having Nature herself for its enemy, and misery for its meed, will be able to extend its care to the welfare of others?—As to myself, the tenour and colour of my life were fixed the moment I expressed my childish wish of being a clergyman. The love of knowledge, however, which betrayed me into the path of wretchedness, has never forsaken its victim. It is probable that I could not have found happiness in uneducated ignorance. Scanty and truly hard-earned as it is the store on which my mind feeds itself, I would not part with it for a whole life of unthinking pleasure: and since the necessity of circumstances left me no path to mental enjoyment, except that I have so painfully trodden, I hail the moment when I entered it, and only bewail the fatality which fixed my birth in a Catholic country.
“The order of events would here require an account of the system of Spanish education, and its first effects upon my mind; but, since I speak of myself only to shew the state of my country, I shall proceed with the moral influence, that, without interruption, I may present the facts relating severally to the heart and intellect, in as large masses as the subject permits.
“The Jesuits, till the abolition of that order, had an almost unrivalled influence over the better classes of Spaniards. They had nearly monopolized the instruction of the Spanish youth, at which they toiled without pecuniary reward; and were equally zealous in promoting devotional feelings both among their pupils and the people at large. It is well known that the most accurate division of labour was observed in the allotment of their various employments. Their candidates, who, by a refinement of ecclesiastical policy, after an unusually long probation, were bound by vows, which, depriving them of liberty, yet left a discretionary power of ejection in the order; were incessantly watched by the penetrating eye of the master of novices: a minute description of their character and peculiar turn was forwarded to the superiors, and at the end of the noviciate, they were employed to the advantage of the community, without ever thwarting the natural bent of the individual, or diverting his natural powers by a multiplicity of employments. Wherever, as in France and Italy, literature was in high estimation, the Jesuits spared no trouble to raise among themselves men of eminence in that department. In Spain, their chief aim was to provide their houses with popular preachers, and zealous, yet prudent and gentle, confessors. Pascal, and the Jansenist party, of which he was the organ, accused them of systematic laxity in their moral doctrines: but the charge, I believe, though plausible in theory, was perfectly groundless in practice. If, indeed, ascetic virtue could ever be divested of its connatural evil tendency—if a system of moral perfection that has for its basis, however disavowed and disguised, the Manichæan doctrine of the two principles, could be applied with any partial advantage as a rule of conduct, it was so in the hands of the Jesuits. The strict, unbending maxims of the Jansenists, by urging persons of all characters and tempers to an imaginary goal of perfection, bring quickly their whole system to the decision of experience. They are like those enthusiasts who, venturing upon the practice of some Gospel sayings, in the literal sense, have made the absurdity of that interpretation as clear as noon-day light. A greater knowledge of mankind made the Jesuits more cautious in the culture of devotional feelings. They well knew that but few can prudently engage in open hostility with what in ascetic language is called the world. They now and then trained up a sturdy champion, who, like their founder Loyóla, might provoke the enemy to single combat with honour to his leaders; but the crowd of mystic combatants were made to stand upon a kind of jealous truce, which, in spite of all care, often produced some jovial meetings of the advanced parties on both sides. The good fathers came forward, rebuked their soldiers back into the camp, and filled up the place of deserters by their indefatigable industry in engaging recruits.
“The influence of the Jesuits on the Spanish morals, from every thing I have learned, was undoubtedly favourable. Their kindness attracted the youth from the schools to their company: and, though this intimacy was often employed in making proselytes to the order, it also contributed to the preservation of virtue in that slippery age, both by the ties of affection, and the gentle check of example. Their churches were crowded every Sunday with regular attendants, who came to confess and receive the sacrament. The practice of choosing a certain priest, not only to be the occasional confessor, but director of the conscience, was greatly encouraged by the Jesuits. The ultimate effects of this surrender of the judgment are, indeed, dangerous and degrading; but, in a country where the darkest superstition is constantly impelling the mind into the opposite extremes of religious melancholy and profligacy, weak persons are sometimes preserved from either by the friendly assistance of a prudent director; and the Jesuits were generally well qualified for that office. Their conduct was correct, and their manners refined. They kept up a dignified intercourse with the middling and higher classes, and were always ready to help and instruct the poor, without descending to their level. Since the expulsion of the Jesuits, the better classes, for the most part, avoid the company of monks and friars, except in an official capacity; while the lower ranks, from which these professional saints are generally taken, and where they re-appear, raised, indeed, into comparative importance, but grown bolder in grossness and vice, suffer more from their influence than they would by being left without any religious ministers.[12]
“Since the abolition of the Jesuits, their devotional system has been kept up, though upon a much narrower scale, by the congregations of Saint Philip Neri (l’Oratoire, in France), an Italian of the sixteenth century, who established voluntary associations of secular clergymen, living together under an easy rule, but without monastic vows, in order to devote themselves to the support of piety. The number, however, of these associated priests is so small, that, notwithstanding their zeal and their studied imitation of the Jesuits, they are but a faint shadow of that surprising institution. Yet these priests alone have inherited the skill of Loyóla’s followers in the management of the ascetic contrivance, which, invented by that ardent fanatic, is still called, from his Christian name, Exercises of Saint Ignatius. As it would be impossible to sketch the history of my mind and heart without noticing the influence of that powerful engine, I cannot omit a description of the establishment kept by the Philippians at Seville—the most complete of its kind that probably has ever existed.
“The Exercises of Saint Ignatius are a series of meditations on various religious subjects, so artificially disposed, that the mind being at first thrown into distressing horror, may be gradually raised to hope, and finally soothed, not into a certainty of Divine favour, but a timid consciousness of pardon. Ten consecutive days are passed in perfect abstraction from all wordly pursuits. The persons who submit to this spiritual discipline, leave their homes for rooms allotted to them in the religious house where the Exercises are to be performed, and yield themselves up to the direction of the president. The priest, who for nearly thirty years has been acting in that capacity at Seville, enjoys such influence over the wealthy part of the town, that, not satisfied with the temporary accommodation which his convent afforded to the pious guests, he can now lodge the Exercitants in a separate building, with a chapel annexed, and every requisite for complete abstraction, during the days of their retirement. Six or eight times in the year the Exercises are performed by different sets of fifty persons each. The utmost precision and regularity are observed in the distribution of their time. Roused by a large bell at five in the morning, they immediately assemble in the chapel to begin the meditation appointed for the day. At their meals they observe a deep silence; and no intercourse, even among each other, is permitted, except during one hour in the evening. The settled gloom of the house, the almost incessant reading and meditation upon subjects which, from their vagueness and infinitude, harass and bewilder the fancy, and that powerful sympathetic influence, which affects assemblies where all are intent on the same object and bent on similar feelings, render this house a modern cave of Trophonius, within whose dark cells cheerfulness is often extinguished for ever.
“Unskilful, indeed, must be the hand that, possessed of this engine, can fail to subdue the stoutest mind in which there lurks a particle of superstitious fear. But Father Vega is one of those men who are born to command a large portion of their fellow creatures, either by the usual means, or some contrivance of their own. The expulsion of the Jesuits during his probationship in that order, denied him the ample field on which his early views had been fixed. After a course of theological studies at the University, he became a member of the Oratorio, and soon attracted the notice of the whole town by his preaching. His active and bold mind combines qualities seldom found in the same individual. Clear-headed, resolute, and ambitious,