A BEGINNING had been made. The first recruits had been enrolled in that army which was speedily to swell into a mighty host, and unfurl its gloomy ensigns, and win its dismal triumphs in every land. We can imagine Loyola's joy as he contemplated these two men, fashioned so perfectly in his own likeness. The same master-artificer who had moulded these two could form others—in short, any number. The list was soon enlarged by the addition of four other disciples. Their names—obscure then, but in after years to shine with a fiery splendor—were Jacob Lainez, Alfonso Salmeron, Nicholas Bobadilla, and Simon Rodriguez. The first three were Spaniards, the fourth was a Portuguese. They were seven in all; but the accession of two others increased them to nine; and now they resolved on taking their first step.
On the 15th of August, 1533, Loyola, followed by his eight companions, entered the subterranean chapel of the Church of Montmartre, at Paris, and mass being said by Fabre, who had received priest's orders, the company, after the usual vow of chastity and poverty, took a solemn oath to dedicate their lives to the conversion of the Saracens, or, should circumstances make that attempt impossible, to lay themselves and their services unreservedly at the feet of the Pope. They sealed their oath by now receiving the Host. The day was chosen because it was the anniversary of the Assumption of the Virgin, and the place because it was consecrated to Mary, the queen of saints and angels, from whom, as Loyola firmly believed, he had received his mission. The army thus enrolled was little, and it was great. It was little when counted, it was great when weighed. In sublimity of aim, and strength of faith—using the term in its mundane sense—it wielded a power before which nothing on earth—one principle excepted—should be able to stand.
To foster the growth of this infant Hercules, Loyola had prepared beforehand his book entitled "Spiritual Exercises." This is a body of rules for teaching men how to conduct the work of their "conversion." It consists of four grand meditations, and the penitent, retiring into solitude, is to occupy absorbingly his mind on each in succession, during the space of the rising and setting of seven suns. It may be fitly styled a journey from the gates of destruction to the gates of Paradise, mapped out in stages so that it might be gone in the short period of four weeks. There are few more remarkable books in the world. It combines the self-denial and mortification of the Brahmin with the asceticism of the anchorite, and the ecstasies of the schoolmen. It professes, like the Koran, to be a revelation. "The Book of Exercises," says a Jesuit, "was truly written by the finger of God, and delivered to Ignatius by the Holy Mother of God."
The "Spiritual Exercises," we have said, was a body of rules by following which one could effect upon himself that great change which in Biblical and theological language is termed "conversion." The book displayed on the part of its author great knowledge of the human heart. The method prescribed was an adroit imitation of that process of conviction, of alarm, of enlightenment, and of peace, through which the Holy Spirit leads the soul that undergoes that change in very deed. This divine transformation was at that hour taking place in thousands of instances in the Protestant world. Loyola, like the magicians of old who strove to rival Moses, wrought with his enchantments to produce the same miracle. Let us observe how he proceeded.
The person was, first of all, to go aside from the world, by entirely isolating himself from all the affairs of life. In the solemn stillness of his chamber he was engaged in four meditations each day, the first at daybreak, the last at midnight. To assist the action of the imagination on the soul, the room was to be artificially darkened, and on its walls were to be suspended pictures of hell and other horrors. Sin, death, and judgment were exclusively to occupy the thoughts of the penitent during the first week of his seclusion. He was to ponder upon them till in a sense "he beheld the vast conflagration of hell; its wailings, shrieks, and blasphemies, felt the worm of conscience; in fine, touched those fires by whose contact the souls of the reprobate are scorched."
The second week he was to withdraw his eye from these dreadful spectacles and fix it upon the Incarnation. It is no longer the wailings of the lost that fill the ear as he sits in his darkened chamber, it is the song of the angel announcing the birth of the Child, and "Mary acquiescing in the work of redemption." At the feet of the Trinity he is directed to pour out the expression of the gratitude and praise with which continued meditation on these themes causes his soul to overflow.
The third week is to witness the solemn act of the soul's enrollment in the army of that Great Captain, who "bowed the heavens and came down" in his Incarnation. Two cities are before the devotee—Jerusalem and Babylon—in which will he choose to dwell? Two standards are displayed in his sight—under which will he fight? Here a broad and brave pennon floats freely on the wind. Its golden folds bear the motto, "Pride, Honor, Riches." Here is another, but how unlike the motto inscribed upon it, "Poverty, Shame, Humility." On all sides resounds the cry "To arms!" He must make his choice, and he must make it now, for the seventh sun of his third week is hastening to the setting. It is under the banner of Poverty that he elects to win the incorruptible crown.