tual
dominion of their countries, above all the Hapsburgers; and besides
them, the German princes of the Church, who could not uphold by their
own intrinsic strength, the wavering faith of their subjects: and
lastly the Dukes of Bavaria, who for more than a century had been in
the habit of seeking advantage for their house in a close union with
Rome. When the brotherhood first entered Germany the whole nation was
on the point of becoming Protestant; even at the beginning of the
Thirty years' war, after losses and successes on both sides, three
fourths of Germany were Protestant; but in the year 1650, the whole of
the new Imperial state, and the largest third of the rest of Germany,
had again become Roman Catholic. So well did these foreign priests
serve their Church.

The way in which they worked was marvellous; cautiously, step by step,
with endless schemes, and firm determination, never wavering, bending
to the storm, and indefatigably returning again, never giving up what
they had once begun, pursuing the smallest, as well as the greatest
plans at any sacrifice, this society presented the only specimen of an
unconditional submission of the will, and surrender of everything to
one idea, which did not find expression in individuals, but only in the
society. The order governed, but no single member of it was free, not
even the General of the order.

The society gained honour and favour; it understood well how to make
itself beloved, or indispensable wherever it came; but it never found a
home in Germany. Its fearful principle of mystery and secrecy was felt,
not only by the Protestants, who endeavoured to break its power by
their paper weapons, the flying-sheets, and made it answerable for
every political misdeed, whether far or near, but also in the Roman
Catholic countries. Even there it was only a guest, influential
certainly, and much prized, but from time to time ecclesiastics and
laity felt that it was a thing apart from them. All the other spiritual
societies had become national,--the Jesuits never. It is not unnatural
that this feeling was strongest among the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics,
for their worldly prospects were often injured by the Jesuits.

Thus from the middle of the sixteenth century two opposite methods of
mental cultivation, two different sources of morals and working power
have struggled against one another. Devotion and unconditional
subjection, against feelings of duty and thoughtful self-as