signs of the fourth great peril of the Church of Rome. The storm which was now rising against her was of a very different kind from those which had preceded it. Those who had formerly attacked her had questioned only a part of her doctrines. A school was now growing up which rejected the whole. The Albigenses, the Lollards, the Lutherans, the Calvinists, had a positive religious system, and were strongly attached to it. The creed of the new sectaries was altogether negative. They took one of their premises from the Catholics, and one from the Protestants. From the former they borrowed the principle, that Catholicism was the only pure and genuine Christianity. With the latter they held that some parts of the Catholic system were contrary to reason. The conclusion was obvious. Two propositions, each of which separately is compatible with the most exalted piety, formed, when held in conjunction, the groundwork of a system of irreligion. The doctrine of Bossuet, that transubstantiation is affirmed in the Gospel, and the doctrine of Tillotson, that transubstantiation is an absurdity, when put together, produced by logical necessity the inferences of Voltaire.

on the wheel at Toulouse- when a youth, guilty only of an indiscretion, was burned at Abbeville-when a brave officer, borne down by public injustice, was dragged, with a gag in his mouth, to die on the Place de Grêve, a voice instantly went forth from the banks of Lake Leman, which made itself heard from Moscow to Cadiz, and which sentenced the unjust judges to the contempt and detestation of all Europe. The really efficient weapons with which the philosophers assailed the evan. gelical faith were borrowed from the evangelical morality. The ethical and dogmatica. parts of the Gospel were unhappily turned against each other. On the one side was a church boasting of the purity of a doctrine derived from the apostles; but disgraced by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, by the murder of the best of kings, by the war of the Cevennes, by the destruction of Port-Royal. On the other side was a sect laughing at the Scriptures, shooting out the tongue at the sacra ments, but ready to encounter principalities and powers in the cause of justice, mercy, and toleration.

Irreligion, accidentally associated with philanthropy, triumphed for a time over religion Had the sect which was rising at Paris been accidentally associated with political and soa 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 gave delity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes birth to works in which the fundamental prinhas 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 ef Church 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 to irritate, but not suf sincerely 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 restrain! injustice-who made manful war, with every than the wit. Orthodoxy soon became a badge faculty 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- that he should despise tne religion of his coun tween 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 conthemselves 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 which Christianity enjoins. Religious persecution, judicial torture, arbitrary imprisonment, the unnecessary multiplication of capital punishments, the delay and chicanery of tribunals, the exactions of farmers of the revenue, slavery, the slave trade, were the constant subjects of their lively satire and eloquent disquisitions. When an innocent man was broken

and Spain had departed. That of Germany had not yet dawned. The teachers of France were the teachers of Europe. The Parisiar opinions spread fast among the educate:. classes beyond the Alps; nor could the vigi lance of the Inquisition prevent the contraband importation of the new heresy into Castile and Portugal. Governments-even arbitrary governments-saw with pleasure the progresT

of this philosophy. Numerous reforms, generally laudable sometimes hurried on without sufficient regard to time, to place, and to public feeling, showed the extent of its influence. The rulers of Prussia, of Russia, of Austria, and of many smaller states were supposed to be among the intiated.

The Church of Rome was still, in outward show, as stately and splendid as ever; but her foundation was undermined. No state had quitted her communion, or confiscated her revenues; but the reverence of the people was everywhere departing from her.

The first great warning stroke was the fall of that society which, in the conflict with Protestantism, had saved the Catholic Church from destruction. The order of Jesus had never recovered from the injury received in the struggle with Port-Royal. It was now still more rudely assailed by the philosophers. Its spirit was broken; its reputation was tainted. Insulted by all the men of genius in Europe, condemned by the civil magistrate, feebly defended by the chiefs of the hierarchy, it felland great was the fall of it.

Nor were the calamities of the Church con fined to France. The revolutionary spirit, at tacked by all Europe, beat all Europe back, became conqueror in its turn, and, not satisfied with the Belgian cities and the rich domains of the spiritual electors, went raging over the Rhine and through the passes of the Alps. Throughout the whole of the great war against Protestantism, Italy and Spain had been the base of the Catholic operations. Spain was now the obsequious vassal of the infidels. Italy was subjugated by them. To her ancient principalities succeeded the Cisalpine republic, and the Ligurian republic, and the Parthenopean republic. The shrine of Loretto was stripped of the treasures piled up by the devotion of six hundred years. The convents of Rome were pillaged. The tricoloured flag floated on the top of the castle of St. Angelo. The successor of St. Peter was carried away captive by the unbelievers. He died a prisoner in their hands; and even the honours of sepulture were long withheld from his remains.

It is not strange that in the year 1799, even 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 him the same relation which the Ana- Protestant alms-the noblest edifices which baptists bore to Luther, or the Fifth-Monarchy the munificence of former ages had consecratmen to 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 cha chased a maintenance by separating them- pels-such signs might well be supposed to intelves from Rome, and by becoming the au- dicate the approaching end of that long domi. thors of a fresh schism. Some, rejoicing in nation. the new license, flung away their sacred vest- But the end was not yet. Again doomed te 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 the 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 confusion— ered by scores without a trial, drowned, shot, hung on lamp-posts. Thousands fled from their country to take 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. flood. 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 unConvention. The bust of Marat was substi- shaken; and, when the waters abated, it ap 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 chancel of Notre Dame, received the adoration of thousands, who exclaimed that at length, for 'he first time, those ancient Gothic arches kad resounded with the accents of truth. The Lew unbelief was as intolerant as the old superstition. To show reverence for religion was to ncur the suspicion of disaffection. It was not without imminent danger that the priest baptized the infant, joined the hands of lovers, or listened to the confession of the dying

The absurd worship of the Goddess of Reason was, indeed, of short duration but the deism of Robespierre and Lepaux was not less nostile to the Catholic faith that the atheism of Blootz and Chaumette.

new dynasties, new laws, new titles; and amidst them emerged the ancient religion.

had passed away. The republic of Holland was gone, and the empire of Germany, and the Great Council of Venice, and the old Helvenan League, and the house of Bourbon, and the Parliaments and aristocracy of France Europe was full of young creations-a French empire. a kingdom of Italy, a Confederation of the Rhine. Nor had the late events affected only territorial limits and political institutions. The distribution of property, the composition and spirit of society, had, through great part of Catholic Europe, undergone a complete change. But the unchangeable Church was still there. Some future historian, as able and temperate as Professor Ranke, will, we hope, trace the progress of the Catholic revival of the nineteenth cen

mry. We feel that we are drawing too near our own time; and that, if we go on, we shall be in danger of saying much which may be supposed to indicate, and which will certainly excite, angry feelings. We will, therefore, make only one observation, which, in our opinion, is deserving of serious attention.

the Jesuits and those which were maintained at the little supper parties of the Baron Hol bach, there is a vast interval, in which the hunian mind, it should seem, might find for itself some resting-place more satisfactory thar either of the two extremes. And at the time of the Reformation, millions found such a rest. ing-place. Whole nations then renounced Popery without ceasing to believe in a first cause, in a future life, or in the Divine authority of Christianity. In the last century, on the other hand, when a Catholic renounced his belief in the real presence, it was a thousand to one that he renounced his belief in the Gospe too; and when the reaction took place, with belief in the Gospel came back belief in the real presence.

We by no means venture to deduce from these phenomena any general law: but we think it a most remarkable fact, that no Chris tian nation, which did not adopt the principles of the Reformation before the end of the six teenth century, should ever have adopted them Catholic communities have, since that time, become infidel and become Catholic again but none has become Protestant.

During the eighteenth century, the influence of the Church of Rome was constantly on the decline. Unbelief made extensive conquests In all the Catholic countries of Europe, and in some countries obtained a complete ascendency. The Papacy was at length brought so low as to be an object of derision to infidels, and of pity rather than of hatred to Protestants. During the nineteenth century, this fallen Church has been gradually rising from her depressed state, and reconquering her old dominion. No person who calmly reflects on what, within the last few years, has passed in Spain, in Italy, in South America, in Ireland, in the Netherlands, in Prussia, even in France, can doubt that her power over the hearts and minds of men is now greater than it was when the Encyclopædia" and the "Philosophical Dictionary" appeared. It is surely remarkable, 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 mantion of the nineteenth, should, in any per- kind. Our readers will have great reason to ceptible degree, have added to the domain of feel obliged to us if we have interested them Protestantism. During the former period, what-sufficiently to induce them to peruse Professor ever was lost to Catholicism was lost also to Christianity; during the latter, whatever was regained by Christianity in Catholic countries, was regained also by Catholicism. We should naturally have expected that many minds, on the way from superstition to infidelity, or on the way back from infidelity to superstition, would have stopped at an intermediate point. Between the doctrines taught in the schools of

66

Ranke's book. We will only caution them against the French translation-a performance which, in our opinion, is just as discreditable to the moral character of the person from whom it proceeds, as a false affidavit or a forged bil of exchange would have been; and advis them to study either the original, or the English version, in which the sense and spirit of the criginal are admirably preserved.

The wind was pleasant; the evening fine; the sky, the earth, and the water beautiful to look upon. But Mr. Cowley and I helt our peace, and said nothing of the gay sights around us, lest we should too feelingly remind Mr. Milton of his calamity; whereof, however, he needed no monitor, for soon he said, sadly, "Ah, Mr. Cowley, you are a happy man. What would I now give for one more look at the sun, and the waters, and the gardens of this fair city?"

I HAVE thought it good to set down in writing | an hour on the river." To this they both cheer a memorable debate, wherein I was a listener, fully consented, and forth we walked, Mr Cowand two men of pregnant parts and great repu-ley and I leading Mr. Milton between us to the tation discoursers; hoping that my friends will Temple Stairs. There we took a boat, and not be displeased to have a record both of the thence we rowed up the river. strange times through which I have lived, and of the famous men with whom I have conversed. It chanced in the warm and beautiful spring of the year 1665, a little before the saddest summer that ever London saw, that I went to the Bowling-Green at Piccadilly, whither at that time the best gentry made continual resort. There I met Mr. Cowley, who had lately left Barnelms. There was then a house preparing for him at Chertsey, and till it should be finished he had come up for a short time to London, that he might urge a suit to his Grace of Buckingham touching certain lands of her majesty's whereof he requested a lease. I had the honour to be familiarly acquainted with that worthy gentleman and most excellent poet, whose death hath been deplored with as general a consent of all powers that delight in the wouds, or in verse, or in love, as was of old hat of Daphnis or of Gallus.

After some talk, which it is not material to set down at large, concerning his suit and his vexations at the court, where indeed his honesty did him more harm than his parts could do him good, I entreated him to dine with me at my lodgings in the Temple, which he most courteously promised. And that so eminent a guest might not lack a better entertainment than cooks or vintrers can provide, I sent to the house of Mr. John Milton, in the Artillery Walk, to beg that he would also be my guest. For, though he had been secretary, first to the Council of State, and after that to the Protector, and Mr. Cowley had held the same post under Lord St. Albans in his banishment, I hoped, notwithstanding, that they would think themselves rather united by their cominon art than divided by their different factions. And so indeed it proved. For while we sate at table they talked freely of many men and things, as well ancient as modern, with much civility. Nay, Mr. Milton, who seldom tasted wine, both because of his singular temperance, and because of his gout, did more than once pledge Mr. Cowley, who was indeed no hermit in diet. At last, being heated, Mr. Milton begged that I would open the windows. Nay," said I, "if you desire fresh air and coolness, what should hinder us, as the evening is fair, from sailing

66

*A Conversation between Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton, touching the Great Civil War.-Set down by

A Gentleman of the Middle Temple.

"I know not," said Mr. Cowley, "whether we ought not rather to envy you for that which makes you to envy others; and that especially in this place, where all eyes which are not closed in blindness ought to become fountains of tears. What can we look upon which is not a memorial of change and sorrow, of fair things vanished, and evil things done? When I see the gate of Whitehall, and the stately pillars of the Banqueting House, I cannot choose but think of what I have seen there in former days, masques, and pageants, and dances, and smiles, and the waving of graceful heads, and the bounding of delicate feet. And then I turn to thoughts of other things, which even to remember makes me blush and weep;―of the great black scaffold, and the axe and the block, which were placed before those very windows; and the voice seems to sound in mine ears, the lawless and terrible voice which cried out that the head of a king was the head of a traitor. There stands Westminster Hall, which who can look upon and not tremble to think how time, and change, and death confound the counsels of the wise, and beat down the weapons of the mighty? How have I seen it surrounded with tens of thousands of petitioners crying for justice and privilege! How have I heard it shake with fierce and proud words, which made the hearts of the people to burn within them! Then it is blockaded by dragoons and cleared by pikemen. And they who have conquered their master go forth trembling at the word of their servant. And yet a little while, and the usurper comes forth from it, in his robe of ermine, with the golden staff in one hand and the Bible in the other, amidst the roaring of the guns and the shouting of the people. And yet again a little while, and the and the hearse and the plumes come forth, and doors are thronged with multitudes in lack, the tyrant is borne, in more than royal pomp,