PLANS AND PROJECTS-1838-1905 499 



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interest of its details, but for the light it throws upon 

 great forces still at work in the world. Strong men have 

 discussed it for European readers, but it deserves to be 

 especially presented to Americans. 



I think an eminent European publicist entirely right in 

 saying that Father Paul is one of the three men, since the 

 middle ages, who have exercised the most profound influ 

 ence on Italy; the other two being Galileo and Machia- 

 velli. The reason assigned by this historian for this 

 judgment is not merely the fact that Father Paul was one 

 of the most eminent men in science whom Italy has pro 

 duced, nor the equally incontestable fact that he taught 

 the Venetian Republic and finally the world how to 

 withstand papal usurpation of civil power, but that by 

 his history of the Council of Trent he showed &quot;how 

 the Holy Spirit conducts the councils of the church &quot; 

 (&quot;comme quoi le Saint Esprit dirige les conciles&quot;). 1 



Yet another subject which I would have been glad to 

 present was the life of St. Francis Xavier partly on ac 

 count of my veneration for the great Apostle to the Indies, 

 and partly because a collation of his successive biog 

 raphies so strikingly reveals the origin and growth of 

 myth and legend in the warm atmosphere of devotion. 

 The project of writing such a book was formed in my 

 Cornell lecture-room at the close of a short course of lec 

 tures on the &quot;Jesuit Eeaction which followed the Refor 

 mation. In the last of these I had pointed out the beauty 

 of Xavier s work, and had shown how natural had been 

 the immense growth of myth and legend in connection 

 with it. Among my hearers was Goldwin Smith, and as 

 we came out he said: &quot;I have often thought that if any 

 one were to take a series of the published lives of one of 

 the great Jesuit saints, beginning at the beginning and 

 comparing the successive biographies as they have ap 

 peared, century after century, down to our own time, 

 much light would be thrown upon the evolution of the 



1 Since writing the a&quot;bove, I have published in the &quot;Atlantic Monthly&quot; 

 two historical essays upon Sarpi. 





