[Sidenote: The Inquisition brought into activity.] By another very different means the Italian power sought to insure its domination--by an increased activity of the Inquisition. It is difficult to understand how men 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 there was a Jesuit hidden in the garret or secreted behind the wainscot of the bedroom. They were the advisers of the leading men of the age, sat in the cabinets of kings, and were their confessors. They boasted that they were the link between religious opinion and literature. With implicit and unquestioning obedience to his superior, like a good soldier, it was the paramount duty of the Jesuit to obey his orders, whatever those orders might be. It was for him to go, at the summons of a moment, with his life in his hand, to the very centre of pagan or of reformed and revolted countries, where his presence was death by law, and execute the mission intrusted to him. If he succeeded, it was well; if he should fall, it was also well. To him all things were proper for the sake of the Church. It was his business to consider how the affair he had in hand was to be most surely accomplished--to resort to justifiable means if they should appear sufficient, if not, to unjustifiable; to the spiritual weapon, but also to be prepared with the carnal; to sacrifice candour if the occasion should require, if necessary even truth, remembering that the end justifies the means, if that end is the good of the Church.