SUCH being the organization and plan of action of this mysterious Society, the next subject for inquiry is, the connecting principle of its vast machinery. This may be briefly stated to be, unhesitating and blind obedience to the authority of the General or his subordinates. To impregnate the mind with this one principle of obedience, appears to be the leading object of Jesuit education. One of the learned Jesuits with whom the Rev. H. Seymour conversed at Rome, stated that their “great and cardinal principle was, that obedience was the greatest Christian duty, and humility the highest Christian virtue, and that this principle was the grand element of their power.” He added, moreover, that it was “so deeply fixed and rooted, that it were as hard to uproot it as to uproot the belief of a God, or of religion.” {24} Accordingly, when a novice is a candidate for admission, he has to undergo six methods of probation, some of which can have no other purpose than effectually to try the completeness of his surrender. He must first pass through the spiritual exercises to be described hereafter; he must next spend a month in a hospital, or amongst any other sick to whom he may be appointed. The third trial is, that he should set out destitute of money, for a whole month, to beg his bread from door to door. The fourth, that on his return to the house he should there execute the most menial and abject offices. The fifth, that he should employ himself for a time in the instruction of the young or ignorant. And the sixth, that, if thus approved, he should act for a time as preacher or confessor. {25} Now, it is obvious that of these trials the third and fourth can have no other object than to break down all respect for private will and judgment, and to test the extent to which the unfortunate victim will submit his soul to the will of his wily captors. There is no moral or religious end to be thus accomplished; the common footboy would clean shoes better than the accomplished historian or philosopher; and it is quite impossible to imagine any other motive for imposing such tasks upon the novices, (many of whom are accomplished gentlemen, and some, I fear, once clergymen from our own Church and universities,) than the desire utterly to crush them at the outset of their career, to eradicate all individuality of will and judgment, and to bring them out from the preparatory process prepared to act out the will of their Superior, though his requirements may be revolting to their taste, repugnant to their judgment, and in direct violation to their conscientious conviction of right and wrong.