urthermore, the prelates of each district, partly with a view of saving
their own pockets, and partly that they may display a fashionable show
of zeal, have committed the charge of those institutions to Jesuits.
This has caused a most important alteration in the aspect of
affairs.'[170] It would be difficult to state the changes effected by
the Tridentine Council and the commission of education to the Jesuits
more precisely and more fairly than in this paragraph. How deeply Sarpi
had penetrated the Jesuitical arts in education, can be further
demonstrated from another passage in his minor works.[171] In a memoir
prepared for the Venetian Signory, he says that the Jesuits are vulgarly
supposed to be unrivaled as trainers of youth. But a patent equivocation
lurks under this phrase 'unrivaled.' Education must be considered with
regard to the utility of the State. 'Now the education of the Jesuits
consists in stripping the pupil of every obligation to his father, to
his country, and to his natural prince; in diverting all his love and
fear toward a spiritual superior, on whose nod, beck and word he is
dependent. This system of training is useful for the supremacy of
ecclesiastics and for such secular governments as they are ready to
submit to; and none can deny that the Jesuits are without equals in
their employment of it. Yet in so far as it is advantageous in such
cases, so also is it prejudicial to States, the end whereof is liberty
and real virtue, and with whom the ecclesiastical faction remains in
bad accord. From the Jesuit colleges there never issued a son obedient
to his father, devoted to his country, loyal to his prince. The cause of
this is that the Jesuits employ their best energies in destroying
natural affection, respect for parents, reverence for princes. Therefore
they only deserve to be admired by those whose interest it is to subject
family, country and government to ecclesiastical interests.'

[Footnote 170: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 126; _Opere_, vol. vi. p. 40.]

[Footnote 171: _Opere_, vol. vi. p. 145.]

The Provincial Letters of Pascal, which Sarpi anticipated in so many
points, suffice to prove that he was justified in this hostility to
ultramontanism backed up by Jesuit artifices. He was writing, be it
remembered, at the very high tide of Papal domination, when Henri IV.
had been assassinated, and when the overwhelming forces of secular
interests combined with intellectual progress had not as yet se