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 CHAPTER XLII

THE DESIRE OF THE MOTH

In the year 1540, five Spaniards and a Savoyard, styling themselves "Clerks of the Company of Jesus," left Paris under the leadership of the famous Ignatius Loyola, to found an establishment at Rome.

Here Pope Paul III. presented them with a church, and in return these half-dozen of energetic priests gave in an unqualified adhesion to the Sovereign Pontiff. Their avowed intention in thus forming themselves into a separate and independent body (except in so far as they owed allegiance to its supreme head), was the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith, the conversion of heathens, the suppression of heresy, and the education of the young. For these purposes a system was at once organised which should combine the widest sphere of action with the closest surveillance over its agents, the broadest views with the most minute attention to details, an absolute unquestioned authority with a stanch and implicit obedience. To attain universal rule (possibly for a good motive, but at any sacrifice to attain it) over the opinions of humanity, however different in age, sex, character, and nationalities, was the object proposed; and almost the first maxim laid down, and never departed from in the Order, established that all means were justifiable to such an end. It was obvious that to win universal dominion over the moral as over the physical world, every effort must not only be vigorous, but combined and simultaneous, such waste of power must never be contemplated as the possibility of two forces acting in opposite directions, and therefore a code of dis