modern pontiffs, he became one of the most moderate in everything
save in the enrichment of his family. Thus ended the last serious
effort to coerce a people by an interdict, and so, one might
suppose, would end the work of Father Paul. Not so. There was to
come a second chapter in his biography, more instructive,
perhaps, than the first,--a chapter which has lasted until our
own day. A. D. White.


{February, 1904, number DLVI.} II.


The Venetian Republic showed itself duly grateful to Sarpi. The
Senate offered him splendid presents and entitled him "Theologian
of Venice." The presents he refused, but the title with its duty,
which was mainly to guard the Republic against the encroachments
of the Vatican, he accepted, and his life in the monastery of
Santa Fosca went on quietly, simply, laboriously, as before. The
hatred now felt for him at Rome was unbounded. It corresponded to
the gratitude at Venice. Every one saw his danger, and he well
knew it. Potentates were then wont to send assassins on long
errands, and the arm of the Vatican was especially far-reaching
and merciless. It was the period when Pius V, the Pope whom the
Church afterwards proclaimed a saint, commissioned an assassin to
murder Queen Elizabeth.[1]


[1] This statement formerly led to violent denials by
ultramontane champions; but in 1870 it was made by Lord Acton, a
Roman Catholic, one of the most learned of modern historians, and