Benefits conferred by the Church.

141

evils of the times, the truly Christian principle which was at its basis perpetually vindicated its power, giving rise to numberless blessings in spite of the degradation and wickedness of man. As I have elsewhere ('Physiology,' page 626) remarked, Statemen "The civil law exerted an exterior power in human relations; Church had actually Christianity produced an interior and moral change. The done. idea of an ultimate accountability for personal deeds, of which the old Europeans had an indistinct perception, became intense and precise. The sentiment of universal charity was exemplified not only in individual acts, the remembrance of which soon passes away, but in the more permanent institution of establishments for the relief of affliction, the spread of knowledge, the propagation of truth. Of the great ecclesiastics, many had risen from the humblest ranks of society, and these men, true to their democratic instincts, were often found to be the inflexible supporters of right against might. Eventually coming to be the depositaries of the knowledge that then existed, they opposed intellect to brute force, in many instances successfully; and by the example of the organization of the Church, which was essentially republican, they showed how representative systems may be introduced into the state. Nor was it over communities and nations that the Church displayed her chief power. Never in the world before was there such a system. From her central seat at Rome, her all-seeing eye, like that of Providence itself, could equally take in a hemisphere at a glance, or examine the private life of any individual. Her boundless influences enveloped kings in their palaces, and relieved the beggar at the monastery gate. In all Europe there was not a man too obscure, too insignificant, or too desolate for her. Surrounded by her solemnities, every one received his name at her altar; her bells chimed at his marriage, her knell tolled at his funeral. She extorted from him the secrets of his life at her confessionals, and punished his faults by her penances. In his hour of sickness and trouble her servants sought him out, teaching him, by her exquisite litanies and prayers, to place his reliance on God, or strengthening him for the trials of life by the example of the holy and just. Her prayers had an efficacy to give repose to the soul of his

Analysis of the career of the Church.

Four revolts

142

The Four Revolts against the Church.

dead. When, even to his friends, his lifeless body had become an offence, in the name of God she received it into her consecrated ground, and under her shadow he rested till the great reckoning-day. From little better than a slave she raised his wife to be his equal, and, forbidding him to have more than one, met her recompense for those noble deeds in a firm friend at every fireside. Discountenancing all impure love, she put round that fireside the children of one mother, and made that mother little less than sacred in their eyes. In ages of lawlessness and rapine, among people but a step above savages, she vindicated the inviolability of her precincts against the hand of power, and made her temples a refuge and sanctuary for the despairing and oppressed. Truly she was the shadow of a great rock in many a weary land!"

This being the point which I consider the end of the Italian system as a living force in European progress, its subsequent operation being directed to the senses and not to the understanding, it will not be amiss if for a moment we extend our view to later times and to circumstances beyond the strict compass of this book, endeavouring to ascertain therefrom the condition of the Church, especially as to many devout persons it may doubtless appear that she has lost none of her

power.

On four occasions there have been revolts against the Itaagainst the lian Church system :-1st, in the thirteenth century, the AlItalian sys- bigensian; 2nd, in the fourteenth, the Wickliffite; 3rd, in

tem.

The Albigensian revolt.

the sixteenth, the Reformation; 4th, in the eighteenth, at the French Revolution. On each of these occasions ecclesiastical authority has exerted whatever offensive or defensive power it possessed. Its action is a true indication of its condition at the time. Astronomers can determine the orbit of a comet or other celestial meteor by three observations of its position seen from the earth, and taken at intervals apart.

1st. Of the Albigensian revolt. We have ascertained that the origin of this is distinctly traceable to the Mohammedan influences of Spain, through the schools of Cordova and Granada, pervading Languedoc and Provence. Had these agencies

produced only the gay scenes of chilvalry and courtesy as their material results, and, as their intellectual, war-ballads, satires, and amorous songs, they had been excused; but, along with such elegant frivolities, there was something of a more serious kind. A popular proverb will often betray national belief, and there was a proverb in Provence, "Viler than a priest." The offensive sectaries also quoted, for the edification of the monks, certain texts, to the effect "that, if a man will not work, neither let him eat." The event, in the hands of Simon de Montfort, taught them that there is such a thing as wresting Scripture to one's own destruction.

How did the Church deal with this Albigensian heresy? As those do who have an absolutely overwhelming power. She did not crush it-that would have been too indulgent; she absolutely annihilated it. Awake to what must necessarily ensue from the imperceptible spread of such opinions, she remorselessly consumed its birthplace with fire and sword; and, fearful that some fugitives might have escaped her vigilant eye, or that heresy might go wherever a bale of goods might be conveyed, she organized the Inquisition, with its troops of familiars and spies. Six hundred years have elapsed since these events, and the south of France has never recovered from the blow.

That was a persecution worthy of a sovereign-a persecution conducted on sound Italian principles of policy-to consider clearly the end to be attained, and adopt the means thereto without any kind of concern as to their nature. But it was a persecution that implied the possession of unlimited and irresponsible power.

of Wick

2nd. Of the revolt of Wickliffe. We have also considered The revolt the state of affairs which aroused the resistance of Wickliffe. liffe. It is manifested by legal enactments early in the fourteenth century, such as that ecclesiastics shall not go armed, nor join themselves with thieves, nor frequent taverns nor chainbers of strumpets, nor visit nuns, nor play at dice, nor keep concubines; by the Parliamentary bill of 1376, setting forth that the tax paid in England to the Pope for ecclesiastical dignities is fourfold as much as that coming to the king from the whole

The revolt of Luther.

realm,—that alien clergy, who have never seen nor care to see their flocks, convey away the treasure of the country; by the homely preaching of John Ball, that all men are equal in the sight of God. Wickliffe's opposition was not only directed against corruptions of discipline in the Church, but equally against doctrinal errors. His dogma that "God bindeth not men to believe anything they cannot understand" is a distinct embodiment of the rights of reason, and the noble purpose he carried into execution of translating the Bible from the Vulgate shows in what direction he intended the application of that doctrine to be made. Through the influence of the queen of Richard the Second, who was a native of that country, his doctrines found an echo in Bohemia; Huss not only earnestly adopting his theological views, but also joining in his resistance to the despotism of the court of Rome and his exposures of the corruptions of the clergy. The political point of this revolt in England occurs in the refusal of Edward III., at the instigation of Wickliffe, to do homage to the Pope; the religious, in the translation of the Bible.

Though a bull was sent to London requiring the arch-heretic to be seized and put in irons, yet Wickliffe died in his bed, and his bones rested quietly in the grave for forty-four years. Ecclesiastical vengeance burned them at last and scattered them to the winds.

There was no remissness in the ecclesiastical authority, but there were victories won by the blind hero John Ziska. After the death of that great soldier-whose body was left by the road-side to the wolves and crows, and his skin dried and made into a drum-in vain was all that perfidy could suggest and all that brutality could execute resorted to; in vain the sword and fire were passed over Bohemia, and the last effort of impotent vengeance tried in England-the heretics could not be exterminated, nor the detested translation of the Bible destroyed.

3rd. Of the revolt of Luther. As we shall have, in a subsequent chapter, to consider the causes that led to the Reformation, it is not necessary to anticipate them in any detail here. The necessities of the Roman treasury, which suggested

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the doctrine of supererogation and the sale of indulgences as a ready means of relief, merely brought on a crisis which otherwise could not have been long postponed, the real point at issue being the right of interpretation of the Scriptures by private judgment.

The Church did not restrict her resistance to the use of ecclesiastical weapons, -those of a carnal kind she also employed. Yet we look in vain for the concentrated energy with which she annihilated the Albigenses, or the atrocious policy with which the Hussites were met. The times no longer permitted those things. But the struggle was maintained with unflinching constancy through the disasters and successes of one hundred and thirty years. Then came the peace of Westphalia, and the result of the contest was ascertained. The Church had lost the whole of northern Europe.

4th. Of the revolt of the philosophers. Besides the actual The revolt of the philoloss of the nations who openly fell away to Protestantism, a sophers. serious detriment was soon found to have befallen those still remaining nominally faithful to the Church. The fact of secession or adherence, depending, in a monarchy, on the personal caprice or policy of the sovereign, is by no means a true index of the opinions or relations of the subjects; and thus it happened that in several countries in which there was an outward appearance of agreement with the Church because of the attitude of the government, there was, in reality, a total disruption, so far as the educated and thinking classes were concerned. This was especially the case in France.

When the voyage of circumnavigation of the world by Magellan had for ever settled all such questions as those of the figure of the earth and the existence of the antipodes, the principles upon which the contest was composed between the conflicting parties are obvious from the most superficial perusal of the history of physics. Free thought was extorted for science, and, as its equivalent, an unmolested state for theology.. It was an armed truce.

It was not through either of the parties to that conflict that new troubles arose, but through the action of a class fast rising into importance-literary men. From the begin

VOL. II.

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