as Christ present and
personified. This autocracy of the General might have seemed to menace
the overlordship of the Holy See, but for a fourth vow which the Company
determined to adopt. It ran as follows: 'That the members will
consecrate their lives to the continual service of Christ and of the
Popes, will fight under the banner of the Cross, and will serve the
Lord and the Roman Pontiff as God's vicar upon earth, in such wise that
they shall be bound to execute immediately and without hesitation or
excuse all that the reigning Pope or his successors may enjoin upon them
for the profit of souls or for the propagation of the faith, and shall
do so in all provinces whithersoever he may send them, among Turks or
any other infidels, to furthest Ind, as well as in the region of
heretics, schismatics, or believers of any kind.'

Loyola himself drew up these constitutions in five chapters, and had
them introduced to Paul III., with the petition that they might be
confirmed. This was in September 1539, and it is singular that the man
selected to bring them under the Pope's notice should have been Cardinal
Contarini. Paul had no difficulty in recognizing the support which this
new Order would bring to the Papacy in its conflict with Reformers, and
its diplomatic embarrassments with Charles V. He is even reported to
have said, 'The finger of God is there!' Yet he could not confirm the
constitutions without the previous approval of three Cardinals appointed
to report on them. This committee condemned Loyola's scheme; and nearly
a year passed in negotiations with foreign princes and powerful
prelates, before a reluctant consent was yielded to the Pope's avowed
inclination. At length the Bull of Sept. 27, 1540, _Regimini militantis
Ecclesiae_, launched the Society of Jesus on the world. Ignatius became
the first General of the Order; and the rest of his life, a period of
sixteen years, was spent in perfecting the machinery and extending the
growth of this institution, which in all essentials was the emanation of
his own mind.

It may be well at this point to sketch the organization of the Jesuits,
and to describe the progress of the Society during its founder's
lifetime, in order that a correct conception may be gained of Loyola's
share in its creation. Many historians of eminence, and among them so
acute an observer as Paolo Sarpi, have been of the opinion that Jesuitry
in its later developments was a deflection from the spirit