esy, though perhaps there may also have been
political reasons. Thus this new life threw deep shadows over the souls
of the people.

In Roman Catholic territories also, a vigorous and extraordinary life
was roused. The Roman Catholic Church gave birth to a new discipline of
the mind, a mode of human culture distinctly opposed to Protestantism.
Even in the old Church a greater depth of inward life was attained. A
new system of rapturous excitement and self-denial, with high duties
and an exalted ideal, was offered to satisfy the needs of the souls of
the faithful. In Spain and Italy this new religious zeal was aroused,
full of resignation and self-sacrifice, full of great talent, eagerness
for combat, and glowing enthusiasm, and rich in manly vigour. But it
was not a faith for Germans. It demanded the annihilation of free
individuality, a rending from all the ties of the world, fanatical
devotion, and an unconditional subjection of the individual to a great
community. Each one had to make an offering of his life for a great
aim, without criticism or scruple. Whilst Protestantism formed a higher
standard, and imposed on each individual, the duty of seeking
independently by an effort of his own mind, the key to divine and human
knowledge, the new Catholicism grasped his whole being with an iron
hand. Protestantism was, notwithstanding all the loyalty of the
Reformers, essentially democratic; the new Catholicism concentrated all
the powers of men, of which it demanded the most unhesitating
submission, in a spiritual tyranny, under the dominion of the head of
the Church, and afterwards under that of the State.

The great representatives of this new tendency in Church and State were
the Jesuits. In the impassioned soul of a Spanish nobleman smouldered
the gloomy fire of the new Catholic teaching; amidst ascetic penances,
in the restricted intercourse of a small brotherhood, the system was
formed. In the year 1540 the Pope confirmed the brotherhood, and
shortly after, the first members of the order hastened across the Alps
and the Rhine into Germany, and began already to rule in the council of
Trent. Their unhesitating determination strengthened the weak, and
frightened the wavering. With wonderful rapidity the order established
itself in Germany, where the old faith still subsisted along with the
new; it acquired favour with the higher classes, and a crowd of
adherents amongst the people. Some princes gave up to it the spiri