Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 2Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 2
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English literature -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- History
Place Ignatius Loyola at Oxford. He is certain to become the head of a
formidable secession. Place John Wesley at Rome. He is certain to be the
first General of a new society devoted to the interests and honour
of the Church. Place St. Theresa in London. Her restless enthusiasm
ferments into madness, not untinctured with craft. She becomes the
prophetess, the mother of the faithful, holds disputations with the
devil, issues sealed pardons to her adorers, and lies in of the Shiloh.
Place Joanna Southcote at Rome. She founds an order of barefooted
Carmelites, every one of whom is ready to suffer martyrdom for the
Church; a solemn service is consecrated to her memory; and her statue,
placed over the holy water, strikes the eye of every stranger who enters
St. Peter’s.
We have dwelt long on this subject, because we believe that of the many
causes to which the Church of Rome owed her safety and her triumph at
the close of the sixteenth century, the chief was the profound policy
with which she used the fanaticism of such persons as St. Ignatius and
St. Theresa.
The Protestant party was now indeed vanquished and humbled. In France,
so strong had been the Catholic reaction that Henry the Fourth found it
necessary to choose between his religion and his crown. In spite of his
clear hereditary right, in spite of his eminent personal qualities, he
saw that, unless he reconciled himself to the Church of Rome, he
could not count on the fidelity even of those gallant gentlemen whose
impetuous valour had turned the tide of battle at Ivry. In Belgium,
Poland, and Southern Germany, Catholicism had obtained complete
ascendency. The resistance of Bohemia was put down. The Palatinate was
conquered. Upper and Lower Saxony were overflowed by Catholic invaders.
The King of Denmark stood forth as the Protector of the Reformed
Churches: he was defeated, driven out of the empire, and attacked in
his own possessions. The armies of the House of Austria pressed on,
subjugated Pomerania, and were stopped in their progress only by the
ramparts of Stralsund.
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