These Jesuit astronomers and geographers were associate members of all the learned societies of Europe, and were especially serviceable to those bodies in being able to determine the longitude and latitude of the places they described. Between 1684 and 1686 they fixed the exact position of the Cape of Good Hope and of Louveau in Siam. As early as 1645 Riccioli attempted to determine the length of a degree of longitude. Similar work was done by Thoma in China, Boscovitch and Maire in the Papal States, Leisganig in Austria; Mayer in the Palatinate, and Beccaria and Canonica in northwestern Italy. Veda published the first map of the Philippines about 1734. Mezburg and Guessman made maps of Galicia and Poland, Andrian of Carinthia, and Christian Meyer of the Rhine from Basle to Mainz. Riccioli, a distinguished reformer of cartography, published his "Almagestum novum", and his "Geographia et hydrographia reformata" as early as 1661. Kircher gave the world his "Arsmagnetica" and "Mundus subterraneus" about the same time, and made the ascent of Etna and Stromboli at the risk of his life, to measure their craters. His theory of the interior of the earth was accepted by Leibniz and by the entire Neptunist school of geology. He was the first to attempt to chart the ocean currents. Heinrich Scherer of Dillingen (1620-1704) devoted his whole life to geography, and made the first orographical and hydrographical synoptic charts. Johann Jacob Hemmer was the founder of the first meteorological society, which had contributors from all over the world. This list is sufficiently glorious.
Perhaps it might be noted here that these eminent men were not primarily seeking distinction or aiming at success in the sciences to which they devoted themselves. That consideration occupied only a secondary place in their thoughts and the glory they achieved was sought exclusively to enable them the more easily to reach the souls of men. But on the other hand, that motive inspired them with greater zeal in the prosecution of their work than a merely human purpose would have done. Assuredly, it would have been much more comfortable for Ricci and Schall and Verbiest and Grimaldi to be looking through telescopes in the observatories of Europe than at Canton or Pekin, where every moment they were in danger of having their heads cut off. As a matter of fact, after more than forty years of service for China's education in mathematics and astronomy, the only reward that Father Schall reaped was, as we have seen, to be dragged to court, though he was paralyzed and speechless, and to be condemned to be hacked to pieces.
It is quite true that the philosophers of the Society have never evolved any independent philosophical or theological thought, in the modern acceptation of that term. That is, they have never acted like the captain of a ship who would throw his charts and compass overboard, and insist that North is South because he thinks it so. The aim of philosophy is intellectual truth and not the extravagances of a disordered imagination. Contrary to the modern superstition, Catholic philosophers are not hampered in their speculations by authority, nor are they compelled in their study of logic, metaphysics and ethics to draw proofs from revelation. Philosophy is a human not a divine science, but on the other hand, Catholic philosophy is prevented from going over the abyss by the possession of a higher knowledge than unassisted human reason could ever attain. Thus protected, it speculates with an audacity, of which those who are not so provided can have no conception. For them philosophy runs through the whole theological course, and when Holy Scripture, the pronouncements of the Church, and the utterances of the Fathers have established the truth of the particular doctrine which is under consideration, then reason enters, and elevated, ennobled, fortified and illumined, it walks secure in the highest realms of thought. Three entire years are given to the explicit study of it, in the formation of the Jesuit scholastic, and it continues to be employed throughout his four or five years of theology. Both sciences are fundamental in the Society's studies, and it has not lacked honor in either. But as philosophy is subsidiary and ancillary, it will be sufficient to set forth what is said about the Society's theologians.
Dr. Joseph Pohle writing in "The Catholic Encyclopedia" tells us that controversial theology was carried to the highest perfection by Cardinal Bellarmine. Indeed, there is no theologian who has defended almost the whole of Catholic theology against the attacks of the Reformers with such clearness and convincing force. Other theologians who were remarkable for their masterly defence of the Catholic Faith were the Spanish Jesuit Gregory of Valencia (d. 1603) and his pupils Adam Tanner (d. 1635) and Jacob Gretser (d. 1625). Nor can there be any question that Scholastic theology owes most of its classical works to the Society of Jesus. Molina was the first Jesuit to write a commentary on the theological "Summa" of St. Thomas, and was followed by Cardinal Toletus and those other brilliant Spaniards, Gregory of Valencia, Suárez, Vasquez, and Didacus Rúiz. Suárez, the most prominent among them, is also the foremost theologian the Society of Jesus has produced. His renown is due not only to the fertility and wealth of his literary productions, but also to his clearness, moderation, depth and circumspection. He had a critic, both subtle and severe, in his colleague, Gabriel Vásquez. Didacus Rúiz wrote masterly treatises on God and the Trinity, as did Christopher Gilles; and they were followed by Harruabal, Ferdinand Bastida, Valentine Herice, and others whose names will be forever linked with the history of Molinism. During the succeeding period, John Præpositus, Caspar Hurtado, and Antonio Pérez won fame by their commentaries on St. Thomas. Ripalda wrote the best treatise on the supernatural order. To Leonard Lessius we owe some beautiful treatises on God and his attributes. Coninck made the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Sacraments his special study. Cardinal John de Lugo, noted for his mental acumen and highly esteemed as a moralist, wrote on the virtue of Faith and the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. Claude Tiphanus is the author of a classical monograph on the notions of personality and hypostasis, and Cardinal Pallavicini, known as the historiographer of the Council of Trent, won repute as a dogmatic theologian by several of his writings (XIV, 593-94).
With regard to moral theology, Lehmkhul tells us that in the middle of the eighteenth century there arose a man who was, so to say, a blessing of Divine Providence. Owing to the eminent sanctity which he combined with solid learning, he definitely established the system of moral theology which now prevails in the Church. That man was St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori, who was canonized in 1839, and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1871. In his youth he was imbued with the stricter principles of moral theology, but as he himself confesses, the experience of fifteen years of missionary life and careful study brought him to realize the falseness and the evil consequences of the system in which he had been educated, and the necessity of a change. He, therefore, took the "Medulla" of the Jesuit, Hermann Busembaum, subjected it to a thorough examination, confirmed it by internal reasons and external authority, and then published a work which was received with universal applause, and whose doctrine is entirely on Probabilistic principles. This approval and appropriation of Busembaum's teaching by one who has been made a Doctor of the Church is a sufficient vindication of the doctrine of Probabilism, for which the Society suffered so much, and is at the same time a magnificent tribute to the greatness of Busembaum, "whose book," Lehmkuhl contents himself with saying, "was widely used," whereas forty editions of it had been issued during the author's own life, which happened to be an entire century before the publication of Liguori's great work. Busembaum's "Medulla" was printed in 1645, and Liguori's "Moral Theology" in 1748. Up to 1845, there were 200 editions of Busembaum; that is, one edition for every year of its existence. In the history of moral theology Sánchez, Layman, Azor, Castro Palao, Torres, Escobar also may be cited as leading lights.
In Scripture there are the illustrious names of Maldonado, Ribera, Prado, Pereira, Sancio and Pineda. Of the saintly Cornelius a Lapide (Vanden Steen) a Protestant critic, Goetzius, said in 1699: "He is the most important of Catholic Scriptural writers." His "Commentary of the Apocalypse" has been translated into Arabic. In ascetical theology, St. Ignatius is a leader in modern times; and his "Spiritual Exercises" form a complete system of asceticism. With him are a great number of his sons, whose names are familiar in every religious house, such as Bellarmine, Rodríguez, Alvarez de Paz, Gaudier, da Ponte, Lessius, Lancicius, Surin, Saint-Jure, Neumayr, Dirckink, Scaramelli, Nieremberg and many others. Finally, it can not be denied that the Society has hearkened to the second rule of the Summary of its Constitutions, which is read publicly and with an unfailing regularity every month of the year, in every one of its houses throughout the world, namely: that "the End of this Society is not only to attend to the salvation and perfection of our own souls, with the divine grace, but with the same, seriously to employ ourselves in procuring the salvation and perfection of our neighbor."
The canonization of saints proceeds very slowly in the modern Church. Years and years are spent in preliminary investigations of the life, the holiness, the doctrines, and the miracles of the one who is to be presented to the public recognition of the Church. Theologians and canonists have to pass on all those points and those who testify speak only under the most solemn oaths and the threat of dire censure if they witness to what they know to be false. Infinite labor has been expended before the question is presented to the Holy See. Very many of these causes never reach even that stage, for everywhere, in its progress, stands an official called the Promoter of the Faith, but popularly known as the "Devil's Advocate," whose work consists in doing his utmost to throw obstacles in the way of the canonization. Nevertheless, the Society has a sufficient number on its roll of fame, in spite of its comparatively brief and perpetually perturbed existence, to convince the world that it is not the maleficent organization that it is credited with being.
At the head of the list come the two friends, Ignatius and Xavier, dying within four years of each other: the latter in 1552, the former in 1556. The third is Borgia, who died in 1572. He had set aside all the honors of the world, except that of actual royalty, in order to take the lowest place in the Society, but he became its chief. In charming contrast with these three great men, are the three boy saints: Stanislaus, Aloysius, and Berchmans, dying respectively in 1568, 1591 and 1621. Stanislaus, the little Polish noble, travelled all the way from Vienna to Rome on foot, a distance of 1500 miles, to enter the novitiate. He had no money, or guide, or friends, but he arrived safely, for the angels gave him Communion on his journey, and he has ever since been the darling of the beginners in religious life. Aloysius was of princely blood, but died nursing the sick in the hospital. He is the patron of youthful purity, and was never a priest, though an unwise writer makes a missionary of him. The third, John Berchmans, was neither prince nor noble. On the contrary, it used to be the delight of foreigners, when rambling through the little Flemish town of Diest, to see the name of "Berchmans" on the humble shops of hucksters and grocers, and to fancy that some of the little lads who clattered about in their sabots, on their way to school, were relatives of his. His sanctity has made his family name famous in the world. His beatification was especially welcome, because, as Berchmans was the very incarnation of the Jesuit rule, the Order cannot have been the iniquitous organization it is frequently said to be.
Then there are three Japanese Jesuits who were crucified at Nagasaki in 1597; and in 1616 came Alfonso Rodríguez, who had prepared Peter Claver to be the Apostle of the negro slaves in America, and who went quietly from his post at the gates of the College of Minorca to the gates of heaven. Peter Claver had to wait for thirty-eight years before going to join his venerable friend. Besides the two St. Francises of the early days, there are two more of that name in the Society: the Frenchman, John Francis Regis, who died in 1640, and the Italian, Francis Hieronymo, whose work ended in 1716. They were both preachers to the most abandoned classes. Hieronymo could gather as many as 15,000 men to a regular monthly Communion, and when he entered the royal convict ships, he converted those sinks of iniquity into abodes of peace and resignation.
It may be noted here that St. Francis Regis had a distinction peculiarly his own. Long after his canonization as a saint, he was proclaimed to have been actually expelled from the Society, and that the public disgrace was prevented only by his death, which occurred before the official papers arrived from Rome. This accusation is trident-like in its wounding power or purpose. It transfixes Regis, and kills his reputation for virtue; then it inflicts a gash on the Society by making it present to the Church, as worthy of being raised to the altars, a man whom it was unwilling to keep in its own houses; finally, it assails the Church and attempts to show that no respect should be had for its decrees of canonization. It was almost unnecessary for the learned Bollandist, Van Ortroy, to show that there is no foundation whatever for this story of the dismissal of St. John Francis Regis from the Society of Jesus.
Such are the canonized Jesuits. The Blessed are more numerous. There are ninety-one of them. First in time are the forty Portuguese martyrs under Ignatius de Azevedo, who were slain by the French Huguenots in a harbor of the Azores in the year 1570. Then follow the English witnesses to the Truth. The first to die was Thomas Woodhouse, who was executed in 1573. Between that date and 1582 four others were put to death; among them the illustrious Edmund Campion. Of those who died in the persecutions of Japan, between 1617 and 1627, there are thirty-one Japanese as well as European Jesuits. Rudolf Aquaviva was put to death in Madura in 1583, and John de Britto in 1693. Two Hungarians, Melchior Grodecz and Stephen Pongracz were slain in Hungary in 1619, and Andrew Bobola was butchered by the Cossacks in 1657. There are others among the Society's Blessed who were not martyred, but would have been willing to win their crown in that way, if God so wanted. They are Peter Faber, the first priest of the Society; Peter Canisius, the Apostle of Germany; and the Italian Antonio Baldinucci, a great missionary who used to whip himself to blood, to move the hearts of the hardened sinners around him, and who lighted bonfires of bad books and pictures and playing cards in the public squares to impress his excitable fellow-countrymen. His missionary methods were somewhat like those of Savonarola.
Those who are ranked as Venerable are fifty in number, including Claude de la Colombiére, the Apostle of the devotion to the Sacred Heart; Cardinal Bellarmine; Nicholas Lancicius, the well-known ascetical writer; Julien Maunoir, the apostle of his native Brittany; and José Anchieta, the thaumaturgus of Brazil. There are, however, a great many others under consideration, among them being the heroes of North America – Jogues, Goupil, Lalande, Brébeuf, Lalemant, Garnier, Daniel, Chabanel – who were slain by the Iroquois. In the conclaves of 1605, which elected Clement VIII and Leo XI, Bellarmine was very seriously considered as a possible pope, but the fact that he was a Jesuit was an obstacle in the eyes of many. When he died in 1621, there was a general expectation that he would be canonized for his extraordinarily holy life. In fact, Urban VIII who was so rigid in such matters placed him among the "Venerable" six years after his death. His case was re-introduced for beatification in 1675, 1714, 1752 and 1832, but nothing was done chiefly because it would have angered the French regalist politicians, as his name was associated with a doctrine most obnoxious to them. In 1920 the case was again taken up.
We omit the countless thousands of Jesuits who ever since the Society was established have striven in every possible way to realize its ideals; the heroes who have hurried with delight to the most disgusting and dangerous missions they could find in the farthermost parts of the world; who have died by thousands of disease and exhaustion in the pest-laden ships that carried them to their destination or flung them dead on some desolate coast; or those who have been slain by savages or devoured by wild beasts; or who died of starvation in the forests and deserts where they were hunting for souls; or have given their lives with joy for the privilege of ministering to the plague-stricken. Nor do we mention here the great phalanxes of the unknown who, without a single regret for what they might have been in the world, have endeavored to obey, to some extent, at least, that startling admonition that they hear so often: Ama nesciri et pro nihilo reputari: "Love to be unknown and to be reputed as nothing," – the men who have truly lived up to that ideal in the repulsiveness of hospitals and jails and asylums, or in the ceaseless drudgery and obscurity of the class-room and the unchanging routing of household occupations.
These men have seen themselves time and time again robbed of all their possessions, hounded out of their own countries and cities as if they were criminals, their names branded with infamy and a by-word for all that is vile, and they understood better and better, as time went on, what is meant by that page which stares at them from their rule book and which is entitled: "The Sum and Scope of Our Constitutions," and which tells them: "We are men crucified to the world, and to whom the world is crucified; new men who have put off their own affections to put on Christ, dead to themselves to live to justice; who, with St. Paul, in labors, in watching, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Ghost, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, shew themselves ministers of God; and, by the armor of justice, on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, by good success and ill success, press forward with great strides to their heavenly country, and by all means possible, and with all zeal, urge on others also, ever looking to God's greatest glory."
CHAPTER XII
FROM VITELLESCHI TO RICCI
1615-1773
Pupils in the Thirty Years War – Caraffa; Piccolomini; Gottifredi – Mary Ward – Alleged decline of the Society – John Paul Oliva – Jesuits in the Courts of Kings – John Casimir – English Persecutions. Luzancy and Titus Oates – Jesuit Cardinals – Gallicanism in France – Maimbourg – Dez – Troubles in Holland. De Noyelle and Innocent XI – Attempted Schism in France – Gonzáles and Probabilism – Don Pedro of Portugal – New assaults of Jansenists – Administration of Retz – Election of Ricci – The Coming Storm.
As Mutius Vitelleschi's term of office extended from 1615 to 1645, it coincided almost exactly with the Thirty Years War. Of course, the colleges, which had been established in almost every country in Europe, felt the effects of this protracted and devastating struggle, but, on the other hand, comfort was found in the fact that many of the great statesmen and soldiers of that epoch had been trained in those schools. There was, for instance, the Emperor Ferdinand, of whom Gustavus Adolphus used to say, "I fear only his virtues," and associated with him was Maximilian, the Great, who was so ardent in the practice of his religion that Macaulay describes him as, "a fervent missionary wielding the powers of a prince." He appointed the Jesuit poet, Balde, as his court preacher, and called to Ingolstadt the Jesuit astronomer, Scheiner, who disputed with Galileo the discovery of the sun-spots – as a matter of fact, the discoveries of both synchronized with each other, but Fabricius is asserted to have anticipated both. Scheiner suggested and planned the optical experiment which bears his name, and also invented the pantograph.
Tilly, one of the greatest warriors of his time, had first thought of entering the Society, but, on the advice of his spiritual guides, took up the profession of arms. According to Spahn "he displayed genuine piety, remarkable self-control and disinterestedness and seemed like a monk in the garb of a soldier" (The Catholic Encyclopedia, XIV, 724). As he was in command of the league of the Catholic states, and was ordered to restore the lands which had been wrested from their Catholic owners, of course, he gained the reputation of being a bitter foe of Protestantism – an attitude of mind which was attributed to his education at Cologne and Chatelet. Wallenstein, his successor, was educated at the Jesuit college of Olmütz and was a liberal benefactor of his old masters in the work of education. The fact that in 1633 they saved from the fury of a Vienna mob their rancorous enemy, the famous Count de Thurn, when he was taken prisoner by Wallenstein in the Bohemian uprising, ought to count for something in dissipating the delusion that Jesuits are essentially persecutors. When the Emperor Mathias sent them back to Bohemia and founded a college for them at Tirnau and affiliated it to the University of Prague, they showed their gratitude by sacrificing a number of their men in the pestilence which was then raging.
Richelieu, who was prominent in what was called the French period of the war, was particularly solicitous in protecting the interests of his former teachers. Although politically supporting the Protestant cause, he invariably stipulated in his treaties that the Jesuits should be protected in the territories handed over to Protestant control, even when they opposed him, as for instance, in the Siege of Prague, where Father George Plachy, a professor of sacred history in the university, led out his students in a sortie and drove back the foe – an exploit which merited for him a mural crown from the city while Emperor Ferdinand III sent an autograph letter to the General of the Society to thank him for the patriotism displayed by Plachy. Indeed, when the Protestant ministers of Charenton wanted Richelieu to suppress the Jesuits, he answered that "it was the glory of the Society to be condemned by those who attack the Church, calumniate the saints, and blaspheme Christ and God. For many reasons, the Jesuits ought to be esteemed by everyone; indeed there are not a few who love them precisely because men like you hate them."
There is one of their pupils who, at this time, though a man of unusual ability, brought sorrow not only on the Society but also on the universal Church: Marc Antonio de Dominis. He was a Dalmatian, whose family had given a Pope and many illustrious prelates to the Church. He followed the course of the Jesuit college in Illyria, and amazed his masters by the brilliancy of his talents. He entered the novitiate, and contrary to the practice of the Society was immediately made a professor of sacred eloquence, philosophy and mathematics. Crowds flocked to hear him; meantime he distinguished himself in the pulpit. Apparently he was a priest when he became a novice. The fame he acquired, however, turned his head and he left the Society to become a bishop, and later an archbishop, in Dalmatia. But his utterances soon showed that he was at odds with the Church. He was with Venice in its quarrel with the Pope, and then relinquishing his archbishopric, he fled to England, where he was received with enthusiasm by James I, who kept him at court, showered rich benefices on him and made him Dean of Windsor. There he wrote a book entitled "De republica christiana" (1620), which denied the primacy of the Pope. Pursued by remorse he went to Rome and at the feet of Gregory XV implored forgiveness for his apostasy. But his repentance was feigned. His letters to certain individuals showed that he was still a heretic, and he was imprisoned in Sant' Angelo, where he died in 1624, giving signs at the last moment of genuine repentance.
The long Generalate of Vitelleschi was clouded by one disaster: the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Duchy of Lorraine. They had opposed the bigamous marriage of the duke, but his confessor, Father Cheminot, claimed that there were sufficient grounds for invalidating the first marriage, and took the opposite side. He was expelled from the Society or left it.
During Vitelleschi's time, the famous English nun, Mary Ward, appeared in Rome. She had been a Poor Clare, but found that it was not her vocation to be a contemplative, and she, therefore, proposed to establish a religious congregation which would do for women in their own sphere what the Jesuits were doing for men. For that end she asked for dispensation from enclosure, choir duty, the religious habit and also freedom from diocesan control. As all this was an imitation of the Society's methods, she and her companions began to be called by their enemies "Jesuitesses." Their demands, of course, evoked a storm, but Father Vitelleschi encouraged them, and Suárez and Lessius were deputed to study the constitutions of the new congregation. Nevertheless, although the women were the recipients of very great consideration from three Popes, Paul V, Gregory XV, and Urban VIII, the committee of cardinals to whom the matter was referred, refused in 1630 to approve of their rules. In 1639 the little group returned to England where, under the protection of Queen Henrietta Maria, they began their work, and were approved by the Holy See. At first, they were known in Rome as "The English Ladies." In Ireland and America they are "The Loretto Nuns" (A masterly review of this incident may be found in Guilday's "English Refugees," I, c. vi).
Vitelleschi died in February, 1645, and was followed in rapid succession by Fathers Caraffa, Piccolomini, Gottifredi and Nickel, whose collective terms amounted only to seventeen years. Caraffa governed the Society for three years; Piccolomini for two; and Gottifredi died before the congregation which elected him had terminated its work. Nickel was chosen in 1652. He was old and infirm and after nine years, felt compelled to ask for a Vicar-General to assist him in his work. The one chosen for this office was John Paul Oliva. He served three years in that capacity, but as he had been made Vicar with the right of succession, he became General automatically when Father Nickel died on July 31, 1664. This departure from usage had been allowed with the approval of Pope Alexander VII. Oliva was a Venetian and two of his family, his grandfather and uncle, had been Doges of the Republic. Before his election to the office of General he had been ten years master of novices and had also been named rector of the Collegium Germanicum. He was on terms of intimacy with Condé and Turenne; and Innocent X died in his arms. His election evidently gave great satisfaction. Princes and cardinals began to multiply the colleges of the Society throughout Italy, where they already abounded. Milan, Naples, Cuneo, Monbasileo, Volturna, Genoa, Turin, Savigliano, Brera and other cities all wanted them.
It is this period from 1615 to 1664, which, for some undiscoverable reason, is described both by Ranke and Böhmer-Monod as marking the deterioration and decay of the Society. An examination of this indictment is, of course, imperative; and though it must necessarily be somewhat polemical, it may be helpful to a better understanding of the situation and give a more complete knowledge of facts. Ranke begins his attack by throwing discredit on Vitelleschi, describing him as a man of "little learning," adducing as his authority for this assertion a phrase in some Italian writer who says that Vitelleschi was a man "di poche lettre ma di santità di vita non ordinaria." Now the obvious meaning of this is, not that he was a man of "little learning," but that "he wrote very few letters." As he belonged to an unusually illustrious family of princes, cardinals, and popes; and as he had not only made the full course of studies in the Society, but had taught philosophy and theology for several years and was subsequently appointed to be the Rector of the Collegium Maximum of Naples, which was the Society's house of advanced studies, and as he was, besides, the author of several learned works, it is manifestly ridiculous to class him with the illiterates. As a matter of fact, Mutius Vitelleschi was a far better educated man than Leopold von Ranke.
Father Nickel, in turn, is set down as "rude, discourteous, and repulsive; to such an extent that he was deposed from his office by the general congregation, which explicitly declared that he had forfeited all authority."
It would be hard to crowd into a whole chapter as many false statements as this much and perhaps over-praised historian contrives to condense in a single sentence. For apart from the inherent impossibility of anyone who was "rude, repulsive and discourteous" arriving at the dignity of General of the Society, it is absolutely false that Father Nickel "was deposed from his office and was explicitly told that he had forfeited his authority." Far from this being the case, it was he who had summoned the congregation in order to lay before it the urgent necessity of his being relieved from the heavy burden of his office. On its assembling, the first thing he did was to ask for a Vicar because his infirmities and his age – he was then seventy-nine years old – made it impossible for him to fulfill the duties of his office, or even to take part in the proceedings of the congregation. Moreover, it is absolutely calumnious to say that the congregation explicitly declared that he had forfeited all his authority. Even Ranke, who makes the charge, declares that he was guilty of no transgression; nor was the action of the congregation in defining the Vicar's position as "not being in conjunction with that of the retiring General," anything else than a desire to avoid having the Society governed by two heads. Nor did this denote "a change in the Society's methods;" for there had been a provision in the constitution from the very beginning for even the deposition of a general. Again, far from being repulsive in his manners, the congregation proclaimed him to have been the very opposite. Indeed, all his brethren sympathized with him, especially at that moment, because, besides the usual burden of his office and his age, he was afflicted by the sad news which had just reached him that three of the Fathers who were delegates to the congregation – the Vice-Provincial of Sardinia and his two associates – had been shipwrecked at the mouth of the Tiber. The words of the congregation's acceptance of his withdrawal denote nothing but the deepest reverence and affection. They are: Congregatio obsequendum duxit voluntati charissimi optimeque meriti Parentis, that is, "The congregation deemed it proper to comply with the desire of the most beloved and most deserving Father."