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 circumstances allowed the long deferred Council to meet. The Christian Renaissance, with its ideal of the unity of faith and reason and its attempt to find a place within the Church for all that was best in the achievements of the human mind, its philosophy, its science, and its art, was rapidly being eclipsed by a new spirit, which claimed for Church authority complete control, and gave little scope to human freedom and self-realisation. The sacrifice of the intellect rather than its consecration was demanded. Mankind was to remain in bondage to the dead hand of the past. The progress that was being rapidly made in human knowledge was to be ignored. Catholicism was never to go beyond its medieval exponents. Conciliation and compromise with the new views was consequently treason, and " No surrender " was the cry.

Paul III stood aloof and looked on as the new power grew in strength and made itself felt in the Church. The last of the Renaissance Popes, he was liberal in his sympathies, but he never gave his whole confidence to any party. The reformed and tolerant Catholicism, which seemed about to prevail in the early years of his reign, found itself only partially supported, if not abandoned, and others were allowed to frustrate its efforts. Contarini, on his return to Italy after the Colloquy of Ratisbon, was rewarded with the government. of Bologna, but his influence was gone. His death occurred soon after, on August 24, 1542, and he was spared the further disillusionment which the Council would have inevitably brought to him. He was one of the noblest figures in an age of great men, and the blessing of the peacemaker was his. Giberti survived him little more than a year, dying on December 30, 1543 The loss of Contarini and Giberti was an irreparable blow to the party of conciliation. Sadoleto, Pole, and Morone survived; but none of them had the force of character to fight a losing cause; and Pole and Morone ended their days in trying to vindicate their orthodoxy, the one by playing the part of a persecutor in England, the other by winding up the Council in the papal interest. For the time, however, Viterbo, of which Pole was governor, became the centre of the remnants of that little band which had first found a common bond in the Oratory of Divine Love. Everything now depended on the coming Council, and there was nothing but to await events.

Though the Colloquy of Ratisbon had failed to achieve any permanent result, yet the Emperor did not altogether despair of conciliation. The varying circumstances of the political situation from time to time affected his attitude towards the Lutherans; but he appears to have had a genuine desire all along for a thorough reformation of abuses in the Church by a General Council, from which the Roman Court itself was not to be exempt. Paul III, on the other hand, had little desire for a Council, at which it was clear, after the events at Ratisbon, that the papal prerogative was likely to be severely handled. It was impossible for him, however, to resist the demands of the Emperor altogether; and,