came.[19]

[19] _Frederick_, i. bk. iii. ch. viii. 269-274.

France, for example, is the conspicuous proof of what overtook the
deniers. 'France saw good to massacre Protestantism, and end it, in the
night of St. Bartholomew, 1572. The celestial apparitor of heaven's
chancery, so we may speak, the genius of Fact and Veracity, had left his
writ of summons; writ was read and replied to in this manner.' But let
us look at this more definitely. A complex series of historic facts do
not usually fit so neatly into the moral formula. The truth surely is
that while the anxieties and dangers of the Catholic party in France
increased after St. Bartholomew, whose dramatic horror has made its
historic importance to be vastly exaggerated, the Protestant cause
remained full of vitality, and the number of its adherents went on
increasing until the Edict of Nantes. It is eminently unreasonable to
talk of France seeing good to end Protestantism in a night, when we
reflect that twenty-six years after, the provisions of the Edict of
Nantes were what they were. 'By that Edict,' the historian tells us,
'the French Protestants, who numbered perhaps a tenth of the total
population, 2,000,000 out of 20,000,000, obtained absolute liberty of
conscience; performance of public worship in 3500 castles, as well as in
certain specified houses in each province; a State endowment equal to
L20,000 a year; civil rights equal in every respect to those of the
Catholics; admission to the public colleges, hospitals, etc.; finally,
eligibility to all offices of State.' It was this, and not the Massacre,
which was France's reply to the Genius of Fact and Veracity. Again, on
the other side, England accepted Protestantism, and yet Mr. Carlyle of
all men can hardly pretend, after his memorable deliverances in the
_Niagara_, that he thinks she has fared particularly well in
consequence.

The famous diatribe against Jesuitism in the _Latter-Day Pamphlets_,[20]
one of the most unfeignedly coarse and virulent bits of invective in the
language, points plumb in the same direction. It is grossly unjust,
because it takes for granted that Loyola and all Jesuits were
deliberately conscious of imposture and falsehood, knowingly embraced
the cause of Beelzebub, and resolutely propagated it. It is one thing to
judge a system in its corruption, and a quite other thing to measure the
worth and true design of its first founders; one thing to estimate the
intention and sinceri