masters! Have you forgotten the sublime vow which you made to our
master, Ignatius Loyola? Answer me, unfaithful and disobedient
daughter of the Church! Repeat to me the oath which you took when he
received you into the holy Society of the Disciples of Jesus! Repeat
your oath, I say!"

As if constrained by an invisible power, Jane had arisen, and now
stood, her hands folded across her breast, submissive and trembling
before her father, whose erect, proud, and wrathful form towered
above her.

"I have sworn," said she, "to subject my own thought, and will, my
life, and endeavors, obediently to the will of the Holy Father. I
have sworn to be a blind tool in the hands of my masters, and to do
only what they command and enjoin. I have vowed to serve the holy
Church, in which alone is salvation, in every way and with all the
means at my command; and I will despise none of these means,
consider none trifling, disdain none, provided it leads to the end.
For the end sanctifies the means, and nothing is a sin which is done
for the honor of God and the Church!"

"Ad majorem Dei gloriam!" said her father, devoutly folding his
hands. "And you know what awaits you, if you violate your oath?"

"Earthly disgrace and eternal destruction await me. The curse of all
my brethren and sisters awaits me--eternal damnation and punishment.
With thousands of torments and tortures of the rack, will the Holy
Fathers put me to death; and as they kill my body and throw it as
food to the beasts of prey, they will curse my soul and deliver it
over to purgatory."