soever you shall ask the Father in my name, that will I do,"[1] and the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians, who contended about the superiority of their teachers in the faith: "I have planted, Apollo watered, but God gave the increase;"[2] further the words of St. James: "If any one of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, and it shall be given him."[3] As we have seen, the Jesuits consider education from a supernatural point of view. They endeavor to lead the children to the knowledge, love, and service of Christ, according to Christ's words: "Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of God." This is an aim above man's nature, and can be obtained only by supernatural means. God alone can give the teacher's words the power to enter into the will, that impregnable citadel of man's nature. This power from on high is bestowed on him who humbly asks for it in prayer.
We must expect that St. Ignatius did not think lightly of this means. In the 16th rule of the Summary of the Constitutions, all Jesuits are exhorted "to apply to the study of solid virtues and of spiritual things; and to account these of greater moment than either learning or other natural or human gifts: for they are the interior things from which force must flow to the exterior, for the end proposed to us." This trust in God's assistance in no way lessens the earnest endeavors of the religious. As the old principle of the great order of St. Benedict was: Ora et labora, so St. Ignatius says: "Let this be the first rule
