ber the work for which he was adapted and qualified. While the superior talents of some of the Order directed the subtle diplomacy of European courts, the pious zeal of others found active employment in the most toilsome and self-denying missions among the forests of America or in the crowded cities of China and Japan.

Jesuit missionaries converted many of the American Indians to Christianity, and were pioneers in the exploration of the Great Lakes of North America. In Paraguay In Paraguay Jesuit missionaries gained possession of the civil government of the country, converted and civilized the Indians, and rescued them from the system of slavery under which they had been reduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, at the same time teaching them agriculture, building, and the arts of social life, and inducing them to exclude all other influences.

The most illustrious of Jesuit missionaries was the celebrated St. Francis Xavier, who began his career in the East Indies in 1542, who preached in Goa, Ceylon, Malacca, Cochin-China and Japan, and who baptized hundreds of thousands in those distant lands, dying on his way to China, in 1551, after a missionary career of nine years. Another was Robert de Nobili, who went to India as a missionary in 1605, arriving at Goa, where St. Francis Xavier had landed sixty-three years before, and who made converts to Christianity by disguising himself

as a Brahman, in this way practicing Ignatius Loyola's doctrine that the end justifies the means.

The Jesuits encountered great opposition and fierce abuse from other Catholic orders whom they supplanted, as well as from Protestants. They were accused of all manner of false beliefs and wicked actions. Some of these accusations were well founded, but others were merely the result of the jealousy of their rivals. The system of studies which they introduced into their schools took Europe by surprise, and involved them in a struggle with the Sorbonne of Paris and with the University of Coimbra in Portugal and that of Salamanca in Spain. They were vehemently assailed, their doctrines and practices were bitterly denounced, and their Order was often suppressed even in Catholic countries and by Catholic rulers.

Says Macaulay: "With what vehemence, with what policy, with what exact discipline, with what dauntless courage, with what self-denial, with what forgetfulness of the dearest private ties, with what intense and stubborn devotion to a single end, with what unscrupulous laxity and versatility in the choice of means, the Jesuits fought the battles of their Church, is written in every page of the annals of Europe during several generations. The history of the Order of Jesus is the history of the great Catholic reaction against Protestantism in the seventeenth century."

SWEDEN.

COMPLETE political and religious revolution occurred in the three Scandinavian kingdoms in the sixteenth century. The tyrant Christian II. of Denmark-"the Nero of the North "-was the last king who reigned over the three Scandinavian kingdoms under the Union of Calmar. He irritated the Danish and

Swedish nobility to such an extent by his severity and cruelty that insurrections broke out in Denmark and Sweden at the same time-a result which led to the dissolution of the Union of Calmar and the establishment of Lutheranism in the three Scandinavian kingdoms.

The valiant GUSTAVUS VASA, a brave youth, endowed with the wisdom and valor of his relatives, the Stures, inaugurated the

political and ecclesiastical revolution in Sweden, and founded a dynasty of vigorous monarchs, who raised Sweden to the ascendency in the North. He was carried into Denmark as a hostage by Christian II.; but he soon escaped to Lübeck, where he was provided with money and encouraged with promises of the liberation of his native land. In 1520 Christian II. caused ninety-four Swedish nobles to be perfidiously massacred at Stockholm. Among these massacred nobles was the heroic Gustavus Vasa's father. This atrocity excited universal horror in Sweden. In the same year the brave Gustavus Vasa landed on the shores of Sweden. In the midst of a thousand perils and adventures, he escaped the pursuing emissaries of Christian II., who were constantly at his heels, until he found aid and refuge among the rude inhabitants of the mining region in the North of Dalecarlia.

Gustavus Vasa aroused the Dalecarlians to an effort to recover the independence of Sweden, and with a force of hardy peasants he conquered Falun, repulsed the Danish troops and their allies, and took Upsala. His fame and his call to freedom soon resounded through all lands and brought many warriors to his side. He obtained troops, money and artillery from the Lübeckers, and forced the Danish garrison to retreat. After being elected King of Sweden by the Diet of Strengnas, he entered Stockholm in triumph, in June, 1523, thus restoring the independence of Sweden.

The restored Kingdom of Sweden remained an elective monarchy for twenty years, but in 1544 the Swedish Diet declared the Swedish crown to be hereditary in the male line of the Vasa family. As the possessions of the Swedish throne had been so dilapidated by neglect as to be inadequate to support the expenditure, the new royal dignity could only be maintained with honor by augmenting the royal revenue, and for this the Reformation afforded a welcome opportunity.

The Swedish people, instructed in the Lutheran doctrines by the brothers Olaus and Laurentius Petri, gladly embraced the

Lutheran faith; and, as the clergy in Sweden had sided with the Danes during the war for Swedish independence, the Swedish Diet placed the possessions of the clergy at Gustavus Vasa's disposal, in 1527. Thus supported by the Diet's resolution, the new Swedish king gradually introduced Lutheranism into his kingdom, and confiscated most of the possessions of the Romish Church in Sweden for the benefit of the Swedish crown. As the Swedish nobility were enriched by this proceeding they supported the king in his policy. After a long resistance, the Swedish bishops yielded to the new system, remained as Estates of the kingdom and heads of the Church, but were dependent upon their king and held in check by the consistories.

Gustavus Vasa, who sought to make Sweden prosperous by good and wise laws and by encouraging trade and industry, died in 1560, after a reign of thirty-seven years; and the dynasty which he founded occupied the throne of Sweden for almost three centuries, A. D. 1523-1818. Evil times came upon Sweden during the reigns of his sons, who successively occupied the Swedish throne.

ERIK XIV., the first son and successor of Gustavus Vasa, was of so passionate a disposition that he finally became hopelessly insane; and while in that condition he murdered several of the Sture family with his own hand, and caused all the Swedish

nobles to tremble in fear of a similar fate. His brothers placed him in confinement, and finally poisoned him in 1568.

JOHN III., another son of Gustavus Vasa, then became King of Sweden. This monarch was a weak-minded sovereign of vascillating disposition. Being led astray by his wife, who was a rigid Catholic and a Polish princess, and by a Jesuit who lived secretly at Stockholm as an ambassador, John III. endeavored to reestablish the Catholic religion in Sweden, and consented that his son Sigismund, who was to be King of Sweden and Poland, should be educated as a Catholic. This scheme failed, because of the resistance of the Swedish people to

the Catholic ceremonies. John III. himself afterward repented of his project, when his second wife exerted herself in favor of Lutheranism.

John III. died in 1592; and his son SIGISMUND, who was King Sigismund III. of Poland, became King of Sweden. Sigismund's attachment to the Roman Catholic Church proved very detrimental to his reign in Sweden. He stubbornly refused to comply with the resolution of the Swedish Diet that the Evangelical Lutheran Church should be the state religion of Sweden and alone tolerated in that kingdom. Thereupon the Diet appointed his uncle Charles, Duke of Sudermania, also a son of Gustavus Vasa, to administer the government of Sweden as regent, A. D. 1598.

Sigismund endeavored vainly to maintain. his right to the crown of Sweden by force of arms. He was defeated by his uncle; whereupon the Swedish Diet demanded that he either renounce popery and govern Sweden in person, or send his son to Sweden so that the prince might be educated in the Lutheran religion. As Sigismund refused to comply with this demand he was deposed in 1599; whereupon his uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, was made King of Sweden with the title of CHARLES IX.; and a new law of succession secured the Swedish crown to his family.

DENMARK AND NORWAY.

In the meantime, while Lutheranism was thus triumphant, in Sweden, the Lutheran Church was also established in Denmark. The tyrant CHRISTIAN II., who was at first favorable to the Reformation, was deposed by the Danish Diet in 1523, the same year in which Gustavus Vasa became King of Sweden; whereupon his uncle Frederick, Duke of Holstein, became King FREDERICK I. of Denmark. Frederick I., who was acknowledged as king by the Danish nobility and people, supported the Lutheran doctrines, in order to strengthen himself against his dethroned rival.

The deposed Christian II. then became a firm adherent of the Romish Church, in

order to gain the support of the Pope and of the Emperor Charles V. in his efforts to recover possession of the crowns of Denmark and Sweden. In the meantime, while Frederick I., at the Diet of Odensee, admitted Protestants in Denmark to equal civil rights with Catholics, and made the Danish Church independent of the Pope, Christian II. made an attack upon Denmark from Norway; but he was taken prisoner, and was incarcerated in a gloomy tower for sixteen years with a Norwegian dwarf as his only companion.

Frederick I. died in 1534, after a reign of ten years, and was succeeded on the Danish throne by his son CHRISTIAN III., during whose reign the Lutheran Church was fully established in Denmark. Most of the possessions of the Romish clergy in Denmark were confiscated, and became the property of the Danish crown and nobility; and the Danish bishops, whose titles were retained, became utterly dependent upon their government. Lutheranism was quietly established in Norway by the peasantry, but the Protestant party in Iceland fell with the sword in their hands. The Danish nobility, like the Swedish, acquired great wealth, power and privileges by the Reformation.

Christian III. of Denmark and Norway died in 1559, and was succeeded by his son FREDERICK II., who reduced the free people of the Republic of Ditmarsen under the dominion of Denmark, after they had successfully resisted the Danes for several centuries. Denmark finally acknowledged Sweden's independence by the Peace of Stettin, in 1570, which closed the Northern Seven Years' War, but left the seven southern provinces of Sweden in the possession of the King of Denmark. The reign of Frederick II. was prosperous, and was celebrated for the progress of art and science, which were now cultivated in Denmark for the first time. The great astronomer, Tycho Brahe, founded an observatory at Uranienborg. Frederick II. died in 1588, and was succeeded on the throne of Denmark and Norway by his son CHRISTIAN IV., who reigned sixty years.

HERE was great joy in England when, upon the death of Henry VII. in 1509, his son HENRY VIII. ascended the English throne; as his father had incurred the hatred of the English people by his jealousy, his severity and his avarice. The new king was only eighteen years of age, but he gave the most promising hopes of making a good sovereign and of having a happy and glorious reign. The contending claims of the rival Houses of York and Lancaster were united in his person, so that he received the cordial and united support of both. His father had left him an enormous treasury, and England was free from foreign and civil wars. short, no other King of England ever began to reign under circumstances more peculiarly favorable than Henry VIII.

In

The young king possessed the qualities essential to win popularity; as he was handsome, carefully educated and highly accomplished, besides being energetic and of a frank and hearty disposition. He was likewise fond of chivalrous amusements and endowed with great powers of mind, while being also a hearty friend of the New Learning and inspired with a sincere desire to rule with justice. But his disposition changed much as he advanced in age; as his naturally violent and impulsive temper, which he was unable to bring under control, became malignant and unrelenting with opposition; and he gradually became fiercer and more tyrannical.

A few weeks after his accession Henry VIII. celebrated his marriage with the Princess Catharine of Aragon, and the two were crowned together as King and Queen of England, June 24, 1509. One of the young king's first official acts was to bring Empson and Dudley, the hated lawyers of Henry VII., to the scaffold on a charge of treason-a proceeding designed to satisfy popular clamor. Henry VIII. was as prod

igal as his father had been penurious; and the great fortune which he inherited was squandered in a few years in tournaments and other expensive entertainments, to the great grief of his careful counselor, Fox, Bishop of Winchester.

The young king was entirely under the influence of his Prime Minister, the Earl of Surrey, who took advantage of his master's naturally lavish disposition to encourage him in his prodigality, so that he might become negligent of public business and willing to trust the affairs of state entirely to his Ministers. To counteract the evil influence of the Earl of Surrey, and to restrain the young king's follies, Bishop Fox of Winchester introduced at court Thomas Wolsey, who had already displayed the qualities of shrewdness and dexterity.

Wolsey was the son of a butcher at Ipswich. The great talents and the love for study which he exhibited in his childhood caused him to be sent to the University of Oxford, where he took his first degree at so early an age as to be called the "boy bachelor." After having occupied various stations with great reputation, he finally became chaplain to Henry VII. He won the favor of Henry VII. by the surprising quickness and adroitness with which he performed a mission from that monarch to the Emperor Maximilian I. of Germany, while that sovereign was at Brussels; going and returning in three days.

By the art of flattery, Wolsey soon acquired an unbounded influence over King Henry VIII.; but he made a different use of that influence from what Bishop Fox had intended, as he encouraged the young king's follies in order to promote his own advancement. He was soon made Archbishop of York, and Chancellor. Wolsey affected to regard Henry VIII. as the wisest of mortals, promoted his amusements and participated in them with the gayety of youth. By thus making himself agreeable as well