JERUSALEM
Just as the weight of a wave impels the water to a counter stroke, so did the Protestant revolution summon forth the strength of the ancient Church. Her enemies saved her. Yet during the whole conflict a universal rule of battle was observed; the character and trend of the defense were adapted to the nature and method of the antagonist's attack. The Church was now defending its very being against revolu- tionary forces which by the time Clement VII died had already wrested a third of Europe from the old unity. The apostasy as such was as lacking in uniformity as the characters of Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII and Melanchthon were disparate. They agreed only in breaking away from Rome. The Roman Church was incomparably more firmly welded together in reaction and renewal. Nevertheless in its case also die forces of reform did not spring from a single source. Side by side with the melancholy spirit of compulsion (the opposition, too, had its Calvin) there stands the magnanimous charity of great saints. Unbending political manoeuvring existed side by side with the warm inner life of the mystics. The fact that a conflict was in progress stimulated energies, and aroused enthusiasm for hard work in every field; and yet on the other hand, perhaps because of the influence of the Spanish character, there was emphasized a spirit of stern martial discipline which is likely to seem narrow and harsh when compared with the life of the ancient or the mediaeval Church. Perhaps one could explain the cheerful, mobile gesture of baroque art as the projec- tion of a dream image of invisible treasure no longer possessed. The havoc wrought by an excess of freedom was discernible in the ruins of the Church of Luther, and proved a frightening example to the Catholic Church. In its new entrenchment it bore out an ancient saying that our enemies teach us what we ought to do. And yet that which was learned was not always pure gold.
Great things were done under the first Popes after the Sack of Rome. Under Paul III (1534-1549), a Farnese Cardinal, they took place quite without the spur of a passionate yearning for holiness* This Pope was a creature of the Renaissance, who during the forty years o
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