and grace. These meditations last, without intermission, about a month,
and, under an astute and experienced directorship, they have been found
of such power, that the Manual of Spiritual Exercises boasts to have
saved souls more in number than the letters it contains.

To this succeed two years of discipline and preparation, directed,
above all things else, to perfecting the virtues of humility and
obedience. The novice is obliged to perform the lowest menial offices,
and the most repulsive duties of the sick-room and the hospital; and he
is sent forth, for weeks together, to beg his bread like a common
mendicant. He is required to reveal to his confessor, not only his sins,
but all those hidden tendencies, instincts, and impulses which form the
distinctive traits of character. He is set to watch his comrades,
and his comrades are set to watch him. Each must report what he observes
of the acts and dispositions of the others; and this mutual espionage
does not end with the novitiate, but extends to the close of life.
The characteristics of every member of the Order are minutely analyzed,
and methodically put on record.

This horrible violence to the noblest qualities of manhood, joined to
that equivocal system of morality which eminent casuists of the Order
have inculcated, must, it may be thought, produce deplorable effects upon
the characters of those under its influence. Whether this has been
actually the case, the reader of history may determine. It is certain,
however, that the Society of Jesus has numbered among its members men
whose fervent and exalted natures have been intensified, without being
abased, by the pressure to which they have been subjected.

It is not for nothing that the Society studies the character of its
members so intently, and by methods so startling. It not only uses its