Thus, _e.g._, when the novice has returned from his month of mendicancy, to discharge the menial offices of the establishment, there is provision made in the printed documents of the Order, that the nauseous dose shall take full effect upon the constitution; for as it would be very natural that, when the cook should find some man of rank and learning appointed to his kitchen as the scullion, he should show towards him some small measure of respectful courtesy, the rule of the Examen has expressly directed to the contrary. “It were better,” it says, “that the cook should avoid a softened style of request towards the novice; let him rather, with modesty, command him to do this or that. For if he speaks as a request, it is then a man addressing a man; thus it will be a cook—a layman, asking a priest to wash an earthen pot, or to do anything of this kind, which would seem neither decent nor proper. Whereas if he uses the style of command,—‘Do this,’—‘Do that,’—then it is at once understood that he speaks as in the name and person of Christ: it is not the voice of the cook that is heard, nor even that of the Superior, but of the Lord.” {26} When a man has once submitted to such a process, there is no difficulty in perceiving that he must come out from it an abject slave. Once convinced that he is to regard the order of the cook as the voice of the Lord, he is obviously prepared to receive the directions of the General as the expressions of the same Divine and holy will. Thus Loyola, in his letter on Obedience, addressed to the Portuguese houses, in the year 1553, and only three years before his death, says, “I would that every true and genuine son of the Society should be known by this very mark, that he looks not to the person to whom he yields obedience, but that he sees in him the Lord Christ, for whose sake that obedience is rendered.” A moment’s glance at such a passage shows clearly that the obedience due to a perfect, spotless, and unchangeable Redeemer, is transferred, without qualification, to an imperfect, short-sighted, and fallible Superior. The Superior “sits in the temple and shows himself as God.” Accordingly, in the same letter he adds, “Obedience is to be rendered to the Superior, not on account of his wisdom, goodness, or any other such-like qualities with which he may be endowed, but solely because he is in God’s place, and wields the authority of Him who says, ‘They that hear you, &c.’” {27}