LIFE OF FATHER DE SMET.
CHAPTER I.
THE JESUITS IN AMERICA.
Birth of Society of Jesus - Wonderful growth and power - Downfall and restoration - Missionary work of Society in America - Early Canadian missions - Insuperable obstacles - Novitiate at Whitemarsh - Migration to St. Louis - Founding of the Florissant Novitiate - The St. Louis University-Indian missions entrusted to Jesuits - Field of labor in Far West.
Forty-two years after the discovery of America there arose in Europe a religious order destined to play a leading part in the Christianization of those races which the great achievement of Columbus made known to the world. This was the Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius Loyola in 1534. The chief purposes of its creation were to stem the swelling tide of Protestantism in Europe and to spread the Catholic faith among infidel peoples in every quarter of the globe. Its chosen motto, Ad majorem Dei gloriam (1) (To the greater glory of God), was a fitting expression of its exalted program for the spiritual regeneration of the race. The career of the Society in Europe, for two hundred years after its founding, forms one of the strangest and most fascinating pages in the history of Christianity. Its marvelous organization made it the most autocratic power of its time, while the severity of the novitiate through which its members had to pass insured a loyalty and obedience that were superior to every test. The growth of the Society was rapid, for it had come into existence at an opportune time,
(1) The monogrammatic form, A. M. D. G., is of universal use in Jesuitic practices.