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nformed that his best friend whom he had always respected

and loved had fallen a victim to the terrible heresies of the

Protestant (or Catholic) church.

``Heresy'' until a very short time ago was regarded as a

disease. Nowadays when we see a man neglecting the personal

cleanliness of his body and his home and exposing himself

and his children to the dangers of typhoid fever or another

preventable disease, we send for the board-of-health and the

health officer calls upon the police to aid him in removing this

person who is a danger to the safety of the entire community.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a heretic, a man

or a woman who openly doubted the fundamental principles

upon which his Protestant or Catholic religion had been

founded, was considered a more terrible menace than a typhoid

carrier. Typhoid fever might (very likely would) destroy the

body. But heresy, according to them, would positively destroy

the immortal soul. It was therefore the duty of all good and

logical citizens to warn the police against the enemies of the

established order of things and those who failed to do so were

as culpable as a modern man who does not telephone to the

nearest doctor when he discovers that his fellow-tenants are

suffering from cholera or small-pox.

In the years to come you will hear a great deal about

preventive medicine. Preventive medicine simply means that our

doctors do not wait until their patients are sick, then step

forward and cure them. On the contrary, they study the patient

and the conditions under which he lives when he (the patient)

is perfectly well and they remove every possible cause of illness

by cleaning up rubbish, by teaching him what to eat and what

to avoid, and by giving him a few simple ideas of personal

hygiene. They go even further than that, and these good

doctors enter the schools and teach the children how to use

tooth-brushes and how to avoid catching colds.

The sixteenth century which regarded (as I have tried to

show you) bodily illness as much less important than sickness

which threatened the soul, organised a system of spiritual

preventive medicine. As soon as a child was old enough to spell

his first words, he was educated in the true (and the ``only

true'') principles of the Faith. Indirectly this proved to be a

good thing for the general progress of the people of Europe.

The Protestant lands were soon dotted with schools. They

used a great deal of very valuable time to explain the Catechism,

but they gave instruction in other things besides theology.

They encouraged reading and they were responsible

for the great prosperity of the printing trade.

But the Catholics did not lag behind. They too devoted

much time and thought to education. The Church, in this matter,

found an invaluable friend and ally in the newly-founded

order of the Society of Jesus. The founder of this remarkable

organisation was a Spanish soldier who after a life of unholy

adventures had been converted and thereupon felt himself

bound to serve the church just as many former sinners, who

have been shown the errors of their way by the Salvation Army,

devote the remaining years of their lives to the task of aiding

and consoling those who are less fortunate.

The name of this Spaniard was Ignatius de Loyola. He

was born in the year before the discovery of America. He had

been wounded and lamed for life and while he was in the hospital

he had seen a vision of the Holy Virgin and her Son, who

bade him give up the wickedness of his former life. He decided

to go to the Holy Land and finish the task of the Crusades.

But a visit to Jerusalem had shown him the impossibility

of the task and he returned west to help in the warfare

upon the heresies of the Lutherans.

In the year 1534 he was studying in Paris at the Sorbonne.

Together with seven other students he founded a fraternity.

The eight men promised each other that they would lead holy

lives, that they would not strive after riches but after righteousness,

and would devote themselves, body and soul, to the service

of the Church. A few years later this small fraternity