siderable sense, and admitting here of only a passing allusion, because the nature of the religion whence it sprung apprises us of others still more important. To these we turn as more deeply, though more vaguely, influential, considering Christianity, 1st, morally as a principle; 2nd, politically as an institution on the one hand, as acting through its doctrines and precepts upon individual character, and thence upon society in the mass-on the other, as exercising a directer function, in its embodied shape as a scheme of polity, through the constitution, the formularies, and the hierarchy of the Church.

Throughout the ancient world we look in vain for a social equivalent to the Christian principle, which those even must allow who contend that its force is dying out. The disciples of Epicurus indulgent to appetite - the Stoic seeking to deaden sensibility - both fell short of that truly moral culture, which proposes only to attain its end by preserving, while it sanctifies, man's natural feelings. On the other hand the philosophy of the ancient world, misdirected in this respect, not excepting even that of the Academy, was still further limited as regards the sphere of its action. Appealing solely to intellectual capacity it left out of its purview the mass of mankind, whom Christianity, approaching by the avenue of their affections, is enabled to hold in a comprehensive adoption. Again, as compared with ancient Paganism, we have especially to note the strict application of its dogmas to precept-of supernatural postulates to our moral nature and habits. In this respect the Heathen mythology was all but powerless. It gratified the taste, it impressed the imagination, but it failed signally to instruct the conscience. With no definite system of rewards and punishments, and suggesting no higher notions of Deity than as a being from whom oracles and arts of divination might wrest the knowledge of man's earthly interests, it could not be expected to supply inducements-to prescribe

THE CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE.

21

and regulate motives of action. Inefficient in private, it was inapplicable to public life, and national transactions were in spirit consistently liberated from what their authors judged rightly its inconvenient interference. As society advanced, the ancient world presented a spectacle the reverse of that which we see around us-the religious sentiment growing weaker as its practical worthlessness became manifest-passion and prejudice usurping the ascendant in public councils and projects of state the inherent selfishness of individuals and communities tainting and exasperating each political relation. The later age of Europe may not be, it is true, in this respect free from serious reproach; it may parallel, for instance, the boast of Agesilaus, that the frontiers of Sparta were limited by his spear; but the same period in the ancient world can exhibit no statesman conscientiously protesting against his country's aggression. is illustrative of the fact of our comparative advancement, that the shameless avowals of the Melian controversy † have and could have no parallel in our day; that, on the contrary, a compact for objects so certainly selfish as that designated the Holy Alliance, professedly claimed the sanction of philanthropy, of the command of Scripture to brotherly love, of the duty of kings to govern their subjects as parents-to maintain religion, justice, and truth.‡

It

The influence of the Christian principle in modern affairs may have been made a frequent subject of pretence, but we conceive, on the other hand, that it is more frequently underrated from its very universality, and from its unobserved as well as its expanded agencies. The Christian type of character has mingled unperceived with elements apparently incongruous or antagonistic, and we have seen. works performed, even in vindication of unbelief, which

*

As, for example, in our own Parliamentary debates on the Chinese war, Ameers of Scinde, and in other passages from our recent history.

+ See Thucyd., book v., especially chaps. 89, 105.

Heeren's European States System, vol. ii., p. 441.

were probably to be traced to a Christian original. Regarded in its moral aspect as self-sacrifice opposed to selfishness, as an exemplification of the love of one's neighbour, Christianity has outstripped its oriental dogmatism, and has largely infected the Gallios of successive generations with a moral contagion from their Christian exemplars. A distinguished writer* imagines that he can detect the Christian principle operating even in Wallenstein and Voltaire, and though, with this conception in view, his dissection of their traits appears somewhat arbitrary, it certainly suggests that similar efforts at analysis may discover a large leaven of unconscious Christianity in our own day. At an earlier date we find the Christian principle contributing to history through the medium of conscious and recognised agents. Thus we discern its intervention through Christian monarchs, like St. Louis or Gustavus, through missionaries like Las Casas, through adventurers and soldiers like Penn or Coligni. In the midst of civil dissensions it is heard crying "Peace, peace," with Falkland, and in the shifts and stratagems of a sterner warfare it may nerve a spirit as gentle as Falkland's, and bear him through the bloodiest onset to angelic heights, if, to the honour of human nature, we may credit the tradition of Sydney's death-scene on the field of Zutphen. There is, moreover, one capacity in which its influence upon public conduct, as distinguished from the types of character in the old world, has been direct and distinct, and on which therefore we dwell with a special emphasis. Thus it is remarked that modern despotism has rarely inflamed civil discord by the frightful excesses of the socalled ancient Tyranny.+ Though claiming the sanction of a Divine right, and haughtily refusing to be accountable to man, it has acknowledged a responsibility as the Vicegerent of Heaven, which has practically restrained it on Arnold's Rome, vol. i., P. 476.

* Professor Goldwin Smith.

THE OLD GREEK TYRANNY.

many occasions from abusing its power.

23

In proportion,

doubtless, to the sincerity of its pretensions it has been rigorous and oppressive, but its own submission to an external standard has saved it from the commission of many atrocities, in the extreme cases even of a Philip the Second or a Neapolitan Bourbon. It is not too much to say that the modern world has been saved from numberless commotions, because a belief in Christianity is simply incompatible with the supreme selfishness of the ancient Tyrant. The advice which it is pretended Tarquinius gave to Sextus,* or Thrasybulus to Periander,† and which was, in fact, the eidos of the Greek tyranny, has been seldom, if ever, imitated with equal remorselessness throughout the many centuries of modern history. Once only, when such advice was notoriously offered, it was received with execration by the whole Christian world, and a stigma then attached to the authorship of "The Prince" which later commentators have endeavoured to remove, on the disputable plea that its wickedness was insincere.‡ In a word, Christianity has tempered the elements of political strife by coupling, generally, duties with rights, responsibility with power. What it effects is best appreciated by a negative test, and may be recognised if for a season its influence is withdrawn. Then, the causes of revolution which Aristotle enumerates,§ and which are identical with the corruption of man's moral nature, operate again in their fullest intensity. Thenceforth, it is scarcely a stretch of fancy to imagine that we see prodigies of Presumption in a Vergniaud and his associates, the sacrifice of superior hopes to the thirst for Lucre in a Danton: Undue Exaltation makes even vanity prodigious from Robespierre down to Anacharsis Clootz: St. Helena sees a more vast Ambition render itself up to a Livy, i., 54.

*

§ Politics, book v., chaps. 2 and 3. Among these, ὕβρις, κέρδος, αὔξησις παρὰ τὸ ἀνάλογον, τίμη and φόβος here indicated are conspicuous.

graver account; and Mountain and Gironde are emulous of Corcyra in the instincts of a Terrorism as desperate and as sanguinary.*

But it was the Papal Church, compared to which Christianity, assuming its own separate existence to have been possible, has been historically but a secondary agent. As a society only, possessed of a distinct government and organisation, was it capable of contributing in a decisive sense towards the sum of political movement. At the first entrance of Christianity into the Pagan world, a world at variance with its principles and spirit, it acquiesced in existing political institutions. It submitted patiently to ills it could not remedy, rendering to Cæsar the things which were Cæsar's, saving to itself only the things which were God's. But the necessity of a Mission, apart from the Divine institution of the Church, would not permit Christianity to remain a personal relation between man and the Almighty. It was forced into the position of a distinct society by Doctrines which required a common assent; by Precepts which needed the obligation of a law; by Promises which called for a wide dissemination. As a society, it was bound to determine its relations with other societies existing at its side, and hence it became a political element colluding or clashing with other elements, as these assisted or thwarted its object. In virtue of this, its necessary independence, the Church was often able to correct the abuses or supply the deficiencies of the temporal power. In this spirit she contested her rights of jurisdiction with Feudalism-superseded the barbarity of Ordeals and Judicial Combats-tempered the rigid inflexibility of law by her doctrines and courts of Equity-infused a

For the influence of póßos at Corcyra, closely resembling in its effects the alarm of the French Republicans at the proclamation of the Duke of Brunswick, see Thucyd., book iii., chaps. 79, 80; καὶ οἱ Κερκυραῖοι δεί

σαντες μὴ, &c. — ὁ δὲ δῆμος τῶν Κερκυ ραίων ἐν τούτῳ, περιδεὴς γενόμενος μὴ, &c. In the famous chapters which follow, the history of "Mountain and Gironde" is written by anticipation.