Brabant. St. Wulfrüm had a still more difficult conquest to make of the Frisons, where human sacrifices were much in vogue.

The greater part of Germany was in the same condition, and an English missionary, Winfred, known to the Romanists as St. Boniface, was selected for the arduous task of spreading Christianity from the Rhine to the Danube; because, as Capefigue says, adventurous audacity was even at that time the type of the Anglo-Saxon race. The history of this English Bishop of Thuringia, and the instructions given to him by Gregory II., and by Daniel, Bishop of Winchester, are among the most interesting records of the period.

How different was the Church in these its early days to what it grew up to be when corrupted by power and wealth! It neglected no means, natural or miraculous, to effect converts; but it at the same time, even in its monastic life, sought the welfare of the people-in its days of overgrown pomp and pride, it laboured only to pander to the ambition of some, the luxuries of all. Monasteries in their origin were undoubtedly good and useful institutions, even when no longer wanted for the original purposes to which they were devoted, they still did good in preserving the chronicles, and recording the literature of their epoch, albeit in a dead language; at last, in many countries, as more particularly in southern Europe, they increased in number, till they eat up not only the poor labourer's means, but even the produce of the land. It seems that every human institution shall have its time, but each leave almost ineffaceable traces behind them, and in countries where monasteries have ceased to exist for centuries, the dead languages in which they disseminated knowledge and faith are still made the vehicle of a kind of education and learning, that is more ornate than necessary.

"Those ruins," says Capefigue, "upon which the traveller sits down in the present day, those broken pilasters and mutilated saints, once witnessed a whole people of solitaries and of monks, who tilled the ground and dug canals. There is nothing so ungrateful as new generations; they destroy the works of the benefactors of the past without regret." We deny this; we look with love upon these time-worn relics, and think with reverence of the calm, secluded piety of the past. Art even exults in the spoiler's defeat; but is not the day of toiling monks and of literary monks, of ascetics and pious gluttons, alike gone by? Have they not fulfilled the purposes for which they were instituted? Did they not in those very institutions trample under foot the noblest attributes of humanity and the great purposes of creation? Supposing a pure and an immaculate monk, he could expect little reward who had struggled against no temptation; and he who during life scorned alike the charities of social life and ignored the mysteries of humanity, had, by not fulfilling his destiny as a human being, taken from, instead of added to, his claims to happiness as a spiritual being.

The sanctity of virtue, and the devotion of the female, partakes of a somewhat different character. It is not natural, and it is not therefore to be defended upon principle; but there is something in the devotion of females to pious works, teaching youth, succouring the afflicted, or tending the plague-stricken, that commands our warmest admiration, It is impossible to peruse the history of the English maiden slave, who poured out mead and wine to the chief of the Franks, who, beloved alike by

King Clovis and by the mayor of the palace, became Queen of France, and used her good fortune to lighten the sufferings of her countrymen and women, at that time trafficked in as slaves, without feelings of strong admiration for the saint and Queen Bathilde, who founded the monastery of Challes; while another Anglo-Saxon girl, called by the Romanists Theodechilde," of illustrious merit," founded the monastery of Jouarre.

Other pious institutions, besides cells, monasteries, and convents, sprang up in the fervour of an early creed. Thus the Bishop of Paris, St. Landri, founded the Hôtel Dieu upon the occurrence of a pestilence that followed upon a famine; but even the epoch of so truly a religious act was disfigured by one of another and more frequent occurrence— the translation of the relics of St. Benoît-a prodigious procession, at which, to believe the monkish chronicles as revived by Capefigue, flowers covered the bier, incense perfumed the air, a column of fire preceded the body, the blind saw, and the lame and the infirm cast away their crutches, no longer of any use to them!

"In our times," says the same authority, "Providence appears to have given two lessons to men. In one place the monastery has become a manufactory; in another (Mount St. Michael) a prison. Manufactures, which contain in their womb one of the terrible problems of the new generation: prisons which multiply and increase, since men have no longer that curb put on them of a heaven that rewards, and of a hell that punishes. Is not the workman, in modern civilisation, tied to the vassalage of machines, which roll more eternally for him than the hour-glass in the cell of the monk, face to face with the head of death?"

If M. Capefigue does not speak of the eastern Church in the same tones of enthusiasm as of the western-its independence and superior antiquity being sadly at variance with the "unity," upon which popedom would base its supremacy, he still dwells with manifest delight on the evidences furnished to us by Procopius, and other of the lower empire classics, of the splendour and luxury of the Oriental Church when the light of golden lustres was radiated from porphyry, and green, white, and blue marbles, when the Byzantine enamel, or mosaic of precious stones predominated, and the organ first filled the hearts of the faithful, like the voice of angels coming down from heaven itself! It is, however, to the want of unity that the historian of the western Church attributes, not without some degree of justice, the conquests of the Persians, the rise and progress of Mohammedanism, and the subsequent encroachments of the Turks. As a reverse to this picture of dissension, war, and subjugation, we are assured "that the progress of the Kuran was arrested in the west because the Church' opposed to it pontifical unity and the powerful organisation of monastic and chivalrous life, grouping itself around the cross."

The Augustan age of the literature of the "Church," strictly speaking, and not the "Church" as M. Capefigue has it, restricting the term to the western or the Roman Church, ended with the sixth century, when the controversies of the great schools of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Athens, were no longer carried on by the "Fathers of the Church," and the Roman bishops, although rejected by all the Churches alike in eastern Europe and in Asia, the birthplace of Christianity, save by a few converted Greeks, Armenians, Chaldeans, Syrians, Copts, and

others, were left free to establish their power over all western Europe, till excess of corruption engendered reform within their own no longer sacred precincts.

For philosophical heresies were not long in springing up in the bosom of the western Church, and disturbing the harmonious "unity" of an infallible Pope. Thus, even in the days of Charlemagne, one Eliprand, Archbishop of Toledo, had the audacity to proclaim aloud the doctrine of the Arians and the Nestorians, as of the modern Unitarians, that Christ was not the son of God, emanating from Him and made man, but the adopted son-the elect of God. Charlemagne was obliged to call a council to put down the new doctrine, and acting as Constantine had done at Nicea, he said: "What do you think of it, holy bishops, this bad leaven has been fermenting for a year, it appears to me necessary to cleave the evil to the root by a high censure. Charlemagne was a zealous papist. "Who are you," he wrote to Eliprand, "that you would dare to struggle against the seat of St. Peter?" The learned Alcuin also took up the cudgels against Felix, the most distinguished disciple of Eliprand's. "If the son of the Virgin was only son of God by adoption, it would result that Mary would not be mother of God, which no one could say without blasphemy," wrote the disciple of Bede and the ambassador from Offa, to Charlemagne.

The Pope already in these early times decided all difficulties that arose within the Church itself, by the easy remedy of an apostolical infallibility. Thus, for example, a nice point arose among the French abbots as to the precedence of the Son or the Holy Ghost. Three of the most distinguished abbots were sent to confer upon the subject with Pope Adrian, who received them in a secret chapel of St. Peter's.

"Holy Father," said the abbots, "does the spirit proceed from the Father and the Son according to the text of the Holy Writ?"

"That is my opinion" replied the Pope; " and I forbid the contrary to be taught under penalty of excommunication."

"Can one be saved without believing in this mystery ?"

"One cannot be saved."

Disputes like these, upon mere questions of a text, were often the cause of prolonged schisms and of quarrels in which the blood of the subtle disputants was made to flow as freely as their wit. Charlemagne, although so zealous an upholder of the Pope against the heresy of the Archbishop of Toledo, was himself at variance with the Holy See upon the question of the worship of images, and became a leader of the great party of Iconoclasts.

Already in the seventh century, monasteries had become mere religious offices in which minute records were kept of births, deaths, the events of the time, and more especially of miracles. In the absence of controversial excitement, the monkish intellect dwindled down to be the mere herald of strange voices and of wonders that manifested themselves on such and such an occasion. The monasteries were also asylums, hospices, and hotels especially to persons of rank and title. The Englishman, Alcuist, was at the head of literature, philosophy, and theology. Charlemagne had consecrated a grant of land to the Pope, and Leon III. left the patrimony of St. Peter, as at once a supreme power and a temporal sovereignty, to Etienne IV., who had to follow his predecessor's example,

and place himself under the protection of Louis II., son of Charlemagne, against the turbulence of his own subjects. Popes then succeeded to one another so rapidly that the history of some is involved in the greatest obscurity. Nay, Capefigue declares that it is a real miracle, that amidst so many rapid and repeated mutations of the Pontificate, the series of legitimate Popes should be preserved like a chain of traditions. There is a legend of the middle ages that speaks of a Popess Joan; but what traces, triumphantly asks the Ultramontane Romanist, has she left of her Pontificate? The title of Vicar of St. Peter was first assumed in the bulls of Benedict I.; but when the power and the arrogance of the Popes had so increased, that they could threaten with impunity all the powers of Europe, they assumed the titles of Vicars of Jesus Christ. Had it not been for the Reformation, it is possible that by this time they might have gone further, and called themselves the Vicars of God. Divine honours were paid to them. No difficulties appalled them. "When," says Capefigue, "a power exists in the necessity of the time and of civilisation, all that opposes it is conquered." Thus, the Duke of Spoleto was excommunicated, and Charles the Bald nearly suffered the same penalty for daring to take the part of Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims. John VIII. assumed dominion over all crowned heads, with all the pomp of divine authority. They no longer considered temporal princes but as the elect of Rome; and while they asserted their right to name emperors, they, under Adrian III., interdicted the emperor to interfere in the election of the Pope. This example of arrogance was soon followed by the bishops, who declared in a council assembled at Aix la Chapelle (A.D. 842), the episcopal authority to be above all other.

It would, however, be vain to attempt to follow M. Capefigue in his details of the perseverance of the Church of Rome to arrive at that universal dominion which it has never been destined to obtain. It was not only the hostility of the Eastern Church which the Popes Adrian and Leo attempted, upon the rise of the Western Empire, to bring under their control, by allying Irene to the emperor of the Franks, but schisms also soon arose in the bosom of the Western Church itself. The period even of the greatest fervour in the Western Church, that of the Crusaders, was marked by schisms. But popedom was then so strong, that a Felix was no longer summoned before a council and reproved; dissension was at once proclaimed to be heresy, and heresy was met by "an inflexible condemnation." Such was the fate of the Manicheans of Orleans, the most audacious, Capefigue calls it, of all the heresies of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The Albigenses were the first to attempt to put a stop to the corruption that had crept into both monasteries, and the Church alike. Capefigue would have us believe that they simply wanted to rob both, like the Normans, Danes, and Hungarians of old. The Popes first anathematised, and then exterminated them, a proceeding which they would, no doubt, still most gladly adopt in any case in which they had the power to do so. Still, even in these early times, the scandal of monastic life, especially among the followers of Saint Benedict, who at Cluny, Ceteaux, and Clairvaux, possessed rich farms, cattle, fish ponds, vineyards, and gardens, and indulged in all kinds of luxuries, became so general that reforms were attempted even within the

bosom of the Church itself, and orders of mendicant and poor friars were founded, Bruno being canonised to shame Benedict. Both Albigenses and Waldenses had, however, anticipated this move, and their clergy paraded their real poverty in contrast with the mock humility of the purse-proud, idle, and luxurious monks. Passive resistance against the progress of reform was soon found to be vain, and an active resistance was brought into play with the order of Dominicans and Franciscans. Schisms had also broken out in England, in the struggle that has everywhere characterised the Roman Church, between the temporal and spiritual power, la lutte perpetuelle, as Capefigue has it, du sacerdoce et de l'empire! and which, in our country, was well illustrated by the contests of Thomas à Becket against his sovereign; and till Henry VIII. disembarrassed himself of these inconvenient rivals in authority, the contests between the Archbishops of Canterbury and the successive kings of England never knew rest.

The strength of the sovereign pontiff lay, according to Capefigue, in maintaining the symbol which was the formula of faith. But what was the symbol? How was it ever defined? So precise as it is declared to be, the popes were always ready to yield to a certain extent, or give legitimate way, as Capefigue expresses it, to the particular customs, the rites, and the liturgies of people whom they expected gradually to win over to perfect subjection, while to positive dissension or heresy they waged the same uncompromising warfare that they have ever carried on against what are called the "pretensions" of their seniors, the Greek patriarchs. To these schisms were superadded in the middle ages that which followed upon the removal of the pontificate to Avignon, between the latter place and Rome itself; no great proof of the extreme simplicity of the symbol, or of the existence of any real "unity" beyond that of "force.' The schism of the "West" (Capefigue says) had its origin in the invasion of the Church by the secular force, an invasion begun by the implacable and violent Philippe le Bel-that is to say, force opposed to force. The growing intelligence of the university and the parliament, even in those early times, also wished to substitute its force to the so much abused power of the sovereign pontiff. The extermination of the Templars was one of the sad incidents of this conflict. A more beneficial one to humanity at large was the establishment of a Gallican Church, without the Roman, if not precisely independent of it. The spectacle of two popes anathematising one another from Rome and Avignon, had also no little influence in engendering scepticism or developing heresies: "A new ordeal, which God imposed upon His Church, in order that the majesty of Rome and of its pontificate should issue from it more powerful than ever!"

From this spectacle of discord at head-quarters sprang up Olive, who denounced the " Church" to be a carnal institution, as possessing property and temporal power. Olive, and Eikurd, another denouncer of the "Church," were, it is needless to say, vigorously anathematised by the popes; and was the Inquisition wrong (inquires Capefigue) in punishing such damnable errors? Wickliffe, who preached the same doctrine, was not so easily reached; and his teaching had not only a longer life, but, according to Capefigue, met with its natural climax in "John Bull," who advocated the community of goods! The Lollards were, according