The chief point to remember is that the _Decem Rationes_ was the
last and most deliberate free utterance of Campion's
ever-memorable mission. During the few months that mission
lasted he succeeded in staying the full tide of victorious
Protestantism, which had hitherto been irresistible. The ancient
Church had gone down before the new religion, at Elizabeth's
accession twenty years before, with an apparently final fall,
and since then the Elizabethan Settlement had triumphed in every
church, in every school and court. The new generation had been
moulded by it; the old order seemed to be utterly prostrate,
defeated and moribund. Nor was it only at home that
Protestantism talked of victory. In every neighbouring land she
had gained or was gaining the upper hand. She had crossed the
Border and subdued Scotland, she held Ireland in an iron grip,
she had set up a new throne in Holland, she had deeply divided
France, and had learned how to paralyze the power of Spain. What
could stay her progress?
Then a new figure appeared, a fugitive flying before the law. He
was hunted backwards and forwards across the country, every man's
hand seemed against him. It was impossible to hold out for long
against such immense odds, and he was in fact soon captured,
mocked, maligned, sentenced and executed with contumely. Yet
Campion and his handful of followers had meanwhile succeeded in
doing what the whole nation, when united, had failed to do. He
had evoked a spirit of faith and fervour, against which the
violence of Protestantism raged in vain. He had saved the beaten,
shattered fragments of the ancient host, and animated them with
invincible courage; and his work endured in spite of endless
assaults and centuries of persecution. The _Decem Rationes_ is
Campion's harangue to those whom he called upon to follow him in
the heroic struggle.