Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/592

528 another most powerful agent concerned in the re- establishment of the threatened authority of the Papal See. The founder of the institution was St. Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556), a native of Spain. Loyola's object was to form a society, the devotion and energy of whose numbers should counteract the zeal and activity of the reformers.

As the well-disciplined, watchful, and uncompromising foes of the Protestant reformers, now divided into many and often hostile sects, the Jesuits did very much to bring about a reaction, to retrieve the failing fortunes of the papal power in Europe, and to extend the authority and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church in all other parts of the world. Most distinguished of the missionaries of the order to pagan lands was Francis Xavier (1506-1562), known as the Apostle of the Indies. His labors in India, Japan, and other lands of the East were attended with astonishing results.

Outcome of the Revolt.—As in following chapters we are to trace the fortunes of the Reformation in the leading European countries, we shall here say only a word as to the issue of the great contest.

The outcome of the revolt, very broadly stated, was the separation from the Roman Catholic Church of the Northern, or Teutonic nations; that is to say, of Northern Germany, of portions of Switzerland and of the Netherlands, of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England, and Scotland. The Romance nations, namely, Italy, France and Spain, together with Celtic Ireland, adhered to the old Church.

What this separation from Rome meant in the political realm is well stated by Seebohm: "It was the claiming by the civil power in each nation of those rights which the Pope had hitherto claimed