iscovery that the best way to win a man to an ideal is to kindle his
imagination. His own thought was imaginative to the verge of abnormality
and the means which he took to awaken and artificially to stimulate this
faculty in his followers were drastic in the extreme.

The purpose of the _Exercises_ is stated in the axiom that "Man was
created to praise, reverence and serve God our Lord and thereby to save
his soul." To fit a man for this work the spiritual exercises were
divided into four periods called weeks, though each period might be
shortened or lengthened at the discretion of the director. The first
week was devoted to the consideration of sin; the second to that of
Christ's life as far as Palm Sunday; the third to his passion; and the
fourth to his resurrection and ascension. Knowing the tremendous power
of the stimulant to be administered Ignatius inserted wise counsels of
moderation in the application of it. But, subject only to the condition
that the novice was not to be plied beyond what he could bear, he was
directed in the first week of {402} solitary meditation to try to see the
length, breadth and depth of hell, to hear the lamentations and
blasphemies of the damned, to smell the smoke and brimstone, to taste the
bitterness of tears and of the worm of conscience and to feel the
burnings of the unquenchable fire. In like manner in the other weeks he
was to try to picture to himself in as vivid a manner as possible all the
events brought before his mind, whether terrible or glorious. The end of
all this discipline was to be the complete subjection of the man to the
church. The Jesuit was directed ever "to praise all the precepts of the
church, holding the mind ready to find reasons for her defence and nowise
in her offence." There must be an unconditional surrender to her not
only of the will but of the intelligence. "To make sure of being right
in all things," says Loyola, "we ought always to hold by the principle
that the white I see I should believe to be black if the hierarchical
church were so to rule it."

Inspired by this ideal the small body of students, agreeing to be called
henceforth the Company of Jesus--a military term, the _socii_ being the
companions or followers of a chief in arms--took vows to live in poverty
and chastity [Sidenote: August 15, 1540] and to make a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem. With this object they set out to Venice and then turned
towards Rome for papal approbation o