Protestantism in Poland and Bohemia - James Aitken Wylie

endowed the infant establishment. For six years
they made little progress, nor was it till the death of
Sigismund Augustus and the accession of Stephen
Bathory that they began to make their influence felt
in Poland. How they ingratiated themselves with
that monarch by their vast pretensions to learning
we have already seen. They became great
favourites with the bishops, who finding
Protestantism increasing in their dioceses, looked
for its repression rather from the intrigues of the
Fathers than the labors of their own clergy. But the
golden age of the Jesuits in Poland, to be followed
by the iron age to the people, did not begin until
the bigoted Sigismund III. mounted the throne. The
favors of Stephen Bathory, the colleges he had
founded, and the lands with which he had endowed
them, were not remembered in comparison with the
far higher consideration and vaster wealth to which
they were admitted under his successor. Sigismund
reigned, but the Jesuits governed. They stood by
the fountain-head of honours, and they held the
keys of all dignities and emoluments. They took
care of their friends in the distribution of these
good things, nor did they forget when enriching
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