by intellectual and moral forces of recent growth but of incalculable
potency. One of the first acts of his reign was to advance six members
of the moderate reforming party--Sadoleto, Pole, Giberto, Federigo,
Fregoso, Gasparo Contarini, and G.M. Caraffa--to the Cardinalate. By
this exercise of power he showed his willingness to recognize new
elements of very various qualities in the Catholic hierarchy. Five of
these men represented opinions which at the moment of their elevation to
the purple had a fair prospect of ultimate success. Imbued with a
profound sense of the need for ecclesiastical reform, and tinctured more
or less deeply with so-called Protestant opinions, they desired nothing
more intensely than a reconstitution of the Catholic Church upon a basis
which might render reconciliation with the Lutherans practicable. They
had their opportunity during the pontificate of Paul III. It was a
splendid one; and, as I have already shown, the Conference of
Rechensburg only just failed in securing the end they so profoundly
desired. But the Papacy was not prepared to concede so much as they were
anxious to grant: the German Reformers proved intractable; they were
themselves impeded by their loyalty to antique Catholic traditions, and
by their dread of a schism; finally, the militant expansive force of
Spanish orthodoxy, expressing itself already in the concentrated energy
of the Jesuit order, rendered attempts at fusion impossible. The victory
in Rome remained with the faction of _intransigeant_ Catholics; and
this was represented, in Paul III.'s first creation of Cardinals, by
Caraffa. Caraffa was destined to play a singular part in the transition
period of Papal history which I am reviewing. He belonged as essentially
to the future as Alessandro Farnese belonged to the past. He embodied
the spirit of the Inquisition, and upheld the principles of
ecclesiastical reform upon the narrow basis of Papal absolutism. He
openly signalized his disapproval of Paul's nepotism; and when his time
for ruling came, he displayed a remorseless spirit of justice without