turns with Goethe's card, and the message, he will wait a little." Thus like so many long-looked-for interviews this one came inopportunely at last, and the admirer said not all she wished to the admired one. ". . . He said, with a somewhat Saxon, very flowing accent, that he regretted he had not known I was at his house. . . . I told him about the Congress and the impression it had made on me. About that he was very wise, looking at it as an affair done with two centuries before, and said it was not a thing to be recorded as it had no form or outline. Altogether he was like the most aristocratic prince, like the most amiable man; easy but dignified and avoiding personalities. ... No Olympian deity could make me more honorable or show me greater honor. At first I thought of sending you his card, but I will not trust it to the post." It is strange to find the patriotic Rahel's devotion uncooled by her idol's philosophic indifference, on account of which so many rising men of the day almost hated him. Years afterwards she writes to her brother Ludwig Robert, on hearing that Goethe had been decorated with the Black Eagle of Frederick the Great: "Now my work has not been for nought. I have the Black Eagle Order of Frederick the Great. It fully covers my rewarded heart. . . . That this man (Goethe) should thus experience that his contemporaries acknowledge, study, comprehend, idolize, love him with sincerity is the summit of all my earthly desire and effort. This I have helped forward, I, a ball in the hand of Providence Madame Guyon says she is that-and of this happiness I am proud." In 1819 the Varnhagens again settled in Berlin, but to find everything changed. The angel of death had been abroad in the land, and Rahel, writing to her friend Baron Brinckmann, alludes very pathetically to the gaps made by the cruel war. "Death upheld by war, has made great havoc among those friends whom your description shows to have been deeply engraved upon your memory. In every VOL. XI. 555 LIVING AGE. corner of our quarter, where we used to see our dear ones, are now strangers. They are all tombstones. Scattered like dust is the whole constellation of beauty, grace, coquetry, wit, preference, cordiality, pleasantry, unrestrained intercourse, earnest purpose, and spiritual development. Every house is becoming a shop; every social meeting a dinner or a party . . . Everybody is wise and has bought his wisdom at the nearest market." Such is the inevitable experience of all who live long enough. Rahel's letters and diaries were shown to her friends, and by many were copied and admired; she seems to have felt a kind of pride in being a voluminous unprinted author. It was not till 1830 that Varnhagen collected passages from her manuscripts and published a short book of aphorisms entitled "Stray Thoughts of a Berliner." She says of herself: "I am certainly not unwilling to become an author; I should not be ashamed to write a work like Newton's on astronomy or mathematics; but to be able to produce no work and yet to be in print, is a thing I abhor." As to religious belief, Rahel had ceased to be a Jewess of the stricter sort for many years; she had indeed been brought up, as she herself says, "as if I were in a wild wood, without any religious teaching." We have seen that she regretted her Jewish birth; but as time went on her heart and intellect led her to appreciate her noble heritage as we may glean from the following quotation: "What a history is mine! I, a fugitive from Egypt and Palestine, find with you help, love, and tender care! It was God's will, dear August, to send me to you, and you to me. With delighted exaltation I look back upon my origin, upon the link which my history forms between the oldest memories of the human race and the interests of to-day, between the broadest interval of time and space." It does not appear when, if ever, she made a public profession of the Christian faith, though undoubtedly she embraced its doctrines in a broad, hu manitarian, perhaps rationalistic spirit. Many mystic works of Christian authors were beloved by her, notably those of Angelus Silesius. Custine said of her that she had the mind of a philosopher with the heart of an apostle. One of her sayings about herself will throw some light on her beautiful and sympathetic nature: "When I come to die, you may think: 'she knew everything because she entered into it all, because she never was or pretended to be anything in herself; she only loved thought and tried to make thought connected and harmonious. She understood Fichte, loved green fields, loved children, knew something of the arts both of use and beauty; endeavored to help God in his creatures always, uninterruptedly, and thanked him that he had made her thus.' 99 From The Nineteenth Century. THE TRAINING OF A JESUIT. BY THE REV. FATHER CLARKE, S.J. One of the curious phenomena of the modern world is the mystery that hangs around the name of Jesuit. There is a general consent that the Jesuits are a body of men who exert a considerable influence in the world. This at least is conceded to them alike by friends and enemies, by Catholics, and by those outside the Catholic But the secret of their inChurch. fluence, the source whence their power arises, is a matter on which the widest possible opinion prevails. While all, or nearly all, attribute to them an unlimited devotion to the cause of Rome, there is a very considerable diversity of opinion as to the means they employ to carry out the end which they have at heart. A large majority of nonCatholics impute to them an unscrupulous readiness to avail themselves of any means, good or bad, by which they think that their cause can be served. Not a few believe them to be a secret and perfectly organized He society, ready to occupy any position, or to fill any office, inside or outside the Catholic Church, in which may be seen an opportunity of carrying on their work of unscrupulous propagandism. They are fully convinced that Jesuits are to be found in her Majesty's service, in the various learned professions, in the commercial classes, among domestic servants and those who labor with their hands, and even in the ranks of the Anglican clergy. Some among the more zealous Protestants believe in the existence of "female Jesuits," who, in the garb of domestic servants, nurses, and governesses, find an opportunity of instilling into the minds of the young children committed to their charge the principles of Popery. Even educated men are not wholly free from the curious superstition that the "Jesuit in disguise" is to be found every where seeking with unscrupulous perseverance to undermine, by fair means or foul, the foundations of the In the summer of 1832 her health, which had long been a matter of serious anxiety to Varnhagen, began to fail. In March, 1833, she died; and we may fitly close our account of Rahel with the noble and touching tribute offered to her memory by Heine, who had already dedicated to her the Heimkehr poems of his "Book of Songs." speaks of the delight with which her published letters were received by all her friends: "It was a great deed of August Varnhagen when he, setting aside all petty objections, published those letters in which Rahel's whole This book personality is revealed. came at the right time when it could best take effect, strengthen and console. It was as if Rahel knew what posthumous mission should be hers. She died quickly that she might more quickly rise again. She reminds me of the legend of that other Rachel, who arose from her grave and stood weeping by the highway as her children went into captivity. I cannot think of her without sorrow, that friend so rich in love, who ever offered me unwearied sympathy and often felt not a little anxious for me, in those days when the flame of truth rather heated than enlightened me. Alas, those days are over!" Protestant Church, and to re-establish the dominion of Rome over the souls of men. This belief, like all other popular superstitions, has an element of truth in it. In the days of persecution, when Jesuits were hunted up and down the land, and were mercilessly butchered simply because they were members of the proscribed society, their only chance of escaping the hands of the pursuivant was to be "Jesuits in disguise." Although they were but a handful among the hundreds of devoted priests who labored and laid down their lives for their religion in the reigns of Elizabeth and the Stuarts, yet they were the objects of the special hatred of the persecutors, and the search for them was carried on with relentless vigor. Even when other priests were tolerated, they were not, and in the present day they will remain an illegal corporation, who are liable at any moment to be expelled from England if the existing laws were put in force. All this engendered a certain policy of caution and concealment, the traces of which linger on even when the necessity of it has happily passed away. So But if this accounts in some measure for their supposed system of secrecy, it does not at all account for the extraordinary influence that they are believed to exert, not in England only, but all the world over. Here the intelligent Protestant is, we think, fairly non-plussed. He cannot but know that the theory that attributes their alleged power in the world to a system of unscrupulous intrigue and deception cannot possibly be maintained. cieties, like individuals, are in due course of time discredited if they violate the fundamental laws of morality. No man of honor and integrity would look with favor on a society which taught that "The end justifies the means," (in the sense that means in themselves unlawful are justified by the fact that the end which they are intended to promote is a good one), or which habitually practised deceit and employed underhand means to attain its object. Still less would any man of virtue or high principle dream of belonging to such a body. No parent would think of entrusting his children to be educated by its members. No one who valued his own reputation would have anything to do with such a band of moral lepers. They would be scouted in every civilized community. If Jesuits were what the vulgar Protestant supposes them to be, they would long ago have been crushed out of existence by the just indignation of mankind. We may therefore dismiss without further comment the absurd supposition that Jesuits owe their influence to deceit and an unscrupulous policy of Machiavellianism, and must look elsewhere for the secret of their power in the world. If they are influential, it must needs be because they employ means that are in themselves calculated to impart influence to those who are willing to adopt them. It will be the object of the following pages to try and explain what these means are. But first of all I must premise that as I am writing for non-Catholics as well as for Catholics, I shall omit, or pass over very lightly, the supernatural element in their success. Many of my readers will smile if I recall the prayer which their founder, St. Ignatius, used to offer continually for his children. He used to beg of God that they might always be the object of the world's hatred and enmity. He told them that they should wish to suffer contumely, false accusations and insults, so long as they themselves gave no sort of occasion for it, and no offence is thereby committed against the Divine Majesty. He knew from Holy Scripture and from the history of the Church that this has been an essential condition of success in all great works done for God by saints and missionaries, and a mere process of induction taught him to regard persecution and misrepresentation as a necessary accompaniment of every victory won for the sacred cause of Christianity. I should, therefore, be omitting a prominent 1 Summarium Constitutionum Soc. Jesu, R. 11. feature in the history of my Order if I were to pass altogether unnoticed the reproach which always has been attached, and I pray God may always be attached, to the name of the Society of Jesus. ever be really separated from the supernatural, any more than the ivy can be separated from the oak to which it clings. But as we can consider the growth and means of cultivation of the ivy in itself, so I propose to consider the Society of Jesus in itself, as an organized system of means, adapted, in accordance with the principles that govern human society, to the end that it has in view. After a quarter of a century spent in its ranks, I can speak with great confidence from my own personal experience of the training given to its members. The study of the training of a Jesuit appears to me to throw a very clear light on the position which the Society occupies in the modern world. But there is something preliminary to the consideration of its training. No system of education can produce a welleducated man unless the original material is good. The first requisite for those who are to do the work of the Society efficiently is that it should select as its members only those who are capable of receiving the Jesuit "form." The statue, however deftly carved, will not be a success if the marble have serious defects. All possi But my object in my present article is rather to dwell on the natural causes that have contributed to gain for us the place of honor which we occupy in the ranks of the Christian Church. And among these marks of honor I include not only our position as theologians, missioners, preachers, confessors, and educators of youth, but still more the invariable selection that is made of the Society as the chief object of the hatred of those who are the foes of the Catholic Church. Whether it be the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth or the sectaries of Germany, the Communists of Paris or the Revolutionary party in Italy, the Bonzes of Japan, or the fanatical followers of Mohammed, all who hate the name of Catholic concentrate their deadliest animosity on the unfortunate Jesuit. Even within the pale of the Catholic Church we have sometimes found strenuous opponents. The Jansenists of France were our bitter enemies. Those who rejoice in the name of Liberal Catholics have in-ble care is taken to admit into the ranks variably stood aloof from us. At times even bishops and archbishops have looked coldly on us. Sometimes, indeed, it may be that individual Jesuits have, by their unfaithfulness to the principles of their Order, deserved the ill feeling with which they have been regarded. But in a large majority of cases it is due either to prejudice or defective knowledge on the part of their adversaries, or else to an imperfect grasp of the Catholic system (as was the case with the Jansenists), or to a false impression that the Jesuits exercised an influence which interfered with their own lawful authority, and were a rival power in the government of the Church. I have still left untouched what I believe to be the real secret of Jesuit influence, regarded, as I desire my readers to regard it, from a purely natural point of view. Not that it can of the Society only those who are naturally qualified to carry out the end that it sets before itself, and who show a capacity for imbibing its spirit and submitting to its discipline. When any one applies for admission to the Society, he has first of all to satisfy the Head of the Province that he is a likely subject; and he is theu handed over to four of the Fathers to be examined by each of them separately. This examination is no mere form; the candidate for admission has to answer the most searching questions, and is submitted to a somewhat rigorous scrutiny. He is asked about the age, health, and position of his parents in the world; whether they are Catholics; whether they are likely to need his help in their old age. He has also to give a full account of himself; whether he suffers from ill-health or other infirmity, hereditary or ac quired; whether he owes money, or is under any other obligation; what studies he has made and what are his literary attainments, whether he has lived a virtuous life; how long he has been entertaining the idea of entering the Society, and what is his motive for wishing to do so; whether it has been suggested to him by any one else or springs entirely from himself. The examiner has meanwhile to try to ascertain from personal observation what talent he possesses; what is his natural disposition; whether he seems to be a man likely to persevere, and to prove a useful member of the Society. He is not to be admitted if he has any notable bodily defect or mental infirmity; if he is deficient in intelligence; if he is in debt; or if he has worn the habit of any other religious body, even for a single day. Each of the four examiners has to write out at length his report on the above points, and to state in writing his opinion as to whether it is expedient to admit him or not, with any further remarks that he may choose to add. The four reports are sent in to the Provincial, who after carefully reading them decides whether the candidate is to be accepted or rejected. In every province of the Society of Jesus there is a day in each year on which candidates are ordinarily received, though exceptions are made in special cases. The new-comers are not at once admitted to the ranks of the noviceship; they spend their first week or ten days separate from the rest, and during that time the rules of the Society are put into their hands, and are explained to them; they are instructed as to the kind of ure they will have to live, and the difficulties that they will have to encounter. They have to study the "Summary of the constitutions," in which is set forth the end and object of the Society, the spirit that must animate its members, the obedience they must be ready to practise, the sacrifice of their own will and judgment that they must be prepared to make; in fact, they have every possible opportunity given them of as certaining what it is that they are undertaking when they declare their intention of serving God in the Society according to its laws and constitutions. Of course, there are but few who realize at first all that is involved in the sacrifice they are making; but this must be the case with all who are entering on a new and difficult career. After they have spent a few days in studying the obligation they are going to accept, they are put into retreat for a short time during which they are kept in perfect silence, and have to spend their time in listening to a series of instructions on the fundamental truths of religion given by the master of novices, each instruction containing a number of suggestive thoughts, on which they have to meditate for an hour after the instruction is finished. When this time of retirement is over, they are duly received as novices, and are clad in the Jesuit habit. Often one or two fall away during this first probation, discovering that the kind of life is beyond their courage, or requires a higher degree of virtue than they possess. But, generally, speaking, those who have made their first probation pass into the ranks of the noviceship as soon as it is over. From that moment the real process of sifting begins. The new novices enter at once on the routine prescribed by the Society for all who desire to fight under her standard. They rise at 5.30, make a short visit to the chapel at six, in order to make their morning oblation of the day to God, and from six to seven make their meditation. According to Jesuit rule, the points of this meditation have to be studied for a quarter of an hour before retiring to rest on the previous evening. On these points the Jesuit is taught to dwell during the hour devoted to the morning meditation, ending the consideration of them with some good resolution arising out of them, and a short prayer that he may keep it during the ensuing day. As this is a very important element in the training of the Society, I think it may be interesting if I give an example of the points as given to the novices |