The Company of Jesus was thus based upon a system of mutual and pervasive espionage.  The novice on first entering had all his acts, habits, and personal qualities registered.  As he advanced in his career, he was surrounded by jealous brethren, who felt it their duty to report his slightest weakness to a superior.  The superiors were watched by one another and by their inferiors.  Masses of secret intelligence poured into the central cabinet of the General; and the General himself ate, slept, prayed, worked, and moved about the world beneath the fixed gaze of ten vigilant eyes.  Men accustomed to domesticity and freedom may wonder that life should have been tolerable upon these terms.  Yet we must remember that from the moment when a youth had undergone the Exercitia and taken the vows, he became no less in fact than in spirit perinde ac cadaver in the hands of his superior.  The Company replaced for him both family and state; and in spite of the fourth vow, it is very evident that the Black Pope, as the General came to be nicknamed, owned more of his allegiance than the White Pope, who filled the chair of S. Peter.  He could, indeed, at any moment be expelled and ruined.  But if he served the Order well, he belonged to a vast incalculably-potent organism, of which he might naturally, after such training as he had received, be proud.  The sacrifice of his personal volition and intelligence made him part of an indestructible corporation, which seemed capable of breaking all resistance by its continuity of will and effecting all purposes by its condensed sagacity.  Nor was he in the hands of rigid disciplinarians.  His peccadilloes were condoned, unless the credit of the order came in question.  His natural abilities obtained free scope for their employment; for it suited the interest of the Company to make the most of each member’s special gifts.  He had no tedious duties of the regular monastic routine to follow.  He was encouraged to become a man of the world, and to mix freely with society.  And thus, while he resigned himself, he lived the large life of a complex microcosm.  Nor were men of resolute ambition without the prospect of eventually swaying an authority beyond that possessed by princes; for any one of the professed might rise to the supreme power in the order.

Something must be said about Loyola’s interpretation of the vow of poverty.  During his lifetime the Company acquired considerable wealth; and after his death it became a large owner of estates in Europe.  How was this consistent with the observance of that vow, so strictly inculcated by the founder on his first disciples, and so pompously proclaimed in their constitutions?  The professed and all their houses, as well as their churches, were bound to subsist on alms; they preached, administered the sacraments of the Church, and educated gratis.  They could inherit nothing, and were not allowed to receive money for their journeys.  But here appeared the wisdom