e redressed, and the
lives of the clergy made more decent, in accordance with the revival of
intelligence. Nor did it disdain literature or art, or any form of
modern civilization, but sought to combine progress with old ideas; it
was an effort to adapt the Roman theocracy to changing circumstances,
and was marked by expediency rather than right, by zeal rather than a
profound philosophy.

This movement took place among the Latin races,--the Italians, French,
and Spaniards,--having no hold on the Teutonic races except in Austria,
as much Slavonic as German. It worked on a poor material, morally
considered; among peoples who have not been distinguished for stamina of
character, earnestness, contemplative habits, and moral
elevation,--peoples long enslaved, frivolous in their pleasures,
superstitious, indolent, fond of fetes, spectacles, pictures, and Pagan
reminiscences.

The doctrine of justification by faith was not unknown, even in Italy.
It was embraced by many distinguished men. Contarini, an illustrious
Venetian, wrote a treatise on it, which Cardinal Pole admired. Folengo
ascribed justification to grace alone; and Vittoria Colonna, the friend
of Michael Angelo, took a deep interest in these theological inquiries.
But the doctrine did not spread; it was not understood by the
people,--it was a speculation among scholars and doctors, which gave no
alarm to the Pope. There was even an attempt at internal reform under
Paul III. of the illustrious family of the Farnese, successor of Leo X.
and Clement VII., the two renowned Medicean popes. He made cardinals of
Contarini, Caraffa, Sadoleto, Pole, Giberto,--all men imbued with
Protestant doctrines, and very religious; and these good men prepared a
plan of reform and submitted it to the Pope, which ended, however, only
in new monastic orders.

It was then that Ignatius Loyola appeared upon the stage, when Luther
was in the midst of his victories, and when new ideas were shaking the
pontifical throne. The desponding successor of the Gregorys and the
Clements knew not where to look for aid in that crisis of peril and
revolution. The monastic orders composed his regular army, but they had
become so corrupted that they had lost the reverence of the people. The
venerable Benedictines had ceased to be men of prayer and contemplation
as in the times of Bernard and Anselm, and were revelling in their
enormous wealth. The cloisters of Cluniacs and Cistercians--branches of
the B