Xavier, afterwards widely renowned, had
been chosen with great care, as the companions of Ignatius. He called
them together in July, 1534, and on August 15th of the same year he
selected six of them and bade them follow him to the Church of the
Blessed Virgin, at Montmartre, in Paris. There and then they bound
themselves to renounce all their goods, and to make a voyage to
Jerusalem, in order to convert the Eastern infidels; if that scheme
proved impracticable, they agreed to offer themselves to the sovereign
pontiff for any service he might require of them. War prevented the
journey to the Holy Land, and so, after passing through a variety of
experiences, Ignatius and his companions met at Rome, to secure the
sanction of Pope Paul III. for the new society. After a year and a half
of deliberation and discussion a favorable decision was reached, which
was, no doubt, partly facilitated by the growth of the Reformation. The
new society was chartered on September 27, 1540, for the "defence and
advance of the faith."

Ignatius was elected as the general of the order and entered upon his
duties, April 17, 1541. He soon prepared a constitution which was not
adopted until after his death, and then in an amended form. Loyola ended
his remarkable and stormy career, July 31, 1556.

_Constitution and Polity of the Order_

The _Institutum_, which contains the governing laws of the society, is a
complex document consisting of papal bulls and decrees, a list of the
privileges which have been granted to the order, ten chapters of rules,
decrees of the general congregations, the plan of studies (_ratio
studiorum_), and three ascetic writings, of which the Spiritual
Exercises of Ignatius constitute the chief part.

The society is distributed into six grades: novices, scholastics,
temporal coadjutors, spiritual coadjutors, professed of the three vows,
and professed of the four vows.

The professed form only a small percentage of the entire body, and
constitute a sort of religious aristocracy, from which the officers of
the society are selected. Only the professed of the fourth vow, who add
to the three vows a pledge of unconditional obedience to the pope,
possess the full rights of membership. This final grade cannot be
reached until the age of forty-five, so that if the candidate enters the
order at the earliest age permissible, fourteen, he has been on
probation thirty-one years when he reaches the final grade.

The society i