It was their fortune to find forces in the world which they partially understood; it was their merit to know how to manipulate those forces; it was their misfortune and their demerit that they proved themselves incapable of diverting those forces to any wholesome end.

In Italy a succession of worldly Popes, Paul III., Julius III., Pius IV., and Gregory XIII., heaped favors and showered wealth upon the order.

The Jesuits incarnated the political spirit of the Papacy at this epoch; they lent it a potency for good and evil which the decrepit but still vigorous institution arrogated to itself.

They adapted its anachronisms with singular adroitness to the needs of modern society.

They transfused their throbbing blood into its flaccid veins, until it became doubtful whether the Papacy had been absorbed into the Jesuits, or whether the Jesuits had remodeled the Papacy for contemporary uses.