the mission, he was at the same time paving his way to the papal throne.
Pázmány was not only the leader of the Anti-Reformation movement, but he was also the first great master of Hungarian prose. Before his time authors wrote in a flat, colourless, verbose style, as beginners often do. Suddenly Pázmány stepped forth without any predecessor, and expressed his ideas forcibly, with striking brevity, and with many an unexpected turn in his concise sentences. His best works are his Sermons. He possessed the gift, peculiar to great preachers, of illuminating the obscure and mystical dogmas of the Catholic religion by means of the simplest similes. Abstract ideas became intelligible under his treatment of them. His chief work on theology is A Guide to Divine Truth. The first half of the book treats of Christian dogma in general, and the second contains an attack on the arguments of the Protestants. He was very successful in religious controversy. His style is terse, forcible, caustic, and, in accordance with the habit of the theologians of that day, often harsh. One of his most bitter controversial pamphlets, in which he attacks the Protestant doctrines with withering sarcasm, was translated by the Protestants themselves, in order that it might be answered by a famous German scholar. When the answer was ready, the book containing it had to be translated into Hungarian. Controversy was thus a slow affair, and it was sometimes years before a reply was forthcoming. Time did not move at the same pace then as it does now, and men were more inclined to take things leisurely.
Pázmány was also famous for the schools which he founded. The number of priests being insufficient, he
