dropped at moments from the taciturn lips of friars of all orders who stood and roamed about St. Peter's in sullen knots. But only few of the strangers who figured so numerously that morning will have been able to gather the true import of the glittering ceremony they were looking on. was not merely a missionary full of zeal and controversial vigor, distinguished principally by his readiness always to do public battle for his religious convictions. Canisius was an administrator and organizer as well as an unflinching member of the Church purely militant It is not only the victory won in GerThat ceremony was being performed many over Protestants, but also the in celebration of a new saint. Another manner in which that victory has been had been added to the host of the beati- turned to account, which are indissolubly fied by the decree of Pius IX., and it connected with the name of Canisius. It has always been customary that such a is he who instituted in Germany the promotion should be kept holy by him who Jesuit seminaries that permanently exhad been thus able to swell the heavenly erted so vast an influence upon that hosts with a recruit. These promotions country; it was he who composed a have not been scarce of late; on the catechism which became the text-book contrary, Pius IX. has been particularly not only of these schools, but generally favoured with an exceptional plentiful- of all Catholic foundations in those parts; ness of individuals found deserving of and it was he who elaborated and dethe exaltation; and Rome has seen, in fined and introduced that peculiar method the three last years, a quiet unusual num- of instruction which became systematiber of canonizations and beatifications. cally observed in the important seminaIt was not, therefore, the merit of the ries directed by the Society. Therefore, occurrence which gave a real peculiar Canisius, even more than Loyola, may interest to this particular beatification. be considered the type and representaThat was derived from the nature of the tive of the system and spirit that dwell individual selected as the object of ova- in the Society of Jesus; for Loyola extion, and from the interests that had suc- pressed only the elementary impulse of ceeded in obtaining it for him; and they a certain enthusiasm not yet reduced to themselves were therefore celebrating a form, but Canisius represents its matured 'public triumph in the achieved exaltation expression, its practical aspect, the spirit of the man whom they had been strenu- and the shape within the discipline of ously supporting in the contest for heav- which this impulse has walked on earth. enly honors. Who, then, was this new Canisius is the hero-the representasaint whose promotion gave occasion to tive man of the Jesuits. This greatest the gorgeous display of pomp and cere- achievement-the religious reconquest monial? It was the great Jesuit con- of Germany-is inseparably connected troversialist and indefatigable mission- with his memory, as also the perfection ary against the rampart heresies of of his methods of teaching and reasoning Protestant Germany, Canisius; the man which they have systematically pursued who, of all others, could claim to be the as most consonant to their principles. type and representative in his life, his In the glorification of Canisius, the teaching, and his doings, of the peculi- practical action of the Society of Jesus arities which constitute the essential has therefore been glorified-a tribute characteristics of the action of the Society of homage the contemplation whereof and the particular claims it puts forward to special merit. All that goes to make up the most striking section of the history of the Society of Jesus, and exhibits in a striking degree its distinctive features, lies embodied in the figure of the man who was the foremost champion in the great crusade, mainly due to the services of the Jesuits, which again permanently recovered to the Holy See a large portion of heretical Germany. For Canisius can hardly have failed to inspire some bitterness of feeling into not a few among the many friars of all kinds who that morning glided about St. Peter's; and which, however intelligible a gratification to the members of the Society, has not impossibly been on their part as unwise a manifestation of ascendancy as it certainly has been a signal instance of deviation from the else so guardedly observed rule not to indulge in displays which can provoke irritation. On that 20th of November, Pius IX., under circumstances of a political nature that intensified the significance of the demonstration, promulgated deliberately his implicit acknowledginent of the superior excellence of the Society of Jesus, by elevating to the highest honors within his gift an individual than whom the Society can not boast of a more complete representative. Undoubtedly it was a great triumph for the brotherhood, as it was a public exhibition of the absolute power to which its influence has attained in the present Court of Rome. ed, we can have no hesitation in repudiating from that fact alone any belief in the existence of purely individual influence: much more must this be the case when without attempt at disguise the seat of direction for the enterprise is publicly located in the seminary of the Society in Rome. We allude to the periodical the Civiltá Catholica, which, since a series of years, has issued from the presses of the Society, edited by members of the Society, and written by members of the Society, who make no disguise of their authorship, and are located in a house specially set apart for Of the particular sense, however, in them. These circumstances impart a which this influence has of late years capital importance to this periodical. It been exerted very conclusive indications is as much the avowed organ of the Soare furnished by a publication which is ciety as the Moniteur is the official mouthitself an innovation on the traditional piece for the proclamations of the French tactics of the Society, and a striking Government. In it the Society of Jesus acknowledgment of the necessity for promulgates, with an indefatigable venew weapons to combat the spirit of hemence of argumentation, its views on modern times. It is necessary to remind all points of doctrine and on all the the reader of the impossibility of any great questions of the day. Originally individual action in public by a professed the periodical was issued at Naples; but Jesuit. Whatever is done by a member Ferdinand II., who, with the despotic of the Society is done with the concur- principles imitated also the suspicious rence of its constituted authorities, or he nature of Philip II., took umbrage at the becomes a rebel and is forthwith sub- contents of a report to the General of jected to penalty. The intrinsic wrong the Society by the editors of this paper, of an individual impulse has no connec- and banished them and it from his territion whatever with the condemnation. tories. The story is a curious one. A priest may be actuated with the most appears that in accordance with the strict real devotion-his impulse may be fraught dependence that prevades the Jesuit with essential benefit to the Society and body, the managers of the Civiltà Catholits interest, and yet if he should ever pre- ica make to their superior a report at the sume to promote these of his own au- end of the year on the success and condithority he will forthwith be liable to tion of their periodical. This report is penance; for the cardinal principle on secret, and meant only for the use of the which the Society reposes is the absolute authority to whom it is addressed. A renunciation of individual personality by copy fell however into the hands of the its members the absolute dependence Neapolitan police, when King Ferdinand always for motive impulse upon command was stung to passion by reading pungent from above. Therefore no Jesuit can observations on the obstacles which the continue to remain one and yet engage in the arbitrary jealousy of the Neapolitan occupations, however innocent or mer- police put in the way of the journal. itorious in themselves, otherwise than at The effect wrought upon the autocratic the desire or with the sanction of his susceptibilities of this inflated despot, by superior. The individual Jesuit can the discovery of such unseemly freedom of never exist but as an organ-more or less stricture, was the instantaneous expulsion important according to his natural capac- of the guilty parties and the prohibition ities that helps to feed a mighty and of the Ctvilta Catholica in his dominions. all-absorbing body. When, therefore, we find ourselves in presence of a large enterprise with which members of the Society have been continuously connect It The paper then was transferred to Rome, and the whole talent and energy of the Society became directed towards making it a powerful publication. The rulers of the Society, alive to the neces-out doubt; for the hold which it has sity of coping with the spirit of discussion made good on those who figure as govand inquiry that has taken hold of the ernors of the Church is in great part of age, resolved on throwing all their re- that grim kind which makes victims sources of mind and means into the task shrink tamely within the clutch of a bird of creating for the periodical a position of prey, because they think it impossible of leading influence in Catholic circles. to keep free. Pius IX. does not love Nothing has been spared which could be the Society of Jesus; he has, on the commanded by the expenditure of an contrary, personal predispositions against authority that has at its disposal resour- it from early associations and impressions, ces of vast influence; and the result has and which he has repeatedly shown, as not been inconsiderable, for the bond for instance when he took Passaglia unfide subscribers amount, we believe, der his protection, and facilitated his to full twelve thousand. In the pages egress from the Society. Yet he is pracof this periodical there will be found, tically quite as helpless within the meshes therefore, the running commentary by of their ascendancy now as any poor the men who constitute the Society of trapped bird is within the prison of its Jesus upon every question philoso- snare. The Jesuit influence weighs at phical, doctrinal, or political, which this moment like a cunning spell on the has attracted attention during recent Vatican, fascinating some and grimly times. Everything which has in any compelling others, but leaving none bedegree touched, however remotely, the yond its reach. interests of Rome has been amply discussed, reviewed, and judged in this publication. Now, if we turn over the pages of this periodical we shall find that the views advocated therein with so much warmth are precisely those which have been gradually more and more adopted by the Court of Rome, and which have been gradually more and more revealed in the decrees that have been promulgated by the Holy See. There is not one of the great judgments pronounced from this tribunal of late years, begining with the condemnation of Günther's philosophy, which is not the expression of what had before been half recommended in these productions by Jesuit writers; and this holds true of the last great utterence by the Pope the Encyclical with its appendix. The germ and pith of all those propositions in it, which by their singularity constitute the real importance of this document, are to be found in the polemical articles of the Civilitá Catholica, and can thus be traced directly to the progressive action of Jesuit influence and Jesuit inspiration. On this score no one conversant with Rome and of good faith will venture to dispute what we say. The Society of Jesus has now grown to be a power in the government of the Court of Rome of most formidable dimensions -a power that at present is in a position to consider itself absolute, and is so with Let us now consider how the action of the impulses we have been describingrefracted, however, through the prisms of two diverging influences, the passionate visionary influence which finds a representative at Court in the flushed and dishevelled intellect of Monsignore Merode, and the adventurous, moderating, especially temporizing influence which finds its representative in the small, cold twinkle of Cardinal Antonelli's necromantic shrewdness-has resulted in the promulgation of the Encyclical, which we have no hesitation in persisting to interpret as a measure adopted with a view of meeting the thrust threatened by the Convention. Unable to quote our authorities for every statement we advance, we must expect to be contradicted flatly by those who have taken a brief from the Court of Rome; but as long as these partizans meet our statements by mere counter assertions, unsupported by the kind of conclusive evidence which it must be easy for them to bring forward should it exist, we shall be prepared to abide by our views. The Convention came with the same surprise on the Vatican with which it came on the European public. The assertions sometimes indulged in of late that the Papal Government had received before its conclusion from the French a confidential communication of its nature—that it had been prepared for what was brewing, and that it had made known in Paris its views on the subject-these assertions are drawn entirely from fancy. The surprise of the Vatican on the communication to it of M. Drouyn de Lhuys's despatch of the 12th September was absolute, for so secret had been the negotiations of this understanding that the French diplomatic agents themselves were kept in complete ignorance thereof; while the Nuncio in Paris, almost at the very hour when the contracting parties were closeted together for signature of the Convention, reported to his Government the utter absence of all stir in the world of politics. The knowledge of what had happened came therefore with the suddenness of a thunderbolt on the ecclesiastical circles of Rome, and the method of its reception by these was marked according to their characters. The Secretary of State received the communication with unruffled self-possession and unaltered cheerfulness. Inwardly his feelings were, however, of a different nature, for he felt himself tricked and tricked in a manner that involves peril to the stability of possession, an injury that irritates the angry passions of a soul dearly loving gain. Under the cold pleasant surface of the Cardinal's urbanity, the Convention has been kindling an intense, though guardedly compressed, hatred against the cunning hand that furnished the deadly shaft. But outwardly all was smooth and cheerful, and the impression made by this bombshell was in appearance not a whit different from what would have been made by the most ordinary communication. On the other hand the prelates of an ecstatic complexion burst forthwith into an hysterical chorus of rhapsodies, culminating in convulsively shrill screams of horribly wild incoherence about how the day of God's blessed restoration to his own was now at last visibly dawning in the Convention; according to some a device of heavenly cunning imparted to the Emperor Napoleon for making the sacrilegious folly of impious Italy work its own destruction; according to others a devilish train laid in truth against the Holy See, but which would explode backwards to the sending up of the Evil One himself into the air; while in spite of their shrieks of professed confidence these prelates were yet visibly shaken with spasms of furious anger. All this, however, was put on for the public-the cheerful indifference of Cardinal Antonelli and the whippedup ebullitions of confident predictions by the fanatics; and both parties spoke and bore themselves differently when they met in council upon what should be done by the Pope under the circumstances of the case. There was only one point on which all agreed-some from policy others from conviction. The serious nature of the Convention was to be treated as a chimera. That it even should have entered the head of the French Emperor to carry out the stipulations in the Convention was to be laughed at as an absurd idea. When the two years were passed, the French garrison, it was said, would still continue to do the same duties in Rome it had fulfilled for fifteen years; and to be under a different impression was to exhibit a marvelous capacity for misapprehension. The Convention was a diplomatic move of indeed grave consequences for Italy; but as regarded the Holy See it would be, and never was meant to be otherwise than, a dead letter. As soon, however, as the question came to be to decide on the steps to be taken in consequence of the Convention, this symphony of expressed opinion ceased. Cardinal Antonelli, by nature disinclined to all measures of a startling and bold kind, advocated as ever a policy of abstention. With characteristic aptitude for picking out small creeping-holes, the the Cardinal, congratulating himself on his dexterity, darted on the fact that the Convention had never been brought to the knowledge of the Pope, as a happy plea for quite ignoring its existence and continuing to drift on in hope of better luck. The Convention has formally never been communicated to the Papal Government; and the French despatch of the 12th September, recapitulating the grouuds for evacuating Rome and giving advice for timely measures to be adopted by the Pope (the only document that has been handed to the Papal minister,) makes no allusion to the Convention, signed three days latter, and of whose existence we believe the French ambassador himself to have been ignorant at the time. So tame a policy was quite contrary to the passionate aspira tions of the ecstatic party. The case a text of by fiery bishops. This, howwas one of dire affront to the Holy See; ever, did not satisfy the extreme party. as such it touched to the quick the hearts The unexpected defection at a pinch of of all true Catholics, who now would powers so Catholic and so Conservative only want the Pope to speak the word produced violent irritation; and the cry to come to his rescue. Between these was raised how the Evil One was visibly rival views a contest ensued in the Papal stalking into the very heart of orthodoxy, councils; various were the more or less since even Spain and Austria had not adventurous projects put afloat and talked hesitated to express their deference to of until Cardinal Antonelli's adroitness new principles that contravened their succeeded in devising a compromise. duties as obedient sons of an absolute The Catholic Powers, whose sympathies Pope. Matters had reached a pitch when were known, were to be got to express it was indispensable for the Pope to fultheir readiness to furnish to the Pope, minate a bolt of reprobation that should with the concurrence of France, the wither up the rapidly-extending element means for material protection, should he of defection that so manifestly was destand in need thereof after the evacua- composing society. The doctrine of nontion of Rome. In this way the onus intervention was the devilish invention would be thrown on the Emperor of ap- that was breaking up all the landmarks pearing publicly in the invidious charac- of existing institutions. Against it, ter of the obstacle that forebade the therefore, was it frantically shouted that Faithful indulging in their affections for a blow must be dealt with all the weight their Pontiff, if he were to refuse his peculiar to the Pontifical arm. Supremely concurrence, while the means would be distasteful to the Cardinal, such passionoffered to the Pope of easily eliciting, ate purposes were to Pius IX. not withwithout having recourse to violent dem- out attraction, and that attraction beonstration, that formidable, though dor- came irresistible when their instigators mant, power of Catholicism in France bethought themselves of certain formuwhich it was confidently said the Empe- las, already familiar to the Pope, and ror would never dare to confront. Un- showed how these might be made to expectedly a bitter disappointment dashed figure in support of the occasion. The this little project. The Austrian and difficulty that presented itself at first Spanish Governments announced them- sight was to find a fitting form for a deselves to be disabled from making the nunciation in the grand style of Pontifical suggested declaration of their readiness authority against a point of politics so to give material assistance by the now purely technical as that of non-intervenrecognized law in politics of non-inter- tion. The Holy See has ever been vention. Cardinal Antonelli contemplated, we believe, to reproduce his project in another shape. He meant to submit the news of the French despatch of the 12th September to criticism in an elaborate note, which he proposed despatching and rendering public as a manifesto immediately after the actual vote in the Italian Parliament for the transfer of the capital-a note in which he would review the whole position, give the grounds why the Pope must decline the suggestions advanced by the French minister for the creation of an army, and by expressing the Pope's determination to leave the settlement of his future condition to Providence and the devout feelings of the Catholic world-in other words, an appeal ad misericordiam that could be made rigorously careful to preserve in its utterances a tone of grave and general application conformable to its peculiarly canonical pretentions. Since a period, dating back to the beginning of the last decade, the theologians of the Roman Court have been engaged in considering the nature of certain opinions, which had been reported as suspicious. The original opinions, so subjected to inquiry, were the outflow of one or other of the liberal schools in the Church, and stood connected, more or less directly, with Günther's philosophy, the teaching adopted by the Louvain professors, and the cognate intellectual manifestation, that have been the events of our times. The former movers in this inquiry were the Jesuits; and for years Passaglia was specially engaged in |