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The Jesuits - James Aitken Wylie

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y side. Severe bodily mortifications were also<br />

enjoined upon them. "Three days and three nights<br />

did he compel them to fast. During the severest<br />

winters, when carriages might be seen to traverse<br />

the frozen Seine, he would not permit Fabre the<br />

slightest relaxation of discipline." Thus it was that<br />

he mortified their pride, taught them to despise<br />

wealth, schooled them to brave danger and<br />

contemn luxury, and inured them to cold, hunger,<br />

and toil; in short, he made them dead to every<br />

passion save that of the "Holy War," in which they<br />

were to bear arms.<br />

A beginning had been made. <strong>The</strong> first recruits<br />

had been enrolled in that army which was speedily<br />

to swell into a mighty host, and unfurl its gloomy<br />

ensigns and win its dismal triumphs in every land.<br />

We can imagine Loyola's joy as he contemplated<br />

these two men, fashioned so perfectly in his own<br />

likeness. <strong>The</strong> same master-artificer who had<br />

molded these two could form others--in short, any<br />

number. <strong>The</strong> list was soon enlarged by the addition<br />

of four other disciples. <strong>The</strong>ir names--obscure then,<br />

but in after-years to shine with a fiery splendor--<br />

25

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