oceed to the
arraignment, trial, and deposition of the general[123], {363} whom also, if
they judge it necessary, they may dismiss and eject out of the society.
There is not, perhaps, to be found a general of any other religious body,
who has so absolute and perpetual a dependence on his order; it being well
known, that the general of the Jesuits has not power to dispose of the
least thing in his own behalf or to his private advantage, nor can so much
as command any other diet or apparel, than that which is assigned him by
the society[124].

It is true, indeed, that the general alone can dispose of all the places
and employments of the order, but this he cannot do without taking the
advice of his counsel[125]; and nothing, perhaps, discovers the wisdom of
St. Ignatius more than his having left all places of trust in his order to
the free disposal of the general, by which means he has secured the
subjects from that partiality and injustice which might be apprehended from
their immediate and subaltern superiors, who, by the intercession and
solicitation of friends, relations, or benefactors, are too often prevailed
upon to prefer persons of little merit to others more deserving. He has
effectually banished from his order all intrigues and cabals for the
gaining of preferment, evils which are not easily guarded against, and are
{364} often the cause of fatal divisions in communities, of scandalous
law-suits, of jealousies, hatred, and the entire subversion of union,
charity, and the primitive spirit of the order. St. Ignatius has, with
great judgment, provided against this disorder, and secured the peace and
regularity of the whole body, by stripping all the places of preferment in
this society of those temporal advantages, which are commonly annexed to
them in other orders, whence the most ambitious person amongst them will
hardly think it worth his while to make interest for a place, which carries
with it no natural allurement of ease or convenience, and has little else
but the empty name of superiority to recommend it.

In an order, that was to be wholly devoted to the service of the public, it
was necessary, that such a plan of government should be established as
should leave no room for subjects to doubt, but that all the places and
employments were given to persons the most deserving, and, according to the
best rules of human prudence, the most capable of filling them to
advantage. This assurance frees them from all