of the Holy Sepulchre. Thence he wandered sicians, merchants, serving-men; in the hostile back to the farthest west, and astonished the court of Sweden, in the old manor-houses of Convent of Spain and the schools of France by Cheshire, among the hovels of Connaught; his penance and vigils. The same lively ina-arguing, instructing, consoling, stealing away the hearts of the young, animating the courage of the timid, holding up the crucifix before the eyes of the dying.

gination which had been employed in picturing the tumult of unreal battles, and the charms of unreal queens, now peopled his solitude with saints and angels. The Holy Virgin de- Nor was it less their office to plot against the scended to commune with him. He saw the thrones and lives of apostate kings, to spread Saviour face to face with the eye of flesh. Even evil rumours, to raise tumults, to inflame civil those mysteries of religion which are the hard-wars, to arm the hand of the assassin. Inflexiest trial of faith, were in his case palpable to ble in nothing but in their fidelity to the Church, sight. It is difficult to relate without a pitying they were equally ready to appeal in her cause smile, that, in the sacrifice of the mass, he saw to the spirit of loyalty and to the spirit of freedom. transubstantiation take place; and that, as he Extreme doctrines of obedience and extreme docstood praying on the steps of St. Dominic, he trines of liberty-the right of rulers to misgovern saw the Trinity in Unity, and wept aloud with the people, the right of every one of the people joy and wonder. Such was the celebrated to plunge his knife in the heart of a bad rulerIgnatius Loyola, who in the great Catholic re- were inculcated by the same man according as action, bore the same share which Luther bore he addressed himself to the subject of Philip in the great Protestant movement. or the subject of Elizabeth. Some described these men as the most rigid, others as the most to-indulgent of spiritual directors. And both de scriptions were correct. The truly devout listened with awe to the high and saintly mo rality of the Jesuit. The gay cavalier who had run his rival through the body, the frail beauty who had forgotten her marriage-vow, found in the Jesuit an easy well-bred man of the world, tolerant of the little irregularities of people of fashion. The confessor was strict or lax, according to the temper of the penitent. His first object was to drive no person out of the pale of the Church. Since there were bad people, it was better that they should be bad Catholics than bad Protestants. If a person was so unfortunate as to be a bravo, a libertine, or a gambler, that was no reason for making him a heretic too.

Dissatisfied with the system of the Theatines, the enthusiastic Spaniard turned his face wards Rome. Poor, obscure, without a patron, without recommendations, he entered the city where now two princely temples, rich with paintings and many-coloured marble, commemorate his great services to the Church; where his form stands sculptured in massive silver; where his bones, enshrined amidst jewels, are placed beneath the altar of God. His activity and zeal bore down all opposition; and under his rule the order of Jesuits began to exist, and grew rapidly to the full measure of its gigantic powers. With what vehemence, with what policy, with what exact discipline, with what dauntless courage, with what self-denial, with what forgetfulness of the dearest private ties, with what intense and stubborn devotion to a single end, with what unscrupulous laxity and versatility in the choice of means, the Jesuits fought the battles of their church, is written in every page of the annals of Europe during several generations. In the order of Jesus was concentrated the quintessence of the Catholic spirit; and the history of the order of Jesus is the history of the great Catholic reaction. That order possessed itself at once of all the strongholds which command the public mind of the pulpit, of the press, of the confessional, | had tempted any of their countrymen to enter; of the academies. Wherever the Jesuit preach- and preached and disputed in tongues of which ed the church was too small for the audience. no other native of the West understood a word. The name of Jesuit on a title-page secured the circulation of a book. It was in the ears of the Jesuit that the powerful, the noble, and the beautiful breathed the secret history of their lives. It was at the feet of the Jesuit that the youth of the higher and middle classes were brought up from the first rudiments to the courses of rhetoric and philosophy. Literature and science, lately associated with infidelity or with heresy, now became the allies of orthodoxy.

The Old World was not wide enough for this strange activity. The Jesuits invaded all the countries which the great maritime discoveries of the preceding age had laid open to European enterprise. In the depths of the Peruvian mines, at the marts of the African slave-caravans, on the shores of the Spice Islands, in the observatories of China, they were to be found. They made converts in regions which neither avarice nor curiosity

Dominant in the south of Europe, the great order soon went forth conquering and to conquer. In spite of oceans and deserts, of hunger and pestilence, of spies and penal laws, of dungeons and racks, of gibbets and quarteringblocks, Jesuits were to be found under every disguise, and in every country-scholars, phy

I

The spirit which appeared so eminently in this order, animated the whole Catholic world. The court of Rome itself was purified. During the generation which preceded the Reforma tion, that court had been a scandal to the Christian name. Its annals are black with treason, murder, and incest. Even its more respectable members were utterly unfit to be ministers of religion. They were men like Leo X.; men who, with the Latinity of the Augustan age, had acquired its atheistical and scoffing spirit. They regarded these Christian mysteries of which they were stewards, just as the Augur Cicero and the Pontifex Maximus Cæsar regarded the Sibylline books and the pecking of the sacred chickens. Among themselves they spoke of the Incarnation, the Eucharist, and the Trinity, in the same tone in

which Cotta and Velleius talked of the oracle lect spirits. Whoever was suspected of heresy,
of Delphi, or of the voice of Faunus in the whatever his rank, his learning, or his reputa-
mountains. Their years glided by in a soft tion, was to purge himself to the satisfaction
dream of sensual and intellectual voluptuous- of a severe and vigilant tribunal, or to die by
ness. Choice cookery, delicious wines, lovely fire. Heretical books were sought out and
women, hounds, falcons, horses, newly-disco- destroyed with the same unsparing rigour.
vered manuscripts of the classics, sonnets and Works which were once in every house were
burlesque romances in the sweetest Tuscan- so effectually suppressed that no copy of them
just as licentious as a fine sense of the grace- now is to be found in the most extensive libra.
ful would permit; plates from the hand of a ries. One book in particular, entitled "Of the
Benvenuto, designs for palaces by Michel benefits of the death of Christ," had this fate.
Angelo, frescoes by Raphael, busts, mosaics, It was written in Tuscan, was many times re-
and gems just dug up from among the ruins printed, and was eagerly read in every part of
of ancient temples and villas;-these things Italy. But the Inquisitors detected in it the
were the delight and even the serious business Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith
of their lives. Letters and the fine arts un-alone. They proscribed it: and it is now as
utterly lost as the second decade of Livy.

doubtedly owe much to this not inelegant sloth.
But when the great stirring of the mind of Europe Thus, while the Protestant Reformation pro-
began when doctrine after doctrine was as- ceeded rapidly at one extremity of Europe, the
sailed-when nation after nation withdrew Catholic revival went on as rapidly at the
from communion with the successor of St. other. About half a century after the great
Peter, it was felt that the Church could not separation, there were throughout the north,
be safely confided to chiefs whose highest Protestant governments and Protestant nations.
praise was, that they were good judges of Latin In the south were governments and nations
compositions, of paintings, and of statues, actuated by the most intense zeal for the an-
whose severest studies had a Pagan character, cient church. Between these two hostile
and who were suspected of laughing in secret regions lay, geographically as well as morally,
at the sacraments which they administered, a great debatable land. In France, Belgium,
and of believing no more of the Gospel than of Southern Germany, Hungary, and Poland, the
the Morgante Maggiore. Men of a very different contest was still undecided. The governments
class now rose to the direction of ecclesiastical of those countries had not renounced their
affairs-men whose spirit resembled that of connection with Rome; but the Protestants
Dunstan and of Becket. The Roman Pontiffs were numerous, powerful, bold, and active. In
exhibited in their own persons all the austerity France they formed a commonwealth within
of the early anchorites of Syria. Paul IV. the realm, held fortresses, were able to bring
brought to the Papal throne the same fervent great armies into the field, and had treated
zeal which had carried him into the Theatine with their sovereign on terms of equality. In
convent. Pius V., under his gorgeous vest- Poland, the king was still a Catholic; but the
ments, wore day and night the hair-shirt of a Protestants had the upper hand in the Diet,
simple friar; walked barefoot in the streets at the filled the chief offices in the administration, and,
head of processions; found, even in the midst in the large towns, took possession of the parish
of his most pressing avocations, time for pri-churches. "It appeared," says the Papal
vate prayer; often regretted that the public nuncio, "that in Poland, Protestantism would
duties of his station were unfavourable to completely supersede Catholicism." In Ba-
growth in holiness; and edified his flock by in-varia, the state of things was nearly the same.
numerable instances of humility, charity, and The Protestants had a majority in the Assem
forgiveness of personal injuries; while, at the bly of the States, and demanded from the duke
same time, he upheld the authority of his see, concessions in favour of their religion, as the
and the unadulterated doctrines of his church, price of their subsidies. In Transylvania, the
with all the stubbornness and vehemence of house of Austria was unable to prevent the
Hildebrand. Gregory XIII. exerted himself Diet from confiscating, by one sweeping de
not only to imitate but to surpass Pius in the cree, the estates of the church. In Austria
severe virtues of his sacred profession. As Proper it was generally said that only one-
was the head, such were the members. The thirteenth part of the population could be
change in the spirit of the Catholic world may counted on as good Catholics. In Belgium the
be traced in every walk of literature and of art. adherents of the new opinions were reckoned
It will be at once perceived by every person by hundreds of thousands.
who compares the poem of Tasso with that of
Ariosto, or the monuments of Sixtus V. with
those of Leo X.

The history of the two succeeding genera tions is the history of the great struggle be tween Protestantism possessed of the north of But it was not on moral influence alone that Europe, and Catholicism possessed of the the Catholic Church relied. The civil sword south, for the doubtful territory which lay be in Spain and Italy was unsparingly employed tween. All the weapons of carnal and of spiin her support. The Inquisition was armed ritual warfare were employed. Both sides may with new powers and inspired with a new boast of great talents and of great virtues. energy. If Protestantism, or the semblance of Both have to blush for many follies and crimes. Protestantism, showed itself in any quarter, it At first, the chances seemed to be decidedly in was instantly met, not by petty, teasing perse- favour of Protestantism; but the victory recution, but by persecution of that sort which mained with the Church of Rome. On every bows down and crushes all but a very few se-point she was successful. If we overleap

1

another half century, we find her victorious Elector of Saxony-the natural head of the and dominant in France, Belgium, Bavaria, Bohemia, Austria, Poland, and Hungary. Nor has Protestantism, in the course of two hundred years, been able to reconquer any portion of what it then lost.

Protestant party in Germany-submitted to become, at the most important crisis of the struggle, a tool in the hands of the Papists. Among the Catholic sovereigns, on the other hand, we find a religious zeal often amounting to fanaticism. Philip II. was a Papist in a very different sense from that in which Elizabeth was a Protestant. Maximilian of Bavaria, brought up under the teaching of the Jesuits, was a fervent missionary wielding the powers of a prince. The Emperor Ferdinand II. deliberately put his throne to hazard over and over again, rather than make the smallest concession to the spirit of religious innovation. Sigismund of Sweden lost a crown which he might have preserved if he would have renounced the Catholic faith. In short, everywhere on the Protestant side we see languor, everywhere on the Catholic side we see ardour and devotion.

It is, moreover, not to be dissembled that this wonderful triumph of the Papacy is to be chiefly attributed, not to the force of arms, but to a great reflux in public opinion. During the first half century after the commencement of the Reformation, the current of feeling, in the countries on this side of the Alps and of the Pyrenees, ran impetuously towards the new doctrines. Then the tide turned, and rushed as fiercely in the opposite direction. Neither during the one period, nor during the other, did much depend upon the event of battles or sieges. The Protestant movement was hardly checked for an instant by the defeat at Muhlberg. The Catholic reaction went on at full speed in spite of the destruction of the Armada. Not only was there, at this time, a much It is difficult to say whether the violence of the more intense zeal among the Catholics than first blow or of the recoil was the greater. among the Protestants; but the whole zeal of Fifty years after the Lutheran separation, Ca- the Catholics was directed against the Protes tholicism could scarcely maintain itself on tants, while almost the whole zeal of the Prothe shores of the Mediterranean. A hundred testants was directed against each other. years after the separation, Protestantism could Within the Catholic Church there were no sescarcely maintain itself on the shores of the rious disputes on points of doctrine. The deBaltic. The causes of this memorable turn incisions of the Council of Trent were received; human affairs well deserve to be investigated. and the Jansenian controversy nad not yet The contest between the two parties bore arisen. The whole force of Rome was, theresome resemblance to the fencing match in fore, effective for the purpose of carrying on Shakspeare "Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, the war against the Reformation. On the in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet other hand, the force which ought to have wounds Laertes." The war between Luther fought the battle of the Reformation was exand Leo was a war between firm faith and un-hausted in civil conflict. While Jesuit preachbelief, between zeal and apathy, betweeners, Jesuit confessors, Jesuit teachers of youth, energy and indolence, between seriousness and overspread Europe, eager to expend every frivolity, between a pure morality and vice. faculty of their minds and every drop of their Very different was the war which degenerate blood in the cause of their church, Protestant Protestantism had to wage against regenerate doctors were confuting, and Protestant rulers Catholicism. To the debauchees, the poison- were punishing sectaries who were just as ers, the atheists, who had worn the tiara during good Protestants as themselvesthe generation which preceded the Reformation, had succeeded Popes, who, in religious fervour and severe sanctity of manners, might bear a comparison with Cyprian or Ambrose. The order of Jesuits alone could show many men not inferior in sincerity, constancy, courage, and austerity of life, to the apostles of the Reformation.

"Cumque superba foret BABYLON spolianda tropæis, Bella geri placuit nullos habitura triumphos."

In the Palatinate, a Calvinistic prince persecuted the Lutherans. In Saxony, a Lutheran persecuted the Calvinists. In Sweden every body who objected to any of the articles of the Confession of Augsburg was banished. In Scotland, Melville was disputing with other Protestants on questions of ecclesiastical go

But while danger had thus called forth in the bosom of the Church of Rome many of the highest qualities of the Reformers, the Reform-vernment. In England, the jails were filled ed Churches had contracted some of the cor- with men who, though zealous for the Refor ruptions which had been justly censured in the mation, did not exactly agree with the court or Church of Rome. They had become lukewarm all points of discipline and doctrine. Some and worldly. Their great old leaders had been were in ward for denying the tenet of reprobaborne to the grave, and had left no successors. tion; some for not wearing surplices. The Among the Protestant princes there was little Irish people might at that time have been, in or no hearty Protestant feeling. Elizabeth all probability, reclaimed from Popery, at the herself was a Protestant rather from policy expense of half the zeal and activity which than from firm conviction. James I., in order Whitgift employed in oppressing Puritans, and to effect his favourite object of marrying his Martin Marprelate in revning bishops. son into one of the great continental houses, was ready to make immense concessions to Rome, and even to admit a modified primacy in the Pope. Henry IV. twice abjured the reformed doctrines from interested motives. The VOL. III.-5

As the Catholics in zeal and in union had a great advantage over the Protestants, so had they also an int.tely superior organization In truth, Protestanism, for aggressive purposes, had no organization at all. The Reformed 2 M

Churches were mere national Churches. The Church of England existed for England alone. It was an institution as purely local as the Court of Common Pleas, and was utterly without any machinery for foreign operations. The Church of Scotland, in the same manner, existed for Scotland alone. The operations of the Catholic Church, on the other hand, took in the whole world. Nobody at Lambeth, or at Edinburgh, troubled himself about what was doing in Poland or Bavaria. But at Rome, Cracow and Munich were objects of as much interest as the purlieus of St. John Lateran. Our island, the head of the Protestant interest, did not send out a single missionary or a single instructor of youth to the scene of the great spiritual war. Not a single seminary was established here for the purpose of furnishing a supply of such persons to foreign countries. On the other hand, Germany, Hungary, and Poland were filled with able and active Catholic emissaries of Spanish or Italian birth; and colleges for the instruction of the northern youth were founded at Rome. The spiritual force of Protestantism was a mere local militia, which might be useful in case of an invasion, but could not be sent abroad, and could therefore make no conquests. Rome had such a local militia; but she had also a force disposable at a moment's notice for foreign service, however dangerous or disagreeable. It it was thought at head-quarters that a Jesuit at Palermo was qualified by his talents and character to withstand the Reformers in Lithuania, the order was instantly given and instantly obeyed. In a month, the faithful servant of the Church was preaching, catechising, confessing, beyond the Niemen.

In England it not unfrequently happens that a tinker or coal-heaver hears a sermon, or falls in with a tract, which alarms him about the state of his soul. If he be a man of excitable nerves and strong imagination, he thinks himself given over to the Evil Power. He doubts whether he has not committed the unpardonable sin. He imputes every wild fancy that springs up in his mind to the whisper of a fiend. His sleep is broken by dreams of the great judgment-seat, the open books, and the unquenchable fire. If, in order to escape from these vexing thoughts, he flies to amusement or to licentious indulgence, the delusive relief only makes his misery darker and more hope. less. At length a turn takes place. He is re. conciled to his offended Maker. To borrow the fine imagery of one who had himself been thus tried, he emerges from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, from the dark land of gins and snares, of quagmires and precipices, of evil spirits and ravenous beasts. The sun

It is impossible to deny that the polity of the Church of Rome is the very masterpiece of human wisdom. In truth, nothing but such a polity could, against such assaults, have borne up such doctrines. The experience of twelve hundred eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, have improved it to such perfection, that among the contrivances of political abilities it occupies the highest place. The stronger our conviction that reason and Scripture were decidedly on the side of Protestantism, the greater is the reluctant admiration with which we regard that system of tactics against which rea-shine is on his path. He ascends the Deson and Scripture were arrayed in vain. lectable Mountains, and catches from their summit a distant view of the shining city which is the end of his pilgrimage. Then arises in his mind a natural, and surely not a censurable desire, to impart to others the thoughts of which his own heart is full-to warn the careless, to comfort those who are troubled in spirit. The impulse which urges him to devote his whole life to the teaching of religion, is a strong passion in the guise of a duty. He exhorts his neighbours; and if he be a man of strong parts, he often does so with great effect. He pleads as if he were pleading for his life, with tears and pathetic gestures, and burning words; and he soon finds with delight, not perhaps wholly unmixed with the alloy of human infirmity, that his rude eloquence rouses and melts hearers who sleep

If we went at large into this most interesting subject, we should fill volumes. We will, therefore, at present advert to only one important part of the policy of the Church of Rome. She thoroughly understands, what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts. In some sects-particularly in infant sects-enthusiasm is suffered to be rampant. In other sects-particularly in sects long established and richly endowed-it is regarded with aversion. The Catholic Church neither submits to enthusiasm nor proscribes it, but uses it. She considers it as a great moving force which in itself, like the muscular powers of a fine horge, is neither good nor evil, but which may be so directed as to proJuce great good or great evil; and she as

sumes the direction to herself. It would be absurd to run down a horse like a wolf. It would be still more absurd to let him run wild, breaking fences and trampling down passen gers. The rational course is to subjugate his will, without impairing his vigour-to teach him to obey the rein, and then to urge him to full speed. When once he knows his master, he is valuable in proportion to his strength and spirit. Just such has been the system of the Church of Rome with regard to enthusiasts. She knows that when religious feelings have obtained the complete empire of the mind, they impart a strange energy, that they raise men above the dominion of pain and pleasure, that obloquy becomes glory, that death itself is contemplated only as the beginning of a higher and happier life. She knows that a person in this state is no object of contempt. He may be vulgar, ignorant, visionary, extravagant; but he will do and suffer things which it is for her interest that somebody should do and suffer, yet from which calm and sober-minded men would shrink. She accordingly enlists him in her service, assigns to him some forlorn hope, in which intrepidity and impetuosity are more wanted than judgment and self-command, and sends him forth with her benedictions and her applause.

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 her name to a new sch.sm. 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 Ordi vocation 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 sethere 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 communion 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. phetess, 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 ignorant enthusiast, whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy, and, whatever the learned and polite may think, a most dangerous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a champion. She bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a gown and hood of coarse dark stuff, ties a rope round his waist, and sends him forth to teach in her name. He costs her nothing. He takes not a ducat away from the revenues of her beneficed clergy. He lives by the alms of those who respect his spiritcal character, and are grateful for his instructions. He preaches, not exactly in the style of Massillon, but in a way which moves the passions of uneducated hearers; and all his influence is employed to strengthen the Church of which he is a minister. To that Church he becomes as strongly attached as any of the cardinals, whose scarlet carriages and liveries crowd the entrance of the palace on the Quirinal. In this way the Church of Rome unites in herself all the strength of establishment and all the strength of dissent. With the utmost pomp of a dominant hierarchy above, she has all the energy of the voluntary system below. It would be easy to mention very recent instances in which the hearts of hundreds of thousands, estranged from her by the selfishness, sloth, and cowardice of the beneficed clergy, have been brought back by the zeal of the begging friars. Even for female agency there is a place in her system. To devout women she assigns spiritual functions, dignities, and magistracies. In our country, if a noble lady is moved by more than ordinary zeal for the propagation of

We have dwelt long on this subject, because we believe, that of the many causes to which the Church of Rome owed her safety and her triumph at the close of the sixteenth century, the chief was the profound policy with which she used the fanaticism of such persons as St Ignatius and St. Theresa.

The Protestant party was now, indeed, vanquished and humbled. In France, so strong had been the Catholic reaction, that Henry IV. found it necessary to choose between his religion and his crown. In spite of his clear hereditary right, in spite of his eminent personal qualities, he saw that, unless he reconciled himself to the Church of Rome, he could not count on the fidelity even of those gallant gentlemen whose impetuous valour had turned the tide of battle at Ivry. In Belgium, Poland, and Southern Germany, Catholicism had ob tained a complete ascendant. The resistance of Bohemia was put down. The Palatinate was conquered. Upper and Lower Saxony were overflowed by Catholic invaders. The King of Denmark stood forth as the Protector of the Reformed Churches; he was defeated, driven out of the empire, and attacked in his own possessions. The armies of the house of Austria pressed on, subjugated Pomerania, and were stopped in their progress only by the ramparts of Stralsund.

And now again the tide turned. Two vic lent outbreaks of religious feeling in opposite directions had given a character to the history of a whole century. Protestantism had at firs driven back Catholicism to the Alps and the Pyrenees. Catholicism had rallied, and had