The pulpits of many of the churches in the several cities where the fathers had stationed themselves, and some in Rome, had been opened to their use, and the energy and the freshness of their eloquence affected the popular mind in an extraordinary manner; sometimes, indeed, they brought upon themselves violent opposition, but in more frequent instances, their zeal and patient assiduity triumphing over prejudice, jealousy, ecclesiastical inertness, and voluptuousness, the tide of feeling set in with this new impulse, and a commencement was effectively made of that Catholic revival which spread itself throughout Southern Europe, turned back the Reformation wave, saved the papacy, and secured for Christendom the still needed antagonist influence of the Romish and of the reformed systems of doctrine, worship, and polity. At Rome, Loyola, by his personal exertions, effected great reforms in liturgical services--induced a more frequent and devout attention to the sacraments of confession and the eucharist; established and promoted the catechetical instruction of youth; and, in a word, restored to Romanism much of its vitality. The author and mover of so much healthful change did not escape the persecutions that are the lot of reformers. Such trials Loyola encountered, and passed through triumphantly--so we are assured; but in listening to the Jesuit writers, when telling their own story, where the credit of the order and the reputation of its founder are deeply implicated, it is with reservation that we follow them. So fearful a storm--yet a storm long before descried, it is said, by Loyola--fell suddenly upon him and his colleagues that it seemed as if the infant society could by no means resist the impetuous torrent that assailed it. The populace, as well as persons in authority, suddenly gave heed to rumors most startling which came in at once from Spain, from France, and from the North of Italy, and the purport of which was to throw upon the fathers the most grievous imputations affecting their personal character as well as their doctrine. These men were reported to be heretics, Lutherans in disguise, seducers of youth, and men of flagitious life. The author or secret mover of this assault is said to have been a Piedmontese monk of the Augustinian order, himself a secret favorer of the Lutheran heresy and "a tool of Satan," and who at last, throwing off the mask, avowed himself a Lutheran. This man, for the purpose of diverting from himself the suspicions of which his mode of preaching had made him the object at Rome, raised this outcry against Loyola and his companions, affirming of them slanderously and falsely what was quite true as to himself.