whom the ecclesiastical faction remains in bad accord.  From the Jesuit colleges there never issued a son obedient to his father, devoted to his country, loyal to his prince.  The cause of this is that the Jesuits employ their best energies in destroying natural affection, respect for parents, reverence for princes.  Therefore they only deserve to be admired by those whose interest it is to subject family, country and government to ecclesiastical interests.’

[Footnote 170:  Lettere, vol. i. p. 126; Opere, vol. vi. p. 40.]

[Footnote 171:  Opere, vol. vi. p. 145.]

The Provincial Letters of Pascal, which Sarpi anticipated in so many points, suffice to prove that he was justified in this hostility to ultramontanism backed up by Jesuit artifices.  He was writing, be it remembered, at the very high tide of Papal domination, when Henri IV. had been assassinated, and when the overwhelming forces of secular interests combined with intellectual progress had not as yet set limits on ecclesiastical encroachment.  The dread lest Europe should succumb to Rome, now proved by subsequent events an unsubstantial nightmare, was real enough for this Venetian friar, who ran daily risk of assassination in down-trodden servile Italy, with Spanish plots threatening the arsenal, with France delivered into the hands of Florentines and casuists, with England in the grip of Stuarts, and with Germany distracted by intrigues.  He could not foresee that in the course of a century the Jesuits would be discredited by their own arts, and that the Papacy would subside into a pacific sovereignty bent on securing its own temporal existence by accommodation.

The end of Sarpi’s life consecrated the principles of duty to God and allegiance to his country which had animated its whole course.  He fell into a bad state of health; yet nothing would divert him from the due discharge of public business.  ’All the signs of the soul’s speedy departure from that age-enfeebled body, were visible; but his indefatigable spirit sustained him in such wise that he bore exactly all his usual burdens.  When his friends and masters bade him relax his energies, he used to answer:  My duty is to serve and not to live; there is some one daily dying in his office.[172] When at length the very sources of existence failed, and the firm brain wandered for a moment, he was once heard to say:  ’Let us go to S. Mark, for it is late.’[173] The very last words he uttered, frequently repeated, but scarcely intelligible, were:  ’Esto Perpetua.’[174] May Venice last forever!  This was the dying prayer of the man who had consecrated his best faculties to the service of his country.  But before he passed away into that half slumber which precedes death, he made confession to his accustomed spiritual father, received the Eucharist and Extreme Unction, and bade farewell to the superior of the Servites, in the following sentence:  ‘Go ye to rest, and I will return to God, from whom I came.’  With these words he closed his lips in silence, crossing his hands upon his breast and fixing his eyes upon a crucifix that stood before him.[175]