Papal Influence Lessened. 101 thing could be more prejudicial to the Papal power. We have seen that, aided by the pecuniary difficulties of the Papacy, the rising intellect of Europe made good its influence, and absolutely deposed the Pope. It was in vain to deny the authenticity of such a council; there stood the accomplished fact. At this moment there seemed no other prospect for the Italian system than utter ruin; yet wonderful to be said, a momentary deliverance came from a quarter whence no man would have expected. The Turks were the saviours of the Papacy. At this point is the true end of the Italian system—that system which had pressed upon Europe like a nightmare. The great men of the times-the statesmen, the philosophers, the merchants, the lawyers, the governing classes,-they whose weight of opinion is recognized by the uneducated people at last, had shaken off the incubus and opened their eyes. A glimmering of the true state of things was breaking upon the clergy. No more with the vigour it once had possessed was the Papacy again to domineer over human thought and be the controlling agent of European affairs. Convulsive struggles it might make, but they were only death-throes. The sovereign pontiff must now descend from the autocracy he had for so many ages possessed, and become a small potentate, tolereted by kings in that subordinate position only because of the remnant of his influence on the uneducated multitude and those of feeble minds. CHAPTER XVIII. THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST-(Concluded). The Eastern pres sure. Appearance of the Turks. Extension of their power in Europe. EFFECT OF THE EASTERN OR MILITARY ATTACK.-GENERAL REVIEW OF FROM THE AGE OF FAITH. ROM the West I have now to return to the East, and to describe the pressure made by Mohammedanism on that side. It is illustrated by many great events, but, above all, by the loss of Constantinople. The Greek Church, so long out of sight that it is perhaps almost forgotten by the reader, comes for a moment before us like a spectre from the dead. A wandering tribe of Turks had found its way into Asia Minor, and, under its leader Ertogrul and his son Othman, consolidated its power and commenced extending its influence by possessions taken from the Sultans of Iconium and the Byzantine empire. The third prince of the race instituted the Janissaries, a remarkable military force, and commenced driving the Greeks out of Asia Minor. His son Soliman crossed the Hellespont and captured Gallipoli, thus securing a foothold in Europe, a.d. 1358. This accomplished, the Turkish influence began to extend rapidly. Thrace, Macedon, and Servia were subdued. Sigismund, the King of Hungary, was overthrown at the battle of Nicopolis by Bajazet. Southern Greece, the countries along. the Danube, submitted, and Constantinople would have fallen had it not been for the unexpected irruption of Tamerlane, who defeated Bajazet and took him prisoner. The reign of Mohammed I., who succeeded, was occupied in the restoration of Turkish affairs. Under Amurath II., possession of the Euxine The Greek Church yields to the Latin. 103 shore was obtained, the fortifications across the Isthmus of Corinth was stormed, and the Peloponnesus entered. The Byzantine sove Mohammed II. became the Sultan of the Turks A.D. 1451. From the moment of his accession, he turned all his power to reigns apply to the capture of Constantinople. Its sovereigns had long fore- the West. seen the inevitable event, and had made repeated attempts to secure military aid from the West. They were ready to surrender their religious belief. On this principle, the monk Barlaam was dispatched on an embassy to Benedict XII. to propose the reunion of the Greek and Latin churches, as it was delicately termed, and to obtain, as an equivalent for the concession, an army of Franks. As the danger became more urgent, John Palæologus I. sought an interview with Urban V., and, having been purified from his heresies respecting the supremacy of the Pope and the double procession of the Holy Ghost, was presented before the pontiff in the Church of St. Peter. The Greek monarch, after three genuflexions, was permitted to kiss the feet of the Holy Father and to lead by its bridle his mule. But, though they might have the will, the Popes had lost the power, and these great submissions were productive of no good. Thirty years subsequently, Manuel, the son and successor of Palæologus, took what might have seemed a more certain course. He travelled to Paris and to London to lay his distress before the kings of France and England, but he received only pity, not aid. At the Council of Constance Byzantine ambassadors appeared. It was, however, reserved for the synods of Ferrara and of Florence to mature, as far as might be, the negotiation. The second John Palæologus journeyed again into Italy, A.D. 1438; and while Eugenius was being deposed in the chamber at Basle, he was consummating the union of the East and the West in the Cathedral of Florence. In the pulpit of that edifice, on the sixth of July of that year, a Roman Cardinal and a Greek archbishop embraced each other yields to the before the people; Te Deum was chanted in Greek, mass was celebrated in Latin, and the Creed was read with the "Filioque." The successor of Constantine the Great had given up his religion, but he had received no equivalent--no aid. The state of the Church, its disorders and schisms, rendered any community of action in the West impossible. The Greek Latin. Mohammed II. The siege of Constan The last, the inevitable hour at length struck. Mohammed II. is said to have been a learned man, able to express himself in five different languages; skilful in mathematics, especially in their practical application to engineering; an admirer of the fine arts; prodigal in his liberality to Italian painters. In Asia Minor, as in Spain, there was free-thinking among the disciples of the Prophet. It was affirmed that the Sultan, in his moments of relaxation, was often heard to deride the religion of his country as an imposture. His doubts in that particular were, however, compensated for by his determination to carry out the intention of his Mohammedan predecessorsthe seizure of Constantinople. At this time the venerable city had so greatly declined tinople. that it contained only 100,000 inhabitants,—out of them only 4970 able or willing to bear arms. The besieging force was more than a quarter of a million of men. As Mohammed pressed on his works, the despairing emperor in vain looked for the long-promised effectual Western aid. In its extremity, the devoted metropolis was divided by religious feuds; and when a Latin priest officiated in St. Sophia, there were many who exclaimed that they would rather see the turban of the Sultan than the tiara of the Pope. In several particulars the siege of Constantinople marked out the end of old ages and the beginning of new. Its walls were shaken by the batteringrams of the past, and overthrown by cannon, just then coming into general use. Upon a plank road, shipping were passed through the open country, in the darkness of a single night, a distance of ten miles. The works were pushed forward toward the walls, on the top of which the pacing sentinel at length could hear the shouts of the Turks by their nocturnal fires. They were sounds such as Constantinople might well listen to. She had taught something different for many a long year. "God is God; there is but one God." In the streets an image of the Virgin was carried in solemn procession. Now or never she must come to the help of those who had done so much for her, who had made her a queen in heaven and a goddess upon earth. The cry of her worshippers was in vain. On May 29th, 1453, the assault was delivered. Constan tine Palæologus, the last of the Roman emperors, putting off his purple, that no man might recognize and insult his corpse when the catastrophe was over, fell, as became a Roman emperor, in the breach. After his death resistance ceased, and Fall of the city. the victorious Turks poured into the town. To the church of St. Sophia there rushed a promiscuous crowd of women and children, priests, monks, religious virgins, and—men. Superstitious to the last, in this supreme moment they expected the fulfilment of a prophecy that, when the Turks should have forced their way to the square before that church, their progress would be arrested, for an angel with a sword in his hand would descend from heaven and save the city of the Lord. The Turks burst into the square, but the angel never came. More than two-thirds of the inhabitants of Constantinople were carried prisoners into the Turkish camp,—the men for servitude, the women for a still more evil fate. The churches were sacked. From the dome of St. Sophia its glories were torn down. The divine images, for the sake of which Christendom had been sundered in former days, unresistingly submitted to the pious rage of the Mohammedans without working a single miracle, and, stripped of their gems and gold, were brought to their proper value in the vile uses of kitchens and stables. On that same day the muezzin ascended the loftiest turret of St. Sophia, and over the City of the Trinity proclaimed the Oneness of God. The Sultan performed his prayers at the great altar, directing the edifice to be purified from its idolatries and consecrated to the worship of God. Thence he repaired to the palace, and reflecting on the instability of human prosperity, repeated, as he entered it, the Persian verse: "The spider has woven his web in the imperial palace; the owl hath sung her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab.” Christen fall of Con tinople. This solemn event-the fall of Constantinople-accom- Terror of plished, there was no need of any reconciliation of the Greek dom at the and Latin Churches. The sword of Mohammed had settled their dispute. Constantinople had submitted to the fate of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Carthage. Christendom was struck with consternation. The advance of the Turks in Europe was now very rapid. Corinth and Athens fell, and the |