From Rome, Ignatius, as an able general, directed the movements of all those soldiers of Christ, as they styled themselves. He praised one, admonished another, inspired all with his zeal and fanaticism. Nor was this enough for his ardent and indefatigable spirit. He turned his attention to less unquestionable acts of religion and charity. Many of the hospitals erected in the middle of Rome, were the fruits of his zealous exertions. The Convent of Santa Martha was opened for abandoned women, who wished to repent, and pass an upright and easy life. In that of Santa Catherine, poor and honest young girls found an asylum against temptation and seduction; fatherless children of both sexes were received, and carefully educated, in two hospitals which yet exist in Rome; and the inmates of which, on the 31st of July of every year, go in procession to the Church of Gesù, to pray to the shrine of the saint, and to give thanks to their benefactor. However, the gratitude which we owe to Loyola for those charitable institutions cannot restrain our indignation and abhorrence towards the man who had so great a share in reviving the infamous tribunal of the Inquisition. The Jesuits reckon it among the glories of their order, that Loyola supported, by a special memorial to the Pope, a petition for the reorganising of that cruel and abhorred tribunal. In the 13th century, the Inquisition had been diabolically active. 25,000 Albigenses perished for bearing testimony to the Word of God. Dominique, that wholesale butcher of these unfortunate Christians, by his barbarous inhumanities, struck horror throughout Europe, and gained for himself a place among the Roman saints. But, as is always the case, its very excess prepared a reaction. The tribunal, as if satiated with human suffering, gradually relented, and, in the epoch of which we are speaking, had almost fallen into decay. Besides, the inquisitors, chosen from among the monastic orders, were little inclined to enforce strict and severe laws against practices or opinions with which they themselves were in many cases chargeable.[54] Above all, the See of Rome, under the Alexanders, the Juliuses, the Leos, plunged in political affairs, and, extremely lax in matters of religion and morality, had little or no inclination to enforce the almost forgotten edicts of the Inquisition. But the new doctrines spread in Germany with amazing rapidity; and the outcry raised against the morals of the Catholic clergy produced two immediate effects—the partial reform of the more flagrant abuses of which the clergy were guilty, and the revival of a tribunal, which should destroy by fire and sword whoever dared to impugn the doctrines of the Popes, and the canonical laws. Caraffa, whom we have already mentioned, was the principal author of this dreadful tribunal. Through his exertions, and those of Loyola, an edict appeared on the 21st of July 1542, appointing