possessing great wealth and power, and though long backed by persecuting laws, had, in the course of many generations, been found unable to propagate its doctrines, and barely able to maintain its ground-a church so odious, that fraud and violence, when used against its clear rights of property, were generally regarded as fair play-a church, whose ministers were preaching to desolate walls, and with difficulty obtaining their lawful subsistence by the help of bayonets-such a church, on our principles, could not, we must own, be defended. We should say that the state which allied itself with such a church, postponed the primary end of government to the secondary; and that the consequences had been such as any sagacious observer would have predicted. Neither the primary nor the secondary end is attained. The temporal and spiritual interests of the people suffer alike. The minds of men, instead of being drawn to the church, are alienated from the state. The magistrate, after We have done; and nothing remains but sacrificing order, peace, union, all the interests that we part from Mr. Gladstone with the courwhich it is his first duty to protect, for the pur- tesy of antagonists who bear no malice. We pose of promoting pure religion, is forced, after dissent from his opinions, but we admire his the experience of centuries, to admit that he talents; we respect his integrity and benevohas really been promoting error. The sounder lence; and we hope that he will not suffer the doctrines of such a church-the more ab-political avocations so entirely to engross him, surd and noxious the superstition by which as to leave him no leisure for literature and phi those doctrines are opposed-the stronger are losophy.

the arguments against the policy which has deprived a good cause of its natural advantages. Those who preach to rulers the duty of employing power to propagate truth would do well to remember that falsehood, though no match for truth alone, has often been found more than a match for truth and power together.

A statesman, judging on our principles, would pronounce without hesitation, that a church, such as we have last described, never ought to have been set up. Further than this we will not venture to speak for him. He would doubtless remember that the world is full of institutions which, though they never ought to have been set up, yet having been set up, ought not to be rudely pulled down; and that it is often wise in practice to be content with the mitigation of an abuse which, looking at it in the abstract, we might feel impatient to destroy.

RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, OCTOBER, 1840.]

It is hardly necessary for us to say, that this | still sending forth to the furthest ends of the is an excellent book excellently translated. The original work of Professor Ranke is known and esteemed wherever German literature is studied; and has been found interesting even in a most inaccurate and dishonest French version. It is, indeed, the work of a mind fitted both for minute researches and for large speculations. It is written also in an admirable spirit, equally remote from levity and bigotry; serious and earnest, yet tolerant and impartial. It is, therefore, with the greatest pleasure that we now see it take its place among the English classics. Of the translation we need only say, that it is such as might be expected from the skill, the taste, and the scrupulous integrity of the accomplished lady, who, as an interpreter between the mind of Germany and the mind of Britain, has already deserved so well of both countries.

The subject of this book has always appeared to us singularly interesting. How it was that Protestanism did so much, yet did no more-how it was that the Church of Rome, having lost a large part of Europe, not only ceased to lose, but actually regained nearly half of what she had lost-is certainly a most curious and important question; and on this question Professor Ranke has thrown far more light than any other person who has written on it.

There is not, and there never was, on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilization. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century, to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique; but full of inte and youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is

world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin; and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated her for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extend over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn-countries which, a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her community are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all the other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments, and of all the ecclesiasti cal establishments, that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain-before the Frank had passed the Rhine-when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch-when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.

We often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming more and more enlightened, and that this enlightening must be favourable to Protestantism, and unfavourable to Catholicism. We wish that we could think so. But we see great reason to doubt whether this be a well-founded expectation. We see that during the last two hundred and fifty years, the human mind has been in the highest degree activethat it has made great advances in every branch of natural philosophy-that it has pro duced innumerable inventions tending to promote the convenience of life-that medicine, surgery, chemistry, engineering, have been very greatly improved-that government, po lice, and law have been improved, though not quite to the same extent. Yet we see that, during these two hundred and fifty years, Pro testantism has made no conquests worth speak ing of. Nay, we believe that, as far as there has been a change, that change has been in favour of the Church of Rome. We cannot, therefore, feel confident that the progress of knowledge will necessarily be fatal to a system which has, to say the least, stood its 2L2

ground in spite of the immense progress which | who, at fourteen, have thought enough er knowledge has made since the days of Queen these questions to be fully entitled to the Elizabeth.

praise which Voltaire gives to Zadig, "Il en savait ce qu'on én a su dans tous les âges, c'est-à-dire, fort peu de chose." The book of Job shows, that long before letters and arts were known to Ionia, these vexing questions were debated with no common skill and eloquence, under the tents of the Idumean Emirs; nor has human reason, in the course of three thousand years, discovered any satisfactory solution of the riddles which perplexed Eliphaz and Zophar.

Indeed, the argament which we are considering seems to us to be founded on an entire mistake. There are branches of knowledge, with respect to which the law of the human mind is progress. In mathematics, when once a proposition has been demonstrated, it is never afterwards contested. Every fresh story is as solid a basis for a new superstructure as the original foundation was. Here, therefore, there is a constant addition to the stock of truth. In the inductive sciences again, the law is progress. Every day furnishes new facts, and thus brings theory nearer and nearer to perfection. There is no chance that either in the purely demonstrative, or in the purely experimental sciences, the world will ever go back or even remain stationary. Nobody ever heard of a reaction against Taylor's theorem, or of a reaction against Harvey's doc-in certain books. It is equally open to all who trine of the circulation of the blood.

Natural theology, then, is not a progressive science. That knowledge of our origin and of our destiny which we derive from revelation, is indeed of very different clearness, and very different importance. But neither is revealed religion of the nature of a progressive science. All Divine truth is, according to the doctrine of the Protestant churches, recorded

in any age can read those books; nor can all But with theology the case is very different. the discoveries of all the philosophers in the As respects natural religion-revelation being world add a single verse to any of these books. for the present altogether left out of the ques- It is plain, therefore, that in divinity there cantion-it is not easy to see that a philosopher not be a progress analogous to that which is of the present day is more favourably situated constantly taking place in pharmacy, geology, than Thales or Simonides. He has before him and navigation. A Christian of the fifth cen just the same evidences of design in the struc- tury with a Bible is on a par with a Christian ture of the universe which the early Greeks of the nineteenth century with a Bible, candour had. We say just the same; for the discove- and natural acuteness being, of course, supries of modern astronomers and anatomists posed equal. It matters not at all that the have really added nothing to the force of that compass, printing, gunpowder, steam, gas, vacargument which a reflecting mind finds in cination, and a thousand other discoveries and every beast, bird, insect, fish, leaf, flower, and inventions which were unknown in the fifth shell. The reasoning by which Socrates, in century are familiar to the nineteenth. None Xenophon's hearing, confuted the little atheist of these discoveries and inventions have the Aristodemus, is exactly the reasoning of Pa- smallest bearing on the question whether man ley's "Natural Theology." Socrates makes is justified by faith alone, or whether the invoprecisely the same use of the statues of Poly-cation of saints is an orthodox practice. It cletus and the pictures of Zeuxis, which Paley makes of the watch. As to the other great question-the question, what becomes of man after death-we do not see that a highly educated European, left to his unassisted reason, is more likely to be in the right than a Blackfoot Indian. Not a single one of the many sciences in which we surpass the Blackfoot Indians, throws the smallest light on the state of the soul after the animal life is extinct. In truth, all the philosophers, ancient and modern, who have attempted, without the help of revelation to prove the immortality of man, from Plato down to Franklin, appear to us to have failed deplorably.

Then, again, all the great enigmas which perplex the natural theologian are the same in all ages. The ingenuity of a people just emerging from barbarism is quite sufficient to propound them. The wisdom of Locke or Clarke is quite unable to solve them. It is a mistake to imagine that subtle speculations touching the Divine attributes, the origin of evil, the necessity of human actions, the foundation of moral obligation, imply any high degree of intellectual culture. Such speculations, on the contrary, are in a peculiar manner the delight of intelligent children and of half-civilized men. The number of boys is not small

We are

seems to us, therefore, that we have no secu
rity for the future against the prevalence of
any theological error that has ever prevailed
in time past among Christian men.
confident that the world will never go back to
the solar system of Ptolemy; nor is our coufi
dence in the least shaken by the circumstance
that even so great a man as Bacon rejected
the theory of Galileo with scorn; for Bacon
had not all the means of arriving at a sound
conclusion which are within our reach, and
which secure people, who would not have been
worthy to mend his pens, from falling into his
mistakes. But we are very differently affected
when we reflect that Sir Thomas More was
ready to die for the doctrine of transubstantia-
tion. He was a man of eminent talents. He
had all the information on the subject that we
have, or that, while the world lasts, any human
being will have. The text "This is my body,"
was in his New Testament as it is in ours.

The absurdity of the literal interpretation was as great and as obvious in the sixteenth century as it is now. No progress that science has made or will make can add to what seems to us the overwhelming force of the ar gument against the real presence. We are therefore unable to understand why what Sir Thomas More believed respecting transubstan

than to the first, or to London than to the wildest parish in the Hebrides. It is true that, in those things which concern this life and this world, man constantly becomes wiser. But it is no less true that, as respects a higher power and a future state, man, in the language of Goethe's scoffing fiend,

tiation may not be believed to the end of time by men equal in abilities and honesty to Sir Thomas More. But Sir Thomas More is one of the choice specimens of human wisdom and virtue, and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test will stand any test. The prophesies of Brothers and the miracles of Prince Hohen"bleibt stets von gleichem schlag, lohe sink to trifles in the comparison. One reUnd ist so wunderlich als wie am ersten tag." servation, indeed, must be made. The books and traditions of a sect may contain, mingled The history of Catholicism strikingly illuswith propositions strictly theological, other pro-trates these observations. During the last positions purporting to rest on the same autho-seven centuries the public mind of Europe has rity which relate to physics. If new discover-made constant progress in every department ies should throw discredit on the physical pro- of secular knowledge. But in religion we can positions, the theological propositions, unless trace no constant progress. The ecclesiasti they can be separated from the physical pro-cal history of that long period is the history positions, will share in their discredit. In this of movement to and fro. Four times since the way, undoubtedly, the progress of science may authority of the Church of Rome was esta indirectly serve the cause of religious truth.blished in Western Christendom has the huThe Hindoo mythology, for example, is bound man intellect risen up against her yoke. Twice up with a most absurd geography. Every she remained completely victorious. Twice she young Brahmin, therefore, who learns geogra-came forth from the conflict bearing the marks phy in our colleges, learns to smile at the Hin-of cruel wounds, but with the principle of life doo mythology. If Catholicism has not suffer- still strong within her. When we reflect on ed to an equal degree from the Papal decision the tremendous assaults which she has surthat the sun goes round the earth, this is be-vived, we find it difficult to conceive in what cause all intelligent Catholics now hold, with way she is to perish. Pascal, that in deciding the point at all the The first of these insurrections broke out in Church exceeded her powers, and was, there- the region where the beautiful language of Oc fore, justly left destitute of that supernatural was spoken. That country, singularly favourassistance which, in the exercise of her legiti-ed by nature, was, in the twelfth century, the mate functions, the promise of her Founder authorized her to expect.

yards arose many rich cities, each of which was a little republic; and many stately castles, each of which contained a miniature of an imperial court. It was there that the spirit of chivalry first laid aside its terrors, first took a

most flourishing and civilized part of Western Europe. It was in nowise a part of France. This reservation affects not at all the truth It had a distinct political existence, a distinct of our proposition, that divinity, properly so national character, distinct usages, and a discalled, is not a progressive science. A very tinct speech. The soil was fruitful and well common knowledge of history, a very little ob-cultivated; and amidst the cornfields and vineservation of life, will suffice to prove that no learning, no sagacity, affords a security against the greatest errors on subjects relating to the invisible world. Bayle and Chillingworth, two of the most skeptical of mankind, turned Catholics from sincere conviction. Johnson, in-humane and graceful form, first appeared as credulous on all other points, was a ready believer in miracles and apparitions. He would not believe in Ossian, but he believed in the second sight. He would not believe in the earthquake of Lisbon, but he believed in the Cock Lane Ghost.

For these reasons we have ceased to wonder at any vagaries of superstition. We have seen men, not of mean intellect or neglected education, but qualified by their talents and acquirements to attain eminence either in active or speculative pursuits, well-read scholars, expert logicians, keen observers of life and manners, prophesying, interpreting, talking unknown tongues, working miraculous cures, coming down with messages from God to the Houses of Commons. We have seen an old woman, with no talents beyond the cunning of a fortune-teller, and with the education of a scullion, exalted into a prophetess, and surrounded by tens of thousands of devoted followers, many of whom were, in station and knowledge, immeasurably her superiors; and all this in the nineteenth century, and all this in London. Yet why not? For of the dealings of God with man no more has been revealed to the nineteenth century

the inseparable associate of art and literature,
of courtesy and love. The other vernacular
dialects which, since the fifth century, had
sprung up in the ancient provinces of the Ro-
man empire, were still rude and imperfect.
The sweet Tuscan, the rich and energetic Eng-
lish, were abandoned to artisans and shep-
herds. No clerk had ever condescended to
use such barbarous jargon for the teaching of
science, for the recording of great events, or
for the painting of life and manners.
But the
language of Provence was already the lan-
guage of the learned and polite, and was em-
ployed by numerous writers, studious of all the
arts of composition and versification.

A literature rich in ballads, in war-songs, in satire, and, above all, in amatory poetry, amused the leisure of the knights and ladies whose fortified mansions adorned the banks of the Rhone and Garonne. With civilization had come freedom of thought. Use had taken away the horror with which misbelievers were elsewhere regarded. No Norman or Breton ever saw a Mussulman, except to give and receive blows on some Syrian field of battle. But the people of the rich countries which lay un

der the Pyrenees lived in habits of courteous great European family. Rome, in the mean and profitable intercourse with the Moorish time, warned by that fearful danger from which kingdoms of Spain, and gave a hospitable wel- the exterminating swords of her crusaders had come to skilful teachers and mathematicians, narrowly saved her, proceeded to revise and who, in the schools of Cordova and Granada, to strengthen her whole system of polity. A had become versed in all the learning of the this period were instituted the order of Francis, Arabians. The Greek, still preserving, in the the order of Dominic, the tribunal of the Inqui midst of political degradation, the ready wit sition. The new spiritual police was every and the inquiring spirit of his fathers, still able where. No alley in a great city, no hamlet on to read the most perfect of human composi- a remote mountain, was unvisited by the beg tions, still speaking the most powerful and ging friar. The simple Catholic, who was flexible of human languages, brought to the content to be no wiser than his fathers, found, marts of Narbonne and Toulouse, together with wherever he turned, a friendly voice to encou the drugs and silks of remote climates, bold and rage him. The path of the heretic was beset subtle theories, long unknown to the ignorant by innumerable spies; and the Church, lately and credulous West. The Paulician theology in danger of utter subversion, now appeared -a theology in which, as it should seem, many to be impregnably fortified by the love, the of the doctrines of the modern Calvinists were reverence, and the terror of mankind. mingled with some doctrines derived from the A century and a half passed away, and then ancient Manichees,-spread rapidly through came the second great rising up of the human Provence and Languedoc. The clergy of the intellect against the spiritual domination of Catholic Church were regarded with loathing Rome. During the two generations which fol and contempt. "Viler than a priest,"-"I lowed the Albigensian crusade, the power of the would as soon be a priest,"-became prover- Papacy had been at the height. Frederick II. bial expressions. The Papacy lost all autho--the ablest and most accomplished of the long rity with all classes, from the great feudal princes down to the cultivators of the soil.

line of German Cæsars--had in vain exhaust. ed all the resources of military and political skill in the attempt to defend the rights of the civil power against the encroachments of the Church. The vengeance of the priesthood had pursued his house to the third generation. Manfred had perished on the field of battle; Conradin on the scaffold. Then a turn took place. The secular authority, long unduly depressed, regained the ascendant with start ling rapidity. The change is doubtless to be ascribed chiefly to the general disgust excited by the way in which the Church had abused its power and its success.

The danger to the hierarchy was indeed formidable. Only one transalpine nation had emerged from barbarism, and that nation had thrown off all respect for Rome. Only one of the vernacular languages of Europe had yet been extensively employed for literary purposes, and that language was a machine in the hands of heretics. The geographical position of the sectaries made the danger peculiarly formidable. They occupied a central region communicating directly with France, with Italy, and with Spain. The provinces which were still untainted were separated But something must be attributed to the from each other by this infected district. Un- character and situation of individuals. The der these circumstances, it seemed probable man who bore the chief part in effecting this that a single generation would suffice to spread revolution was Philip IV. of France, surnamed the reformed doctrine to Lisbon, to London, the Beautiful-a despot by position, a despot and to Naples. But this was not to be. Rome by temperament, stern, implacable, and un cried for help to the warriors of northern scrupulous, equally prepared for violence and France. She appealed at once to their super- for chicanery, and surrounded by a devoted stition and to their cupidity. To the devout band of men of the sword, and of men of law. believers she promised pardons as ample as The fiercest and most high-minded of the Ro those with which she had rewarded the deliver- man Pontiffs, while bestowing kingdoms, and ers of the holy Sepulchre. To the rapacious citing great princes to his judgment-seat, was and profligate she offered the plunder of fertile seized in his palace by armed men, and so plains and wealthy cities. Unhappily, the in- foully outraged that he died mad with rage genious and polished inhabitants of the Lan- and terror. "Thus," sang the great Florenguedocian provinces were far better qualified tine poet, "was Christ in the person of his to enrich and embellish their country than to vicar, a second time seized by ruffians, a sedefend it. Eminent in the arts of peace, un-cond time mocked, a second time drenched rivalled in the "gay science," elevated above with the vinegar and the gall." The seat of many vulgar superstitions, they wanted that the Papal court was carried beyond the Alps, iron courage, and that skill in martial exercises, which distinguished the chivalry of the region beyond the Loire, and were ill-fitted to face enemies, who, in every country from Ireland to Palestine, had been victorious against tenfold odds. A war, distinguished even among wars of religion by its merciless atrocity, destroyed the Albigensian heresy; and with that heresy the prosperity, the civilization, the literature, the national existence, of what was once the most ovulent and enlightened part of the

and the Bishops of Rome became dependants of France. Then came the great schism of the West. Two Popes, each with a doubtful title, made all Europe ring with their mutual invectives and anathemas. Rome cried out against the corruptions of Avignon; and Avig non, with equal justice, recriminated on Rome The plain Christian people, brought up in the belief that it was a sacred duty to be in com

* Purgatorio, xx. 87.