CHAPTER V.
RELIGION.
Forthe right examination of the divine dealings in the ancient world, heaven has vouchsafed an unerring guide. The predictions of the inspired writers, and especially the prophecies of Daniel, furnish a key to all the remarkable events which authentic history records. The fact of fatal revolutions, and both the names and leading traits of their predestined agents, are declared with a boldness which ought to confound the skeptic whom it fails to convince.
While Rome was already trembling under the power of decay, Judea witnessed the fulfillment of those great designs in aid of which that empire was permitted to gain universal mastery, and, in the words of one of her own Cæsars, recorded by Tacitus, to arrive at such a satiety of glory as made her willing to give peace to the world. Thus, when Christianity was to be produced, all was made ready for her advent, and the appropriate field was cleared. Rome expiring amid her ruins, gave birth to the Catholic hierarchy as the last effort of her grandeur, the uses and abuses of which were not less subordinated to the progressive welfare of mankind. The history of religion is the pedestal of all history, and is the supreme manifestation of God's supervision of humanity. This light illumines all the rest, and most clearly shows that, because Providence takes no retrograde steps, human progress never recoils, nor lacks agents adapted to its beneficent advance. The great chain of heavenly purpose can not be broken, however violent the assaults of earth. Great revolutions may seem to be suddenly unfolded: but in fact they were conceived and nurtured in the womb of society long before they emerged to the light of day. A review of religion in the age of Leo X. will most strongly impress us with this truth; and while we are obliged to abridge the statement ofpertinent facts, we will hope not to be superficial in the elucidation of their governing principles. A palimpsest manuscript perhaps has had its original hymn to Apollo expunged, to admit a mediæval legend, but it was only that a supervening age might profit by the mutilated treasures so providentially preserved.
Under the domination of ancient Rome an unnoticed grain of seed fell in the Rheingau, and resulted in all the vineyards which have since enriched that prolific land. At the dawn of modern society, Christianity, that eagle from the throne of God, flying with the sun, deposited among the rocks of the Rhine an egg which contained the germ of more spiritual fruitfulness. Many Christians died the death of martyrs in those western wilds, and their ashes thrown to the winds, became the seed-corn of a new world. Innumerable heroes arose who were actuated by a profound faith—not of abstract reason, but of deep sentiment; the secret and source of an inspiration not to be cast aside, but which filled the soul, absorbed its faculties, and formed the chief aim of its existence. From the fifth century, Europe became a perpetually enlarged field for Christianity, but not its boundary. It was necessary that the divine power which underlies modern civilization, and which was given to transform the world, should go forth from the darkness and impediments of the middle ages, in order to develop itself, and produce the grander fruits it was destined to mature. That period has been characterized as the chrysalis of the new world. The first portion was marked by universal night and deadly sleep followed by a crystallized formalism of corporations in which soon appeared those grand beginnings of national regeneration which Christ came to occasion and complete. If the development of the divine purpose seemed to stop in the fourth century, when Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire, it was because that, at the time national existence became extinct in the East, the new Japhetic race of the West was to be trained to moral responsibility, and thus to national independence also, in religion.
In every epoch of the world, religion is the foundation and formative principle of all; it is this which generates the general faith, molds its manners, and fosters its institutions. The age we are now considering opened under auspices the most forbidding, and yet not unfavorable to the culture of exalted moral excellence. Destructionhad invaded the world-wide empire of that city which arrogated to itself the epitheteternal; and even those great ecclesiastical establishments, the fruit of much martyr-blood, and of the devout labors of the primitive fathers, were swept away by the overwhelming torrent. "But," Neander says, "while the pagans hopelessly mourned at the grave of earthly glory, and, filled with despair, beheld all the forms of ancient culture dashed in pieces by the hands of barbarians, devout Christians held fast to the anchor of believing hope, which raised them above all that was changeable, and gave them a firm stand-point in the midst of the destroying waters. They knew that, though heaven and earth might pass away, the words of the Lord could not pass away;" and these words were to them, even when surrounded by death, an inexhaustible source of life. The existing ecclesiastical forms, as far as they were connected with the constitution of the Roman empire, necessarily perished in the universal breaking-up of society; but the essence of the church, as of Christianity, could not be touched by any destructive power, and at this period of the world's decrepitude and exhaustion showed itself more evidently to be the unchangeable vital principle of a new creation. In this time of invading destruction, a Christian father (probably Leo the Great, before he was a bishop) thus wrote: "Even the weapons by which the world is destroyed, subserve the operations of Christian grace. How many, who in the quiet of peace had delayed their baptism, were impelled to it by the fear of imminent danger! How many sluggish and lukewarm souls are roused by sudden and threatening alarm, on whom peaceful exhortation had produced no effect! Many sons of the church who had been brought into captivity, make their masters subject to the gospel, and become teachers of the Christian faith to those to whom the chances of war have subjected them. Others of the barbarians, who had entered the ranks of the Roman auxiliaries, have learned in Christian countries what they could not learn in their native land, and returned to their homes instructed in Christianity. Thus nothing can prevent divine grace from fulfilling its designs, whatever they may be; so that conflict leads to unity, wounds are changed into restoratives, and that which threatened danger to the church is destined to promote its increase."
The bishops of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Rome, at an early period took precedence over the others, and received the title of patriarchs, which the eastern metropolitans still retain. The name of pope, from the Greek pappas, father, was once common to all the bishops, and is still given to the Greek priests in Russia. The term was not monopolized by the bishop of Rome, till the time of Gregory VII., in 1073, when he claimed, as the successor of St. Peter, the primacy over all others, and was sustained in this by the provincial councils. At length, however, difficulties arose, which led pope Felix II. to excommunicate the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria; and thus the Eastern or Greek Church was separated from the Western or Roman, though both assumed to be universal. But it was the western church only that advanced in the career of improved civilization. The monastic system, under which monks and nuns secluded themselves, was introduced by Anthony, in Egypt, and, in connection with papal celibacy, soon spread throughout Christendom. The use of images in worship, commenced in the sixth century, in the East; and though condemned at Constantinople in 754, it afterward prevailed, both there and in all the West. Meanwhile the gospel had been preached, in France, aboutA.D.290; in Ireland, about 470; and in England, by the monk Augustin, who died about 608.
In the midst of the great and universal ruins of the old Roman empire, the church alone remained upright, and became the corner stone of the new edifice. Civilization passed under her direction to the other side of the Alps, where it established a new centre of unity and brotherhood, around which a vast circle soon extended itself, and embraced all Europe in the same range of improvement. A common faith united all the members of that society of the middle ages, and from the day of its conversion, each nation dated its entrance upon the path of progress. From the fifth to the sixteenth century, the notions, sentiments, and manners of European society were essentially theological. Every great question that was started, whether philosophical, political, or historical, was considered in a religious point of view. Notwithstanding all the evils, errors, and abuses which may have crept into the Roman church, it must be acknowledged that her influence upon popular progress and culture was beneficial; that she assisted in the development of the generalmind rather than its compression, in its extension, rather than its confinement.
The uses of early Catholicism are well stated by Macaulay, as follows: "Whatever reproach may, at a later period, have been justly thrown on the indolence and luxury of religious orders, it was surely good that, in an age of ignorance and violence, there should be quiet cloisters and gardens, in which the arts of peace could be safely cultivated, in which gentle and contemplative natures could find an asylum, in which one brother could employ himself in transcribing the Æneid of Virgil, and another in meditating the Analytics of Aristotle; in which he who had a genius for art might illuminate a martyrology or carve a crucifix, and in which he who had a turn for natural philosophy might make experiments on the properties of plants and minerals. Had not such retreats been scattered here and there among the huts of a miserable peasantry and the castles of a ferocious aristocracy. European society would have consisted merely of beasts of burden and of beasts of prey. The church has many times been compared by divines to that ark of which we read in the Book of Genesis; but never was the resemblance more perfect than during that evil time when she alone rode, amid darkness and tempest, on the deluge beneath which all the great works of ancient power and wisdom lay entombed, bearing within her that feeble germ from which a second and more glorious civilization was to spring." Elsewhere the same eloquent writer suggests that, what the Olympian chariot race and the Pythian oracle were to all the Greek cities, from Trebizond to Marseilles, Rome and her bishops were to all Christians of the Latin communion, from Calabria to the Hebrides. This elicited sentiments of enlarged benevolence, and caused races separated from each other by seas and mountains, to acknowledge a fraternal tie, and a common code of public law. A regular communication was opened between the western islands and that part of Europe in which the traces of ancient power and policy were yet discernible. "Many noble monuments which have since been destroyed or defaced, still retained their pristine magnificence; and travelers, to whom Livy and Sallust were unintelligible, might gain from the Roman aqueducts and temples some faint notion of Roman history. The dome of Agrippa still glittering with bronze;the mausoleum of Adrian, not yet deprived of its columns and statues; the Flavian amphitheatre, not yet degraded into a quarry, told to the Mercian or Northumbrian pilgrims some part of the story of that great civilized world which had passed away. The islanders returned, with awe deeply impressed on their half-opened minds, and told the wondering inhabitants of the hovels of London and York that, near to the grave of Saint Peter, a mighty race, now extinct, had piled up buildings which would never be dissolved till the judgment day. Learning followed in the train of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age were assiduously studied in the Anglo-Saxon monasteries. The names of Bede, of Alcuin, and of John surnamed Erigena, were justly celebrated throughout Europe. Such was the state of this country when, in the ninth century, began the last great descent of the northern barbarians."
Prominent in the early scenes of that great act in the drama of human history which appropriately is characterized by the name of a pope, stood Gregory, the first of the name, who, from the year 590 to 604, occupied the sacred seat. God, to whom all his works are known from eternity, raised up this instrument so well fitted to guide the church in the West, in the midst of numerous and fearful storms. Up to his fortieth year he had filled an important civil office; and afterward in the calm consecration of monastic life he acquired the power and stability of extraordinary self-control. Depreciating literary critics have charged that Gregory expelled from Rome the mathematical studies; that he burned the Palatine library, first collected by Augustus Cæsar; that himself despised classical learning, which he forbade others to pursue; and that he destroyed many profane monuments of art, with which the city had been embellished. But the appellation of Great, by which he is commonly distinguished, attests the opinion which was entertained of his general character, and doubtless was in good part deserved.
It chanced that certain Anglo-Saxons, being exposed for sale in the slave-market of Rome, attracted the attention of the mighty pope just named. He at once resolved that Christianity should be preached to the nation to which these beautiful captives belonged, and never perhaps was a resolution adopted whence more important results ensued. Augustin, attended by forty Italian assistants,planted the doctrines of the Holy See among the Germanic Britons at Canterbury, and thence spread their influence through all the ranks of our pagan ancestors. It was not long before intelligent converts transplanted their sentiments to the continent, and filled the whole empire of the Franks with their creed. Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, was an Anglo-Saxon, whose great influence was exerted to perfect and extend civilization among the German tribes of the West. While other realms were sinking together into one common ruin, and the world seemed about to become the prey of the Moslem, the house of Pepin of Heristal, afterward called the Carlovingian, arose to blend regal with papal resistance, by which means the first effectual resistance was offered to the Mohammedan conquerors.
Christianity was scornfully trampled on by southern infidels and northern barbarians, but her invulnerable spirit was subdued by neither. Like her founders, she was seemingly conquered for a time, but in apparent defeat, death gave her positive victory. Bending her heavenly form to the tempest, she paused meekly till its utmost fury had passed, and then raised her captivating countenance to woo the savage foes who held her captive. Awe-struck, they reverently removed her chains, adored at her shrine, and swore fidelity to her cause. Refined into enthusiasm, they turned their energies toward more useful channels, and the subsequent history of chivalry and the crusades recorded its mighty results. Divine truth came not to avenge, but to console; it did not promise peace on earth, but retribution in heaven, and was not so ambitious to break the chains of the slave, as to share them with him. If the church could not destroy feudalism, she created chivalry; to quench the thirst for battles, she invented processions and masses. To the victims of injustice, she opened the asylum of the sanctuary; for blasted hopes and exposed honor, she proffered the silence of cloisters; and against imperial ambition, she wielded the thunders of the Vatican. Through a long and gloomy period, popery and the monasteries doubtless preserved the social system from utter ruin; and it is to be regretted that no sooner had the new system triumphed, than the seeds of corruption appeared. We dwell with most interest upon the period when the brilliant ardor of western valor breathed a new life into the contemplative andascetic virtues of eastern Christianity; when the red cross shone on the breast-plate of European warriors, and their lance was couched in a holy war. It was then that the militant church developed, if she did not perfect, that spirit which the soothing influence of religious love would substitute for the violated empire of the law, and for the laxity of social disorder—the spirit of chivalry. Hence arose that noble school of loyalty and truth, of devotion and gallantry, of humanity and liberality, which was the right arm of Christianity in her sacred mission of peace and righteousness. Thus it was that, unable for a long period to disarm the ferocity of those warlike ages, religion directed it to a nobler end, and by inscrutable ways, transformed it into one of its most efficacious instruments.
It was on the shores of Palestine that the different orders of knighthood were first established, in which military ardor was combined with religious enthusiasm, and graduated distinctions in the ranks of chivalry became the rewards of distinguished deeds. The power of these incentives was unparalleled in human history. They gave the first check to the brilliant success of Saracenic arms, and secured to an earl of Boulogne the crown of Jerusalem. Men of all tempers and most diversified dispositions imbibed motives for their ambition at a common source, which simultaneously fed the lion energy of Richard, the calmer fortitude of Edward, and the more enlightened mind of St. Louis.
The same blending of secular and sacred zeal, which had animated the crusaders to defend unprotected pilgrims in the East, incited them to promote improvement in the West, and educated them for the task. While absent, their ideas had been enlarged by an acquaintance with Roman jurisprudence, which still ruled in the eastern empire. They had witnessed with astonished admiration the excellence attained by several of the Italian states, through the agencies of commerce and manufactures; and on their return, they were not only sensible of the imperfect administration of justice under the feudal rule, but also of the need of an improved productive system. The crusades were beneficial, because they occasioned a revolution in the intellectual state of Europe by introducing a preparatory change of feelings and habits which no other agency could produce. The great good they conferred was none the lessvaluable for being mediate and progressive. No radical change in the condition of man, thus wrought, has ever transpired without resulting in the most salutary effects upon the character of all his intellectual operations. Doubtless, the crusades were not so much a cause of actual knowledge, introduced directly under their influence, as of those aroused faculties and improved habits by which both the useful and elegant arts were greatly promoted. No single event, however startling, and no one age, however prolific of suggestions, could effectually have restored the mental energies of the West after so many centuries of brutal ignorance, but the successive crusades did all to this end, and as successfully, that could be achieved. The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries teemed with the direct and multifarious results.
As the noble grandeur of Olympus, the fertile plains of Thessaly, the gloomy recesses of the rock-crowned Pytho, and a thousand co-operative causes tended to swell the romantic harmony of legendary song in ancient Greece, giving a favorite deity to each particular province; while the great emigration to the coast of Asia Minor enhanced the copiousness of their religious rites, by engrafting on their legend much of the frenzied excitement of the Asiatic race, so Europe in the middle ages had its patron saints, and around the altar of supreme worship were concentrated the reminiscences of every preceding age and clime. According to Colonel Tod's statement of oriental customs, the martial Rajpoots are not strangers to armorial bearings, now so indiscriminately used in the West. The great banner of Mewar exhibits a golden sun on a crimson field, those of the chiefs bear a dagger. Amber displays the five-colored flag. The lion rampant on an argent field, is extinct with the state of Chanderi. In Europe, these customs were not introduced till the period of the crusades, and were copied from the Saracens, while the use of them among the remote eastern tribes can be traced to a period anterior to the war of Troy. Every royal house had its palladium, which was frequently borne to battle at the saddle-bow of the prince.
From Pliny's letters to Trajan, and from other sources, we learn that ancient idolaters were in the habit of so consecrating spots and buildings destined for religious purposes, as forever to withdraw them from secular uses. Ere they began their accustomed rites,they sprinkled the place and the assistants with lustral water, which from the priest's hands was supposed to have conferred peculiar sanctity. The Romans burned frankincense, and other perfumes, in honor of their gods; and celebrated, at the entrance into the winter solstice, a festival to the goddess Strenna. The return of spring was celebrated with garlands, and the dance around a tall May-pole; and with kindred solemnities they entered into the summer solstice, with which they began the year. The Christians adopted similar consecrations with a like design. Hence the use of holy water, the practice of burning lamps and candles on altars and at tombs, together with incense burned in honor of the saints. Christmas, and the festival of St. John, correspond with the pagan rites they displaced, while the presents common to one, and the bonfires which illuminate the other, are mementoes of their origin. The idolatrous priestesses, who were vowed to perpetual virginity, were reproduced in the mediæval church, as soon as the Christian ranks were ample enough to spare certain members for that purpose, both male and female. In fact, the very tunic of the priest, the lituus of the augur, and cap of the flamin of pagan antiquity, were preserved in the dalmatic, the mitre, the staff, and the crosier of Christian bishops. Still more important similarities crept in, and a supposed virgin became the object of enthusiastic worship in the age of Leo X., as in the foregoing ages of Augustus and Pericles. Among the Asiatic Greeks, Diana was supreme; with the European Greeks and Romans, Minerva was first; and Catholicism at length found its highest love in Mary, the immaculate Mother of God. True, "Christianity had conquered Paganism, but Paganism had infected Christianity. * * * The rites of the Pantheon had passed into her worship, the subtilties of the Academy into her creed." This was evident from the symbols which were freely adopted from the Romans in the decoration of the new churches. The typical use of the cross was, of course, entirely original; but the vine and palm-branch of Bacchus, the corn of Ceres, Venus's dove, Diana's stag, Juno's peacock, Jupiter's eagle, Cybele's lion, and Cupids changed into cherubs, were all copied from the pagans, and made emblematic of Christian doctrines.
Such were the facts of the case, when the kingdom of Catholicism had come with power, and was seated on a throne, not accordingto this world, yet possessing a larger territory, and exercising a higher dominion, than had ever been given to sword or sceptre.
How wonderful is Providence in perpetually eliciting light and progress from the East! Charlemagne gave the popedom its supremacy beyond the Alps,A.D.800; and before the close of that century, a small body of spiritual Christians, near the Euphrates, were persecuted for combining the adoption of the Scriptures as their sole guide with the most resolute refusal to bow down to images. The emperor Constantine, who sympathized with their views, caused them to pass into Europe. Those Paulicians were the original reformers, the remnant of Judah, who came forth by royal command, to rebuild the temple of the faith, and restore the walls of their desecrated Jerusalem. Under the various names of Bulgarians, Cathari, Waldenses, and Albigenses, those exiles were the first founders of Protestantism. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the zenith of Catholic supremacy, yet at that period Germany gave a fatal blow to the temporal power of the popedom. The emperor Henry IV., in the twelfth century, had begun the quarrel, on the right of investing bishops, the first effects of which were to drive Gregory VII. into exile, where this mighty pontiff died. From the close of the thirteenth century the papal sovereignty over Europe sank rapidly, and was almost annihilated by the schism of Avignon. Subsequently, it regained a portion of former power, but the empire of Innocent and Boniface was ended forever.
The church educated disciples to see her faults, and supplied them with weapons as well as occasions for attack. There were reformers long before the "Reformation," like Arnold in Brescia, Waldo in France, John Huss at Constance, and Wickliff in England.
Every manuscript transcribed from the classics, and every Bible set free from the moles and the bats; every improvement in law, science, and art, together with each progressive invention, from the mariner's compass to the monk's gunpowder, was the forerunner and guaranty of even greater light and freedom than the reform of the sixteenth century saw realized.
The alleged infallibility and unchangeableness of the Roman church is necessarily self-destructive; since all systems, civil or ecclesiastical,which are incapable of advancing with the tide of general improvement, must be swept away by its progress. Tenets and customs framed for times of barbarous ignorance, could not withstand the test of improved civilization and knowledge. It is said that the shadow is nowhere so dark as immediately under the lamp; and when the true light of Heaven is obscured, the vessel that bears it casts the darkest shade. When theology takes the place of piety, and dead creeds are substituted for living virtues, it should not occasion surprise if the symbols of religion are deified, and all other power is lost. The wisdom that is from above is not a formal confession, but a progressive principle imbued with vital truth; and when the church forgot the life, the truth vanished from the symbol, leaving the defunct relics of unspiritual knowledge. But this was not always so. Through long centuries of darkness and toil, religious teachers filled a real office, a thing not of silks and drawing-rooms, but of the translation of the Scriptures, preaching the gospel, and appearing at the martyr's stake when requisite. Then a bishop was a real genuine pastor, who had a flock and fed it; he was a leader of men, and lived up to the growing wants of mankind. In due time, the perversion of this office wrought its own cure. By engendering grievances, it generated complaints, which occasioned inquiries; and thus not only were certain unfounded claims discovered, but a radical change in the whole system was effected. It was felt that the ministers of the gospel, styling themselves the vicars of Christ, had too long been undoing his work. It was alleged that they withdrew his books, counterfeited his words, made their own opinion a law, enforcing it by fire and sword; that they intruded themselves into the secrets of the heart, and laid conscience asleep. They monopolized the eternal clemency, and set a price for the ransom of the soul, even beyond the limits of repentance; and reached the climax of perverseness when they sat in the Vatican, the rivals of kings in wealth and power, if not in crime.
It was at this crisis in mediæval religion, that, early in the sixteenth century, the Augustin monk Luther visited Rome to strengthen his faith, where he found incredulity seated on the tomb of the apostle Peter, and paganism revived in the chief seat of religious power. Julius II., with a helmet on his head, dreamed onlyof battles; and the cardinals, ciceroneans in their language, were transformed into poets, diplomatists, and warriors. Leo X. succeeded, and by becoming a prince still more in the style of other princes, he ceased to be the representative of the Christian republic. But he soon heard from afar a clamor springing up beyond the Alps, and arising among barbarians. "A quarrel between monks," said Leo. Pericles despised the barbarians of Macedon, and perished. Augustus despised the barbarians of Scythia, and perished. Leo X. despised the barbarians of Germany, and while the young mind of that western world was in revolt, the glory of the popedom paled before the flames at Wittemberg, in which, amid shouting students, the propositions of Tetzel were burned.
We believe that the reformation must have taken place, and nearly at the same time and place, though neither a Tetzel nor a Luther had ever lived. The great correlatives which finally resulted in that outbreak and forward movement, were very far from being accidents; they were most providential and necessary phenomena in the course of the social development of civilized mankind. Luther was the mere cock-crowing of a day, for the advent of which innumerable heroes before him had labored and longed. The emancipation and enlargement of that age had a more powerful cause than either some casual incident, exasperated personal interests, or unmingled views of religious improvement. It was a new and vast struggle of the human mind to achieve its destiny; a new-born purpose to think and judge for itself, freely and independently, of facts and opinions which, until then, were imposed upon Europe by the coercion of unquestioned authority. It was the great primary insurrection of the popular heart and will against absolute spiritual power, and was chiefly brought about by the church itself. What is most to be regretted is, that the work then done was so incomplete, and that the perfection of that reformation has been so long delayed.
During all this brightening period, Florence remained the chief city whose beauty and power were coveted alike by Bourbons and the Medici. Leo X. loved her fondly; and the revolt of his native city was more painful to Clement VII. than even the downfall of Rome. And how eagerly did Paul III. seek to obtain footing in Florence! With a proud self-reliance young Duke Cosmo wrote: "The popewho has succeeded in so many undertakings, has now no wish more eager than that of doing something in Florence as well; he would fain estrange this city from the emperor, but this is a hope that he shall carry with him into his grave." Yes, truly, many such like dukes, emperors, and popes, buried their petty jealousies and ambitions in loathsome clay, but the great and glorious God overruled all their schemings, and rendered them instrumental in urging forward the tide of improvement more broadly and swiftly to its goal. If Columbus, in opposition to the counsel of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, had continued to sail in a westerly direction, he would have fallen into the warm Gulf Stream, which would probably have borne him to Florida, and thence to Cape Hatteras and Virginia. That would have introduced a Catholic and Spanish population upon the soil of republican North America, instead of the English and Protestant colonists which were its more auspicious germs. The same infinite hand winnowed away the old European chaff through needful tempests, and wonderfully fitted the seed-wheat with which to sow this vast domain of untainted soil.
We have before alluded to the mission of Augustin, when, having come thousands of miles over Alps and sea to debarbarize our degraded ancestors, he landed on the eastern coast of England, and began a most successful career by baptizing Ethelbert, king of Kent, into the Christian faith. This was the first unarmed invasion of the British shore, yet a bannered host. A company of black-robed recluses from the ruins of the Cœlian hill, undertook the conquest of the remotest western isles then known, and marched bravely to the task, bearing before them, as Venerable Bede records, the image of our Redeemer, and his saving cross. Those same Benedictine brethren, with their successors, were the authors of nearly every thing great and good which was afterwards produced from Canterbury to Killarney, and from Iona's solitary retreat to the more magnificent shrines which glorified the rugged western coasts, and reflected with augmented charms the last beams of the setting sun. The literature, art, science, philosophy, and religion of England would now have but little to show, had it not been for the protracted and noble toil of the great religious orders, Franciscans and Dominicans, but especially those greatest of benefactors, the learned and industrious disciples of the earlier Benedict.
Tread through the ruined cloisters of Furness, or Fountains, or Tintern, and think not that when devotees retired from the strife, the passion, the whirl of the Maelstrom of life, the sounds of ambition and trade never penetrated hither. Alas, within these sacred inclosures passion and pomp reigned violently as in the nearest neighborhood to the throne, what day one brother rose to the cellararius, or a more talented aspirant was exalted to the abbacy. Memory coined her chronicles, and fancy wove her dreams then as now. The bustle of preparation preceded the expected knight, or baron, or prince who honored the monastery with his presence, and when the Lord Abbot returned from visiting the national parliament. Neither monotony nor dullness prevailed while the monks literally, as well as in a mental and religious sense, transformed the wilderness and noxious fens of England into a healthful and productive garden.
Thus redeemed and cultivated, of all portions of the eastern hemisphere England is the country of constitutional rights and religious freedom. It would seem as if that insulated corner of the world had been created and placed there as a nursery on purpose to receive from the mainland plants the most select to be eventually transferred to a yet more propitious soil. To this end conduced all the movements of the different nations which successively occupied that hardy territory. The conquest of the Normans, and the state of the country at the period of this conquest, about the middle of the eleventh century, together with the great events which succeeded it, conspired with an efficacy constantly increased to mature the colonists who were commissioned to plant in a new world the elements of liberty which had fortified and rocked their own cradle in the most vigorous clime. As in literature, art, science, and philosophy, so especially in religion does the great principle of independency run back most remotely with the English race. The best things that existed on the continent at the culmination of mediæval excellence were carried across the channel bodily by the Normans, and first among these was the disposition and power to resist papal domination. Guizot states that the pope had given his approval to William's enterprise, and had excommunicated Harold. Nevertheless, William boldly repulsed the pretensions of Gregory VII., and forbade his subjects to recognize any one as popeuntil he had done so himself. The canons of every council were to be submitted to him for his sanction or rejection. No bull or letter of the pope might be published without the permission of the king. He protected his ministers and barons against excommunication. He subjected the clergy to feudal military service. And finally, during his reign, the ecclesiastical and civil courts, which had previously been commingled in the county courts, were separated. Thus, while in Italy and France the Roman populations possessed no institutions at all, in England Saxon institutions were never stifled by Norman institutions, but, associated with them, enlarged their scope, and liberated their action. All over the continent barbarism, feudalism, and absolute power held successful sway, derived either from Roman or ecclesiastical ideas; but in England, absolute power was never able to obtain a footing; oppression, temporal and spiritual, was frequently practiced in fact, but it was never established by law.
As the early Benedictines laid at the foot of the cross all the noble and graceful gifts which had been bestowed on them, not seeking popular applause, so the greatest of their successors, by the same Providence, were made subservient to the work of progress in general, and of religious improvement in particular. The lamp of divine truth was not suffered to be extinguished even in the darkest times. From the earliest, and through the deepest corruptions of Christianity, God has never left himself without a succession of witnesses. For example, Vigilantius, in the sixth century, vehemently remonstrated against relics, the invocation of saints, lighted candles in churches, celibacy, pilgrimages, prayers for the dead, and all the doubtful innovations which had crept into the church. Claudius, of Turin, called the first Protestant reformer, in the ninth century bore a noble testimony to the truth. Arnold of Brescia, Henry of Lausanne, and Peter of Brughes, successfully raised their voices against growing corruptions, and pleaded for reform. But freest, mightiest, and most salutary was the voice of England on this behalf. Thomas Bradwardine, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Greathead, the learned and fearless Bishop of Lincoln, and the noble Fitzrulf, Archbishop of Armagh, in the thirteenth century, caused their powerful lights to shine from the earliest and most exalted points. Still these were but the lesser lights, the casual out-breakingsof pent-up fires, precursors of the approaching morning and brilliant day.
But it was in that same western sky that the auspicious star arose, and Wickliff appeared. Thenceforth men became yet more guilty of thinking out of the beaten track, of questioning the arrogant claims of the priesthood, and of not only publishing to the world the living oracles of God, but also of teaching the people their right and duty to read them. The Scriptures were for the first time translated into English by the pastor at Lutterworth, and by his agency, mainly, was a foundation laid for the reform of Christendom. No sooner was this chief luminary violently eclipsed in England, than it began to shine with redoubled splendor on the continent, and the darkness which had so long gathered over the religious world was scattered. Queen Ann, the wife of Richard II., a native of Bohemia, having embraced the doctrines of Wickliff, caused the books of the reformer to be circulated in her paternal land. Huss and Jerome of Prague, by this means caught the fire of the English reformer, raised the banner of religious progress, and ceased not, till their lamp was extinguished in the blood of martyrdom, to devote their great learning and influence in defense of obscured truth. From the ashes of these sacrifices rose a light which shone throughout all Germany; and, like the flames which kindled on Latimer and Ridley, at that great source of the Lutheran reformation, Oxford, lighted a candle which, under the blessing of God, could never go out. A spirit of inquiry was roused not only in schools and universities, but among the nobility, and in the minds of the common people, not to be repressed. The foretokenings of rising day which resounded in Alpine glens, and along the valleys of Piedmont and Languedoc, long before broke from Lollard dungeons, and were echoed by the Huguenots. The same gracious God who, through the darkest centuries, kept alive the fire of true religion in the East, by means of the Nestorians, and in due time kindled it afresh in the hearts of the Waldenses of the West, from age to age, and from place to place, fitted a thousand minds for the accomplishment of his purposes. Councils, emperors, kings, philosophers, poets, the church herself, all in their turn contributed their influence, and hastened the result. It was written in the decrees of Heaven that the Bible should be the weapon bywhich the principalities and powers of sin should be overcome, the strongholds of the adversary demolished, and from their high places in the sanctuary the unclean birds should be dislodged. But the regenerator of the living temple, destined to rebuild the sacred altar, and restore its fine gold, must first be set free from the blinding bondage of dead languages. Therefore arose the towering genius of Reuchlin, the teacher of the great Melancthon, and the masterly mind of Erasmus, the one to give Europe a translation of the Old Testament, and the other of the New; while both, with worthy compeers and successors, employed their profound and varied talents in defense of invincible truth. All the springs of intellectual action which were so palpably at work in the sixteenth century, are clearly traceable to the thirteenth, when the energies of the great West were elicited, and independent thought was first born. The German reformation was a necessary consequence of what preceded. Internal fires had long been burning, and the heaving earth must soon give them vent. Infinite wisdom saw that the grand eruption had better transpire in central Europe, and it is evident that the time had come for it to take place somewhere. Had not Luther led, it must ere long have been conducted by some other hand.
And here we should especially observe that Leo X., though in the management of general affairs a man of consummate skill, prompt, adroit, and energetic; yet, in reference to the storm arising beyond the Alps, seemed bereft of his accustomed policy, while they were endued with uncommon sagacity who were undermining his throne, and plucking from his crown its richest gems. The cardinals, his advisory council, appeared, in the language of Scripture, to have lost their hands, and were strangely blind; but Leo himself was most like the son of Balak, whose common sight was darkened, as much as the eyes of his mind were open, who, when he stood upon the commanding height, foresaw the advent of the Messiah, and foreknew the countless hosts of the spiritual Israel, yet pushed against the armed angel of the Lord more stupidly than the ass he bestrode.
When the reformation of the sixteenth century broke out, Catholicism, like Tithonus of the fable, had reached the last stage of decrepitude, without being permitted to die. The work of resuscitationwas greatly needed, and might have been much more thoroughly done. Religion, while she exults in every recent auxiliary to her cause, and is especially grateful for each searching trial that may have purged her holy flame, can not with ingratitude forget the papal domination which kept it burning through long centuries of obscurest gloom. The agency of Luther was a notable episode in progressive history, but nothing about it was either isolated or accidental. The aim of divine interference is clearly discernible through it all, and the means employed were as strongly marked, as they were manifestly fitted for the parts they performed. A regular system of conserving causes prepared for the crisis, by which, and in the results thus accruing, the sovereign design was sublimely exposed. As soon as the desired end had been accomplished, the whole system began to dissolve, and a new cycle succeeded, which was also in turn to have its end.
It was neither Romanism, nor Germanism, that was destined to mold the sacred institutions of a new world, not even the more republican Frenchism elaborated by the frigid dialectician at Geneva; but the gospel of Jesus, with all its blessed freedom, completely disenthralled from priestly dictation and arbitrary creeds. English independency was the true spark struck from the Eternal Rock; and when, like the post-diluvian altar of Noah, it burned on the heights of America's eastern coast, it was manifestly the will of Providence that with augmented might it should sweep westward to enlighten and redeem the world.