=4. Summary.=--The instances cited are sufficient to show that the spirit of Protestantism, in each and all of the sects that came into power or influence in the State, has through the past centuries held it to be the right and duty of the Church, and of the State under the influence of the Church, to supervise and to control the productions of the printing-press and the reading of the people. The fact, however, that within the Protestant communion there were so many points of view, rendered it not only difficult but impossible to establish any consistent and continuing policy of censorship. There was also a lack of any effective machinery for carrying out, within these Protestant territories, such regulations as the censors of the Church might establish. In certain places and at certain times the civil authorities, like the magistrates of Geneva or the Elector of Saxony, were ready to utilise the force of the State for carrying out the decrees of the Church, but such co-operation and support were at best (or at worst) but intermittent and spasmodic. In Germany or in Switzerland, the authority of the State covered but a limited territory. If the censorship pressure became burdensome in one city, there was no essential difficulty in moving the composing-room and the press to some other place where the faith of the magistrates was not so “orthodox” or so strenuous. As a result, the Protestant writers, representing all schools of protest, found no continued difficulty in bringing their productions into print and in circulating these among sympathetic readers. The Jesuit historian, while admitting that the condemnation of the Catholic Church has fallen upon certain works of unquestioned scholarly value, insists that the Protestant censorship of authors and books of similar standing has been, to say the least, no less severe. He maintains, further, that the Catholic policy and methods have been more consistent, more discriminating, more intelligent, and more moral in purpose and in effect than those of the Protestants. He emphasises the importance of distinguishing between the circles of readers for which different books are fitted, either to do service or to work injury. He writes: “The works of Grotius, Gibbon, and Guicciardini have a deserved repute with the scholars. We may admit, that scholars can derive from such works valuable instruction, but this does not make them suitable for the reading of the untrained or the half trained. The Church undertakes always to maintain this distinction.”