What is still more remarkable, is the fact that the greatest part of those persons who were foremost in opposing the Jesuits, knew Loyola, and, if not as intimately as Caraffa and Cano, at least well enough to be able to appreciate him. We shall adduce as the last, though not the least fact, militating against the order—that Caraffa, a man of the most rigid Catholicism, nay, bigotry—who had nothing so near his heart as the furtherance of the Roman religion—the former friend of Loyola, both as cardinal and as Pope, was constantly and firmly adverse to the order. I should like if some of the reverend fathers would explain this almost inexplicable fact. However, all these oppositions were sooner or later got rid of by Jesuitical craft; and the Society, in 1556, only sixteen years after its commencement, counted as many as twelve provinces, a hundred houses, and upwards of a thousand members, dispersed over the whole known world. Their two most conspicuous and important establishments were the Collegio Romano and the German College. They already were in possession of many chairs, and soon monopolised the right of teaching, which gave them a most overwhelming influence. We shall speak of the colleges, and of their method of study, after it had received from Acquaviva, the fifth General, a farther development, and nearly the same form in which it is at the present day. The Jesuits also derived great importance from their missions, to the consideration of which we shall devote the next chapter. The reason of the immense success of the Jesuits is the fact, that their order was established in direct opposition to the rising Protestantism, and that both the court of Rome, and those princes whose interest it was to maintain the Catholic religion, and oppose that of the Reformed, were very eager to introduce and uphold the Society of Jesuits into their states. Yet even with this preponderant favourable circumstance, the Society would have either succumbed under the many obstacles it encountered in its beginning, or at least would not have progressed so rapidly, had it not been for Ignatius Loyola. This extraordinary man seems to have united in his own person all the qualities indispensable for succeeding in any undertaking;—unbounded ambition—inflexibility of character—unwearied activity, and a thorough and profound knowledge of the human heart. With such qualities, he could hardly fail to succeed in the accomplishment of any project. Almost every writer of Loyola’s life (I do not speak either of the miracle-tellers or of the pamphleteers) has represented him as most sincere, fervidly devout, and pious. On this point, however, we must observe, that all the historians, not excluding even the Protestant, copied from his two first biographers, Maffei and Rybadaneira.