The sword was no longer a weapon of theological war; the deep and irrepressible antagonism of the old and the new beliefs found now its inadequate expression by pen and by speech. The interest which prevailed regarding disputed ecclesiastical questions became exceptionally strong. Theological dogmas filled an influential place in the politics of the time. The Protestant Synod adopted in its Confession of Faith an article which charged the Pope with being Antichrist. His Holiness manifested “a grand irritation;” the King declared that this article threatened to destroy the peace of the kingdom. For four years a fierce contest raged, till another Synod withdrew the offending article by express order of the King, after having with unanimous voice declared that the charge was true. Philippe de Mornay, one of the King’s most trusted advisers, and a devoted adherent of Protestantism, had written a treatise against the Real Presence, supporting his argument by five or six thousand quotations, which he had laboriously gathered from the writings of the early Fathers. One of the bishops impugned his accuracy, and Mornay challenged him to a public discussion. The meeting-place was the grand hall of the palace of Fontainebleau. The combatants debated in presence of the King, before a brilliant audience of great officers of State, of lords and ladies who formed the royal court, of all great dignitaries of the kingdom. So effectively, for the time, had the Reformation and its consequences dispelled the religious apathy of France. It had, indeed, left unaffected the manners of a large portion of French society. The great lords retained professional assassins among their followers. It was as easy then to get the address of a stabber or a poisoner as it is now to get that of a hotel. In the highest places licentiousness was unconcealed and unrebuked. Crime associated itself with superstition, and the courtiers made wax figures of their enemies, which they transfixed with pins, hoping thus to destroy those whom the figures represented. The religious zeal which burned in every heart and retained its vigour amidst this enormous wickedness was nowhere stronger than among the members of the Society of Jesus. It moulded into very dissimilar forms, and guided into widely different lines of action, those sworn servants of the Church. For the most part it revealed itself in nothing higher than a readiness to serve the purposes of the Church, however unworthy, by any conduct, however criminal. But among the Jesuits too there were men of pure and noble nature, whose religious zeal found its sole gratification in toil and danger and self-sacrifice to promote the glory of God and save perishing heathen souls.