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than a compensation to the public, for all they could possibly obtain from it by mendicity. This opinion was unequivocally expressed by St. Thomas of Aquin, and sanctioned by a bull of Pope Nicholas the third. From that time, the friars did not use manual labor as a means of subsistence, but resorted, in the first instance, to mendicity. In this sense, it was an article of the rule of St. Francis.

It made no part of the original rule of St. Dominic, or of the original rules of the Carmelites, or the Hermits of St. Augustin. Insensibly, however, all of them engrafted it, by particular constitutions, on their respective rules; and thus, the four orders, which we have mentioned, became the four mendicant orders; but St. Francis was the only founder of a religious order, of whose original rule, mendicity was an article.

Experience soon discovered, that many spiritual and many temporal evils attended mendicity. In consequence of them, some of the Franciscan establishments, and almost all the establishments of the three other orders, began to acquire permanent property. This the church first permitted, and afterwards countenanced; and the Council of Trent, confined mendicity to the Observantines and Capucins.

VI.

In 1534, St. Ignatius of Loyola, laid the foundation of the SOCIETY OF JESUS, by the vow, which, with his ten companions, he took in the chapel of Montmartre near Paris. In 1540 and 1543, his Institute was approved by Pope Paul the third; in 1773, Pope Clement the fourteenth issued a bull for its suppression: in the year 1814, Pope Pius the seventh issued a bull for its restoration.

The following character is given of the Society of Jesus, by "M. Bausset, Ancien Evêque d'Alèth, du Chapitre impérial de St. Denis, et Conseiller titulaire, de l'Université impériale," in his very interesting Life of Fenelon.

"The Institute of the Jesuits," (says M. de Bausset), "to which no other institute ever has been, or ever could be compared, for the energy, the foresight or the depth of conception, which traced its plan and combined its springs of action, was designed in its creation, to embrace within the vast employment of its attributes and functions, all classes, all conditions, all elements, which enter into the harmony or verge of political or religious power.

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"Ascending to the epocha of its establishment, it is easily perceived, that the public and avowed object of the institute in religion, was to defend the Catholic Church against the Lutherans and Calvinists; and that its object in politics was to protect social order, and the established government of every country, against the torrent of anarchical opinions, which always advance on a line with religious innovations. Wherever the Jesuits made themselves heard, they preserved all classes of society, in a spirit of order, wisdom and consistence. Called, in their first origination, to the education of the principal families of the state, they extended their cares to the inferior classes: they kept them in the happy habits of religious and moral virtue. Such, particularly, was the useful object of the numerous congregations which they erected, in almost every town, and which they had the talent of connecting with every profession, with every social institution. Simple and easy exercises of piety, familiar instructions, proportioned to every condition, and no wise interfering with the labors or duties of society, served to uphold, in every state of life, that regularity of manners, that spirit of order and subordination, and that wise economy, which preserve peace and harmony in families, and assure the prosperity of empires.-The principal towns of France still remember, that there never was more NO. IX. VOL. V.

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order and tranquillity, more probity in dealings, fewer failures, or less depravation, than while these congregations lasted.

"Profoundly versed in every branch of knowledge, the Jesuits availed themselves, with great ability, of this circumstance, to acquire the consideration always attached to superior lights and talents. The confidence of all Catholic governments, the success of their method of instruction, caused the deposit of public education to pass, almost entirely, into their hands.

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They had the merit of attracting honor to their religious and moral character, by a severity of manners, a temperance, a nobility, and an individual disinterestedness, which even their enemies could not contest them. This is the fairest answer they can make to the satires, which accused them of relaxed morality.

"This body was so perfectly constituted, that it never had either infancy or old age. We see it, in the first days of its birth, forming establishments in every Catholic state; intrepidly combating all the sects, which spring from Lutheranism; founding missions in the East, and the deserts of America, and traversing the Chinese, Japanese and Indian seas. The order existed during two centuries, and it still had the full vigor of its maturity. To its latest breath, it was animated by the spirit, which gave it birth. It had no original imperfections, which called for a supply of new laws.

"The emulation, which it occasioned, was one of its necessary effects; and was useful even to its rivals. All of it expired together, and it dragged in its fall, the madmen, who imprudently triumphed in its catastrophe!

"It will never be explained, by what spirit of giddiness,

the governments, of which the Jesuits had best deserved, were so unwisely led to deprive themselves of their most useful defenders. The puerile causes, the laughable accu sations, which served as a pretence for their proscription, are now scarcely remembered; but it is remembered, that the judges, who declared the whole body convicted of the greatest crimes, could not point out, among all the members, which composed the order, a single guilty individual. The destruction of the Jesuits was a deadly wound to the education of youth, in all Catholic Europe, a remarkable confession, equally in the mouths of their friends and enemies.

"The society knew how to make its misfortunes redound to their honor, by supporting them with a noble and tranquil courage. The religious and unconquered resignation of the members of the order, attested the purity of its principles and feelings. These men, who were described so dangerous, so powerful, so vindictive, bowed, without a murmur, under the terrible hand that crushed them ; they had the generosity to respect and mourn over the weakness of the pontiff destined to sacrifice them. The proscription of them was the essay, and served for the model, of those cruel sports of fury and folly, which destroyed, in a moment, the wisdom of ages, and devoured, in one day, the riches of past and future generations."

VII.

VII. 1. IT remains to give some account of the MILITARY ORDERS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. Some time before the first Crusade, an hospital was established at Jerusalem, for the relief of the poor pilgrims who resorted there. In 1100, Gerard, the director of it, and his companions, pro

fessed themselves members of the order of St. Benedict, and formed a congregation, under the name of St. John the Baptist. It was approved by Pope Pascal II. In 1113, Raymond du Puy, the successor of Gerard, divided the order into three classes; to the nobles, he assigned the profession of arms, for the defence of the faith, and the protection of pilgrims; the ecclesiastics were to exercise the religious functions, for the benefit of the order; the lay-brothers were to take care of the pilgrims and the sick. These regulations were approved by Pope Calixtus II.; and the order then took the name of Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. After the loss of the Holy Land, they retired to Cyprus; thence to Rhodes: in 1522, that island was taken from them, by Solyman the Great: Malta was then given them by the Emperor Charles V.; from that time, they have generally been known by the appellation of Knights of Malta.

VII. 2. The order of the Knights Templars was established nearly about the same time, and for the same purposes, as that of the Knights of Malta. They took their name from a monastery given them by Baldwin, the second king of Jerusalem, which immediately adjoined the temple in his palace. They were suppressed by the Council of Vienne, in 1312.

VII. 3. The Teutonic Order was founded on the model of that of the Knights Templars. It was confirmed by Pope Celestine, in 1191. The knights conquered Prussia in 1230, and fixed the head seat of their order at Marienburgh. In 1525, the grand master embraced the Protestant religion since which time, the head seat of the order has been at Margentheim, in Franconia.

VII. 4. The original object of the Order of St. Lazarus,

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