and they believed it to be the firmest support of the state and of the throne. They venerated its ministers, and among them the Jesuits, because they knew, that their institute was well calculated to form its followers to the active service of the altars, which they respected. An idea of the institute of the Jesuits cannot be formed without consulting the original code; and the first inspection of it shows the author to have been a man of profound thinking, and eminently animated with the spirit of religious zeal. _Ad majorem Dei gloriam_ was the motto of Ignatius of Loyola, the main principle of all his conduct. He conceived, that a body of men, associated to promote God's greater glory, must profess to imitate, not one or two, but, universally, all the astonishing virtues of the Redeemer; and, in planning his institute, he compressed them all into one ruling motion of _zeal_, which, in his ideas, was the purest emanation of charity, the summit of {180} Christian perfection. He everywhere employs his first principle, as the universal bond, or link, that must unite his society with God, and with their neighbours; and every prescription of his institute is a direct consequence of it. _The greater glory of God_ is the first object that occurs on opening the institute. It is the first thing, on which every candidate is questioned; and, if he be accepted, the first thing to which he is applied. This alone decides upon the admission and dismission of subjects; this regulates their advancement in virtue and letters, the preservation of their health, the improvement of their talents, the distribution and allotment of their employments. Masters must teach, and students must learn, only to advance the greater glory of God: this is the rule of superiors, who command; the motive of subjects, who obey: this alone is considered in the establishment of domestic discipline, in the formation of laws and rules: it is the bond, which connects all, the spring, which moves all; every impulse given to the society must {181} proceed from this; this alone must accelerate or slacken its progress; for this alone it must be maintained; every person in it, every thing in it, prayer and action, labour and rest, rules and exceptions, punishments and rewards, favours and refusals; in a word, every thing in the institute of Ignatius has one motive, one end, one common motto, _The greater glory of God_; with this it commences, with this it ends.