Perhaps, too, their _role_ as friends and liberators of the people was ended since the people now undertook to liberate itself.

And so the only real remaining battle was between the Dominicans and the Jesuits, both of whom still claimed to mould the world according to their particular views.

Warfare between them was incessant, and Rome--the supreme power at the Vatican--was ever the prize for which they contended.

But, although the Dominicans had St.
Thomas on their side, they must have felt that their old dogmatic science was crumbling, compelled as they were each day to surrender a little ground to the Jesuits whose principles accorded better with the spirit of the century.

And, in addition to these, there were the white-robed Carthusians, those very holy, pure, and silent meditators who fled from the world into quiet cells and cloisters, those despairing and consoled ones whose numbers may decrease but whose Order will live for ever, even as grief and desire for solitude will live.