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ECCLUL4312CAL-BISSONS, History of the Jesuits, from the Totindition of their Society tone Suppression by Pope Clement XLV. ; their Missions throughout the World ; their g.ducationaf System and Literature ; with their Revival and Present State. By Andrew Stein- mete, Author of" The Novitiate," "The Jesuit in the Fandly." hi throe volumes. BIOGRAPHY, B Adventures on the Road to Paris, during the Campaigns of 1813-14. Extracted from the Autobiography of Henry Steffens. Translated from the Oerruan.

[Home and Colonial Library.] • Murray.

Madame de Maiguet; a Tale of 1820. In three volumes Longman and Co.

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Smah and Elder.

STEINMETZ'S HISTORY OT THE JESUITS.

NOTWITHSTANDING the powerful minds whose attention has been di- rected to the story and character of the Jesuits, a really good history of their order is still a desideratum in literature. Their founder and his com- panions were remarkable men, distinguished for genius and wonderful singleness of purpose, and not without striking incidents in their career : some of them more especially Loyale himself; had so much of the mystic, that it is difficult to tell where enthusiasm ends and imposture begins. It is usual to speak of the services rendered by the Jesuits in the revival and extension of Romanism; but this may be doubted. Their labours in China, Japan, India, Africa, and South America, have produced nothing; perhaps their Jesuitical compliance with idolatrous practices and heathen customs, not to mention their secular pursuits, have rather lowered Christianity in the eyes of the natives. In Europe, the "Jesuitical" doctrines respecting assassination, falsehood, and other crimes, did more harm to the Papacy than an activity ending in nothing save con- spiracy or crime could do good. In literature, the members of the order, selected, trained, and able as they are said to have been, never produced a work of genius; nor, indeed, was it likely that they should, from the implicit obedience and mental submission that was, in theory at least, the principle of their order. In compilation, however, they ex- celled ; and if they did not do more in learned discovery than in original observation of life or nature, they popularized the discoveries of others. Their political or polemical works on the subject of popular resistance and tyrannicide, (that is, the murder of sovereigns opposed to them,) con- tributed to shake the reverence of mankind for authority, and, conjoined with the sturdy doctrines of the Puritans, and the speculations of the classical Republicans, formed that tertium quid which is the foundation of modern Liberalism, and which, having overthrown the Jesuits and the Popedom in the last century, will perhaps not rest till it has destroyed both. The worldly arts of the Jesuits, and the maxim that the means are lawful where the end is good, early introduced the order into the courts and closets of princes ; in every ease, we think, to the injury of the mo- narch or the ruin of his dynasty. But it gave the confessors station and power, and mixed them up with the business or scandal of the world; which affords scope for portraiture and anecdote to their historian. A Jesuitical taint mingled with all that the Jesuits did ; so that their books must always be read with caution, except on subjects, if such there are, where the interests of the order and the church are not in question. With this qualification, their merits as educators and travellers can hardly be rated too high. They not only adapted their teaching to the individual bent, but aimed at forming the manners and the mind. Yet, though a subject of frequent remark, and though Addison nearly a cen- tury and a half ago called attention to the leading features of their sys- tem, it has never been generally adopted, or it may be said, imitated at all. Much of superstition, much of self-glorification, with no small por• tion of direct falsehood, are mixed up with the accounts of their miracles. and their missions: but their descriptions of China and Japan, and in a less degree of India, Africa, and America, are valuable as historical records and geographical accounts ; nor were they without influence on the mind and the acts of Europe.

Such are the leading divisions of Jesuit history. From the activity and influence of the order in church and state, as well as in letters, the leading Jesuits and the history of their body have of necessity been touched upon by all historians of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eight- eenth centuries. Some writers have taken a division of their doings,—es their missions in Paraguay; or of their writings,—as the Provincial Let- ters of Pascal. Various entire histories devoted to the order both by friends and enemies, and of all sizes, have also appeared. Still, as we have said, a fair and philosophical history of the order is yet wanted; which, holding the scales exactly even, should neither scruple to allow the Jesuits all the merit they can fairly claim, nor, on the other hand, shrink from exposing nakedly their crimes, their fanaticism, and their pimp lir impious frauds ; drawing a discriminating liue between those individual vices which the order disapproved or penkheii, sad those which they adopted and maide their own.

Mr. Steinmetz is not exactly the man for the his' tory of the Jesuits which literature requires. His training at Stonyhuret, abort as it was, has given him an insight into the subject, and enabled him perhaps to read the writings of the Jesuits with a more understandin spirit than stranger to the system ; he has also a fluency and foreign style of manner, with a shrewd justness of view,—if it be just to bring men from the test of their own times to that of ours, 'as Mr. Steinmetz does effectively enough in the case of Henry the 'Fourth of Frame. But he wants historical elevation and comprehension : except here and there in the by- ways of his subject, he has no originality of research, but has gone to sources with which those who are likely to read his book are already fa- Ranke, Lingard, Roscoe, Capefigue, and historians as wen

known if not so widely read. Neither does be seem to have digested his materials properly, or to have worked upon any definite plan. There is a long introduction giving an account of the state of the Papacy and the Romish clergy previous to the Reformation, the viesildruvhich are derived from Ranke„ana-tise facts-atv as colninon-ari any leading facts in history ;

ncirbeing told more fully than usual, they lose the interest which sometimes attends upon a minute exposition of great events or gross mimes. The reign of Elizabeth of England was so disturbed by Jesuit plots that an account of them was necessary ; but they are narrated neither comprehensively nor completely, neither as history nor memoirs, but simply as Mr. Steinmetz's view of the subject. A really considerable part of the work is devoted to an account of Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot,—seemingly because materials were plentiful and at hand; for this plot has little to do with the history of the Jesuits. Two or three individual Jesuits were implicated ; but there is not the least proof that the order at large knew anything about it, or that the General him- self had any other than a vague idea of some plot being in agitation, and of that he disapproved, as being contrary to the then otijects and policy of the Pope and Catholicism. Henry the Fourth occupies an un- due space ; for although his assassination may be traced to the maxims of Jesuit literature, there is no proof that the Jesuits, or an individual Jesuit, had anything to do with it—their interest, indeed, rather lay the other way. By occupying from a fifth to a fourth of the work with easy and well-known historical matter, much that peculiarly belongs to the Jesuits has to be slurred over,—such as the influence of the order with Louis the Fourteenth and James the Second, and its consequences, the story of its suppression in the following century, &c. From alike catis whole divisions are treated insufficiently, if indeed Mr. Steinmetz had properly mastered them,—as the Jesuit Literature and their Missions.

The defect of the book, however, is not so much owing to a defective plan as to the deficiencies of the author. Beyond the fact or accident of his education as a Jesuit, Mr. Steinmetz has no pretensions to write a history at all. He has not the qualifications of a historian, nor does he seem to comprehend what they are. His style is familiar, his diction sometimes vulgar ; his manner is that of an article-monger ; and his book is in reality a series of rather ill-digested articles by a smart-minded clever person the articles being connected by the nature of the subject rather than by any method of the writer. Mr. Steinmetz seems to think he has some privilege in the subject of the Jesuits. His first book, con- sisting of facts within his own experience on a matter fresh and curious, was successful. His next, a fiction about the modern Jesuits, was simply absurd. The present History of the Jesuits is the result of his reading upon the subject and his opinions thereanent. With a few exceptions, any one moderately read in history, or in the common histories of the Jesuits, will receive no new information ; and we do not know that the world will care to receive Mr. Steinmetz's notions upon the Jesuits and their history at the expense of three large octavoes.

One point on which we think Mr. Steinmetz attains some novelty is the character of Loyale. The great founder of the Jesuits is usually looked upon as a fiery but conscientious bigot, urged on by a real though a blind zeal into actions which he conceived to be meritorious. By bringing out the more questionable points of Loyala's character and conduct into strong relief, Mr. Steinmetz contrives to throw over him the idea of an impostor, making religion a stalking-horse to answer the objects of his own ambi- tion. We do not say that this is proved ; for it is difficult of proof; and Mr. Steinmetz makes little allowance for the idiosyncracy of the man, the temperament of the Spaniard, and the character of the age. But the idea is insinuated and left in the mind with a skill worthy of a Jesuit. The following are some of the mortifications of Loy-ala. " The knight of the Virgin arrived at Manreza and went to lodge at the hospital of that city, and felt an excess of teitisfacliou-at seeing 'himself in the. number of beggars its inmates, -To-cobform himself to their manner of life, he begged his bread from door to door; and that no one might be able to discover his quality by a certain air, which persons well-born preserve even in rags, he studied the gross manners of those with whom be lived at the hospital, and forced himself not only to imitate them, but even to improve upon what he had re- marked most loathsome in them. He succeeded in this attempt to a miracle: his filthy hair hung in diSoider, and concealed one half of his face; his beard, as long, as much neglected, and as filthy as his hair, covered the other half; this, with his nails, which he suffered to grow to a frightful length, so much disguised him that he had rather the appearance of a bear than a human creature. He was indeed so frightful, and so ridiculous at the same time, that when he ap- peared the children would point him out to each other, and follow him through the streets with loud outcries: the women of whom he asked charity took flight, scared at his horrible figure; the gay made him their jest, and the grave were of opinion that he ought to be sent to a madhouse. He suffered all their insults with marvellous patience, and even affected to be more stupid than he really was, that he might excite more wonder, and have more occasions of mortifying those emotions of pride and self-love which had not yet ceased to intrude amidst these strange follies. He fasted every day on bread and water, except Sunday, when he eat a few herbs, boiled and mixed with ashes. He girded his loins with an iron chain, wore under his coarse gown a rough hair-cloth, and, in imitation of St. Dominic, gave himself the discipline or lash three times a day; and when he went to the church of Our Lady at Villarddis, at some distance, he encircled himself with a wreath of rough and prickly briars, to tear and transfix his flesh. • • At the hospital, Ignatius sought out the most irritable and loathsome patients, and performed with most eagerness and alacrity the most disgusting offices. He not only handled them, took them in his arms, made their beds, washed them, cleaned them, but, more than once, he even applied his month to their ulcers, and sucked the purulent discharge; and this he did copying examples in the Lives of the Saints. Meanwhile, be would watch all night, and used no other bed but the bare earth. He spent seven hours in prayer every day; and though he had learnt only vocal prayer, he prayed mentally, without uttering a word, and remained whole hours immoveable as a statue."

In describing the death of Loyale, Mr. Steinmetz intimates doubts as to the faith of the Jesuit in the Romish Church, if not in any church : but the grounds seem too slight to warrant even the first conclusion.

"On the .30th of July IL56, Ignatius called for his secretary Polancus; and having ordered those wile were present to retire, he said to the secretary, ' My hour is come. Go and ask the Pope for a blessing for me, and an indulgence for my sins, in order that my soul may have more confidence in this terrible passage: and tell his Holiness that if 1 go to a place where my prayers may avail aught, as I hope from the Divine mercy, I shall not fail to mai for him, abull have done when I had more reason to pray for myself.'

"The secretary hesitated, seeing no immediate signs of death,`and expressed himself accordingly.

" Go: ' said Ignatlua, 'and beg the blessing for another father.'

" Lainez was then dangerously ill, and had received the last sacraments. Po- lanais thought the implied prediction referred to Laissez; but we are assured that the event proved it to be Father Olave. " Ignatitui continued sensible: two or three of the fathers remained with him till very late, discussing a slight matter relating to the Roman College. He passed the night alone: in the morning he was found in his agony. The fathers rushed to his bed in dismay. Thinking he was faint, they wished him to take something; but Le whispered, in dying accents, There's no need of it!' and, join- ing his hands raising his eyes upwards, pronouncing the name of Jesus, he calmly breathed his fast. It was on the last day of July 1556. " Thu died Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, without the last sacraments of the Church, without extreme unction, without absolution from a priest of the Church. This fact is as remarkable as any in the life of Ignatius. To the Protestant, without some explanation, it may signify little; but to the Catholic it must appear passing strange and unaccountable. Every son of the Church is held by precept to receive those last aids in his last journey: the Council of Trent makes them imperative: all the doctors of the Catholic Church agree at least in the paramount importance of extreme unction. Ignatius was in his senses; he had even predicted his death; and yet he conforms not to the last requirements of his religion. He died as any philosopher' may die. It would seem that the tale about the Pope's blessing and indulgence' were thrown in merely to make the founder's death somewhat respectable: the word 'Jesus' is a matter of course. "So striking is this manner of the saint's departure, that Bartell goes to great lengths in endeavouring to excuse the irreverent deathbed of his society's founder. He attributes the absence of the sacraments to the saint's spirit of obedience to his physician, who had not thought him" in imminent danger of death. But the man who could predict his death, as we are assured, must have been permitted without infringing obedience to represent' his state, according to the rules of the founder himself, if he cared at all for the rites of the Church. On the other hand, it seems difficult to suppose that Ignatius, giving him credit for his usual astuteness, would wilfully refrain from giving that last external testimony to the hope within him': but death wrings secrets from the stoutest hearts. At that awful moment Ignatius was laid bare; he was not permitted to prolong his de- ception; he had had his reward.' Theo, was deception compatible with all the zealous enterprises of his life? Surely it was, just as were his pretended visions and predictions. Mohammed talked of God, worked 'for God, as zealously as Ignatius for God's greater glory.' Further, we are not to take Jesuit accounts as gospel. We have already seen how they invent, add, and interpolate. It is only by dissecting psychologically the curious incidents of the man's life, as told by the Jesuits, that we can catch a glimpse of his inner character."

Another point, where some novelty or freshness is given by Mr. Stein- metz, is the internal constitution and working of the order. Its boasted poverty, equality, disinterestedness, and obedience, soon began to give way. Within less than fifty years after its foundation, privileges and in- dulgences were granted to aristocratic probationers ; the order was divided into factions, which, instead of rendering implicit obedience, were resist- ing and intriguing against each other and the General. A sort of pretence to gratuitous education and consolation in religion was kept up, though unwillingly ; but before a century had elapsed, the followers of Jesus had taken to money-changing, with all the other gainful arts of merchandise. This decadence of the Jesuits was not, indeed, peculiar to them ; they shared it in common with all the monastic orders—nay, with all hu- man institutions that are not acted upon by competition and sthe stimulus of opinion. It seems more striking in the Jesuits from their great pre- tensions, and the claims they made and are still making to all sorts of monastic virtues, especially obedience. But the fact is, their constitution was more unnatural than that of any other order in requiring a total ab- negation of self, not in one or two directions, but upon all points ; and hence it was impossible to be maintained in vigour after the death of the unnatural fanatics who originally founded it.