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 the energetic remonstrances of some influential patrons, the attempt was not successful.

In addition to all this there is another consideration, which played a much larger part in the sad story of Galileo's trial than is generally supposed, The clergy, and especially the Jesuits, had hitherto had a monopoly of science. Everybody knows how assiduously it had been cultivated in ancient times in the cells and schools of the convents, and that the ecclesiastical orders were the guardians and disseminators of learning, while among both populace and nobles ignorance flourished like a weed. When by the natural law of progress the nations of Europe emerged from the simplicity of childhood into the storm and stress period of youth; when inventions,—especially printing,—and above all the discovery of America, began to spread knowledge and culture among the masses, it was once more the servants of Rome who, justly estimating the spirit of the age, placed themselves, so to speak, in the van of the intellectual movement, that they might guide its course. The strongest evidence that the Church was in exclusive possession of the highest mental powers is afforded by the Reformation; for the first stirrings of doubt, of critical, philosophical speculation, arose in the bosoms of the Roman Catholic clergy, All the reformers, from Abelard and Arnold of Brescia, to Huss and Luther, sprang, without exception, from among them.

Just at the juncture when the split into two creeds threatened to divide the joints and marrow of the supreme power of the Church, the man appeared who most effectually contributed to restore it by founding a new ecclesiastical order, with a very peculiar organisation. This was Ignatius Loyola. And if we seek for the explanation of the profound influence gained by this corporation in all parts of the world, and every grade of society, we shall find it in four factors: the highest enthusiasm for the common cause; willing