a

very composedly while the rector preaches on religion, the chance is, that though she may the apostolical succession. Zeal for God, love disapprove of no one doctrine or ceremony of for his fellow-creatures, pleasure in the exer- the Established Church, she will end by giving cise of his newly discovered powers, impel ber name to a new schism. If a pious and him to become a preacher. He has no quarrel benevolent woman enters the cells of a prison, with the establishment, no objection to its for- to pray with the most unhappy and degraded mularies, its government, or its vestments. of her own sex, she does so without any auHe would gladly be admitted among its hum- thority from the Church. No line of action is blest ministers. But, admitted or rejected, his traced out for her; and it is well if the Ordivocation is determined. His orders have come nary does not complain of her intrusion, and down to him, not through a long and doubtful if the Bishop does not shake his head at such series of Arian and Papist bishops, but direct irregular benevolence. At Rome, the Countess from on high. His commission is the same of Huntingdon would have a place in the ca that on the Mountain of Ascension was given lendar as St. Selina, and Mrs. Fry would be to the Eleven. Nor will he, for lack of human foundress and first Superior of the Blessed credentials, spare to deliver the glorious mes- Order of Sisters of the Jails. sage with which he is charged by the true Place Ignatius Loyola at Oxford. He is Head of the Church. For a man thus minded, certain to become the head of a formidable se. there is within the pale of the establishment no cession. Place John Wesley at Rome. He is place. He has been at no college ; he cannot certain to be the first General of a new society construe a Greek author, nor write a Latin devoted to the interests and honour of the theme; and he is told that, if he remains in the Church. Place St. Theresa in London. Her cominunion of the Church, he must do so as a restless enthusiasm ferments into madness, not hearer, and that, if he is resolved to be a untinctured with craft. She becomes the proteacher, he must begin by being a schismatic. pheless, the mother of the faithful, holds dispuHis choice is soon made. He harangues on tations with the devil, issues sealed pardons to Tower Hill or in Smithfield. A congregation her adorers, and lies in of the Shiloh. Place is formed. A license is obtained. A plain Joanna Southcote at Rome. She founds an brick building, with a desk and benches, is run order of barefooted Carmelites, every one of up, and named Ebenezer or Bethel. In a few whom is ready to suffer martyrdom for the weeks the Church has lost forever a hundred Church ;-a solemn service is consecrated to families, not one of which entertained the least her memory :-and her statue, placed over the scruple about her articles, her liturgy, her go- holy water, strikes the eye of every stranger verment, or her ceremonies.

who enters St. Peter's. Far different is the policy of Rome. The We have dwelt long on this subject, because ignorant enthusiast, whom the Anglican Church we believe, that of the many causes to which makes an enemy, and, whatever the learned the Church of Rome owed her safety and her and polite may think, a most dangerous enemy, triumph at the close of the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church makes a champion. She the chief was the profound policy with which bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a she used the fanaticism of such persons as St gown and hood of coarse dark stuff, ties a rope Ignatius and St. Theresa. round his waist, and sends him forth to teach The Protestant party was now, indeed, van. in her name. He costs her nothing. He takes quished and humbled. In France, so strong not a ducat away from the revenues of her had been the Catholic reaction, that Henry IV. beneficed clergy. He lives by the alms of found it necessary to choose between his relithose who respect his spiritual character, and gion and his crown. In spite of his clear here. are grateful for his instructions. He preaches, ditary right, in spite of his cminent personal not exactly in the style of Massillon, but in a qualities, he saw that, unless he reconciled way which moves the passions of uneducated himself to the Church of Rome, he could not hearers; and all his influence is employed to count on thc fidelity even of those gallant strengthen the Church of which he is a minis- geutlemen whose impetuous valour had turned ter. To that Church he becomes as strongly the tide of battle at Ivry. In Belgium, Poland, attached as any of the cardinals, whose scarlet and Southern Germany, Catholicism had obcarriages and liveries crowd the entrance of tained a complete ascendant. The resistance the palace on the Quirinal. In this way the of Bohemia was put down. The Palatinate Church of Rome unites in herself all the was conquered. «Upper and Lower Saxony strength of establishment and all the strength were overflowed by Catholic invaders. The of dissent. With the utmost pomp of a domi- King of Denmark stood forth as the Protector pant hierarchy above, she has all the energy of the Reformed Churches; he was defeated, of the voluntary system below. It would be driven out of the empire, and attacked in his easy to mention very recent instances in which own possessions. The armies of the house the hearts of hundreds of thousands, estranged of Austria pressed on, subjugated Pomerania, from her by the selfishness, sloth, and coward- and were stopped in their progress only by the ice of the beneficed clergy, have been brought ramparts of Stralsund. back by the zeal of the begging friars.

And now again the tide turned. Two viv Even for female agency there is a place in lent outbreaks of religious feeling in opposite her system.

To devout women she assigns directions had given a character to the history spiritual functions, dignities, and magistracies. of a whole century. Protestantism had at firsi In our country, if a noble lady is moved by driven back Catholicism to the Alps and the more than ordinary zeal for the propagation of | Pyrenees. Cathr licism had rallied, and bad driven back Protestantism even to the German land and Protestant Holland joined with CathoOcean. Then the great southern reaction be- lic Savoy and Catholic Portugal, for the pure gan to slacken, as the great northern movement pose of transferring the crown of Spain from lad slackened before. The zeal of the Catho- one bigoted Catholic to another. 'ics became cool; their union was dissolved. The geographical frontier between the two The paroxysm of religious excitement was religions has continued to run almost preover on both sides. The one party had de- cisely where it ran at the close of the Thirty generated as far from the spirit of Loyola as Years' War; nor has Protestantism given any the other from the spirit of Luther. During proofs of that "expansive power” which has three generations, religion had been the main- been ascribed to it. But the Protestant boasts, spring of politics. The revolutions and civil and most justly, that wealth, civilization, and wars of France, Scotland, Holland, Sweden, intelligence have increased far more on the the long struggle between Philip and Elizabeth, northern than on the southern side of the the bloody competition for the Bohemian crown, boundary: that countries so little favoured by all originated in theological disputes.

nature as Scotland and Prussia are now among But a great change now took place. The the most flourishing and best governed portions contest which was raging in Germany lost its of the world—while the marble palaces of religious character. Ii was now, on the one side, Genoa are deserted—while banditti infest the less a contest for the spiritual ascendency of beautiful shores of Campania--while the fertile the Church of Rome than for the temporal as- sea-coast of the Pontifical State is abandoned cendency of the house of Austria. On the to buffaloes and wild boars. It cannot be nther, it was less a contest for the reformed doubted, that since the sixteenth century, the doctrine than for national independence. Go- Protestant nations-fair allowance being made vernments began to form themselves into new for physical disadvantages-have made de combinations, in which community of political cidedly greater progress than their neighbours. interest was far more regarded than communi. The progress n:ade by those nations in which ty of religious belief. Even at Rome the pro- Protestantism, though not finally successful, yet gress of the Catholic arms was observed with maintained a long struggle, and left permanent very mixed feelings. The Supreme Pontiff traces, has generally been considerable. But was a sovereign prince of the second rank, and when we come to the Catholic Land, to the was anxious about the balance of power, as part of Europe in which the first spark of rewell as about the propagation of truth. It was formation was trodden out as soon as it appear. known that he dreaded the rise of a universal ed, and from which proceeded the impulse monarchy even more than he desired the pros- which drove Protestantism back, we find, at perity of the Universal Church. At length a best, a very slow progress, and on the whole a great event announced to the world that the retrogression. Compare Denmark and Por. war of sects had ceased, and that the war of tugal. When Luther began to preach, the states had succeeded. A coalition, including superiority of the Portuguese was unquestionCalvinists, Lutherans, and Catholics, was able. At present the superiority of the Danes formed against the house of Austria. At the is no less so. Compare Edinburgh and Flohead of that coalition were the first statesman rence. Edinburgh has owed less to climate, and first warrior of the age; the former a to soil, and to the fostering care of rulers, than prince of the Catholic Church, distinguished any capital, Protestant or Catholic. In all by the vigour and success with which he had these respects, Florence has been singularly put down the lIuguenots--the lattera Protestant happy. Yet whoever knows what Florence king, who owed his throne to the revolution and Edinburgh were in the generation precaused by hatred of Popery. The alliance of ceding the Reformation, and what they are Richelieu and Gustavus marks the time at now, will acknowledge that some great cause which the great religious struggle terminated. has, during the last three centuries, operated The war which followed was a war for the to raise one part of the European family, and equilibrium of Europe. When, at length, the to depress the other. Compare the history of peace of Westphalia was concluded, it appear- England and that of Spain during the last cened that the Church of Rome remained in full tury. In arms, arts, sciences, letters, compossession of a vast dominion, which in the merce, agriculture, the contrast is most strik. middle of the preceding century she seemed ing. The distinction is not confined to this to be on the point of losing. No part of Eu- side of the Atlantic. The colonies planted by rope remained Protestant, except that part England in America have immeasurably oui. which had become thoroughly Protestant be grown in power those planted by Spain. Yet fore the generation which heard Luther preach we have no reason to believe that, at the behad passed away.

ginning of the sixteenth century, the Castilian Since that time there has been no religious was in any respect inferior to the Englishman. war between Catholics and Protestants as such. Our firm belief is, that the North owes its In the time of Cromwell, Protestant England great civilization and prosperity chiefly to the was united with Catholic France, then govern- moral effect of the Protestant Reformation ; ed by a priest, against Catholic Spain. William and that the decay of the Southern countries che Third, the eminently Protestant hero, was of Europe is to be mainly ascribed to the great at the head of a coalition which included many Catholic revival. Catholic powers, and which was secretly fa- About a hundred years after the final settlevoured even by Rome, against the Catholic ment of the boundary line between Protestan:Jouis In the time of Anne, Protestant Eng-lism and Catholicism, began to appear the signs of the fourth great peril of the Church on the wheel at Toulouse - when a youth, of Rome. The storm which was now rising guilty only of an indiscretion, was burned au against her was of a very different kind from Abbeville-when a brave officer, borne down. those which had preceded it. Those who had by public injustice, was dragged, with a gag in formerly attacked her had questioned only a his mouth, to die on the Place de Grêve, a part of her doctrines. A school was now voice instantly went forth from the banks of growing up which rejected the whole. The Lake Leman, which made itself heard from Albigenses, the Lollards, the Lutherans, the Moscow to Cadiz, and which sentenced the Calvinists, had a positive religious system, unjust judges to the contempt and detestation and were strongly attached to it. The creed of all Europe. The really etficient weapons of the new sectaries was altogether negative. with which the philosophers assailed the evanThey took one of their premises from the gelical faith were borrowed from the evangeliCatholics, and one from the Protestants. cal morality. The ethical and dogmatical From the former they borrowed the principle, parts of the Gospel were unhappily turned that Catholicism was the only pure and ge- against each other. On the one side was a nuine Christianity. With the latter they held church boasting of the purity of a doctrine dethat some parts of the Catholic system were rived from the apostles; but disgraced by the contrary to reason. The conclusion was ob- massacre of St. Bartholomew, by the murder vious. Two propositions, each of which sepa of the best of kings, by the war of the Cevenrately is compatible with the most exalted nes, by the destruction of Port-Royal. On the piety, formed, when held in conjunction, the other side was a sect langhing at the Scripgroundwork of a system of irreligion. The tures, shooting out the tongue at the sacradoctrine of Bossuet, that transubstantiation is ments, but ready to encounter principalities affirmed in the Gospel, and the doctrine of and powers in the cause of justice, mercy, and Tillotson, that transubstantiation is an absurd. toleration. ity, when put together, produced by logical ne- Irreligion, accidentally associated with phicessity the inserences of Voltaire.

lanthropy, triumphed for a time over religion Had the sect which was rising at Paris been accidentally associated with political and som a sect of mere scoffers, it is very improbable cial abuses. Every thing gave way to the that it would have left deep traces of its exist- zeal and activity of the new reformers. In ence in the institutions and manners of Eu- France, every man distinguished in letters rope. Mere negation-mere Epicurean infi- was found in their ranks. Every year gare delity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes-birth to works in which the fundamental prin. has never disturbed the peace of the world. It ciples of the Church were attacked with argufurnishes no motive for action. It inspires no ment, invective, and ridicule. The Church enthusiasm. It has no missionaries, no cru- made no defence, except by acts of power. saders, no martyrs. If the Patriarch of the Censures were pronounced — editions were Holy Philosophical Church had contented seized-insults were offered to the remains of himself with making jokes about Saul's asses infidel writers; but no Bossuet, no Pascal, and David's wives, and with criticising the came forth to encounter Voltaire. There ap. poetry of Ezekiel in the same narrow spirit in peared not a single defence of the Catholic which he criticised that of Shakspeare, the doctrine which produced any considerable efChurch would have had little to fear. But it is fect, or which is now even remembered. A due to him and to his compeers to say, that the bloody and unsparing persecution, like that real secret of their strength lay in the truth which put down the Albigenses, might have which was mingled with their errors, and in put down the philosophers. But the time for the generous enthusiasm which was hidden De Montforts and Dominics had gone by. The under their flippancy. They were men who, punishments which the priests were still able with all their faults, moral and intellectual, to inflict were sufficient io irritate, but not sufsincerely and earnestly desired the improve- ficient to destroy. The war was between ment of the condition of the human race-power on the one side, and wit on the other, whose blood boiled at the sight of cruelty and and the power was under far more restraint injustice-who made manful war, with every than the wit. Orthodoxy soon becaine a badge taculty which they possessed, on what they of ignorance and stupidity. It was as neces. considered as abuses-and who on many sig- sary to the character of an accomplished man nal occasions placed themselves gallantly be- thai he should despise the religion of his comutween the powerful and the oppressed. While try, as that he should know his letters. The they assailed Christianity with a rancour and new doctrines spread rapidly through Christen. an unfairness disgraceful to men who call dom. Paris was the capital of the whole con. themselves philosophers, they yet had, in far tinent. French was everywhere the language greater measure than their opponents, that of polite circles. The literary glory of Italy charity towards men of all classes and races and Spain had departed. That of Germany which Christianity enjoins. Religious perse- had not yet dawned. The teachers of France cution, judicial torture, arbitrary imprison- were the teachers of Europe. The Parisian ment, the unnecessary multiplication of capital opinions spread fast among the educatei punishments, the delay and chicanery of tri- classes beyond the Alps ; nor could the vigibunals, the exactions of farmers of the revenue, lance of the Inquisition prevent the contraband slavery, the slave trade, were the constant sub- importation of the new heresy into Castile ana jects of their lively satire and eloquent disqui- Portugal. Governments-even arbitrary go sitions. When an innocent man was broken vernments-saw with pleasure the progress of this philosophy. Numerous reforms, genel Nor were the calamities of the Church con rally laudable sometimes hurried on without fined to France. The revolutionary spirit, at sufficient regard to time, to place, and to public tacked by all Europe, beat all Europe back, feeling, showed the extent of its influence. became conqueror in its turn, and, not satisfied The rulers of Prussia, of Russia, of Austria, with the Belgian cities and the rich domains and of many smaller states, were supposed to of the spiritual electors, went raging over the be among the in:tiated.

Rhine and through the passes of the Alps. The Church of Rome was still, in outward Throughout the whole of the great war against show, as stately and splendid as ever; but her Protestantism, Italy and Spain had been the foundation was undermined. No state had base of the Catholic operations. Spain was quitted her communion, or confiscated her re- now the obsequious vassal of the infidels. Italy venues; but the reverence of the people was was subjugated by them. To her ancient prineverywhere departing from her.

cipalities succeeded the Cisalpine republic, and The first great warning stroke was the fall the Ligurian republic, and the Parthenopean of that society which, in the conflict with Pro- republic. The shrine of Loretto was stripped testantism, had saveil the Catholic Church of the treasures piled up by the devotion of six from destruction. The order of Jesus had hundred years. The convents of Rome were never recovered from the injury received in pillaged. The tricoloured flag floated on the the struggle with Port-Royal.' It was now still top of the castle of St. Angelo. The successor more rudely assailed by the philosophers. Ils of St. Peter was carried away captive by the spirit was broken; its reputation was tainted. unbelievers. He died a prisoner in their hands; Insulted by all the men of genius in Europe, and even the honours of sepulture were long condemned by the civil magistrate, feebly de- withheld from his remains. fended by the chiefs of the hierarchy, it fell- It is not strange that in the year 1799, even and great was the fall of it.

sagacious observers should have thought that, The movement went on with increasing at length, the hour of the Church of Rome was speed. The first generation of the new sect come. An infidel power ascendant--the Pope passed away. The doctrines of Voltaire were dying in captivity--the most illustrious preinherited and exaggerated by successors, who lates of France living in a foreign country on bore to nim the same relation which the Ana- Protestant alms—the noblest edifices which baptists bore lo Luther, or the Fifth-Monarchy the munificence of former ages had consecratmen io Pym. At length the Revolution came. ed to the worship of God, turned into temples Down went the old Church of France, with all of victory, or into banqueting-houses for poliits pomp and wealth. Some of its priests pur- tical societies, or into Theophilanthropic chachased a maintenance by separating them- pels such signs might well be supposed to inselves from Rome, and by becoming the au- dicate the approaching end of that long domithors of a fresh schism. Some, rejoicing in nation. the new license, flung away their sacred vest- But the end was not yet. Again doomed to ments, proclaimed that their whole life had death, the milk-white hind was still fated not been an imposture, insulted and persecuted to die. Even before the funeral rites had been she religion of which they had been ministers, performed over the ashes of Pius the Sixth, a and distinguished themselves even in the Ja- great reaction had commenced, which after the cobin Club and the Commune of Paris, by the lapse of more than forty years appears to be excess of their impudence and ferocity. Others, still in progress. Anarchy had its day. A more faithful to their principles, were butch- new order of things rose out of the confusionered by scores without a trial, drowned, shot, new dynasties, new laws, new titles; and hung on lamp-posts. Thousands fled from amidst them emerged the ancient religion. their country to iake sanctuary under the shade The Arabs had a fable that the Great Pyra. of hostile altars. The churches were closed : mid was built by antediluvian kings, and alone, the bells were silent; the shrines were plun- of all the works of men, bore the weight of the dered; the silver crucifixes were melted down. Aood. Such as this was the fate of the Papacy. Buffoons, dressed in copes and surplices, came It had been buried under the great inundation; dancing the carmagnole even to the bar of the but its deep foundations had remained uni

. Convention. The bust of Marat was substi- shaken; and, when the waters abated, it api, tuted for the statues of the martyrs of Chris- peared alone amidst the ruins of a world which tianity. A prostitute, seated in state in the had passed away. The republic of Holland chancel of Notre Dame, received the adoration was gone, and the empire of Germany, and the of thousands, who exclaimed that at length, | Greai Council of Venice, and the old Helverian for 'he first time, those ancient Gothic arches League, and the house of Bourbon, and the had resounded with the accents of truth. The Parliaments and aristocracy of France. Europe liew unbelief was as intolerant as the old su- was full of young creationsma French empire, perstition. To show reverence for religion | a kingdom of Italy, a Confederation of the was to incur the suspicion of disaffection. It Rhine. Nor had the late events affected only terwas act without imminent danger that the ritorial limits and political institutions. The dispriest baptized the infant, joined ihe hands of tribution of property, the composition and spirit lovers, or listened to the confession of the of society, had, through greal part of Catholic dying The absurd worship of the Ciondess of Europe, undergone a coinplete change. But Reason was, indeed, of short duration': but the the unchangeable Church was still there. Some deism of Robespierre and Lepaux was not less ' future historian, as able and temperate' as Pronostije to the Catholic faith that the atheism of fessor Ranke, will, we hope, trace the progress Clood and Charmelte.

of the Catholic revival of the nineteenth cenmary. We feel that we are drawing too near the Jesuits, and those which were maintained cur own time; and that, if we go on, we shall at the little supper parties of the Baron Holo be in danger of saying much which may be bach, there is a vast interval, in wnich the supposed to indicate, and which will certainly hunian mind, it should seem, might find for excire, angry feelings. We will, therefore, make itself some resting-place more satisfactory than only one observation, which, in our opinion, is either of the two extremes. And at the time deserving of serious attention.

of the Reformation, millions found such a restDuring the eighteenth century, the influence ing-place. Whole nations then renounced of the Church of Rome was constantly on the Popery without ceasing to believe in a first decline. Unbelief made extensive conquests cause, in a future life, or in the Divine authority in all the Catholic countries of Europe, and in of Christianity. In the last century, on the some countries obtained a complete ascend-other hand, when a Catholic renounced his beency. The Papacy was at length brought so lief in the real presence, it was a thousand 10 low as to be an object of derision to infidels, one that he renounced his belief in the Gospel and of pity rather than of hatred to Protestants. too; and when the reaction took place, with During the nineteenth century, this fallen belief in the Gospel came back belief in the Church has been gradually rising from her real presence. depressed state, and reconquering her old do- We by no means venture to deduce from minion. No person who calmly reflects on these phenomena any general law: but we what, within the last few years, has passed in think it a most remarkable fact, that no ChrisSpain, in Italy, in South America, in Ireland, tian nation, which did not adopt the principle: in the Netherlands, in Prussia, even in France, of the Reformation before the end of the six can doubt that her power over the hearts and teenth century, should ever have adopted them minds of men is now greater than it was when Catholic communities have, since that time, the “Encyclopædia" and the “Philosophical become infidel and become Catholic again Dictionary” appeared. It is surely remarkable, but none has become Protestant. that neither the moral revolution of the eight- Here we close this hasty sketch of one of the eenth century, nor the moral counter-revolu- most important portions of the history of manlion of the nineteenth, should, in any per- kind. Our readers will have great reason to ceptible degree, have added to the domain of reel obliged to us if we have interested them Protestantism. During the former period, what- sufficiently to induce them to peruse Professor ever was lost 10 Catholicism was lost also to Ranke's book. We will only caution them Christianity; during the latter, whatever was against the French translation-a performance regained by Christianity in Catholic countries, which, in our opinion, is just as discreditable was regained also by Catholicism. We should to the moral character of the person from whom naturally have expected that many minds, on it proceeds, as a false affidavit or a forged bil the way from superstition to infidelity, or on of exchange would have been; and advis the way back from infidelity to superstition, them to study either the original, or the English would have stopped at an intermediate point. version, in which the sense and spirit c the Between the doctrines taught in the schools of original are admirably preserved.