The Jesuits - James Aitken Wylie

two companions, Fabre and Xavier. The former
was soft and pliable, and easily took the shape
which the master-hand sought to communicate.
The other was obdurate, like the rocks of his native
mountains, but the patience and genius of Loyola
finally triumphed over his pride of family and
haughtiness of spirit. He first of all won their
affection by certain disinterested services; he next
excited their admiration by the loftiness of his own
asceticism; he then imparted to them his grand
project, and fired them with the ambition of sharing
with him in the accomplishment of it. Having
brought them thus far he entered them on a course
of discipline, the design of which was to give them
those hardy qualities of body and soul, which
would enable them to fulfill their lofty vocation as
leaders in an army, every soldier in which was to
be tried and hardened in the fire as he himself had
been. He exacted of them frequent confession; he
was equally rigid as regarded their participation in
the Eucharist; the one exercise trained them in
submission, the other fed the flame of their zeal,
and thus the two cardinal qualities which Loyola
demanded in all his followers were developed side
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