Yet we must remember that from the moment when a youth had undergone the _Exercitia_ and taken the vows, he became no less in fact than in spirit _perinde ac cadaver_ in the hands of his superior.

The Company replaced for him both family and state; and in spite of the fourth vow, it is very evident that the Black Pope, as the General came to be nicknamed, owned more of his allegiance than the White Pope, who filled the chair of S.Peter.He could, indeed, at any moment be expelled and ruined.

But if he served the Order well, he belonged to a vast incalculably-potent organism, of which he might naturally, after such training as he had received, be proud.

The sacrifice of his personal volition and intelligence made him part of an indestructible corporation, which seemed capable of breaking all resistance by its continuity of will and effecting all purposes by its condensed sagacity.

Nor was he in the hands of rigid disciplinarians.