But Loyola's embarrassment did not amount to discomfiture. He may never have held personal intercourse with Paul III before; but he understood the papacy, its wants and necessities, and had ample opportunity to study the character and penetrate the motives of the pope. For this he was specially fitted--few men have lived who excelled him in this respect--and, having constructed his society upon the theory that men were of no value unless persuaded to surrender up their personality to superiors, the occasion served him to address such arguments to the pope as would convince him that the obedience to authority he had introduced in his society was just what the existing exigencies of the papacy required to save it from overthrow. It may easily be seen now--although the pope may not have then employed penetration enough to discover it--that he did not intend to deal unequivocally and in entire frankness with the pope, so long as there remained a prospect of obtaining his end otherwise. He evidently had an accurate conception of what is meant by the terms confession and avoidance, in the sense of seeming to consent while not consenting. Thus, in order to remove the objection of the pope and secure his approval, he suggested another and new obligation to be inserted in the constitution of his society, providing that the members should also take a vow "of obedience to the Holy See and to the pope _pro tempore_, with the express obligation of going, without remuneration, to whatsoever part of the world it shall please the pope to send them."[12] These words must be read critically in order that their meaning as intended by Loyola, and always since interpreted by the Jesuits, may not be misconceived. Their true import is, that whilst the members of the society were to pay obedience to the pope as well as to their general, it was qualified as to the former, and absolute as to the latter; that is, that as they were nominally to have two heads, the authority of both should, for all practical purposes, center in one. In point of fact, as amply demonstrated by subsequent experience, this new provision did not change the nature or limit the extent of the obligation of unquestioning obedience to the Jesuit general. Its most essential feature was that which required the members to go wheresoever ordered by the pope, without compensation; but with regard to this and all other duties, and the manner of discharging them, they were required to obey their general. They could receive no instructions except those which came from him, all of which they were required to obey as coming directly from God. This amendment created no special relations--or, indeed, any whatsoever--between the pope and the society; for he held no direct intercourse with it. And it only created such relations between the pope and the general as obliged the latter to send the members wheresoever the former desired, without remuneration. They remained the slaves of the general, and