Within four months, or at Easter 1538, Ignatius summoned the whole of his followers to Rome. The poor little house in a vineyard was now too small, and Codacio gave them a large house in the Piazza Margana. From this they went out daily to beg and teach and preach, and to visit "ladies of the highest rank." These eleven eloquent and learned preachers, these nobles who begged their bread and washed verminous invalids, soon divided the Roman world into ardent admirers and ardent critics. An Augustinian friar, in particular, opened fire on them from his pulpit. Ignatius was "a wolf in sheep's clothing," he insisted; let people inquire at Alcalà, and Salamanca, and Paris, and Venice, and see whether he was not wanted by the Inquisition here and there. Friends at the Vatican were reminded that this sort of thing interfered with their good work, and the Pope was induced to inquire into the charges; but even the Pope's acquittal of them did not silence their critics, and for a time they bore much poverty and anxiety. Half of Rome, if not half of Catholicism, hated the Jesuits from their first year; and it would be absurd to think that this was due to their fervour in denouncing sin. It was due in a very large measure to the diplomatic character of the work of Ignatius, which we perceive so clearly even in the discreet narratives of the early Jesuit historians. The infant Society was delivered from its perils by returning from the cultivation of the rich and powerful to the service of the weak and powerless. We shall constantly find the fortunes of the early Jesuits vacillating according as they practise one or other of these incongruous activities, and we can quite understand that their critics came to see an element of calculation even in their philanthropy. By their brave ministration to the poor they win the favour of the rich: by the favour of the rich they rise to political and educational work, and the poor are almost forgotten until some epidemic of criticism threatens their very existence. It is quite useless to deny that there was calculation in their humbler ministration when we find Ignatius admitting it from the outset; yet it would be equally untrue to deny that they served the poor with a sincere and often heroic humanity, and that the favour and power they trusted to obtain by doing so were not sought for their personal profit, but for the better discharge of what they conceived to be a high mission.