And what makes the case more melancholy still is that the vows are frequently taken in very early youth. Mr. Seymour states that although some join in later life, the great majority are trained in the seminaries of the Society, and that many take the vows at the early age of eighteen. When such is the case it is clear that the unhappy novice is completely secured before he has any opportunity of forming an acquaintance with the world. He renounces domestic happiness before he knows its joys, and gives up his property before he learns its value. In the simplicity of his boyhood he gradually imbibes the principles of his instructor, and is trained to regard obedience as the essence of Christianity; and then, just at the moment when the powers begin to be developed, and the mind to put forth its strength in independent action, the yoke is rivetted, and the poor captive made a slave for life. Nor is he in this important step allowed even his father’s counsel. God teaches the young man to look up to his parents, and say, “My Father, thou art the guide of my youth;” but the Jesuit teaches him to cast aside such guidance, and the following iniquitous rule is laid down in the secret instructions of the Society: “Let them be strictly cautioned not to make the least discovery of their call to any intimate friend, not even their parents, before they are admitted.” {44} Now if a young man is thus to give up all in behalf of the Society—if property is to be sacrificed, and parents abandoned—the very least that should be done by honest men is to set the whole system fully and frankly before him. He should at all events have the opportunity of considering well the consequences of his decision. But as he is cut off from seeking the counsel of his father, so is he forbidden even to make himself acquainted with the whole of the Constitutions of the Society; and I find a passage in the outset of the Examen, which expressly directs, “That all the Constitutions be not read by those who come as novices, but only a compendium of those parts from which they may learn what they have themselves to do.” {45} He is, therefore, to be gradually drawn on, step by step; he is never allowed to see the whole system, lest he should recoil from it; but he is led on, little by little, till he becomes so inextricably entangled, that there is not the slightest possibility of a return.