The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

PIUS V. AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 283
their difficulties with letters of recommendation. The Order,
he wrote to Toulouse in 1566, is doing so useful a work in the
Church by its colleges that anyone wlio loves and supports it
thereby proves himself a true and pious Catholic.^ He ex-
horted the University of Cologne^ to put no obstacles in the
way of the Jesuits, for their colleges were nurseries of Catholic
doctrine and of a life led in the Christian spirit, and had been
called into existence by the providence of God ; he himself
embraced with paternal love the colleges and all the priests
of the said Order. In another edict Pius V. speaks of the
incalculable fruits produced in the Christian world by the
Society of Jesus, which had trained such teachers, preachers,
and missionaries, men distinguished alike for learning and
piety, and for their exemplary life and holiness.^ He paid
another equally glowing tribute to the Jesuits in the last year
of his life, when he spoke of them as men who had truly renounced
the attractions of the world, and who, despising
earthly riches, had united themselves so closely to their
Saviour that, girt about with poverty and humility, they
^ *" ut qui illam diligunt et fovent, plane ostendant, vere se
pics esse et catholicos et utilitatis publicae studiosos." Ordini
civium nobilium Tolosae (s.d.), Brevia, Arm. 44, t. 12, n. 132,
Papal Secret Archives.
- " Societatis lesu collegia, quae quasi quaedam catholicae
doctrinae christianorumque morum seminaria Dei providentia per
diversas orbis provincias calamitosis hisce . . . temporibus
excitavit, atque adeo Patres omnes praedictae Societatis ea
benevolentia paterna prosequimur etc." Brief of July 3, 1570,
in Reiffenberg, I.: Mantissa, p. 50.
2 " Innumerabiles fructus, quos benedicente Domino christiano
orbi Societas lesu, vires litterarum praecipue sacrarum scientia,
religione, vita exemplari morumque sanctimonia perspicuos,
multorum religiosissimos praeceptores at verbi divini etiam apud
longinquas et barbaras illas nationes, quae Deum pcnitus non
noverant, optimos praedicatores et interpretes producendo,
felicissime haetenus attulit." Brief of April 29, 1568, Bull. Soc.
lesu, 42.