The people were impressed by their zeal, piety, and disinterestedness, and in the Southern provinces they were able to bear away a victory after a fierce fight with Calvinism.
In England, where they showed the most devotion, they met with the least success.

The blood of their martyrs did not sow the ground with Catholic seed, and they were expelled by statute under Elizabeth.
[Sidenote: Jesuit victories] The most striking victories of the Jesuits were won in Central Europe.
When the first of their company, Peter Faber, entered Germany in 1540, he found nearly the whole country Lutheran.

The Wittelsbachs of Bavaria were almost the only reigning family that never compromised with the Reformers and in them the Jesuits found their starting point and their most constant ally.

Called to the universities of Ingolstadt and Vienna their success was great and from these foci they radiated in all directions, to Poland, to Hungary, to the Rhine.

One of their most eminent missionaries was Peter Canisius, whose catechism, published in 1555 in three forms, short, long and middle, and in two {407} languages, German and Latin, became the chief spiritual text-book of the Catholics.
The idea and selection of material was borrowed from Luther and he was imitated also in the omission of all overt polemic material.