First as to the Spiritual Coadjutors. One who aspires to enter the Society passes two years of trial as a "novice," then takes "simple" (or dissolvable) vows and becomes a "scholastic" (student). In the other monastic bodies, which now have simple vows, the aspirant takes his "solemn" (or indissoluble) vows three years afterwards, before he becomes a priest. The peculiarity of the Jesuits is that they defer the taking of the "solemn" vows for a considerable number of years, and they thus have a large body of priests who are not rigidly bound to the Society and cannot hold important office in it. This gives the General, who has a despotic power of dismissing these Spiritual Coadjutors, a very lengthy period for learning the intimate character of men before they are admitted to the secrets of the Society. Then there is the remarkable scheme of spying, tale-bearing, and registering by which this knowledge of men is secured. The aspirant must make a general confession of his life to the superior, or some priest appointed by him, when he enters the Society. He is from that day closely observed and subjected to extraordinary tests, and a strict obligation is laid on each to tell the faults and most private remarks of his neighbour. The local superiors then send periodical full reports on each man to the headquarters at Rome, where there must be a bureau not unlike the criminal intelligence department of a great police-centre: except that the good and the mediocre are as fully registered as the suspects. The important place assigned to teaching in the programme of the Society also leads to serious modifications of the monastic ideal. Every order has some device or other by which it escapes the practical inconveniences of its vow of poverty, but the Jesuits have gone beyond all others. They have drawn a casuistic distinction between a "college" and a "house of the professed," and have declared that the ownership of the former is not inconsistent with their vow of poverty. The result is that they may heap up indefinite wealth in the shape of colleges and their revenues, yet boast of their vow of poverty. The various devices of the monastic bodies to, at the same time, retain and disclaim the ownership of their property are many and curious. This is the one instance of a monastic body boldly saying that its vow is consistent with the ownership of great wealth. Hence the mercantile spirit which will at once spread in the Society.