The Society of Jesus.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 173, 22 October 1880, Page 2

The Society of Jesus.

The expulsion of the Jesuits from France may have some practical influence on the future of an English colony. A company of 27 Trappists will (the European Mail says) embark in a few clays for the South of Africa, to which they have been given a free passage by the Government. The party includes several workmen — masons, statuaries, locksmiths, and carpenters—and, what is more important, some typographers. It is the design of the Prior of the Trappists that a review be published quarterly at the Cape, which should entertain all questions in which the Order are interested. The projected establishment atDunbrody may thus become a great colonial centre for a body that includes many nationalities. Although the first Abbey of La Trappe was founded as far back as 1140, the present order is of much later date. In the lapse of centuries the monks had rather receded from pristine piety, and Jean de Ranee in 1602 devoted his property to the endowment of the Abbey, and his life to the reform of its occupants. He established the rule, which still obtains, and which, while commanding silence, prayer, reading, and manual labour, forbids wine, animal food, or study. Both in this country and in Ireland the Trappists have had their institutions, but they seem not to have made any permanent way. In 1790 a company of them, driven out of France during the Revolution, were hospitably received by Mr. Weld, of Lulworth, who granted them some land in Dorsetshire, and there they remained till after the battle of Waterloo. At a more recent date another body were expelled from France, but these, to the number of 64, were English and Irish subjects. A French frigate conveyed them to Cork, where they landed in November, 1831, and soon afterwards established themselves near Waterford. The new Cape colonists will begin foreign life under very different conditions, and may be destined to form in .another quarter of the world the rallying point of their dispersed Order.