humane and tolerant wisdom into the councils of men, who were yet many centuries from a state of civilisation. So, also, if "Rights of Private War" perilled internally the peace of kingdoms, the Church interposed with her "Truce of God." If Christendom was threatened with a Saracenic extinction, she superintended its efforts for defence. Preaching her crusades, she had power to reconcile discordant interests in a united movement, without which the cause of Christendom had perhaps been hopeless. Moreover, by protest, persuasion, or example, the Church succeeded in qualifying or removing materials the most pregnant of revolution of any in our system. One notable result of her exertions appeared in the abolition of domestic slavery. If political Helotry no more interposes to perpetuate the severance of race from race in an attitude of bitter enduring hostility, it is to the injunctions of the Church that we owe the first movement for its extinction. Hers is the credit, that prædial Serfdom, the true gulf before the Roman senate-house, which the devotion of no Curtius might close, no longer swallows people after people, draining into its abyss the springs of free industry, which are the sap and sustenance of maturer civilisation.§

The Church effected much in thus substituting for the weaker or more vicious tendencies of society her own measure of enlarged intelligence. She scarcely effected less in resisting the undue expansion of better tendencies, by gratifying them legitimately within the scope of her own high, capacious ideal. Repudiating the spirit of Caste, we see her sustaining the energy of oppressed races in seasons of discouragement-ordaining a Saxon Becket to be primate

See reference to the Council of Toledo and the Visigoth Laws, in Guizot's Hist. de la Civ. en Europe, Lect. 6.

+ See Robertson's notes to Charles V., note 21.

† στασιωτικὸν δὲ καὶ τὸ μὴ ὁμόφυλον.

See Aristotle's Politics, book v., chap. 2.

§ For the late discovery that domestic slavery was a principal cause of the downfall of the Roman Empire, see Michelet's Hist. of France, vol. i., chap. 3.

of the Norman Church-a peasant to sit in the seat of Gregory or Adrian.* On the other hand we see her rivetting the attachment of man to man in the closer bonds of a holier communion-devotionally exercising a youthful chivalry—yet cherishing the debility of older elements—in the shadow of her cathedrals nursing the instincts of municipal life helping government to a higher guarantee than force-leading empire into the path of a more perfect centralisation.‡ From the earliest expanding efforts of our system it has scarce embodied a vital principle, of which the idea has not been sanctified, in passing, at some time, through the porch of the Church. Even yet, though her organisation has lost much of its ancient vitality, the principles which she has fostered or tolerated survive to us. In no age of the world has philanthropy worked so widely, or with such definite views as to its machinery and objects. Moreover, apart from incitements to universal benevolence, principles have passed into the world through the aisles of the Church, at the potency of which the Church herself is now terrified. And yet she can hardly be fearful on account of civil government, or, if so, her apprehensions are superfluous. If she was the first to sanction the modern passion for equality, by exemplifying in her own "dignified isopolity" the equality of all men in the sight of God, from her Councils is derived the Representative principle, which can turn the stream into constitutional channels, and convert its heady currents to a highway of peace.

The Church has conferred enormous benefits upon mankind, but it would be unlike every other instrument of our advancement, if it had not combined with them pernicious

See Michelet's Hist. of France, book iv., chap. 2.

The Church increased the importance of the boroughs in the middle ages by its right of sanctuary. Guizot's

Hist. de la Civ. en Europe, Lect. 7.

The earlier centralisation of the Church instructed that of the State. See Michelet's Hist. of France, Book iv., chap. 2, p. 170.

elements. By the assumption of infallibility and the institution of a priesthood, jealously separated by celibacy from the laity, a class interest arose, and this interest has exacted incalculable sacrifices from the superstition and credulity of successive generations. A steam of blood and tears has dimmed the aspect of eighteen centuries, owing to one cause, principally, the ambition of this priesthood. It is difficult to assign any limits to a power which acts by its supremacy in the domain of conscience, but while we feel it to be vague we know it to have been formidable. Its dominance commenced so early, it passed so soon from the position of a persecuted to that of a persecuting class, that imagination even is requisite to trace its first encroachments.* Events of uniform tenor in persistent series have, however, enlightened mankind as to its tendencies. Its gloss on the words "Compelle intrare" has been a bloody rubric for the world to con, when read by the light of penal flames, of persecutions, massacres, exterminating wars, an ingenuity in the invention of torture which was clearly professional, and a sincere, and we may add, very logical hostility to the inductions of reason and the discoveries of science. For its sake Galileo was expected to abjure the testimonies of the heavens, and Buffon and others those of the earth. But before its committal to the conflict with free thought, it was a no less startling phenomenon that the most sanguinary scenes in history, since the fall of the Roman empire, were due to these men of peace. Such scenes were regarded with a vague uneasiness so long as men had no knowledge of moveable types. But when the Renaissance and the Revolt came, the indignation was proportioned, and the consequences were little short of overwhelming. It was then that the priesthood had an option of certain alternatives, of which in terror they chose the Under the influence of morbid and extreme ex

worst.

* As, for example, in Mr. Kingsley's Hypatia.

altation they clung to infallibility, their Nessus robe, and from this they could never after be liberated. Once for all, and quite as fatally as irrevocably, they committed themselves to a reaction without qualification or limits.

Compelle intrare" was interpreted afresh by their Alvas and Tillys, their Spanish Armadas, the poniards of their League, the missions, the conspiracies, and even the chocolate of their Jesuits. The reprisals they then took will probably never be forgotten or forgiven. Christendom has seen no such havoc as that from the date of Luther's protest to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and it still ponders over this history as the most significant of all histories. The latter event was the last serious triumph of the priesthood, and its subsequent efforts have been so partial, feeble, and flickering, that Europe has almost ceased to trouble itself with the question-Was the organisation of the Church a blessing or a curse? In these days its organisation is so shorn of its power, its capacities for mischief are so wisely limited, that the world goes on its way in the equanimity of indifference.

V.-Race and religion, side by side with the surviving elements of the ancient world, have thus contributed their quota to the sources of our Modern History. Yet, combined as they have been, for the most part, in a common movement, they have exerted each at times an independent force. If, at the expense of some of its elements, the ancient world attained a more absolute unity, the modern has resolved a more difficult problem, sustaining a balance in the internal strife the frequent and active antagonism of all. The closest examination of ancient states presents them commonly, at any given period, as yielding to the preponderance of a single principle. Monarchy, Aristocracy, Tyranny, Democracy, each hold paramount sway by turns-each have their special interval of domination. In modern History

SECONDARY REVOLUTIONS.

29

all, however, are contemporaneous-flourishing in the closest juxtaposition-great monarchies-aristocracies-free cities and federal republics encountering, repelling, or combining with each other. The same distinction is apparent in the grander aspects of either civilisation. The Greek spirit of Municipal freedom in one age triumphs over the type of eastern Empire. Again, the principle of Empire transferring its seat, the Municipal spirit is overpowered by the Imperial might of Rome. In Europe, Empire-Nobility-the Boroughs-the Church-are all at the same instant potent and persevering-waging a war in which, though each is vanquished, all are victorious-competing in a trial of strength and skill, wherein all failing to bear away the prize, it remains the common property of man. Out of this

contest,

τὸ καλῶς δ ̓ ἔχον πόλει πάλαισμα,

proceeds a class of revolutions which are Secondary in relation to the main current of history. Municipality strove with barbarian independence entrenched in its feudal strongholds at one point easily expelling it, as in Lombardy*— encountering again a stouter resistance to Hanseatic leagues and Rhenish confederations-helping Empire to undermine its enemy in the France of Louis XI. and Philip Augustus+ -arraying itself, on the other hand, with Feudalism against Empire under the house of Plantagenet. Royalty strove separately with Aristocracy in the Fronde-with the Commons in the reign of the English Stuarts. The Church also, with each apart and with all combined-contesting with Feudalism the right of investiture-combating the Municipal vigour in Languedoc-disputing with Empire its Pragmatic Sanction-lastly, uniting against her pretensions Saxon

• See Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i., p. 230; Italy, chap. iii., Part I.; Acquisitions of Territory by Italian Cities.

Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i., p. 204; Feudal System, chap. ii., Part II.; Connexion of free towns with the King.