is supreme; the other, that, supreme as virtue is, yet, without secular learning, the highest virtue goes unarmed, and at best is profitable to oneself alone. He learns these two lessons, not only in theory, but in practice. To accomplish the purpose of the latter, he takes his seat upon the scholars' bench, and begins to learn with little children. Though he may not meet with brilliant success in the art of learning, still in the art of understanding what learning is, and in the lessons of experience, he becomes a finished scholar. He remains even then too much of a chevalier to give up a cherished idea of his about a spiritual crusade in the East. And it is only when thwarted in this project that, like a true knight, he simply turns to another side of the field. He stays in the West. He is still the Captain of a Company. But he becomes also a legislator among doctors; and, amid his other works, he effects an educational reform.

In his whole campaign, we may discern two characteristics in the spirit of his movements. One is that of defence, the other that of advance. His method of defence showed itself in the reassertion of old principles, in the conservatism of morals,—a plan of campaign, which determines the whole frame of mind, and the social construction of the Company. It rests on the principle of upholding what is, and not moving the ancient landmarks. On the other hand, his advance is towards the solution of the highest questions which can interest mankind. These formed part of the very object and direction of the Order's march. And so it came to pass, that his Company drew to itself that class of minds which are most powerfully arrested by the prospect of solving such questions, especially when times are agitated. His times were agitated, if any ever were, more so than our own, when the same questions still must dominate. His were times of wars with Turks in the East, and with Christians at home; of battles lost and won, with their effects reaching into every household; of royal and imperial administrations confused and overthrown; of new opinions without number; of the Church losing ground along the whole line of the frontier, and withal new worlds looming over an horizon, where from the beginning of time the unknown had brooded in absolute darkness. At such a moment, "Defence and Advance," or as the Papal authority expressed it in the solemn instrument which chartered his Institute, Defensio ac propagatio fidei, were stirring watchwords to men of parts, who felt restive under the inactivity and inefficiency of older methods, on older lines.

I will not pause to say, that the personal poverty and exact obedience, required in the new service, presented no obstacles to the minds and characters which were otherwise attracted to his standard. The antecedents of all antiquity seem to show that such conditions, to such minds, are rather an inducement than a check. And if one takes notice that to this was added, in the Order of Jesus, an absolute equality, whereby every formed member binds himself to accept no dignity within or without, or, at least, to affect no dignity at home or abroad, which will prejudice his full franchise as a member, then, perhaps, the attractiveness of such a life, the conservatism and intense concentration of the Order, as well as the alacrity and endurance manifested in the service, will not appear inexplicable to the minds of this age, in which, under a very different form, the same equality is called liberty, is made to construct republics, to bring down monarchies, and develop some of the most potent agencies for unfolding the energies of men. Yet the liberty of this latter equality reflects but faintly, and as from a broken surface, the freedom of him, who having liberated himself from the shackles of the world, and from all solicitude as to his movements, office, and place, finds in turn, as the German historian expresses it, "his own personal development imposed upon him";9 and, in the firm companionship of one aim, formation, and life, enjoys the manifold support and ready sympathy of individualities as developed as his own.

I shall narrate, in the first part, the facts of Ignatius' career, so far as to indicate the stages of that magisterial art, by which he himself was formed, and which then he reformed in the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum. In the second part, I shall sketch briefly the history of the Ratio itself, and analyze the System as a theory and practice of education.

CHAPTER II.
KNIGHT, PILGRIM, AND SCHOLAR.

The story of the cavalier wounded on the ramparts of Pampeluna has often been told. Loyola was not at the moment governor of the city, nor in any responsible charge. But official responsibility was not necessary for him to see the path of duty and follow it. As one bound to the service of his sovereign by the title of honor and nobility, he retired to the citadel, when the town surrendered; and then, when the ramparts began to give way under the cannonading, he stood in the breach. A ball shattering the rock laid him low, maimed in both his limbs. At once the defence collapsed. Cared for chivalrously by those whose arms had struck him down in battle, he was transported with every delicate attention to his castle of Loyola. It was found that one of his limbs had been ill set. He had it broken again, to be set aright. Meanwhile, instinct with all the ambition of a knight, belonging to a chivalrous nation in an age of chivalry, he was not insensible to the charms of society and affection. And, out of a sensitive care for his personal appearance, he must needs have a protruding bone, which still threatened to mar his figure, sawed off while he looked on. In the loneliness and tedium of a sick-room, he whiled away the hours by dreaming of his ambitions and his aspirations, and he sought to feed them with suitable nourishment. He wanted a romance to read. There was none to be had. So, instead of the novel which was not forthcoming, he took what they gave him, the Life of Christ, and the Lives of some who had served Christ faithfully. The soldier of the field and of blood felt the objects of his ambition change; he became a soldier of the spirit and eternal life. And, after the experiences of his bed of pain, and the protracted communings with another world, he arose another man; he went forth a knight as ever, but not on an expedition terminating as before. An evening and night spent in the sanctuary of Montserrat, as once before he had passed a vigil of arms, when dubbed a chevalier by the King of Navarre; a morning begun with the Holy Sacrifice attended and Holy Communion received, opened to him a new era; and he went forth, bound now by a new oath of fealty to the service of the King of Heaven.

At the side of the altar in this sanctuary of Montserrat, the Abbot of the monastery, eighty-one years later, committed to a marble tablet the record of this event, for the perpetual memory of the future: "Blessed Ignatius of Loyola here, with many prayers and tears, devoted himself to God and the Virgin. Here, as with spiritual arms, he fortified himself in sack-cloth, and spent the vigil of the night. Hence he went forth to found the Society of Jesus, in the year MDXXII."

He first looked about him to find a retreat, and immerse himself in the contemplation of time and eternity. It was a Saturday. John Sacrista Pascual tells us that his mother, a devout lady of