opinion, and thus it appeared as if the infant society, notwithstanding
the advances it had lately made in securing the good opinion of persons
of high rank, as well as in winning popular applause, was little likely
to receive what was indispensable to its permanent establishment--a
papal bull in its favor.

Personally, however, the Pope did not conceal his cordial feeling toward
Loyola and his companions. He seems to have perceived clearly that these
men, resolute in their punctilious adherence to the doctrine and ritual
of the Church, and committed by the most solemn engagements to its
service--deep-purposed as they were, full of a well-governed energy,
resolute in the performance of the most arduous duties, and, moreover,
highly accomplished in secular and sacred learning--were the very
instruments which the Church had need of in this crisis of its fate.
Northern Europe was irrecoverably lost; Germany and Switzerland were
held to Catholicism at points only; while France and Northern Italy were
listening to the seductions of heresy. Scarcely could it be said, even
of Spain, that it was clear of the same infection. The Church ought
then, at such a moment, to embrace cordially, and by all means to favor,
the efforts of men like Loyola and his distinguished companions.

It was with this feeling that Paul III, while held back by his advisers
from the course he would have adopted, went as far as he could in
promoting and extending the influence of the society. At the same moment
application had been made, on the part of several potentates, for the
services of the fathers, who had already gained a high reputation at the
courts near to which they had exercised their ministry. It was seen and
understood by princes that these were the men--and these almost
alone--to whom might be confided those arduous tasks which the perils of
the times continually presented: none so well furnished as these
fathers; none so self-denying and laborious; none so uncompromising in
the maintenance of their principles. They were, therefore, despatched in
various directions, and with the papal sanction, to undertake offices
more or less spiritual, and in some instances purely secular. It was
thus that a commencement was made in that course which has thrown
unlimited power into the hands of the society, and which again has
brought upon it suspicion, hatred, and reiterated ruin.

But the most noted of these appointments was that which, in sending,