The necessities imposed upon the men who waged the battle of the Roman church can be gathered from the fourth vow of the Order of Jesus. “That the members will consecrate their lives to the continual service of Christ and of the Popes, and will fight under the banner of the Cross, and will serve the Lord and the Roman pontiff as God’s vicar upon earth, in such wise that they shall be bound to execute immediately and without hesitation, or excuse, all that the reigning Pope or his successors may enjoin upon them for the profit of souls or for the propagation of the faith, and shall do so in all provinces whithersoever he may send them, among Turks or any other infidels, to furthest Ind, as well as in the region of heretics, schismatics or unbelievers of any kind.” So far the ideals of the Jesuits were those of the earlier missionary orders of the Roman Church—implicit obedience and whole-hearted devotion. But Ignatius Loyola realized that the times had created a fresh set of circumstances. These circumstances called for a new “regula.” In a letter to Francis Borgia in 1548, the founder of the Jesuit Order wrote— “It is better to strengthen your stomach and other faculties, than to impair the body and enfeeble the intellect by fasting. God needs both our physical and mental powers for His service; and every drop of blood you shed in flagellation is a loss.” In other words, for the sake of enlisting the sympathy of those beyond the bounds of the Catholic Church, Loyola was willing to jettison convictions which had been held most strongly in an earlier age. It is all important to realize that these were the very convictions which had militated against a vigorous school of sculpture during the previous papal dominion before the Renaissance. The fresh body of ideals and impulses led to the creation of a new style—the Baroco. Taught by failure, the Jesuit advisers of the Pope now sought the close alliance with the arts exemplified in the sculptures of Bernini. No more apposite example could be taken than Bernini’s group of “St. Theresa” in S. Maria della Vittoria at Rome. It is an example of all that is best and worst, and most characteristic, in the sculpture of the Catholic Reaction. On the one hand, its striving after the expression of passionate emotion tells of the intensity of faith which animated the militant section of the Church at that time. On the other hand, the vividness with which the scene is portrayed tells of the determination to attract attention and compel comprehension, whatever might be the æsthetic sacrifice.