ully
manipulating the interests of princes and the passions of individuals.
'I shall narrate the causes,' he remarks, in his exordium, 'and the
negotiations of an ecclesiastical convocation during the course of
twenty-two years, for divers ends and with varied means; by whom
promoted and solicited, by whom impeded and delayed; for another
eighteen years, now brought together, now dissolved; always held with
various ends; and which received a form and accomplishment quite
contrary to the design of those who set it going, as also to the fear of
those who took all pains to interrupt it. A clear monition that man
ought to yield his thoughts resignedly to God and not to trust in human
prudence. Forasmuch as this Council, desired and put in motion by pious
men for the reunion of the Church which had begun to break asunder, hath
so established schism and embittered factions that it has rendered those
discords irreconcilable; handled by princes for the reform of the
ecclesiastical system, has caused the greatest deformation that hath
ever been since the name of Christian came into existence; by bishops
with hope expected as that which would restore the episcopal authority,
now in large part absorbed by the sole Roman Pontiff, hath been the
reason of their losing the last vestige of it and of their reduction to
still greater servitude. On the other hand, dreaded and evaded by the
Court of Rome, as an efficient instrument for curbing that exorbitant
power, which from small beginnings hath arrived by various advances to
limitless excess, it has so established and confirmed it over the
portion still left subject to it, as that it never was so vast nor so
well-rooted.' In treating of what he pithily calls 'the Iliad of our
age,' Sarpi promises to observe the truth, and protests that he is
governed by no passion. This promise the historian kept faithfully. His
animus is never allowed to transpire in any direct tirades; his irony
emerges rather in reporting epigrams of others than in personal sarcasms
or innuendoes; his own prepossessions and opinions are carefully veiled.
After reading the whole voluminous history we feel that it would be as
inaccurate to claim Sarpi for Protestantism as to maintain that he was a
friend of ultra-papal Catholicism. What he really had at heart was the
restoration of the Church of God to unity, to purer discipline and to
sincere spirituality. This reconstruction of Christendom upon a sound
basis was, as