: False position of the papacy.] In such an ominous condition,
the necessity of carrying out the policy to which Italy had so long been
committed perpetually forced the papal Government to acts against which
the instructed judgment of its own officials revolted. It was a
continual struggle between their duty and their disposition. Why should
they have thought it expedient to suppress the Koran when it was printed
in Venice, 1530? why, when Paul IV., 1559, promulgated the Index
Expurgatorius of prohibited books, was it found necessary that not less
than forty-eight editions of the Bible should be included in it,
sixty-one printers put under the ban, and all their publications
forbidden, at first the interdict being against all prohibited books,
and, on this being found insufficient, even those that had not been
permitted being prohibited? Why was it that Galileo was dealt with so
considerately and yet so malignantly? It was plain that toleration,
either of men or books, was altogether irreconcilable with the
principles of the Holy See, and that under its stern exigencies the
former must be disposed of, and the latter suppressed or burnt, no
matter what personal inclinations or favouring sentiments might be in
the way. If any faltering took place in the carrying out of this
determination, the control of Rome over the human mind would be put into
the most imminent jeopardy.

[Sidenote: Check of the Reformation in Italy.] So stood affairs in Italy
at the beginning and during the active period of the Reformation, the
ancient system inexorably pressing upon the leading men, and impelling
them to acts against which their better judgment revolted. They were
bound down to the interests of their country, those interests being
interwoven with conditions which they could no longer intellectually
accept. For men of this class the German and Swiss reformations did not
go far enough. They affirmed that things were left just as inconsistent,
with reason, just as indefensible as before. Doubtless they considered
that the paring away of the worship of saints, of absolution for money,
penances, indulgences, freedom from papal taxation, the repudiation of
intrusive foreign ecclesiastics, was all to the detriment of the
pecuniary interests of Italy. They affirmed that the doctrines put forth
by the Reformers made good their ground, not through the force of
reason, but through appeals to the ignorant, and even to women; not
through an improv