t seemed, could save the falling cause of Rome,
and there have been men to assert that a miracle occurred. The order of
the Jesuits was founded in 1540 by Ignatius Loyola.[11] His followers
with intense fanaticism and self-abnegation devoted themselves
absolutely to upholding the ancient faith, to trampling out heresy
wherever it appeared. They sent out missionaries too, to the New World,
to Asia, Africa, and even distant Japan. As Catholicism lost ground in
Europe it extended over other continents.[12]

Partly at least under Jesuit influence began the great
"Counter-reformation," as it is called, the reform within the Church
itself. Even the most faithful Catholics had admitted the need of this.
Charles V had long urged the calling of a general council, and one
finally assembled in 1545 at Trent. It even tried to win the Lutherans
back peaceably into the fold, and, though this hope was soon abandoned,
a very marked reform was established within the Church. This Council of
Trent held sessions extending over nearly twenty years, and when its
labors were completed the entire body of laws and doctrines of the Roman
Catholic Church were fully established and defined.[13]

The refusal of the Protestants to join the Council of Trent brought
matters to a crisis. It placed them definitely outside the pale of the
Church, and Charles V could no longer find excuse in his not
over-troublous conscience, to avoid taking measures against them. They
themselves realized this, and formed a league for mutual support, the
Smalkald League; but it was never very harmonious. Thought, made
suddenly free, could not be expected to run all in the same channel. The
Protestants had divided into Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, and a
dozen minor sects, some of which opposed one another more bitterly than
they did the Catholics. Toleration was as yet a thing unknown.[14]

The state of affairs was thus one peculiarly fitted for the genius of
Charles, who managed so to divide the members of the league that only
one of them, the Elector of Saxony, successor to Frederick the Wise, met
the Emperor's forces in battle. He was easily overthrown. The league
dissolved, and Charles, supported by his Spanish forces, was undisputed
master of Germany. He used his power mildly, insisting indeed on the
Protestants returning to the Church, but promising them many of the
reforms they demanded.

This was the moment of Charles' greatest power (1547). His ancient
ri