necessary, the possible, the absolute, and all those higher objects which transcend the understanding. But after this there is a fourth stage, when another eye is opened, by which man perceives things hidden from others,-perceives all that will be,-perceives the things that escape the perceptions of reason, as the objects of reason escape the understanding, and as the objects of the understanding escape the sensitive faculty. This is prophetism." Algazzali thus finds a philosophical basis for the rule of life, and reconciles religion and philosophy.

And now I have to turn from Arabian civilized life, its science, its philosophy, to another, a repulsive state of things. With reluctance I come back to the Italian system, defiling the holy name of religion with its intrigues, its bloodshed, its oppression of human thought, its hatred of intellectual advancement. Especially I have now to direct attention to two Renewal of countries, the scenes of important events,-countries in which tion of Mothe Mohammedan influences began to take effect and to press influences. upon Rome. These are the South of France and Sicily.

the opera

hammedan

rence of

III. in

Innocent III. had been elected Pope at the early age of thirty-seven years, A.D. 1198. The Papal power had reached its culminating point. The weapons of the Church had attained their utmost force. In Italy, in Germany, in France Interfe and England, interdicts and excommunications vindicated the Innocent pontifical authority, as in the cases of the Duke of Ravenna, France. the Emperor Otho, Philip Augustus of France, King John of England. In each of these cases it was not for the sake of sustaining great moral principles or the rights of humanity that the thunder was launched,-it was in behalf of temporary political interests; interests that, in Germany, were sustained at the cost of a long war, and cemented by assassination; in France, strengthened by the well-tried device of an intervention in a matrimonial broil-the domestic quarrel of the king and queen about Agnes of Meran. "Ah, happy Saladin !" said the insulted Philip, when his kingdom was put under interdict, "he has no Pope above him. I too will turn Mohammedan."

So likewise in Spain, Innocent interfered in the matrimo

In Spain and Portugal.

In England; de

nounces

Magna

Charta.

nial life of the King of Leon. The remorseless venality of the Papal government was in every direction felt. Portugal had already been advanced to the dignity of a kingdom on payment of an annual tribute to Rome. The King of Arragon held his kingdom as feudatory to the Pope.

In England, Innocent's interference assumed a different aspect. He attempted to assert his control over the Church in spite of the king, and put the nation under interdict because John would not permit Stephen Langton to be Archbishop of Canterbury. It was utterly impossible that affairs could go on with such an empire within an empire. For his contumacy John was excommunicated; but, base as he was, he defied his punishment for four years. Hereupon his subjects were released from their allegiance, and his kingdom offered to any one who would conquer it. In his extremity, the King of England is said to have sent a messenger to the Emir Al Mouenim, offering to become a Mohammedan. The religious sentiment was then no higher in him than it was, under a like provocation, in the King of France, whose thoughts turned in the same direction. But, pressed irresistibly by Innocent, John was compelled to surrender his realm, agreeing to pay to the Pope, in addition to Peter's pence, 1000 marks a year as a token of vassalage. When the prelates whom he had refused or exiled returned, he was compelled to receive them on his knees, -humiliations which aroused the indignation of the stout English barons, and gave strength to those movements which ended in extorting Magna Charta. Never, however, was Innocent more mistaken than in the character of Stephen Langton. John had, a second time, formally surrendered his realm to the Pope, and done homage to the legate for it; but Stephen Langton was the first-at a meeting of the chiefs of the revolt against the king, held in London, August 25th, 1213-to suggest that they should demand a renewal of the charter of Henry I. From this suggestion Magna Charta originated. Among the miracles of the age, he was the greatest miracle of all; his patriotism was stronger than his profession. The wrath of the pontiff knew no bounds when he learned that the Great Charter had been conceded. In his bull, he denounced

it as base and ignominious; he anathematized the king if he observed it; he declared it null and void. It was not the policy of the Roman court to permit so much as the beginnings of such freedom. The appointment of Simon Langton to the archbishopric of York was annulled. One De Gray was substituted for him. It illustrated the simony into which the Papal government had fallen, that De Gray had become, in these transactions, indebted to Rome £10,000. In fact, through the The drain of money operation of the Crusades, all Europe was tributary to the Pope. from that He had his fiscal agents in every metropolis; his travelling country. ones wandering in all directions, in every country, raising revenue by the sale of dispensations for all kinds of offences, real and fictitious-money for the sale of appointments, high and low,―a steady drain of money from every realm. Fifty years after the time of which we are speaking, Robert Grostête, the Bishop of Lincoln and friend of Roger Bacon, caused to be ascertained the amount received by foreign ecclesiastics in England. He found it to be thrice the income of the king himself. This was on the occasion of Innocent IV. demanding provision to be made for three hundred additional Italian clergy by the Church of England, and that one of his nephews -a mere boy-should have a stall in Lincoln cathedral.

crusade.

While thus Innocent III. was interfering and intriguing with Goading of Europe every court, and laying every people under tribute, he did not into a new for a moment permit his attention to be diverted from the Crusades, the singular advantages of which to the Papacy had now been fully discovered. They had given to the Pope a suzerainty in Europe, the control of its military as well as its monetary resources. Not that a man like Innocent could permit himself to be deluded by any hopes of eventual success. The Crusades must inevitably prove, so far as their avowed object was concerned, a failure. The Christian inhabitants of Palestine were degraded and demoralized beyond description. Their ranks were thinned by apostasy to Mohammedanism. In Europe, not only had the laity begun to discover that the money provided for the wars in the Holy Land was diverted from its purpose, and, in some inexplicable manner, found its way into. Italy, even the clergy could not conceal their suspicions that

is used for

the proclamation of a crusade was merely the preparation for a swindle. Nevertheless Innocent pressed forward his schemes, goading on Christendom by throwing into its face the taunts of the Saracens. "Where," they say, "is your God, who cannot deliver you out of our hands? Behold! we have defiled your sanctuaries; we have stretched forth our arm; we have taken at the first assault, we hold in despite of you, those your desirable places, where your superstition had its beginning. Where is your God? Let him arise and protect you and himself." "If thou be the Son of God, save thyself if thou canst; redeem the land of thy birth from our hands. Restore thy cross, that we have taken, to the worshippers of the Cross." With great difficulty, however, Innocent succeeded in preparing the fourth Crusade, A.D. 1202. The Venetians consented to furnish a fleet of transports. But the expedition was quickly diverted from its true purpose; the Venetians employing the Crusaders for the capture of Zara from the King of Hungary. The Crusade Still worse, and shameful to be said, partly from the lust the seizure of plunder and partly through ecclesiastical machinations it tinople. again turned aside for an attack upon Constantinople, and took that city by storm, A.D. 1204, thereby establishing Latin Christianity in the Eastern metropolis, but, alas! with bloodshed, rape, and fire. On the night of the assault more houses were burned than could be found in any three of the largest cities Sack of the in France. Even Christian historians compare with shame the city by the Catholics. storming of Constantinople by the Catholics with the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin. Pope Innocent himself was compelled to protest against enormities that had outrun his intentions. He says: "They practised fornications, incests, adulteries in the sight of men. They abandoned matrons and virgins, consecrated to God, to the lewdness of grooms. They lifted their hands against the treasures of the churches,—what is more heinous, the very consecrated vessels,-tearing the tablets of silver from the very altars, breaking in pieces the most sacred things, carrying off crosses and relics." In St. Sophia, the silver was stripped from the pulpit; an exquisite and highly-prized table of oblation was broken in pieces; the sacred chalices were turned into drinking-cups; the gold fringe was

of Constan

ripped off the veil of the sanctuary. Asses and horses were led into the churches to carry off the spoil. A prostitute mounted the patriarch's throne, and sang, with indecent gestures, a ribald song. The tombs of the emperors were rifled; and the Byzantines saw, at once with amazement and anguish, the corpse of Justinian-which even decay and putrefaction had for six centuries spared in his tomb-exposed to the violation of a mob. It had been understood among those who instigated these atrocious proceedings that the relics were to be brought into a common stock and equitably divided among the conquerors; but each ecclesiastic seized and secreted whatever he could. The idolatrous state of the Eastern Church is The relics found there illustrated by some of these relics. Thus the Abbot Martin obtained for his monastery in Alsace the following inestimable articles-1. A spot of the blood of our Saviour; 2. A piece of the true cross; 3. The arm of the Apostle James; 4. Part of the skeleton of John the Baptist; 5.-I hesitate to write such blasphemy-"A bottle of the milk of the Mother of God!" In contrast with the treasures thus acquired may be set relics of a very different kind, the remains of ancient art which they destroyed:-1. The bronze charioteers from the And works Hippodrome; 2. The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus ; stroyed. 3. A group of a sphinx, river-horse, and crocodile; 4. An eagle tearing a serpent; 5. An ass and his driver, originally cast by Augustus in memory of the victory of Actium; 6. A Bellerophon and Pegasus; 7. A bronze obelisk; 8. Paris presenting the apple to Venus; 9. An exquisite statue of Helen; 10. The Hercules of Lysippus; 11. A Juno, formerly taken from the temple at Samos. The bronzes were melted into coin, and thousands of manuscripts and parchments were burned. From that time the works of many ancient authors disappeared altogether.

With well-dissembled regret, Innocent took the new order of things in the city of Constantinople under his protection. The Bishop of Rome at last appointed the Bishop of Constantinople. The acknowledgment of Papal supremacy was complete. Rome and Venice divided between them the ill-gotten gains of their undertaking. If anything had been wanting to

of art de..