The Jesuits - James Aitken Wylie

family and friends. Their vow taught them to forget
their father's house, and to esteem themselves holy
only when every affection and desire which nature
had planted in their breasts had been plucked up by
the roots. They were cut off from property and
wealth. For although the society was immensely
rich, its individual members possessed nothing.
Nor could they cherish the hope of ever becoming
personally wealthy, seeing they had taken a vow of
perpetual poverty. If it chanced that a rich relative
died, and left them as heirs, the General relieved
them of their vow, and sent them back into the
world, for so long a time as might enable them to
take possession of the wealth of which they had
been named the heirs; but this done, they returned
laden with their booty, and, resuming their vow as
Jesuits, laid every penny of their newly-acquired
riches at the feet of the General.
They were cut off, moreover, from the State.
They were discharged from all civil and national
relationships and duties. They were under a higher
code than the national one--the Institutions namely,
which Loyola had edited, and the Spirit of God had
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