of their zeal; but it was a zeal bridled, curbed, and ruled by a guiding
hand. Their marvellous training in equal measure kindled enthusiasm and
controlled it, roused into action a mighty power, and made it as
subservient as those great material forces which modern science has
learned to awaken and to govern. They were drilled to a factitious
humility, prone to find utterance in expressions of self-depreciation and
self-scorn, which one may often judge unwisely, when he condemns them as
insincere. They were devoted believers, not only in the fundamental
dogmas of Rome, but in those lesser matters of faith which heresy
despises as idle and puerile superstitions. One great aim engrossed
their lives. "For the greater glory of God"--ad majorem Dei gloriam--
they would act or wait, dare, suffer, or die, yet all in unquestioning
subjection to the authority of the Superiors, in whom they recognized the
agents of Divine authority itself.




CHAPTER II.

LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS.


CONVERSION OF LOYOLA.--FOUNDATION OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.--
PREPARATION OF THE NOVICE.--CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ORDER.--
THE CANADIAN JESUITS.


It was an evil day for new-born Protestantism, when a French artilleryman
fired the shot that struck down Ignatius Loyola in the breach of