of capacity could have justified this iniquitous institution.
Certainly it could not have been upon any principles of Christian
morality, nor even upon those of high statesmanship. For the Inquisition
to accomplish its purpose, it must needs be as all-seeing as Providence,
as inexorable as the grave; not inflicting punishments which the
sufferer could remember, but remorselessly killing outright; not
troubling itself to ascertain the merits of a case and giving the
accused the benefit of a doubt, but regarding suspicion and certainty as
the same thing. If worked with the unscrupulous, impassive resolution of
Machiavellianism, this great engine for the coercion of the human mind
could be made to accomplish its purpose. It thoroughly extinguished
Protestantism in Spain and Italy, and in those countries maintained a
barrier against the progressive reason of man.

[Sidenote: The Jesuits are established.] But the most effective weapon
to which the papacy resorted was the institution of the order of the
Jesuits. This was established by a bull of Paul III., 1540, the rules
being that the general, chosen for life, should be obeyed as God; that
they should vow poverty, chastity, obedience, and go wherever they were
commanded; their obedience was to the pope, not to the Church--a most
politic distinction, for thereby an unmistakable responsibility was
secured. They had no regular hours of prayer; their duties were
preaching, the direction of consciences, education. By the Jesuits Rome
penetrated into the remotest corners of the earth, established links of
communication with her children who remained true to her in the heart of
Protestant countries, and, with a far-seeing policy for the future,
silently engrossed the education of the young. At the confessional she
extorted from women the hidden secrets of their lives and those of their
families, took the lead in devotion wherever there were pious men, and
was equally foremost in the world of fashion and dissipation. [Sidenote:
Their influence all over the world.] There was no guise under which the
Jesuit might not be found--a barefoot beggar, clothed in rags; a learned
professor, lecturing gratuitously to scientific audiences; a man of the
world, living in profusion and princely extravagance; there have been
Jesuits the wearers of crowns. There were no places into which they did
not find their way: a visitor to one of the loyal old families of
England could never be sure but that