its masters much above the rate of decent mediocrity. It is apparent, that, in the conducting of public education throughout a large kingdom, a body of men, well compacted together, and properly trained to the work, must possess superior advantages; and the world has long since agreed, that no other body of men ever did, or could furnish so many able and useful teachers, as the society of Jesuits constantly presented for the public service. There were, no doubt, elsewhere, masters, able to balance, perhaps to eclipse, the reputation of those of the society; but these men were seldom found, except in the first chairs of great universities; they did not diffuse learning throughout a kingdom, and the succession of them was not uniformly continued. The Jesuits were universally spread throughout a country, and every town had a chance of enjoying their best masters. Even in the first universities it has been allowed, that the Jesuits' schools were of use to the other colleges, and reciprocallyreceived great advantages from them. The spirit of laudable emulation stimulated both to generous exertions, and the general interests of learning were thereby promoted.
During the five or six years which the Jesuits employed in teaching, many of them obtained renown, and all, it may be presumed, had acquired the ready use of the Latin language; had discovered the bent of their talents; and had attained maturity of judgment and love of application. At the end of their course these masters, aged from twenty-five to thirty years, were now once more remanded to the benches, and applied, during four years, to the study of theology, under able professors, in the principal city and college of their province; thus forming a perpetual colony of forty or fifty mature and improved students, such as rival colleges could seldom equal. "At Paris," says cardinal de Maury, "the great college of the Jesuits was a central point, which attracted the attention of all the best writers, and of personsof distinction in every rank. It was a kind of permanent literary tribunal, which the celebrated Piron, in his emphatic language, used to styleLa chambre ardente des reputations literaires; always dreaded by men of letters, as the principal source and focus of public opinion in the capital[70]." What the cardinal asserts of Paris, was equally true of Rome, Vienna, Lisbon, and other great cities, which possessed the colleges of higher studies of the society. I conclude with remarking, that, if any part of what is prescribed in the institute had been retrenched from the education of Jesuits, their society would not have deserved such commendations from Piron and cardinal de Maury[71].
If the outlines of education, which have beenhere traced from the book of the Jesuits' institute[72], do not win approbation, they may be presented to the reader, at least, as an object of curiosity. Serious men will, perhaps, think them more deserving of attention than are many of the ephemeral vagaries, which modern adventurers in the art of training youth daily obtrude upon the public. The Jesuits' system is recommended by the experimental success of two centuries; and, whether the plan was originally conceived, or only adopted and methodised, by Ignatius and his followers, certain it is, that, from the close of the council of Trent to the opening of the Gallic revolution, the main principles, on which it rests, even the practical details of it, with little variation, pervaded the education of the catholic clergy in all distinguished seminaries, whether directed by Jesuits or by others; and they may, therefore, be regarded asthe source of all the virtue and learning which adorned the catholic church in that period, and which the Gallic revolutioners were sworn to destroy. If these antichristian conspirators first doomed the Jesuits to annihilation, it was because their schools were widely diffused through Europe, and were marked by them as hotbeds of every thing which they chose to term fanaticism, bigotry, and superstition; that is to say, zeal, faith, and devotion. These were to be extirpated, to make room for fanaticism, bigotry, and superstition of another kind; those of equality, reason, and philosophy. And mark with what avidity they seized upon the spurious maxim, which had been attributed to the Jesuits, "that it was lawful to do evil, that their expected good might come:" falsehood, forgery, blasphemy, false witness, murder, regicide; every crime that a bad heart could suggest, a perverted head direct, or a venal arm perpetrate, was resorted to, to attain thatsummum bonum, jacobinism. They had before them theMonita Secretaand the Institute, and they chose theformer for the basis of their constitutions. I need not repeat the infamous doctrines collected in that forgery, which was published at the end of the pamphlet, that induced me to undertake to write these pages, and of which Clericus has given us an account in the following Letters; suffice it to say, by way of contrast, that horrors are there piled high one upon another, and said to be the secret code of regulations of men, who profess to take the institute of Ignatius for their guide, a code replete with piety and virtue. I have already said enough to silence the remark, that men may profess only and not act, for I have shown, that, if ever men acted up to their professions, the Jesuits have; but it will be an agreeable task to put some of the points of the institute, which have been distorted, into the view in which truth requires they should be seen.
First, let us glance an eye over the contents of this institute. It contains, not only what the founder wrote, but likewise all the papalbulls and briefs granted to the society; all the decrees and canons of the several congregations, which form laws in the society; several instructions, precepts, and ordinations, issued by different generals, and adopted by general congregations, for universal practice; the generalRatio Studiorum; the privileges granted to the society by the holy see; the particular rules prescribed for every office in the society, and for every class of men in it, as priests, missionaries, preachers, students, &c. The groundwork of all this is what the founder himself wrote;viz.anExamen Generaleto be proposed to candidates for admittance;Constitutiones Societatis Jesu; an epistleDe Virtute Obedientiæ; a book ofSpiritual Exercises; and, finally, many of the particular rules of offices. The Prague edition of the Institute, anno 1757, two small folio volumes, lies before me, and I have taken a good deal of fruitless trouble to find out some propositions denounced by the enemies of the Jesuits, without reference to the page or chapter. I have found nothing but what reflectshonour on the code. The objects of it are the glory of God, the general good of man, and the preservation of the society. In pursuance of the first of these, the members make vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; they mortify their senses, renounce worldly honours, and preach the Gospel. The means they use for the second consist of example, prayer, works of charity, pious publications, preaching, educating youth, and sending forth missions. For the third object, their preservation, they have appropriate rules of union, discipline, reputation, freedom from party, and moderation[73].
Such is the code which has been so misrepresented. It is impossible, within the bounds of a pamphlet, and, indeed, I have already stretched into the latitude of a book, to give an adequate notion of it, and to combat the opinions which have gone abroad against it. These opinionsare so many adopted prejudices, the refutation of which is completely given in theApologie de l'Institut, to which I must refer the reader, who will find in it many extracts from the institute itself; and I shall here briefly notice the vow of obedience, and the imputed despotism of the general, about which so much has been said.
"Their blind obedience! To be as unresisting asa dead body, or as tractable asa stickin the hands of an old man![74]." This language, taken disjointedly, is among the bugbears held up by the new conspirators against the Jesuits. It must surely be allowed, that obedience is necessary in every institution, where training the mind is an object, and the institute is not reprehensible for excluding wilful argumentation, while it allows every one the use of his reason.Blind obedienceis not required for the commission of a crime, but in duties known to be piousand moral, in actions evidently laudable. Nor is the expression of the textcæca obedientia, butcæca quadam obedientia[75]. The rule is for the better training of the young and the inexperienced; and what school does not proceed upon it to the extent required by the institute, which excepts whatever is criminal, or morally wrong? It literally prescribes, that thiskindofblind obedienceshall, nevertheless, be conformable to justice and to charity;omnibus in rebus ad quas potest cum charitate se obedientia extendere[76]. Nay, the order of the superior is not only to be examined, to see that it is free from a capital sin, but from any sin whatever;in omnibus quæ a superiore disponuntur ubi definiri non possit (quemadmodum dictum est) aliquod peccati genus intercedere[77]. In a word, discussion is not forbidden by the institute, but in cases where it is evident that there is no sin;ubi non cerneretur peccatum[78]; a doctrine continually repeated on this head,quemadmodum dictum est, that is,in quibus nullum manifestum est peccatum[79]. Where now is the horror of this obedience? It will seem a paradox to say, that the rigour of it arises from the mildness of the Jesuit government: but it is not less the fact; for, as all violent measures and corporal punishments are excluded from the society, a prompt moral obedience is absolutely necessary to its existence. It thus becomes an amiable, as well as an indispensable law.
But the despotism of the general? The obedience, which the Jesuits owe their general, is the same as that which they pay to their ordinary superiors. It flows from the same source, and tends to the same end. Having demonstrated the slavery of it to be a chimera, the despotism of the general naturally vanishes withit. The nature of the society required, that it should be under a single chief: to have given to separate houses independent chiefs would have destroyed the great objects depending upon a union of councils. It was no cenobitical order devoted chiefly to working out their own salvation; but one, whose members were to be spread over the whole world, to promote the glory of God and the good of man. The institute, however, takes great care, that the chief should not be a despot: it gives him no slaves, nor even subjects, but friends, children, and counsellors[80]; mildness is the sceptre it bestows upon him, and charity the throne[81]; itequally prohibits the superior to govern by violence and the inferior to obey through fear[82]. The general is elected by the whole society, who first swear to choose only him, whom they believe to be the most worthy of the office[83]. There is nothing arbitrary or changeable in theauthority of the general: it is subjected by the institute to stable and invariable laws, and his duties are minutely prescribed. If he deviates from them, it provides for his removal[84]. Far from being a despot, he is not even exempted from the superintendance of a monitor chosen by the society, who observes his conduct, tells him of his faults, points out his duties, and is consequently compelled not to excuse him in any point[85]. In spiritual affairs, the general is subject to the pope; in temporal matters, to the government under which he lives; and, in whatconcerns himself personally, or the society solely, to a general meeting of the order[86]. Though elected for life, he may be deposed for several reasons stated in the institute; and the same hands that clothed him with power may strip him of it[87]. It has been said, that the motive for appointing a single chief was the facility it offers for promoting more certainly the ends of ambition. The institute strongly condemns ambition in individuals, and still more strongly in the general[88]. One greatcharge against the power of the general is, that his authority may injure that of sovereigns, by withdrawing their subjects from their obedience: on the contrary, he is expressly forbidden, by the institute, to take from a state any Jesuit whatever, without the knowledge of the sovereign[89]. The annulling of contracts is another source of abuse, founded on a mistaken passage in the institute, where it is said; "Although the general, by his open letters to particular superiors, confers on them an ample power in that respect, yet that power may be restricted and limited by private letters." This passage has no reference to contracts, and relates only to the power given openly to local superiors to dismiss improper persons; and there can be no objection to the private limiting of that power. But the most obnoxious charge of all is, that the general of the Jesuits maintains spies everywhere, for the purpose of diving into the secrets of courts, and into theaffairs of private families. The institute contains a rule directly the reverse of this assertion, a rule by which he is expressly prohibited from meddling in affairs that do not concern the society, even under any pretext of piety or religion[90].
After all, then, the general of the Jesuits is not such a monster as he has been painted, and it is absurd to suppose, that a learned and sensible old man, who, about to give an account of his ministry to God, has but a few years to fill the office, should consider it as the spring of every kind of crime; it is absurd to suppose, that the brethren of the order, who have sacrificed every thing on earth to the hope of finding under the empire of the institute the greatest perfection of the Christian character, should believe, that they are obliged, by virtue of that very institute, to commit the greatest sins man is capable of; and it is absurd tosuppose, that, if a general were mad enough to abuse his power, there would not be found a pope wise enough, or Jesuits virtuous enough to depose him, conformably to the laws of the church and of the institute.
Formerly, when the Jesuits had powerful protectors, the practice was to turn them into ridicule; now, that they have powerful enemies, the object is to stigmatize them with every vice. Nothing is more difficult, or more delicate, than to parry ridicule; but, to refute abuse, one has only to expose it.
In the present state of the continental powers, it seems hardly possible, that the society of Jesuits should recover its ancient importance, but their destruction must ever be lamented; and, since their unrelenting enemies have tempted the public curiosity to inquire into their history, this chapter shall be closed with a brief account of the final catastrophe of that small portion of their body, which for twohundred years was connected with England, by the common bonds of country, language, and blood.
About the year 1590, the English Jesuits obtained, from the liberality of Philip II of Spain, the foundation of their principal college at St. Omer; and, soon after, the bishop of that city conferred upon them an ancient abbey, with its demesnes, situated in the neighbouring small town of Watten. A few years later, they acquired the foundation of their college at Liege, from Maximilian the elector of Bavaria, and likewise a smaller settlement in the city of Ghent. In these several houses, they applied themselves to the education of British catholic youth, and to the formation of missionaries. In 1762, the two first-mentioned of these establishments were subjected to confiscation by the unsparingarrêtsof the parliament of Paris. The inhabitants could obtain no mercy, on the consideration of being foreigners admitted on the public faith; they were all ejected,without the smallest allowance for their support, or even for their return to their native soil. They presented themselves to the Austrian government of the Netherlands, at Bruxelles; they were admitted under anoctroi, the most solemn act of that government, and they established themselves in the city of Bruges. In 1773, on the appearance of pope Clement XIV's destructive brief, they were once more unmercifully pillaged, in despite of the public faith, pledged in theoctroi; and here the fangs of fiscal avarice were sharpened to an uncommon edge, because it was the persuasion of that despotic government, that, being Jesuits, they deserved no pity, and, being English, they must be rich. At the same period, their large college at Liege was stript of all its income, by the two courts of Munich and Rome, and the inmates of the house were also here turned adrift, without any allowance for their personal subsistence. In this utter distress, a few of these persecuted men, who remained at Liege, not quite dispirited by their calamities, were encouraged by the princebishop of Liege, to form, within the old college, a school and a seminary of priests. The plan was sanctioned by a brief of pope Pius VI; they found friends, and unremitting labour and industry during twenty years advanced their work to a degree of consistency, which merited the approbation and confidence of the public. But all this was of no avail. Utter destruction was to be their doom. In 1794, when the French armies, by one general sweep, overturned, in the Low Countries, every thing that related to the religion of Jesus Christ, they were finally dislodged and scattered; their house and all their valuables were left to the disposal of those outrageous freebooters; waggon-loads of their best books were converted into wadding for the cannon; their mathematical and optical cabinet was pillaged; they retired in sorrow, each to seek a refuge, with hardly a hope of seeing better days. Thus terminated the English province of the society of Jesus. A few of these ancient men, who have weathered the whole storm, are still alive,comforting their old age with the late public testimony of the head of the church, that they deserved a better fate. Having availed themselves of the indulgence of the British government, on leaving the Netherlands they sought an asylum in their own country. They here subsist, in the security of conscious innocence, fearless of the prejudices and malice of a few unprovoked foes, who know not how to harrass them but by the old weapons of misrepresentation and slander. They have pledged their allegiance to their king and country, in the comprehensive oath of 1791; they meddle not with general or county politics;they seek no offices of state, that remaining stumbling block in the way of the catholic nobility and gentry; they attend solely to their own professional concerns; and, as peaceable and loyal subjects, they may justly expect protection for their persons and for their property. Friends of the government and of the country, friends of monarchy, friends of public tranquillity, friends of order andsubordination, friends of religion, friends of morality, friends of letters, shall they not be protected? Ignorance, prejudice, and passion, shall not prevail against such men.
Character of Pombal. Summary Observations, and a brief notice of the tendency and danger of Education independent of Religion.
Character of Pombal. Summary Observations, and a brief notice of the tendency and danger of Education independent of Religion.
The success of the old conspiracy against the Jesuits will not be wondered at, when we reflect upon the character of the age in which it was formed, and on the means that were used to mature it. Ignorance was the lot of the generality of men: despotism pervaded courts, and tools were never wanting to shape events to the will of the powerful. Of the parliaments, the university, and of the Jansenists, enough has been said to show the inveteracy and malignity with which they carried on their unjust persecutions of the society, and to expose thecauses of their conduct; but, in the mention which has occasionally been made of the Portuguese minister Carvalho, marquis of Pombal, the great persecutor of the Jesuits, too little has been said to account for his hatred of them; I will, therefore, here, make him the subject of a few pages.
During the reign of John V, the Jesuits were in high favour at the court of Lisbon. That king expired in the arms of the famous Malagrida. Carvalho was then a real or pretended friend of the society. The Jesuits, whom king John consulted, recommended him, with little forecast, for the embassies of London and Vienna, and, afterwards, to his successor, Joseph I, as prime minister. He soon, however, betrayed his jealousy of the power and credit of the Jesuits; and he determined to effect their ruin. The first opportunity of persecuting them arose from the treaty with Spain, for an exchange of lands and fixing new boundaries in South America, the motive of which we havealready seen. The disorder, that ensued among the Indians, the marquis imputed to the influence and ambition of the Jesuits; whence arose the absurd fable of the Jesuit king Nicolas, and of the project and attempt to usurp the dominion of South America, which, with great industry and many foul arts, he propagated all over Europe. The insurrection of the Paraguay Indians is usually called the first cause of Pombal's hatred of the Jesuits. In his ambitious views of engrossing all authority and power, he dreaded opposition from the king's brother, don Pedro, who was greatly attached to the order. A dispensation had been obtained from Rome to allow don Pedro to marry his niece, and Pombal, with confidence of success, endeavoured to prevent the marriage. He strove to inspire the king with jealousy of his brother, suggested various reasons why the princess ought to be given to some foreign prince, and recommended William duke of Cumberland in preference to all others. The king consulting his confessor, F. Moreira, thatJesuit prevailed upon his master to reject the proposal. On that occasion, the marquis vowed vengeance, not only against the prince and F. Moreira, but against the whole order of Jesuits. Another grand cause of his rage against the society was but too well known to the missionaries. The greatest obstacle to the success of their missions among the Indians had always been the prevalence and violence of the rich European settlers, and more frequently still of the royal governors. They had often succeeded, by their credit at Madrid and Lisbon, to protect the poor Indians from personal outrage and slavery, yet it was always a difficult struggle. Pombal had made his brother, who was called Xavier Mendoza, governor general of Maragnon, in the Brazils, and never had the country before known a tyrant so despotic and outrageous. The pious queen dowager, Mariana of Austria, greatly favoured the missions. When any Jesuits sailed for Brazil, she regularly exhorted them to attend seriously to the propagation of religion, and directed them to informher exactly of whatever obstacles they might experience from the king's officers, and the Portuguese settlers, promising redress for their injuries and concealment of their names. In full confidence of her protection the missionaries often preferred serious complaints against Xavier Mendoza, and the wrongs of the poor Indians were frequently redressed. The minister's anger at these accusations of his brother, of which he could not discover the authors, almost drove him mad: but the queen dying, he contrived to get possession of her private papers, and discovered the channel of intelligence. His increased rage against the missionaries and Jesuits in general may be imagined. The conduct of the Jesuits, after the earthquake in 1755, afforded him fresh grounds of enmity. They spread themselves through the city and the adjacent country, everywhere inviting the people to repentance. Their sermons were everywhere attended by multitudes, their confessionals were thronged. Penitential processions were instituted, the city was edified. In theirdiscourses, they attributed the public calamity to a special visitation of Divine Providence, with the design of chastising the increasing depravity of morals in all ranks, and inviting them to repentance. The court was pleased with the exertions of the Jesuits. The king, in particular, thanked their provincial, and ordered the repairs of their professed house to be undertaken and defrayed by the royal treasury. This mark of royal favour sorely mortified the minister: he complained of the fanaticism of the Jesuits, especially of Malagrida, who had printed a discourse on the subject of the earthquake, which was read and highly commended by the king. His majesty had signified his intention of making a spiritual retreat, or exercise, for a week, under the direction of that celebrated father. The marquis, after innumerable other artifices to discredit the Jesuits, and their doctrine of an interfering Providence, assured the king, that a conspiracy was formed to overturn the government; that, unless Malagrida were withdrawn, a public sedition would ensue. Theking, intimidated, at length consented to his removal; but the crafty minister, dreading the resentment of the whole city, applied, the same day, to the pope's nuncio, and stating the king's authority and positive request, prevailed upon him to order Malagrida to retire from Lisbon to Setubal. He then forbade processions, or other marks of public penance and devotion, publicly alleging, that the misfortune of the city was to be attributed solely to natural causes; and by these and other means he succeeded in keeping the weak king in constant dread of imaginary plots, conspiracies, and insurrections. The king was soon completely subdued; every thing was abandoned to the disposal of the minister, his authority and power became absolute, and he soon displayed his real character in such a series of despotic and tyrannical deeds as the annals of mankind cannot equal. These may be found fully detailed in the four volumes of his life, printed at Florence in 1785; inMemoires du Marquis de Pombal; inAnecdotes du Ministère du Marquis de Pombal; and in various otherpublications. His power with the king expired in 1777, when he was imprisoned, impeached, and convicted, by the unanimous voices of his judges, of enormous crimes, deserving capital punishment. The queen was prevailed upon, by the intercession of some of the foreign courts, to remit the sentence: he was only banished to Pombal, where he died in 1783. "Who would think," said the abbé Garnier, in his funeral oration for Joseph I, "that one man, by abusing the confidence and authority of a good king, could, for the space of twenty years, silence every tongue, close every mouth, shut up every heart, hold truth captive, lead falsehood in triumph, efface every trace of justice, force respect to be paid to iniquity and barbarity, and enslave public opinion from one end of Europe to the other?" Such was Sebastian Joseph Carvalho, marquis of Pombal, the enemy of the Jesuits, and prime promoter of their destruction. The very enmity of such a man is a strong negative proof of innocence and virtue.
But the cry was up; the society was to be destroyed; envy, hatred, and malice led the chace; atheism, deism, and philosophy, with their attendants, ridicule and sophistry, joined in the pursuit, and the victim was hunted down. The founders, or rather the finishers and embellishers of the modern school of reason, could not endure men, who preached doctrines and maintained principles so opposite to their own new-fangled systems. They knew, that respect for revealed truths, and reverence for established authority, the two objects of their detestation, were the main pivots on which the whole system of the education of the Jesuits turned.Deum timete, regem honorificate, "Fear God and honour the king," was their adopted maxim: religion and loyalty were never disunited by them, and the revolutionary conspirators had determined to subvert both. These everywhere opened schools of philosophy, as they affected to term it; that is, schools of impiety and irreligion; where God, his mysteries and his laws, were cited to the tribunal of proud and depravedreason; where it was a rule to reject what was not comprehended, to ridicule whatever checked and restrained youthful passions, to begin by examining every thing incoherently, and to end by believing nothing. Infinite were the arts by which these odious maxims were infused; and they were all sweetened by previous lessons of libertinism and dissoluteness, which soiled the imagination by the most obscene productions, and corrupted the heart by the most abominable maxims. They were multiplied under the titles of poems, histories, dissertations, romances; they imposed upon the simple by affected doubts of the most established truths; by impudent assertions, that religion is now abandoned to the weak, the ignorant, the vulgar. The interest of vice soon inveigled their disciples to re-echo the cry, that lessons, drawn from belief and fear of the Supreme Being, are no more than the accents of fanaticism, superstition, and bigotry[91].Jesuits were the avowed heralds of thesedegradinglessons, they were not philosophers. "No," says D'Alembert, one of the fathers of the new system, "the Jesuits have been teachingphilosophy two hundred years, and they have never yet had a philosopher in their body."
In the meaning of these writers, the charge must be fully admitted. Never did Jesuits harbour within their walls the maxims or the doctrines of modern sophisters. They acknowledged no philosophy, that appeared to infringe revelation or morals; but not on that account did they forego a modest claim to the title of philosophers. Those among them, who best deserved it, were actively employed in detecting, exposing, and refuting the fallacies of the modern Voltairian school; and, without affecting the peculiarity of the name, they were satisfied with being philosophers in the ancient acceptation of the term; that is, while they inculcated respect for divine revelation, and for established authority, they never ceased, during two hundred years, to furnish a succession of professors, who unfolded the principles of natural and of moral knowledge. And what branch of humanscience was banished from their schools? Their public lessons might be calledelementaryby deep proficients; but they were accommodated to the capacity of the bulk of their youthful auditors; their object was to awaken in them the love of science, to lay the foundation on which the edifice of deep knowledge was afterwards to rise. It is allowed, that the most distinguished scholars in every branch, in past times, generally had been trained in the Jesuits' schools; and can it be said, with truth, that none of the masters, who had taught them, ever rose to eminence; that none of them were philosophers? That they never affected to assume the title is allowed: their philosophy was more circumspect. On their first principle they accepted, and they taught others to accept, without hesitation, the oracles of the church of Christ; they never blushed for their faith, or, as it was miscalled, their credulity. They believed sublime truths, that surpassed comprehension, because they feared God, who attests them, and knew that he cannot deceive.Fixed in this first principle, they conceived no incongruity in joining to it eager researches into the secrets of nature, steady pursuit of improvement in every human science. If eminence in these justly confers the title ofphilosopher, it is strange, that the doctors of the new antichristian school should have overlooked the names of innumerable Jesuits in every branch of science, who were respected as philosophers, until faith in divine revelation was reckoned to depreciate all literary merit. It would be tedious to rehearse the multitude of names, which might be adduced; but I must observe, that the succession of them was never discontinued; and that, in the very last state of the society, there were men among them revered and consulted by the most eminent professors and academicians, who disdained to be mere disciples of Voltaire and D'Alembert. The best mathematicians of Italy bowed to the names of Ricati and Lecchi. The most eminent astronomers frequented the observatories of the Jesuits at Rome, Florence, and Milan, directed by the fathers Boscovich,Ximenes, and La Grange. Fathers Meyer and Hall were celebrated through Germany, and the Polish Jesuit Poczobult, the royal astronomer at Wilno, was known wherever astronomy was cultivated. The celebrated M. La Lande, and our own astronomer, Dr. Maskelyne, did not disdain his correspondence. La Lande, in particular, in his writings, mentions these Jesuit philosophers with honour.
It is the remark of M. Chateaubriand[92], that, without any prejudice to other literary societies, the Jesuits were truly styledGens de Lettres, because the whole circle of sciences was more or less cultivated among them. It was a rare case to meet with a Jesuit devoid of scientific knowledge. Their reputation, in this point of view, contributed much to the esteem in which the society was formerly held, before the strange concurrence of causes, which has not been hitherto explained, had operated upon thecatholic princes to discard them, and, in so doing, to open volcanoes beneath their thrones.
The destruction of the Jesuits was, literally, the destruction of that education, in catholic countries, by which order was established on its best and surest foundation, the belief of future rewards and punishments, and the conviction, that man was on earth but a transient being, whose chief object was to work out his salvation and eternal happiness in another world; a conviction, that could only be impressed upon the mind by the truths of revelation. It is no part of my object here to enter into a dissertation upon the comparative excellencies and defects of religious systems; but I maintain, that the distinguishing faculty of comprehending religious subjects, and the disposition to be influenced by them, interwoven in the nature of man, are proofs, that it is intended by God that he should be principally and generally influenced by religious motives; and that morality, with all its beauty, to be valuable, must originate inthat source. Let even temperate philosophers say what they will of morality, independent of religion, there is one striking advantage to states arising from the latter, which the former cannot yield. Contentment and resignation are the fruits of religion; insulated morality generates discontent, and has a perpetual tendency to doubt the justice of the inequality of conditions in this life; very naturally too, if the short race of it be all to which our hopes and fears can extend. There is also a gradation in morality; there is a confined and arefinedmorality.Suum cuique tribuituris a maxim of confined morality; therefinedmoralist is a cosmopolite; and, still more refined, he denies the rights ofmeumandtuum; and the government that suffers one man to enjoy more than another is an unjust government, consequently man ought to seek a just one, and so we have the revolutionary system. It is only religion, it is only the Christian religion, which can reconcile morality to the state of man. This is the beautiful morality which binds him in social order,which gives to Cæsar what is due to Cæsar, and, in securing to every man the rights he has obtained of property, calls upon him to rectify the selfishness of corrupted nature; to do as he would be done by, to love his brother as himself, and still farther to assimilate himself to his Master and to his God, by loving his enemies. Divine morality! which could have flowed only from a divine source! Divine legislation! dictated by God himself! It is unfortunate, that the nature of man will not permit the spirit, and even the outward forms, of a religion so adapted to the actual condition of the human species to be universal; and, that the different views taken of the text, by the variance of the human understanding, should diverge into incongruous systems, and excite religious dissentions. But, however this may be deplored, it is still more deplorable, that it should ever enter into the mind of man to establish systems of education, in which that which should be the foundation of it is totally excluded from it; that the end of knowledge should be separatedfrom the means of it; that the rudiments of instruction should be devoted solely to the acquisition of worldly arts, of which the operation is to be left to the direction of ignorance and selfishness. It is astonishing, with the experience men have so lately and so dearly gained, that there can be found one to approve of a system, in this country, the archetype of which has desolated Europe and ruined France. In attributing the explosion of the French revolution to the deistical and atheistical philosophers, I do not hesitate to attribute the long continuation of it to the change that took place in the forms of education; to the universities of Buonaparte[93], to the confining of men's interests tothe duration of life. In this country, there is a system in full operation, and patronized by some of the first characters of the state, by which a very large portion of the people will, in a few years, consist of persons able to read, write, and keep accounts, who will have no knowledge, or an erroneous one, of the duties and sanctions of religion, and whose morality will consequently be dependent on their reasoning faculties; and I am very much mistaken if those faculties will not lead to similar conceptions and similar effects as those produced by the reasoning faculties of 1788 and 1789. This opinion cannot be mistaken for one of intolerance. I think it would have been happier had the whole nation been of one accord in every point of religion; and I see, in the church of England, sufficient inducements to have restrained minds, sensible of the danger of innovation, from making a few points of mysterious doctrines a plea for separating from her; but while I say this, I am far from thinking that men should be compelled into modes of worship,I am only sorry to see them dissenting. I am an advocate for the toleration ofconscientiousscruples; but there is one thing which I think no government ought to tolerate, and that is public schools openly professing to banish religious instruction; for they must prove seminaries of malcontents and democrats. The luxury and aristocracy of a few well educated rich atheists and deists afford no objection; it is of the low and of the indigent that these schools are formed, of persons who may be rendered the most valuable or the most pernicious part of the community.Homo sum: he is not a man, who can be an enemy to the mental improvement of his fellow creatures. The ignorance of the lower classes is deplorable; it is the moral duty of those in higher stations, it is the noble task of governments to raise them on the scale of intellect; education cannot be too general, but let it be in the true spirit of education. We are creatures, who depend greatly, perhaps wholly, on instruction. We can in general do little of ourselves. We must at first haveguides, and, to borrow the pithy expression of the famous bishop of Down, Jeremy Taylor, "if our guides do not put something into our heads, while children, the Devil will." The arts of reading and writing are mere mechanical instruments: to render them a blessing the soul must be fashioned into a spring of thought and action, and it behoves the fashioner to temper it justly. How desirable soever it might be, that the rising generation, enjoying the same constitution, should be united in the same mode of worship, yet, as that blessing seems unattainable in the present state of the world, it would be some consolation, if the various dissenters from the established church would hold themselves bound to insist upon the Christian religion, according to their own views of it, being taught in the new schools; and, I am free to confess, that the dissenting ministers in general are not deficient of zeal in impressing their religious principles on the minds of their followers; and it is but justice to say, that the world at large have been indebted to many of them, to Watts,to Hartley, and to others: nor do I think, that the generality of dissenters can possibly approve of that plan, which, assembling poor children to be taught reading, writing, and figures, sends them to learn the relation between the Creator and his creature, the corruption of human nature, and the means of salvation, in a garret or a cellar, where want and ignorance, or low debauchery, are to be their preceptors. It is a mistaken benevolence, and good men of all communions should deprecate the evil, and resolve to avert it by the establishment of schools where the principal objects of education should be the principal things attended to, that the secondary ones may be made subservent to them; where, while the duties of man to God, to himself, and to society, are inculcated, the scholar may exercise his powers with books and pens to advantage, and without danger to the state. Nor, without previous oral instruction, should the Bible itself be put into the hands of readers, whether children or ignorant adults. Bible societies, consisting, beyond all doubt, of piousmen, will diffuse good or evil over the world according to the prudence with which the sacred volumes are distributed. In theology, as in natural philosophy, the uninformed mind cannot, of itself, embrace even the most incontrovertible truths: the raising of the dead and the rotation of the earth are alike incomprehensible; what is not immediately intelligible is not impressive, but when once we have been taught to observe the motion of the heavenly bodies, and are made sensible, that the power, which could assign certainty of operation to nature, must be equal to the suspension of it, astronomy and religion open upon us, and we fly to Newton and the Testament; and, seeing truths unfold themselves, we willingly take much on trust in both; certain that books, where we find so many demonstrations, are not intended to deceive us in any one point, and the resurrection of our Saviour becomes sooner solved than the precession of the equinox.
It is impossible to contemplate theadvantages arising to our fellow creatures and to society from Dr. Bell's system of education for the poor, without delight and without grateful feelings to the author, and, I may add, the still active director of it. Thousands upon thousands will bless him, while he yet lives, and a perpetual series of millions will revere his memory after he shall have joined the myriads of spirits from whom he shall himself learn the celestial allelujahs, and those things which it has not entered the mind of man to conceive.
It would be unjust not to pay a tribute of praise, also, to the founders of an institution, who, though dissenting in tenets, have adopted Dr. Bell's plan for a religious education, according to their principles: I allude to the Fitzroy free school for the instruction of six hundred children.
Catholic schools, on a similar plan, have also been established, for the education of the poor children of catholic parents. These aresuperintended by zealous priests, who give religious instruction gratuitously to the pupils. All such establishments merit encouragement, not only from members of their own communion, but from all, who by influence or wealth are able to aid them.
In making religion the basis of education, no inference can be drawn, that the temporal interests and rights of mankind are to be neglected. Man, born to sorrow, having but a short time to live, is assuredly more concerned in securing an eternal than a temporal happiness; but he is sufficiently long in his transit to render his situation on earth of importance, and the ease and contentment of every individual should be the object of all governments: for this are communities formed, for this are laws made, for this does the sovereign execute the laws, and for this are individuals required to bear and to forbear. Evil must arise, and afflictions must be borne, but that government is the best imagined, and the most wisely administered,by which the large mass of the people are enabled to pass through the years of probation with the greatest comfort, and are presented with opportunities of bettering their conditions and promoting their families. But I do not mean to interweave, here, an essay upon government and civil rights; the contemplation of the admirable system of education among the Jesuits led to these observations on the systems of general education, and in concluding them with expressly stating my opinion of the grand object of national community my view is, to leave no room for attributing the sentiments of loyalty and of religion, which, in such a work as this, have naturally fallen from my pen, to servility or bigotry.
My subject is now come to its close: it is not to be denied, that the restoration of the order of Jesuits has excited alarm; for we already see a new conspiracy formed against it, possessing all the malignity, if not all the talent, or power, of the old one. But who are the persons alarmed?They can be such only as have a similarity of spirit and of views to those of the former enemies of the society (sir John Hippisley nevertheless excepted, whose alarm must have a very different spring); men, who have already dared to warn the clergy of England against instituting schools, in which children are to be instructed in the national religion, because of the hostile feelings which will be excited between them and the children of the anti-church institutions[94]; jacobinical philosophers, materialists, votaries of reason and eternal sleep, and, perhaps, some clergy, as before, of their own communion, whose interest may be affected, and who have not penetration and virtue enough to see and enjoy the motive and the justice of their restoration to religion and to letters: "ignorance," said Henry IV, in his speech to Harlay before cited, "has always borne a grudge to learning." I trust, however, and believe, that Ihave proved enough to convince the reader, that the Jesuits have been calumniated; that their destruction was effected by the malice and envy of their enemies, on the one hand, and by the pusillanimity of their proper protector on the other; that, as far as authority extends, there is a great and brilliant balance in their favour; that, on the ground of reasoning, the proof of their virtue as well as of their religion does not fall short of demonstration in the account of their institute; that they are not at war with protestant governments, whose catholic subjects they are well known long to have trained up in loyalty; and, that the small number now in this country have completed those proofs of loyalty by a solemn oath of allegiance to the king.
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