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progress counts by centuries which in indi- | is obliged to tack on the one side and on the

viduals is numbered by years. To judge the past by the present, therefore, is absurd. The benefit of studying history at all consists in the wisdom which may be gleaned from it; and the wisdom can only result from the truth which it furnishes, and the truth can be discovered only by studying it in the proper manner. In fact, there is another great difference between the individual and public mind. The former is trained up by other minds, already ripened, but the latter has no senior tutor. The aggregate mind, in its largest sense, moves forward on the mysterious point dividing two eternities, the past and the future. It has a certain measure of experience, a certain general idea of the ground over which it has travelled, but of its direction or tendency in reference to the future all is at all given times uncertain and unknown. There is a mysterious veil at all times hanging over the future which moves onward in exact keeping with the ad vance of the present, so that men may pre serve a vague recollection of what has happened, but no man is able to tell with certainty what is to come. Thus, looking back at the history of civilization, we can now discover that society has made many a curve and many a pause, while those of whom it was composed imagined themselves to be always in motion and always moving on a straight line. We suppose this to be the case in our own regard, but it is quite possible that the five-and-twentieth century, looking back to the nineteenth, will perceive how divergent from the straight line were the leading impulses and directions of our In fact, the public mind in its progress is like the course of a vessel at sea.

age.

It

other, sometimes even to recede, by the force of circumstances over which the pilot can have no control. To judge of its actions at any given time of history, we ought to assimilate our own mind to the condition of the public mind at such a period. We ought to forget, if possible, the experience which has been since then acquired, but, taking our stand at the origin of any historical question, to travel downward with the current of its development, instead of absurdly rowing our shallow boat of criticism against its mighty stream.

The first period of the Christian Church was a period in which she knew the State only as the source of her sufferings and her triumphs. Her missionaries had extended themselves throughout the length and breadth of the Roman empire. They had penetrated countries where the Roman eagles had never been known or heard of. Her converts were numerous in all the provinces, in the capital, in the army, in the Senate, and even in the houses of the Cæsars themselves. Still, the frown of the State was upon her, and to escape it she found a hiding-place in the catacombs of Rome. If she met the State at all, it was only at the tribunal of some consul or governor, or on the scaffold to witness the triumph of some glorious member of her body against whom the sword of the State was uplifted for no other crime save that of belief in Jesus of Nazareth. At length Constantine is triumphant over his rivals and his enemy. He embraces the Christian religion, and the cross, which had hitherto been the emblem of all that is vile, is now set in the imperial diadem as the most precious of its ornaments and the

most expressive type of its duties. The con- | ished by a death of violence, that the Prætodition of the world, even the civilized world rian Guards and their prefect had put up the of the Roman empire, was lamentable in the throne of the great empire at public auction extreme, and, unless it should be derived from to the highest bidder, and that the purchaser the cross, there was no hope of its renova- had scarcely time to wear off the novelty of tion. Every department of society was not his elevation when he was murdered to creonly depraved by the natural depravity of ate an opportunity for a new sale. Constanman's heart, but that depravity itself was tine moved the seat of empire to Byzantium, incorporated in almost all the legal and now Constantinople. His successors in the social institutions of the degenerate times. empire, with a few exceptions, fell infinitely In the family the father alone was under below him in every attribute of talent, cathe protection of the law; the wife, the pacity and virtuous greatness. Of his succhildren, the slaves-or, rather, all were cessors it is sufficient to say in general that, then slaves-had no protection beyond the with some few exceptions, they were lost in caprice of the husband, the father and the luxury and effeminacy, showing always a master. His order was enough to consign greater disposition to meddle in the metathese or any of them even to public prostitu- physics of theological disputation than either tion, against which neither the laws of the to govern or defend their empire according to empire nor the morality of paganism op- the better morals of the law they professed. posed a barrier. Now, to allow thus dis- There is not a single dispute of the subseorder and corruption in the family was to quent ages in which they did not interpose vitiate and corrupt the whole of society in their sovereign will on one side or on the its very root. Hence the public crimes other. By joining with the iconoclasts, or which history has recorded of that age and image-breakers, of the eighth century, they those immediately preceding. prepared the way for the Greek schism; and the Greek schism in its turn prepared the way for their utter annihilation by wrenching from their feeble hands, to be transferred to the disciples of Mohammed, that sceptre of which they were unworthy. When such weakness and such imbecility were at the head and heart of the imperial government, the events which occurred throughout its extremities ceased to be surprising. The barbarians, of every name and of no name, from the East and North of Europe, from the shores of the Baltic and the interior of Tartary, rushed into the empire as if by concert and inundated it with their savage and ferocious habits. Huns, Burgundians, Goths and

The people plundered by every petty officer of the government, the oppression and impotence of the rural and provincial populations, the licentious and unpunished conduct of the Roman soldiers, the debaucheries and cruelties of the imperial court and all connected with it, present a picture which causes the heart to sicken at the condition of humanity at that period, the setting sun of old Roman civilization. As one fact to give an idea of the times I will mention that during the hundred years which preceded the age of Constantine the average reign of each emperor was but two and a half years, that out of forty emperors more than one-half had per

Vandals all came in mingled confusion to take possession of the undefended provinces as of a rich but abandoned prey. Not by a single irruption-though even that would have been sufficient to extinguish the feeble remains of Roman institutions-but wave after wave from this inexhaustible ocean of ignorance and barbarism, rushed with destructive fury over the length and breadth of the Roman empire.

It would be wrong to say that they had not brought with them certain rude elements from which a future civilization might, under a propitious culture, be matured and ripen, but their code of police was suited rather to the common good in their common condition of a banditti of robbers than to any state of settled, peaceable and social life. The type of the civilization which they came to overthrow and extinguish was in their mind, with all its developments and accidents, a type of effeminacy which they held in the most sovereign and unutterable contempt. Of this type they looked upon the Roman legislation, Roman habits, architecture, books, learning, arts and sciences, as the pernicious offspring. Hence they regarded them as things to be destroyed with the same determination which had vanquished the authors of them. Lombardy, Gaul, the southern coasts of the Mediterranean, Spain and other portions of Europe, the choicest of imperial Rome, became the seat of their ravages and future habitations. Other hordes may have come subsequently to disturb their residence, but finally the whole remnant of Roman government, Roman laws and usages and institutions are made to give place to the crude and barbarous habits of these ignorant but warlike invaders of the North. It would seem that

under such a catastrophe there was no hope for the renovation of the human mind. The only models of government which the ancient world had left would seem to have perished. Government and society-upon a large scale, at least-must result from the exercise of power somewhere, but here were men who acknowledged no power on earth and hardly any in heaven; they may be said to have had no law but their own will, and it may further be said that it was not in their nature to submit to any other.

Out of this chaos, not the deliberations of men, but the irresistible force of necessity, brought about slowly something like civil government. This government is stamped with all the rude prejudices of those on whose will its formation depended. Privilege, distinction, power, were supposed to be the prerogative of the bold, the daring and the few; submission, obedience, degradation, were conceived as resulting from the natural distribution of things in reference to the weak, the timid and the many. Hence the formation of what at a later period, when it became better organized, is known as the feudal system.

In a period of social disorder and the absence of all laws except the laws of physical strength life and protection are the first necessities of man. The common people, therefore, for the sake of life and the protection of it, attached themselves to the train of chieftains from whom these first claims of human existence might be expected. The chieftain was bound to provide for their subsistence and protection. They, on their part, as an equivalent, were bound to go to war with him and to fight for him in every quarrel, aggressive or defensive, which he might

be pleased to undertake.

They were his vassals, and he was in the first stage their baron, or lord; afterward, when the system refined and developed itself more, this order was extended and diversified into lords and earls and marquises and dukes. In this system, framed in such circumstances, it is hardly necessary to add that the desire of extending their several territories, or of defending them, as it might happen-where all claimed the right of assailing his neighbor when he found himself strong enough for the undertaking—must have produced incessant warfare. Those who were barons or lords in reference to the vassals who were dependent on them became themselves vassals in regard to others on whom they in turn felt dependence. Thus the king might be regarded as the head-baron of the nation, and yet there are instances in which even he held his fief as if he were a vassal to some of his own subjects. Naturally, this condition of things, wherever it prevailed, was calculated to retard civilization. It shows that the only thing held in high estimation was, not justice nor arts nor learning nor moral rights of any description, but a brave heart, a strong bow and stout arm. It is not surprising, therefore, that Europe should have been then as one great universal camp of war. Every castle was a fortress, every peasant a soldier, every baron a species of monarch who could summon and sound to battle whenever he pleased. The only spot that was neutral was the Church and its sacred precincts.

The first great variation from the monotony of interior confusion was the crusades. The enthusiasm which that enterprise in spired appears to us like a moral contagion.

Like other great events, it produced its evil and its advantageous consequences. It tended to destroy serfage, that species of temperate slavery which prevailed in the Middle Ages. It exhausted the barons and directed against the foreign enemy those fighting propensities which they had hitherto indulged against each other. It enlarged the public mind and imbued it with some notions of navigation, commerce, arts and learning. After this period had passed away literature begins to revive, universities are founded, the State begins to come out of the social relations with features of greater distinctness. Order—at least, of an imperfect kind-begins to take the place of brute force. The features of feudalism begin to fade away, and as we rise into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we discover the public mind as if gazing on the bright dawn of civilization, such as, unhappily, the day has not realized. The East Indies, which had been lost from the map of the world during the Middle Ages, are rediscovered by Portuguese navigators, navigators, an Italian sailor plucks up a new hemisphere from the untravelled waters of the Western ocean, printing is invented, architecture and the arts are all revived, Greek and Roman literature become a very passion, and the public mind seemed to enter upon a new career with a young energy, an enthusiasm, a ripeness for improvements, such as the world had never seen before.

Such is a general but imperfect outline of what Christendom had passed through up to the beginning of the sixteenth century. During the course of that century a new species of warfare interrupted the progress of the human mind.

JOHN HUGHES, D. D. (Archbishop Hughes).

HOW POPE GREGORY BECAME INTER- | brought?" It was replied that the natives ESTED IN THE CONVERSION OF ENG

LAND TO CHRISTIANITY.

SOME

OME merchants, having just arrived at Rome on a certain day, exposed many things for sale in the market-place, and abundance of people resorted thither to buy. Gregory himself went with the rest, and, among other things, some boys were set to sale, their bodies white, their countenances beautiful and their hair very fine. Having viewed them, he asked, as is said, from what country or nation they were brought, and was told from the island of Britain, whose inhabitants were of such personal appearance. He again inquired whether those islanders were Christians or still involved in the errors of paganism, and was informed that they were pagans. Then, fetching a deep sigh from the bottom of his heart, "Alas! what pity," said he, "that the author of darkness is possessed of men of such fair countenances, and that, being remarkable for such graceful aspects, their minds should be void of inward grace." He therefore again asked what was the name of that nation, and was answered that they were called Angles. "Right," said he, "for they have an angelic face, and it becomes such to be co-heirs with the angels in heaven. What is the name," proceeded he, "of the province from which they are

of that province were called Deiri. “Truly are they De ira," said he―" withdrawn from wrath, and called to the mercy of Christ. How is the king of that province called?" They told him his name was Ælla, and he, alluding to the name, said, “Hallelujah! the praise of God the Creator must be in those parts." sung Then, repairing to the bishop of the Roman apostolical see-for he was not himself then made pope-he entreated him to send some ministers of the word into Britain to the nation of the English by whom it might be converted to Christ, declaring himself ready to undertake that work, by the assistance of God, if the apostolic pope should think fit to have it so done; which not being then able to perform, because, though the pope was willing to grant his request, yet the citizens of Rome could not be brought to consent that so noble, so renowned and so learned a man should depart the city, as soon as he was himself made pope he perfected the long-desired work, sending other preachers, but himself by his prayers and exhortations assisting the preaching, that it might be successful.

This account, as we have received it from the ancients, we have thought fit to insert in our ecclesiastical history.

VENERABLE BEDE.

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