"^
 
 ilTY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 MAY TREAT MORRISON 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 ALEXANDER F MORRISON
 
 1.
 
 HISTORICAL STUDIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 EUGENE LAWRENCE. 
 
 - • '.• 
 
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 ••• • 
 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
 
 1876. 
 
 
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 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 187G, by 
 
 Harper & R r o t h t: r s, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington. 
 
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 9 
 
 J5A 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The following historical papers liave appeared at intervals 
 in Harper's New Montlily Magazine. I trust, notwithstand- 
 ing their imperfections, that they may furnish a useful outline 
 of the slow advance of knowledge and the decay of ecclesias- 
 tical tyranny. The chief aim of the Roman Church has been 
 the destruction of the intellect. The chief result of the over- 
 
 (V 
 
 g throw of persecution has been the rapid growth of the poj)u- 
 lar mind. It is well, therefore, to review these remarkable 
 
 2 mental struggles by the liglit of republican progress. Our 
 O 
 
 3 benefactors in the past have been, not kings, poj)es, or jDrinces, 
 
 § but those memorable men who have lived and died for religion 
 and knowledge. To them it has at last become customary 
 
 ^ to trace the most valuable results of modern progress. Edu- 
 
 g cation, intelligence, virtue, religion, have flourished in spite of 
 
 y^ the intolerance of popes and kings; and the New World, in 
 
 t. the centennial year of freedom, turns gratefully to the heroes 
 
 9 who died, that men might be free. 
 
 433740
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Bishops of Rome Page 9 
 
 Hebrew missionaries, 11 ; age of martyrdom, 13 ; iu the Catacombs, 
 15 ; a defaulting bishop, 17 ; an Arian Pope, 19 ; a haughty priest- 
 hood, 21 ; Pope Silverius, 23 ; Gregory's visions, 25 ; Gregory's mental 
 influence, 27; the worship of relics, 29; the Popes defend image-wor- 
 ship, 31 ; Hildebrand, 33 ; Gregory VII., 35 ; the emperor at Canossa, 
 37; Gregory delivered by the Normans, 39; death of Gregory VII., 41; 
 Innocent III. and Philip Augustus, 43 ; Philip subdued, 45 ; the Albi- 
 genses, 47 ; death of the troubadours, 49 ; mendicant orders, 51 ; the 
 Borgias, 53 ; the modern Popes, 55. 
 
 Leo and Luther 56 
 
 A conclave, 57 ; the papal electors, 59 ; Giovanni de' Medici, 61 ; Lu- 
 ther's childhood, 63 ; Luther a monk, 65 ; Leo in misfortune, 67 ; Leo 
 X. as Pope, 69 ; the Golden Age of Leo, 71 ; the Pope iu danger, 73 ; 
 the cardinal would poison Leo, 75 ; Leo's extravagance, 77 ; indul- 
 gences, 79 ; an El Dorado, 81 ; Luther's danger, 83 ; Germany unquiet, 
 85; intellectual tourneys, 87; Luther and Eck, 89; Luther summoned 
 to Worms, 91 ; Luther's hymn, 93 ; the Diet of Worms, 95 ; Luther con- 
 demned, 97. 
 
 Loyola and the Jesuits 99 
 
 Loyola's wounds, 101 ; Loyola a beggar, 103 ; the strength of Jesuit- 
 ism, 105; Luther and Loyola, 107; Loyola's disciples, 109; Paul III., 
 Ill ; the Koman Inquisition, 113 ; the papal massacres, 115 ; the 
 "Spiritual Exercises," 117; the Council of Trent, 119; the Jesuits at 
 Trent, 121 ; great wealth of the Jesuits, 123 ; Xavier iu the East, 125 ; 
 Jesuit literature, 127 ; Jesuit assassins, 129 ; William of Orange, 131 ; 
 Jesuit executions, 133 ; Father Garnet, 135 ; fall of Jesuitism, 137; the 
 Jesuits driven from Spain, 139 ; the order dissolved, 141 ; Loyola's 
 death, 143.
 
 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 Ecumenical Councils Paore 144 
 
 The assembling at Nice, 145; the town -hall at Nice, 147; Constan- 
 tiue's crime, 149 ; various heresies, 151 ; union of the Church, 153 ; the 
 Second Council, 155; Gregory Nazianzcn, 157; a council vituperated, 
 159 ; Poj)e Damasus, 161 ; Cyril and llypatia, 163 ; the fallen Church, 
 165; Dioscorus and his robbers, 167; Pope Honorius the Heretic, 169; 
 the monastic rule, 171 ; monkish rule, 173 ; Council of Constance, 175 ; 
 deposition of a Pope, 177; John Huss, 179; Huss at Constance, 181; 
 execution of Huss, 183; reformation, 185; Council of Trent, 187; the 
 Jesuits at Trent, 189; Lainez at Trent, 191; the Council closes, 193; 
 the decrees of Trent, 195 ; the First Council, 197. 
 
 The Vaudois 198 
 
 San Martino, 199 ; the barbes, 201 ; the Popes and the Vaudois, 203 ; 
 the Alpine Church, 205 ; the Jesuits in the valleys, 207; papal perse- 
 cutors, 209; the Vaudois doomed, 211; the Battle of Pra del Tor, 
 213; Vaudois patience, 215; the "Noble Lesson," 217; omens of dan- 
 ger, 219 ; the flight of the Vaudois, 221 ; Milton would save the Vau- 
 dois, 223 ; the cave of Castelluzo, 225 ; mass celebrated in the valleys, 
 227; Janavel, 229; "The Glorious Return," 231; the Balsille, 233; 
 winter on the Balsille, 235; the Vaudois fly, 237; a Glorious Eeturn, 
 239; new persecutions, 241 ; Turin does honor to the Vaudois, 243 ; 
 the moderator triumphs over the Pope, 245. 
 
 The Huguenots 24Y 
 
 Eminent Huguenots, 249 ; Palissy the Potter, 251 ; reformers outlaw- 
 ed, 253 ; the Bible, 255 ; Bibles burned, 257 ; the printers and the 
 Popes, 259 ; Philippa de Lunz, 261 ; Catherine de' Medici, 263 ; Cathe- 
 rine's superstition, 265; Jeanne d'Albret, 267 ; the Huguenots rise, 269; 
 death of Jeanne d'Albret, 271 ; Marguerite's wedding, 273 ; Charles IX. 
 irresolute, 275 ; the Louvre, 277 ; the massacre commemorated, 279 ; 
 the Edict of Nantes, 281 ; inhuman orators, 283 ; priests persecute in- 
 dustry, 285; generous Geneva, 287; the Seigneur Bostaquet, 289 ; the 
 galley-slaves, 291 ; the "Church in the Desert," 293; Jean Calas,295; 
 the Revolution, 297; Pius IX. and the Huguenots, 299. 
 
 The Church of Jerusalem 300 
 
 Ancient capitals, 301 ; the Holy City, 303 ; scenes around Jerusalem, 
 305; the Castle of Antonia, 307; the home of Mary, 309; St. Peter, 
 311 ; St. John, 313 ; Jewish festivals, 315 ; Roman paganism, 317 ; 
 apostolic charities, 319 ; the martyrs, 321 ; dispersion of the Church, 
 323; Paul at Damascus, 325; Paul the Persecutor, 327; death of 
 James, 329; the First Council, 331 ; Ephesus, 333; Athens, 335; Paul 
 at Jerusalem, 337; Csesarea, 339 ; Paul in the storm, 341 ; was St. Peter
 
 CONTENTS. _ 7 
 
 at Rome ? 343 ; martyrdom of James the Just, 345 ; Galilee ravaged, 
 347; tlie Last Passover, 349; the Holy of Holies, 351; Titus the De- 
 stroyer, 353; Simeon rules the Church, 355; the Pastor of Hermas, 357. 
 
 Dominic and the Inquisition Page 358 
 
 The Inquisition, 359 ; heresy in France, 361 ; the Albigenses, 363 ; Alhi 
 desolated, 365 ; the Spanish Inquisition, 367 ; the Jews persecuted, 
 369; Torquemada, 371; fate of the Spanish Jews, 373; the Moors in 
 Spain, 375; the Holy Houses, 377; Savonarola, 379; death of Savo- 
 narola, 381 ; an auto-da-fe, 383 ; the procession of Inquisitors, 385 ; Italy 
 Protestant, 387 ; Italy subdued, 389 ; Galileo, 391; Galileo's crime, 393 ; 
 the first aeronaut, 395 ; Italy and Spain decay, 397; England under an 
 Inquisition, 399 ; condition of Spain, 401 ; the Roman Inquisitors, 403 ; 
 Pius IX. revives the Inquisition, 405; sorrows and deliverance of 
 Rome, 407. 
 
 The Conquest of Ireland 409 
 
 Irish scenery, 411 ; Patrick in Ireland, 413; Irish scholars, 415 ; the 
 Irish Church, 417 ; the Pope sells Ireland to its enemies, 419 ; Dermot 
 in England, 421 ; Irish valor, 423 ; Roderic O'Connor, 425 ; Dublin 
 taken, 427; the Normans in Dublin, 429; the Irish unite, 431; Henry 
 II., 433; Ireland subjected to Rome, 435; Henry II. in Ireland, 437; 
 the Pope's bull, 439 ; the death of Roderic, 441 ; Roman jiriests kill 
 the Irish, 443; the Irish victorious, 445; the Jesuits in Ireland, 447; 
 massacre of Ulster, 449 ; the Irish emigrants, 451 ; the University of 
 Armagh, 453. 
 
 The Greek Church 455 
 
 The Seven Churches, 457 ; Constantinople, 459 ; the dome of St. 
 Sophia, 461; St. Sophia, 463; the Oriental shrine, 465; the Arabs and 
 the Greek Church, 467 ; the Popes and the Eastern Church, 469 ; 
 Photius and his age, 471 ; decay of the patriarchates, 473 ; Russian 
 ascetics, 475 ; Rurik, 477; Vladimir converted, 479 ; Ivan the Terrible, 
 481 ; the Kremlin, 483 ; Boris Godunoff, 485 ; the false Demetrius, 487; 
 Marina, 489; the Romanoiis, 491; Nikon, 493; Nikon's fall, 495; Peter 
 the Great, 497; Solovetsky, 499. 
 
 INDEX 501
 
 >,° j^" . -> > J ' ' ' ' ' 
 
 HISTORICAL STUDIES. 
 
 TRE BISHOPS OF ROME.i^) 
 
 In her faded magnificence, Rome still possesses the most 
 imposing of earthly empires. She rules over nearly two hun- 
 dred millions of the human race. Her well-ordered army of 
 priests, both regular and secular, arrayed almost with the pre- 
 cision of a Eoman legion, and governed by a single will, car- 
 ry the standard of St. Peter to the farthest bounds of civil- 
 ization, and cover the whole earth with a chain of influences 
 radiating from the central city. The Pope is still powerful 
 in Europe and America, Africa and the East. He disturbs 
 the policy of England, and sometimes governs that of France ; 
 his influence is felt in the revolutions of Mexico and the elec- 
 tions of New York.(') Hemmed in by the Greek Church on 
 the eastward, engaged in a constant struggle with the Protest- 
 antism of the North, and trembling for his ancestral domin- 
 ions in the heart of Italy itself, the Supreme Pontiff still gal- 
 lantly summons around him his countless priestly legions, 
 ^nd thunders from the Vatican the sentiments of the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 As if to maintain before the eyes of mankind a semblance 
 of supernatural splendor, the Popes have invented and per- 
 fected at Rome a ritual more magnificent than was ever 
 
 (■) Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History; Milman, Latin Christianity. 
 
 O Since this was written (1869) the papal power has fallen. But the 
 Pope is still the most active and dangerous of politicians in every civil- 
 ized land.
 
 10 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 known before. In the Basilica of St. Peter, the largest and 
 most costly, .building ever.ei:ected by man, the annual pomp 
 of the Roiiiish ccye/iiQDiefe lesceeds the powers of description. 
 The gf';rgeous.i>ol>Qs.the plajutiye music, the assembled throng 
 of princes',' erfi'dhral'^ lautl'jiripsts, the various rites designed 
 to paint in living colors the touching memorials of the Sav- 
 iour's life and death, delight or impress the inquisitive and 
 the devout. And when at length the Holy Father, parent of 
 all the faithful, appears upon the balcony of St. Peter's and 
 bestows his blessing upon mankind, few turn away unaffected 
 by the splendid spectacle, untouched by the pecidiar fascina- 
 tion of the magniticent Church of Rome. 
 
 Very different, however, in character and appearance was 
 that early church which the Popes claim to . represent. The 
 Jewish Christians entered pagan Rome probably about the 
 middle of the first century. That city was then the capital 
 of the Roman Empire and of the world. Its population was 
 more than a million ; its temples, baths, and public buildings 
 were still complete in their magnificence ; its streets were fill- 
 ed with a splendid throng of senators, priests, and nobles ; its 
 palaces were scenes of unexampled luxury ; and literature and 
 the fine arts still flourished, although with diminished lustre. 
 But the moral condition of Rome durincr the reigns of Claudi- 
 us and Nero shocked even the unrefined consciences of Juve- 
 nal and Persius. A cold, dull materialism pervaded all ranks 
 of the peojjle ; the intellect was enchaiTied by spells more 
 gross and foul than the enchantments of Comus ; crime kept 
 pace with luxury, and the palaces of emperors and senators 
 were stained with horrible deeds that terriiied even the hard- 
 ened sentiment of Rome.(') At length Nero became a ra- 
 ging madman. He murdered his mother, his friends, and 
 his kinsmen. Seneca and Lucan, the literary glories of the 
 age, died at his command. To forget his fearful deeds, Nero 
 plunged into wild excesses. He roamed like a bacchanal 
 through the streets of the city ; he sung upon the stage 
 
 (') Tiicitns, Jnvcnal, and Persius indicate the condition of Rome. Meri- 
 vale and Gibbon may be consulted.
 
 HEBREW MISSIONARIES. 11 
 
 amidst the applauding throng of mimics and actors, and his 
 horrible revelry was mingled with a cruelty that almost sur- 
 passes belief. 
 
 The people of Rome were little less corrupt than their em- 
 peror. Honor, integrity, and moral purity wxre mocked at 
 and contemned by the degraded descendants of Cicero and 
 Cato, and the keen satire of Juvenal has thrown a shameful 
 immortality upon the vicious and criminal of his contempora- 
 ries. Gain was the only aim of the Komans. The husband 
 sold his honor, the parent his child, friend betrayed friend, 
 wives denounced their husbands, to win the means of a lux- 
 urious subsistence. The amusements of the people, too, were 
 well fitted to instruct them in degradation and crime. 
 Thousands of wretched gladiators died in the arena to sat- 
 isfy the Roman thirst for blood; gross and frivolous panto- 
 mimes had supplanted on the stage the tragedies of Accius 
 and the comedies of Terence ; the witty but indecorous epi- 
 grams of Martial were beginning to excite the interest of the 
 cultivated ; and even the philosophic Seneca, plunged in the 
 luxury of his palaces and villas, wrote in vain his defense of 
 the matricide of Nero. 
 
 It was into such a city that the early missionaries from Je- 
 rusalem made their way, about the middle of the first century, 
 bearing to unhappy Rome the earliest tidings of the gospel 
 of peace. Amidst the splendid throng of consulars, knights, 
 and nobles, they wandered obscure and unknown strangers. 
 The first bishop of Rome, clothed in coarse and foreign garb, 
 and mingling with the lowest classes of the people, was 
 scarcely noticed by the frivolous courtiers of Nero, or that 
 literary opposition which was inspired by the vigorous hon- 
 esty of the satirists and poets. Yet Christianity seems to have 
 made swift though silent progress. Within thirty years from 
 the death of its author a church had already been gathered at 
 Rome, and the simple worship of the early Christians was cel- 
 ebrated under the shadow of the Capitol. Their meetings 
 were held in rooms and private houses in obscure portions of 
 the city ; the exhortations of the apostles were heard with 
 eager interest by the lower orders of the Romans ; a new
 
 12 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 hope dawned upon the oppressed and the obscure, and it is 
 said that a large number of the earlier converts were slaves. 
 Little is known of the condition of the Chiu'ch at this period ; 
 yet we may properly infer that its congregations were numer- 
 ous, and that the voice of praise and prayer was heard issuing 
 from many an humble dwelling of the crowded and dissolute 
 city. Amidst the shouts and groans of the blood-stained 
 arena, and the wild revels of the streets and the palaces, the 
 Jewish teachers inculcated to eager assemblies lessons of gen- 
 tleness and love. 
 
 Suddenly, however, a terrible light is thrown upon the con- 
 dition of the early Church of Rome. Nero began his famous 
 persecution, and the severe pen of the historian Tacitus bears 
 witness to the wide and rapid growth of the obscure faith. 
 " The founder of the sect, Christ," says the pagan writer, " was 
 executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator, Pontius 
 Pilate. The pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, burst 
 forth again ; not only through Judea, the birthj)lace of the 
 evil, but at Rome also, where every thing atrocious and base 
 centres and is in repute." Rome had lately been desolated 
 by a great fire, which Nero was believed to have ordered to 
 be kindled in one of his moments of insane merriment ; and, 
 to remove suspicion from himself, the emperor charged the 
 Christians with an attempt to burn the city. Those first ar- 
 rested, says Tacitus, confessed their guilt ; vast numbers were 
 put to death ; some were clad in the skins of wild beasts and 
 were torn to pieces by dogs ; others were affixed to crosses, 
 and, being covered with some inflammable material, were burn- 
 ed at night, in the place of torches, to dispel the darkness. 
 Nero lent his gardens for the hideous spectacle, the populace 
 of Rome crowded to the novel entertainment, and the em- 
 peror, driving his own chariot, rode amidst the throng, clad 
 in the garb of a charioteer. In the last year of the reign of 
 this monster, St. Peter and St. Paul, a doubtful tradition re- 
 lates, suffered martyrdom at Rome, and were buried in the 
 spots now marked by the two noble Basilicas that bear their 
 names. 
 
 From this period (67) the new and powerful sect became a
 
 AGE OF MARTYRDOM. 13 
 
 constant object of imperial persecution. The Christians were 
 denounced as the common enemies of mankind. The grossest 
 crimes, the foulest superstitions, were charged against them. 
 The learned Komans looked upon them with contempt as a 
 vulgar throng of deluded enthusiasts. Pliny speaks of them 
 with gentle scorn ; the wise Trajan and the philosophic Aure- 
 lius united in persecuting them ; and Decius and Diocletian 
 sought to extirpate every vestige of the hated creed. Six 
 great persecutions are noticed by the historians, from that of 
 Nero to that of Maximin and Diocletian, during whicli the 
 whole civilized world everywhere witnessed the constancy and 
 resignation of the Christian martyrs. 
 
 It was the age of martyrdom. An infinite number of nov- 
 el tortures were devised by the infuriated pagans to rack the 
 bodies of their unresisting victims. Some were affixed to 
 crosses and left to starve ; some were suspended by the feet, 
 and hung with their heads downward until they died ; some 
 were crushed beneath heavy weights ; some beaten to death 
 with iron rods ; some were cast into caldrons of blazing oil ; 
 some were thrown, bound, into dungeons to be eaten by mice ; 
 some were pierced with sharp knives ; and thousands died in 
 the arena, contending with wild beasts, to amuse the populace 
 of Rome.C) The mildest punishment awarded to the Chris- 
 tians was to labor in the sand-pits, or to dig in the distant 
 mines of Sardinia and Spain. Men, women, and children, the 
 noble convert or the faithful slave, suffered a common doom, 
 and were exposed to tortures scarcely equaled by the poetic 
 horrors of Dante's terrible Inferno. Yet the honors paid to 
 these early martyrs in a later age were almost as extravagant 
 as their sufferings had been severe. The city which had been 
 consecrated by their tortures deemed itself hallowed by their 
 doom. The sepulchre of eighteen martyrs, sung Prudentius, 
 has made holy the fair city of Saragossa. Splendid churches 
 
 (') Prudeutins, Migne, Ix., p. 450-'54, sings the sufferings of the martyrs. 
 See Peristeph., hymn x., p. 1069. Conspirat nno foederatus spiritn. 
 
 Grex Christianus, agmen impcrterritum 
 Matrum, virorum, parvulorum, virginum ; 
 Fixa et statuta est omnibus sententia, etc.
 
 14 THE BISHOPS OF SOME. 
 
 were built over the graves of obscure victims ; the bones of 
 the martyrs were looked upon as the most precious relics; 
 they were enchased in gold and covered with jewels ; they 
 wrought miracles, healed the sick, and brought prosperity and 
 good fortune ; and the humblest Christian who had been rack- 
 ed with sharp knives or hung with his head downward, in the 
 days of pagan persecution, was now deified, worshiped, and al- 
 most adored. 
 
 It was during the reign of the early persecution that the 
 bishops and the Church of Rome sought, and perhaps found, 
 a refuge in that singular hiding-place — the Catacombs.(') Be- 
 neath the Campagna, immediately around the city, the earth 
 is penetrated by a great number of galleries or tunnels, run- 
 ning for many miles under the surface, and difficult of access 
 even to those most familiar with them. These narrow pas- 
 sages are now known as the Catacombs, and are usually f om* 
 or six feet wide, and ten feet high. They were formed by 
 the Romans in getting out sand for cement ; and as many of 
 the Christians were laborers or slaves, they were probably 
 well acquainted with the opportunity for concealment offer- 
 ed by these arenarke, or sand-pits, where they had often la- 
 bored at their humble toil. When persecution grew fierce, 
 and the life of every Christian was in danger, the Church of 
 Rome hid itself in the Catacombs. Here, in these dismal 
 passages, may still be seen a thousand traces of the suffer- 
 ings and sorrows of the early Christians. Here are small 
 chapels cut in the sides of the wall of sand, and provided 
 with altars, fonts, and episcopal chairs, while above the chap- 
 el a narrow opening is often excavated to the surface of the 
 earth in order to admit a little light or air to the hidden con- 
 gregation below. Other portions of the Catacombs were used 
 as cemeteries for the burial of the Christian dead. Count- 
 less tombs are seen rudely excavated in the earth, and usual- 
 
 (') For the Catacombs consult Church of the Catacombs, Maitland, who 
 thinks (p. 17) they were originally sand-pits; and De Rossi. The are- 
 narli, or sand-diggers, were i)robubly slaves who eagerly embraced Chris- 
 tianity.
 
 IN THE CATACOMBS. 15 
 
 ly distinguished by an inscription indicating the position and 
 character of the deceased. These inscriptions, indeed, form 
 one of the most interesting traits of the Catacombs, and have 
 been eagerly studied and copied by many ardent exj)lorers. 
 They bring into clear light the simplicity and fervor of the 
 ancient faith. Here are no prayers for the dead, no address 
 to the Yirgin or the saints. Upon one tomb is written, " He 
 sleeps in Christ ;" over another, " May she live in the Lord 
 Jesus !" Most of the inscriptions dwell upon the hope of a 
 better life, and are full of resignation and faith. One, how- 
 ever, shows in what gloom and terror the Church maintain- 
 ed its existence. "O, mournful time," it reads, "in whieli 
 prayer and sacred rites, even in caverns, afford no protec- 
 tion !"(') 
 
 The bishops of Rome, with their terrified followers, were 
 now the tenants of a subterranean home. They lived among 
 tombs, in darkness and confinement, fed upon the scanty food 
 brought them by stealth by faithful slaves or devoted women. 
 Yet, if we may believe the common tradition, but few of the 
 early bishops escaped martyrdom. They were pursued into 
 the Catacombs, and were often murdered in the midst of 
 their congregations. Stephen L, Bishop of Rome, lived many 
 years, it is said, in these dismal retreats. Food was furnish- 
 ed him from above, and wells and springs are found in the 
 Catacombs. At length, however, the pagan soldiers traced 
 him to his chapel, while he was performing service, and, when 
 he had done, threw him back in his episcopal chair, and cut 
 off his head at a blow. The pagan emperors in vain issued 
 decrees forbidding the Christians to take refuge in the Cat- 
 acombs ; and although death was decreed to every one who 
 was found there, these endless labyrinths were always thickly 
 peopled. Ladies of rank hid in the sand-pits, and were fed 
 by their faithful maids ; the rich and the poor found a com- 
 mon safety in the recesses of the earth. When the heathen 
 soldiers approached, the Christians would sometimes block up 
 
 (') Maitlaud, p. 53: "No worship of the Virgin is found, nor image-wor- 
 ship."
 
 16 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 the passages with sand, and then escape to some distant part 
 of the labyrinths where the persecutors did not venture to 
 follow them. 
 
 Long afterward, when all necessity for using them had for- 
 ever passed away, the Catacombs were still looked upon with 
 singular veneration by the Roman Christians as the scene of 
 many a martyrdom, and the home of the persecuted Church. 
 Here they would often assemble to celebrate their holiest 
 rites, surrounded by the tombs of bishops and presbyters, 
 and shut out from the world in the gloom of a subterranean 
 darkness. St. Jerome relates that it was his custom, when a 
 young student at Rome, to wander on Sundays to the Cata- 
 combs, accompanied by his pious friends, descend into a deep 
 cavern amidst the cultivated fields near the city, and enter by 
 a path of winding steps the hallowed abode of the martyrs. 
 His pious pilgrimage represents, no doubt, the common prac- 
 tice of the Christians of his time. But as centuries passed 
 away, the ancient usage was neglected, until at length even 
 the very existence of the Catacombs was forgotten. It was 
 only remembered that in the early ages the Christians had 
 hidden in their cemeteries, and that the living had once been 
 forced to seek shelter among the dead. In the year 1578 
 Rome was startled by the intelligence that an ancient Chris- 
 tian cemetery had been discovered, extending like a subter- 
 ranean city around and beneath the Salarian Way. The Ro- 
 man antiquarians and artists crowded to the spot, explored 
 with earnest devotion the crumbling labyrinth, copied the 
 numerous inscriptions, traced the moldering sculptures or the 
 faded pictures on the walls, and revived the memory of the 
 forgotten Church of the Catacombs. 
 
 During this period of persecution and contempt the bish- 
 ops of Rome gave little promise of that spiritual and tempo- 
 ral grandeur to which tliey afterward attained. They are 
 nearly lost to history ; a barren list of names is almost all 
 that we possess. Yet the discovery of the writings of Hyp- 
 polytus has lately thrown some new light upon the characters 
 of several of the early bishops, and serves to show that the 
 rulers of the Church were not always selected with discre-
 
 A DEFAULTIXG BISHOP. 17 
 
 tion.(') Bishop Victor was stern, haughty, and overbearing; 
 his successor, Zephyrinns, feeble, ignorant, avaricious, and ve- 
 nal. But tlie next bishop, who ruled from 219 to 223, was 
 even less reputable than his predecessors. Callistus, in early 
 life, had been a slave in the family of Carpophorus, a wealthy 
 Christian who was employed in the emperor's household. 
 His master established Callistus as a banker in a business 
 quarter of the city, and his bank was soon tilled with the 
 savings of prudent Christians and the property of widows 
 and oi-phans. Callistus made away with the funds intrust- 
 ed to his care, and, being called to account, fled from Eome. 
 He was seized, brought back to the city, and condemned to 
 hard labor in the public work-house. His master, however, 
 obtained his release, forgave his offense, and employed him 
 in collecting moneys which Callistus pretended were due him. 
 Soon after, the defaulting banker was arrested for some new 
 offense, and was condemned to be scourged and transported to 
 the mines of Sardinia. He was again relieved from his sen- 
 tence through the influence of powerful friends, returned to 
 Rome, and became the favorite and counselor of the feeble 
 Bishop Zephyrinus. Wlien the latter died, Callistus succeed- 
 ed him in the episcopal chair; and thus a public defaulter, 
 snatched from the work-house and the mines, became the head 
 of the Roman Church. 
 
 In the last great persecution under Diocletian, the bishops 
 of Rome probably fled once more to the Catacombs. Their 
 churches were torn down, their property couflscated, their sa- 
 cred writings destroyed, and a vigorous effort was made to ex- 
 tirpate the powerful sect. But the effort Avas vain. Constan- 
 tine soon afterward became emperor, and the Bishop of Rome 
 emerged from the Catacombs to become one of the ruling 
 powers of the world. This sudden change was followed by 
 an almost total loss of the simplicity and purity of the days 
 of persecution. Magnificent churches were erected by the 
 emperor in Rome, adorned with images and pictures, where 
 the bishop sat on a lofty throne, encircled by inferior priests, 
 
 (') Bunsen, Hippolytus. 
 
 2
 
 18 THE BISHOPS OF HOME. 
 
 and perfoiining rights borrowed from tlie splendid ceremo- 
 nial of the pagan temple. The Bishop of Rome became a 
 prince of the empire, and lived in a style of luxury and pomp 
 that awakened the envy or the just indignation of the hea- 
 then writer, Marcellinus. The Church was now enriched .by 
 the gifts and bequests of the pious and the timid ; the bish- 
 op drew great revenues from his farms in the Campagna and 
 his rich plantations in Sicily ; he rode through the streets of 
 Eome in a stately chariot and clothed in gorgeous attire ; his 
 table was supplied with a profusion more than imperial ; the 
 proudest women of Rome loaded him with lavish donations, 
 and followed him with their flatteries and attentions ; and his 
 haughty bearing and profuse luxury were remarked upon by 
 both pagans and Christians as strangely inconsistent with the 
 humility and simplicity enjoined by the faith which he pro- 
 fessed. 
 
 The bishopric of Rome now became a splendid prize, for 
 which the ambitious and unprincipled contended by force or 
 fraud. The bishop was elected by the clergy and the popu^ 
 lace of the city, and this was the only elective oflflce at Rome. 
 Long deprived of all the rights of freemen, and obliged to 
 accept the senators and consuls nominated by the emperors, 
 the Romans seemed once more to have regained a new liber- 
 ty in their privilege of choosing their bishops. They exer- 
 cised this right with a violence and a factious spirit that show- 
 ed them to be unworthy of possessing it. On an election-day 
 the streets of Rome were often fllled with bloodshed and riot. 
 The rival factions assailed each other with blows and weap- 
 ons. Churches w' ere garrisoned, stormed, sacked, and burned ; 
 and the opposing candidates, at the head of their respective 
 parties, more than once asserted their spiritual claims by force 
 of arms. 
 
 About the middle of the fourth century, the famous Trini- 
 tarian controversy swept over the world, and lent new ardor 
 and bitterness to the internal contests of the Church of Rome. 
 The Emperor Constantius was an Arian, and had filled all the 
 Eastern sees with the prelates of his own faith. His adver- 
 sary, the rigorous Athanasius, fled to Rome, and had there
 
 AN ASIAN POPE. 19 
 
 thrown the spell of his master-mind over Pope and people. 
 But Constantius was resolved to crush the last stronghold of 
 Trinitarianism. Pope Liberius, won by the favors or terri- 
 fied at the threats of the emperor, at first consented to a 
 condemnation of the doctrine of Athanasius. But soon the 
 mental influence of the great Alexandrian proved more pow- 
 erful than the material impulse of Constantius. Liberius re- 
 canted, proclaimed the independence of the Roman See, and 
 launched the anathemas of the Church against all who held 
 Arian opinions, and even against the emperor himself. All 
 Eome rose in revolt in defense of its bishop and its creed; 
 but the unhappy Liberius was seized at night, by the orders 
 of the enraged Constantius, and carried away in exile to the 
 shores of cold and inhospitable Thrace. He refused with con- 
 tempt the money sent him by the emperor to pay the ex- 
 penses of his journey. "Let him keep it," said he to the 
 messengers, " to pay his soldiers. Do you presume to offer 
 me alms as if I were a criminal?" he exclaimed. "Away! 
 first become a Christian !" 
 
 Two years of exile in barbarous Thrace, and the dread of a 
 worse doom, seem to have shaken the resolution of the Pope. 
 The emperor, too, had taken a still more effectual means of 
 assailing the authority of his rebellious sul^ject. Felix, an anti- 
 pope, had been appointed at Rome, elected by three eunuchs, 
 and Liberius now consented to renounce his communion with 
 Athanasius. His people, and particularly the rich and noble 
 women of Rome, had remained faithful to their exiled bishop ; 
 and as he entered the city a splendid throng came forth to meet 
 him, and welcomed him with a triumphal procession. Felix, 
 the anti-pope, fled before him, but soon afterward returned, 
 and it is said that the streets, the baths, and the churches were 
 the scenes of a fierce struggle between the rival factions. 
 Rome was filled with bloodshed and violence, until at last Li- 
 berius triumphed, and closed his life in peace upon the throne 
 of St. Peter. 
 
 His death was the signal for new disorders, and two oppos- 
 ing candidates, Damasus and L^rsicinus, contended for the pa- 
 pal chair. The latter having occupied, with his adherents, the
 
 20 THE BISHOPS OF SOME. 
 
 Julian Basilica, Damasus, at the head of a mob of charioteers, 
 the hackmen of Kome, and a wild throng of the lowest of the 
 people, broke into the sacred edifice, and encouraged a general 
 massacre of its defenders. On another occasion Damasus as- 
 sembled a force composed of gladiators, charioteers, and labor- 
 ers, armed with clubs, swords, and axes, and stormed the Church 
 of S. Maria Maggiore, where a party of the rival faction had 
 intrenched themselves, and massacred one hundred and sixty 
 persons of both sexes. The contest raged for a long time. 
 Another frightful massacre took place in the Church of St. 
 Agnes ; the civil powers in vain interfered to check the vio- 
 lence of the pious factions, and at length the emperor was 
 obliged to appoint a heathen prefect for the city, who, by his 
 severe impartiality, reduced the Christians to concord. Dam- 
 asns, stained with bloodshed and raging with evil passions, 
 was firmly seated on the episcopal throne, and seems to have 
 obtained the admiration and the support of his contemporary, 
 the impetuous St. Jerome. 
 
 In the mean time the magnificent city was still divided be- 
 tween the pagans and the Christians. A large part of the 
 population still clung to the ancient faith. Many of the 
 wealthiest citizens and most of the old aristocracy still sac- 
 rificed to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and looked with scorn 
 upon the fierce enthusiasts who had filled Rome with violence 
 and disorder. In one street the pagan temple, rising in se- 
 vere majesty, was filled with its pious worshipers, performing 
 rites and ceremonies as ancient as Numa; in the next the 
 Christian Basilica resounded with the praises of the triune 
 God. On one side the white-robed priest led the willing vic- 
 tim to the altar, and inspected the palpitating entrails; on 
 the other the Christian preacher denounced in vigorous ser- 
 mons the follies of the ancient superstition. The contest, 
 however, did not continue long. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 
 enforced the condemnation of paganism, and the last marks 
 of respect were withdrawn from those tutelar deities who had 
 so long presided over the destinies of Eome. 
 
 The fourth century brought important changes in the con- 
 dition of the bishops of Eome. It is a singular trait of the
 
 A HAUGHTY PRIESTHOOD. ' 21 
 
 corrupt Christianity of this period that the chief characteris- 
 tic of the eminent prelates was a tierce and ungovernable 
 pride. Humility had long ceased to be numbered among 
 the Christian virtues. The four great rulers of the Church 
 (the Bishop of Rome and the patriarchs of Constantinople, 
 Antioch, and Alexandria) were engaged in a constant strug- 
 gle for supremacy. (*) Even the inferior bishops assumed a 
 princely state, and surrounded themselves with their sacred 
 courts. The vices of pride and arrogance descended to the 
 lower orders of the clergy ; the emperor himself was declared 
 to be inferior in dignity to the simple presbyter, and in all 
 public entertainments and ceremonious assemblies the proud- 
 est layman was expected to take his place below the haughty 
 churchman. As learning declined and the world sunk into 
 a new barbarism, the clergy elevated themselves into a ruling 
 caste, and were looked upon as half divine by the rude Goths 
 and the degraded Romans. It is even said that the pagan 
 nations of the West transferred to the priest and monk the 
 same awe -struck reverence which they had been accustomed 
 to pay to their Druid teachers. The Pope took the place of 
 their Chief Druid, and was worshiped with idolatrous devo- 
 tion ; the meanest presbyter, however vicious and degraded, 
 seemed, to the ignorant savages, a true messenger from the 
 skies. 
 
 At Rome, the splendid capital, still untouched by the Goth, 
 the luxury and pride of the princely caste had risen to a kind 
 of madness. Instead of healing the wounded conscience or 
 ministering to the sick and the poor, the fashionable presby- 
 ter or deacon passed his time in visiting wealthy widows, and 
 extracting rich gifts and legacies from his superstitious ad- 
 mirers. A clerical fop of the period of Pope Damasus is 
 thus described by the priestly Juvenal, St. Jerome: "His 
 chief care is to see that his dress is well perfumed, that his 
 sandals fit close to his feet; his hair is crisped with a curl- 
 
 (') Gieseler, i., p. 374. In 381, the second General Council gave the Bish- 
 op of Constantinople the first rank after the Bishop of Kome : Sid to ilvai 
 avTrjv veav Pojjujji'. The appellation of patriarch might be given to any 
 bishop in the fourth century.
 
 22 • THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 ing-pin; his fingers glitter with rings; lie walks on tip -toe 
 through the streets lest he may splash himself with the wet 
 soil, and when you see him abroad you would think him a 
 bridegroom rather than a priest." " Both deacons and pres- 
 byters," exclaims the monastic Jerome, " strive for the favor 
 of women ;" and were, no doubt, in search of wealthy and 
 high-born wives among the greatest families of Rome. The 
 first era of successful Christianity, indeed, was more luxuri- 
 ous and corrupt than had been that of Augustus or Tiberius. 
 The bishop lived in imperial pomp, the lower orders of the 
 clergy imitated his license and his example ; the people were 
 sunk in superstition and vice ; when suddenly a terrible puri- 
 fication — a baptism of fire and blood — came upon the guilty 
 
 city. 
 
 This was no less than the total destruction of that costly 
 fabric of civilization, the Roman Empire, which had been 
 erected by the labors and sufferings of so many statesmen, 
 warriors, philosophers, and had seemed destined to control 
 forever the future of Europe and mankind. The northern 
 races now descended upon the southern, and gained an easy 
 victory. Knowledge ceased to be power, the intellectual sunk 
 before the material, and the cultivated Romans showed them- 
 selves to have wholly lost the faculty of self-defense — an ex- 
 ample of national decay so often repeated in history that one 
 can scarcely assert with confidence that any people is to remain 
 exempted from it forever. A few thousand Goths or Huns 
 were now more than a match for countless hosts of Romans ; 
 they swept away the feeble defenders of Greece, Italy, and 
 Gaul with the same ease that has since marked the progress 
 of the British in Hindostan and Pizarro in Peru. The sav- 
 ages blotted great cities from existence, restored vast tracts of 
 cultivated country to its early wildness, and forced the Europe- 
 an intellect to begin anew its slow progress toward supremacy. 
 
 No part of the civilized world suffered more severely than 
 its capital. Alaric entered Rome lighted by the flames of its 
 finest quarters ; Genserie swept away almost its entire popula- 
 tion. Famine, pestilence, and war fell upon the Eternal City. 
 The numbers of its people decreased from one million to less
 
 POPE SILVEEIUS. 23 
 
 than fifty thousand ! A few plague-stricken and impoverish- 
 ed citizens wandered amidst its vast and still splendid ruins ; 
 the elegant and licentious priest, the high-born women, the 
 men of letters, the luxurious nobles, and the factious people 
 had been carried away into slavery, or had died of plague or 
 famine ; and the Christian fathers, when they would convey 
 to their auditors a clear conception of the Judgment-day, the 
 final dissolution of all things earthly, would compare it to 
 the fate of Rome. 
 
 The bishops of Eome, during this eventful period, became 
 the protectors and preservers of the city. Their sacred of- 
 fice was still respected by the Arian Goths and Vandals ; the 
 large revenues of the Church were applied to providing food 
 for the starving people; and it is possible that suffering and 
 humiliation had once more awakened something of the puri- 
 ty of early Christianity in the minds of both priest and laity. 
 The bishops, too, were sometimes the victims of wars or civil 
 convulsions. Pope John, imprisoned as a traitor by the Ostro- 
 gothic King Theodoric, languished and died in confinement. 
 Silverius was deposed, exiled, and perhaps murdered, by that 
 meekest of heroes, Belisarius, to gratify his imperious wife, 
 Antonina. The successor of St. Peter was rudely summoned 
 to the Pincian Palace, the military quarters of Belisarius. In 
 the chamber of the conqueror sat Antonina on the bed, with 
 her patient husband at her feet. "What have we done to 
 you. Pope Silverius," exclaimed the imperious woman, " that 
 you should betray us to the Goths?" In an instant the pall 
 was rent from the shoulders of the unhappy Pope, he was 
 hurried into another room, stripped of his dress and clothed 
 in the garb of a simple monk, and his deposition was pro- 
 claimed to the clergy of Rome. He was afterward given up 
 to the power of his rival and successor, Yigilius, who ban- 
 ished him to the island of Pandataria, and is supposed to have 
 finally procured his death. 
 
 Stained with crime, a false witness and a murderer, Vigil- 
 ius had obtained his holy oflice through the power of two 
 profligate women who now ruled the Roman world. Theo- 
 dora, the dissolute wife of Justinian, and Antonina, her de-
 
 24 THE BISHOPS OF HOME. 
 
 voted servant, assumed to determine the faith and the des- 
 tinies of the Christian Church. Vigilius failed to satisfy 
 the exacting demands of his casuistical mistresses ; he even 
 ventured to differ from them upon some obscure points of 
 doctrine. His punishment soon followed, and the Bishop of 
 Rome is said to have been draiifo-ed throuc;!! the streets of Con- 
 stantinople with a rope around his neck, to have been impris- 
 oned in a common dungeon, and fed on bread and water. 
 The papal chair, tilled by such unworthy occupants, must have 
 sunk low in the popular esteem, had not Gregory the Great, 
 toward the close of the sixth century, revived the dignity of 
 the ofhce. 
 
 Gregory was a Roman, of a wealthy and illustrious fami- 
 ly, the grandson of Pope Felix II. Learned, accomplished, a 
 fine speaker, a sincere Christian, in his youth he eclipsed all 
 his contemporaries, was distinguished in the debates of the 
 Senate, and Unally became the governor of Rome. (') The 
 emperor, when he visited Constantinople, treated him with 
 marked confidence, and honors and emoluments seemed to 
 have been showered upon the young Roman with no stinted 
 hand. He was equally the favorite of the court and of the 
 people, and all that the world could give lay at his command. 
 But suddenly a startling change came over his active intel- 
 lect ; the w^orld grew cold and repulsive ; he stopped in his 
 career of success and became a monk. He expended his 
 wealth in founding monasteries ; he sold his gold and jewels, 
 his silken robes and tasteful furniture, and lavished the pro- 
 ceeds upon the poor. He resigned his high offices, and hav- 
 ing entered a monastery which he had founded at Rome, per- 
 formed the menial duties for his fellow -monks. His body 
 was emaciated by terrible fastings and vigils, his health gave 
 Avay, and his life hung by a single thread. The pra^-ers of a 
 pious companion alone snatched him from an early grave. 
 
 From this severe discipline Gregory rose up a half-mad- 
 
 (') Gregory's numerous letters may be found in Migne's collection. See 
 vol. Ixxviii., p. 140, etc. His letter to Bertha of England recommends 
 Augustiu and Laureutius to her care.
 
 GREGORY'S VISIONS. 25 
 
 dened enthusiast. Angels seemed to float around him wher- 
 ever he moved ; demons fled at his approach. His monastery 
 of St. Andrew, over which he became the abbot, was the scene 
 of perpetual miracles. He cast out devils, and angels cluster- 
 ed around his holy seat. One of the monks who had passed 
 his whole time in singing psalms, when he died was cover- 
 ed with white flowers by invisible hands ; and the fragrance 
 of flowers for many years afterward arose from his tomb. 
 Yet, like many enthusiasts, Gregory was capable of acts of 
 excessive cruelty, and his convent was ruled with unsparing 
 severity. Justus, the monk, who was also a physician, had 
 watched over Gregory during a long sickness with affection- 
 ate tenderness. He was himself seized with a mortal illness, 
 and when he was dying confessed with bitter contrition that, 
 contrary to the rules of the monastery, he had hoarded up 
 three pieces of gold. The money was found, and the guilty 
 monk was punished with singular cruelty. Gregory would 
 suffer no one to approach the bed of the dying man ; no sa- 
 cred rites, no holy consolation, soothed the accursed spirit as 
 it passed away. The body was cast out upon a dunghill, 
 together with the three pieces of gold, while all the monks 
 who had assembled around it cried out, " Thy money perish 
 with thee !" After Justus had lain in torment for thirty 
 days, Gregory relented ; a mass was said for the aftiicted soul, 
 which returned to the earth to inform its companions that it 
 had escaped from its fearful tortures. Such were the fancies 
 of this superstitious age. 
 
 Gregory was chosen Pope (590) by the united voice of the 
 clergy, the senate, and the people of Rome, and the Emperor 
 Maurice conflrmed the election. But Gregory shrunk from 
 assuming the holy office with real alarm. He even fled in 
 disguise into the forest, but a pillar of fire hovering over his 
 head betrayed him. He was seized and carried by force to 
 the Church of St. Peter, and was there consecrated Supreme 
 Pontiff. 
 
 He might well have trembled at the thought of being in- 
 trusted with the destiny of Christianity in those dark and 
 hopeless days ; he might well have believed, as he ever did,
 
 26 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 that the end of all things was at hand. The world was full 
 of anarchy and desolation, and a universal horror rested upon 
 the minds of men. From his insecure eminence at Rome, 
 Gregory saw everywhere around him the wreck of nations 
 and the misery of the human race. Germany was overrun 
 by hordes of savages ; France, half - barbarian, groaned be- 
 neath the Merovingian rule; Britain had relapsed into pa- 
 ganism under the Saxons ; Spain was held by the Arian Visi- 
 goths ; Africa was fast becoming a desert ; while the feeble 
 emperor at Constantinople was scarcely known or heard of in 
 the dominions over which he held a nominal rule. Italy had 
 become the prey of the tierce Lombards, and these ruthless 
 savages plundered and desolated the peninsula from the Po 
 to the Straits of Sicily. They massacred or sold into slavery 
 the whole population of great cities, and made them so des- 
 olate that hermits chose their ruins as a fitting abode ; they 
 destroyed convents, monasteries, churches, and spared neither 
 monks nor nuns; the very air was tainted with carnage, and 
 the Lombards seemed never sated with bloodshed. At length, 
 in the earlier period of Gregory's pontificate, the Lombard 
 hordes approached to destroy Rome. In the midst of one of 
 his most effective sermons, the Pope was startled by the news 
 that the enemy were at the gates. He broke off suddenly, ex- 
 claiming, " I am weary of life ;" but he at once gave himself 
 to the defense of the city. The gates were closed, the crum- 
 bling walls were manned by trembling citizens, and the sav- 
 age assailants retreated before the apparent vigor of the monk. 
 Yet the environs and suburbs of the Holy City were involved 
 in a general desolation. The people were swept away into 
 captivity, the villas, the monasteries, and the churches sunk 
 into smoldering ruins, and Gregory wept in vain over the w' oes 
 of his unhappy people. 
 
 From his ruined city Gregory began now to spread his in- 
 tellectual influence over Europe. Never was there a more 
 busy mind. lie was the finest preacher of his age ; and his 
 sermons, tinged with the fierce gloom of a monastic spirit, 
 awoke the zeal of prelates and monks. His numerous letters, 
 which still exist, show M'ith what keen attention he watched
 
 GREGORY'S MENTAL INFLUENCE. 27 
 
 and guided the conduct of his contemporaries. He wrote in 
 tones of persuasive gentleness to Bertha, the fair Saxon Queen 
 of Kent ; of bold expostulation to his nominal master, the 
 Emperor Mamice of Constantinople. He corresponded with 
 the bishops and kings of France and the Yisigothic rulers of 
 Spain ; he addressed his laborious but fanciful " Dialogues " 
 to Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards ; he watched over 
 the decaying churches of Africa and the feeble bishoprics of 
 Greece ; he urged forward the conversion of England, and 
 drove the timid Augustin to his missionary labors among 
 the savage Saxons ; and his wonderful mental activity was 
 finally rewarded by the complete triumph of the Eomish 
 Church. Spain, England, France, and even the wild Lom- 
 bards and Arian Goths, yielded to his vigorous assertion of the 
 authority of the see of St. Peter. 
 
 Gregory laid the foundation of that splendid ritual which 
 to-day governs the services of Romish chapels and cathedrals 
 from Yienna to Mexico, from Dublin to St. Louis. He knew 
 the advantages of order, and his " Ordo Romanus," his minute 
 array of rites and ceremonies, drew together the Franks and 
 Goths in a unison of religious observances. The world was 
 to Gregory a vast monastery, in which perfect discipline was 
 to be observed, and he everywhere enforced a strict unity of 
 forms and conduct throughout all his great army of presby- 
 ters and monks. 
 
 But it was chiefly upon the power of music that Gregory 
 relied for softening the cruel natures of Goth and Hun. (') 
 His whole ritual was one of song and melody. He was born 
 a musician, and he impressed upon the services of the Roman 
 Church that high excellence in musical intonation which has 
 ever been its distinguishing trait. His own choristers were 
 renowned for their sweet voices and artistic skill, and tradi- 
 tion represents the austere Pope, the master intellect of his 
 age, as sitting among his singing-boys with a rod in his hand, 
 
 (') Buruey, Hist. Music, ii., p. 16: "Augustin, at his first interview with 
 the Saxon king, approached him siuging a litany and a Gregorian chant. 
 The French valued themselves upon their chanting, but the flexible voices 
 of the Koman singers surpassed all others in the year 600."
 
 28 THE Bisnors of some. 
 
 chastising the careless and encouraging the gifted musician. 
 The Gregorian chants indeed proved to have a singular charm 
 for the savage races of the North.(') A band of trained sing- 
 ers accompanied St. Augustin in his missionary labors in En- 
 gland, and sometimes, it is related, proved more attractive 
 than the most eloquent divines ; the Roman singing-masters, 
 carefully instructed in Gregory's antiphonal, became the teach- 
 ers of Europe ; Charlemagne, at a later period, founded sing- 
 ing-schools in Germany upon the Gregorian system, and was 
 himself fond of chanting matins in his husky voice — for nat- 
 ure, so liberal to him in all other respects, had never designed 
 him for a singer; and thus music became everywhere the 
 handmaid ©f religion, and a powerful agent in advancing the 
 Church of Rome. 
 
 A faint trace of modesty and humility still characterized the 
 Roman bishops, and they expressly disclaimed any right to the 
 supremacy of the Christian world. The Patriarch of Constan- 
 tinople, who seems to have looked with a polished contempt 
 upon his Western brother, the tenant of fallen Rome and the 
 bishop of the barbarians, now declared himself the Universal 
 Bishop and the head of the subject Church. But Gregory re- 
 pelled his usurpation with vigor.(*) " Whoever calls himself 
 Universal Bishop is Antichrist," he exclaimed ; and he com- 
 pares the patriarch to Satan, who in his pride had aspired to 
 be higher than the angels. Yet, reasonable as Gregory was 
 upon many points, his boundless superstition filled the age 
 with terrible fancies. On every side he saw countless demons 
 threatening destruction to the elect. Hell was let loose, and 
 the earth swarmed with its treacherous occupants. But fort- 
 
 (') Gregory probably imitated and revived the musical services of the 
 pagan temples. See Migue, Ixxviii., p. 865, and the Ordo Eomanus. 
 
 (°) Gregory I., who must have known his crimes, salntes the savage 
 Phocas with devout joy. To Maurice he wrote indignantly against the 
 usurper or rival, John, who claimed the universal bishopric. — Migne, 
 Ixxv., p. 345, et seq. Migne's editor thinks the Constantinopolitan prel- 
 ates " univorsalem pnefcctnram forsitan in totnm orbera Christianum et 
 in ipsam Koinanam Ecclesiam sibi viudicatiiri, nisi eorum superbite quae 
 semper asceudebat Romani pontifices obstitissent " (p. 347).
 
 THE WORSHIP OF BELICS. 29 
 
 unately for the Churcli, it possessed a spiritnal annorj which 
 no demon could resist. The rehcs of the saints and the bones 
 of the martyrs were talismans insuring the perfect safety of 
 their possessor; and one of St. Peter's hairs, or a tiling from 
 the chains of St. Paul, was thought a gift worthy of kings and 
 queens. Gregory, too, had conversed with persons who had 
 visited the realm of spirits and had been permitted to return 
 to the earth. A soldier described such an adventure in lan- 
 guage almost Yirgilian. He passed by a bridge over a dark 
 and noisome river, and came to an Elysian plain, filled with 
 happy spirits clothed in white, and dwelling in radiant man- 
 sions. Above all a golden palace towered to the skies. Upon 
 the bridge the visitor recognized one of his friends who had 
 lately died, and who, as he attempted to pass, slipped, and was 
 immediately seized by frightful demons, who strove to drag 
 him beneath the stream ; but at the same moment angelic be- 
 ings caught him in their arms, and a struggle began for the 
 possession of the trembling soul. The result was never told. 
 Gregory the Great died in 604, having established the pow- 
 er of the Koman bishopric, and his successors assumed the ti- 
 tle of pope.(') Under Gregory the Roman See became the ac« 
 knowledged head of the Western Church. The next impor- 
 tant period in its history is the acquisition of its temporal do- 
 minions by an unscrupulous intrigue with the usurping kings 
 of France. Various circumstances had concurred to produce 
 this change. The Roman Church had become the represent- 
 ative and the chief defense of all the corruptions of the an- 
 cient faith. It adopted the worship of the Virgin and the 
 invocation of saints, the doctrine of purgatory, and the wild- 
 est legends and traditions of the monkish writers; it advo- 
 
 (*) Gregory I. rejected the title of Universal Bishop as hlasphemons. 
 "Sed absit a cordibus Christiaiiis nonien istud blaspheniiae, in quo om- 
 nium sacerdotum honor adiniitur cum ab uno sibi demeuter arrogatur" 
 (Ixxvii., p. 746). With what horror would the timid Pope have heard the 
 title " Vicar of God," or the idea of infallibility, applied to himself. So to 
 John he writes : " Quid ergo, frater carissime, in illo terribili examine ve- 
 nientis judicii dicturus es, qui non solum pater, sed etiam generalis jjater, 
 in mundo vocari appetis ?" (Ixxvii., p. 742).
 
 30 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 cated the celibacy of tlie clergy ; its churches were filled with 
 images and relics, and its superstitious laity surpassed in blind 
 idolatry the follies of their heathen ancestors. In the mean 
 time the followers of Mohammed, issuing from their deserts, 
 had conquered the East, Africa, and Spain, threatened Italy it- 
 self with subjugation, and preached everywhere a single deity 
 and an iconoclastic creed. While Christendom was filled with 
 idolatry, the cultivated Arabs aspired to the purest conception 
 of the Divine nature. The contrast became so startling as to 
 awaken a sense of shame in the breast of Leo, the Isaurian, 
 Emperor of the East. He began in 727-30 the famous icon- 
 oclastic reform ; he ordered the images to be broken to pieces, 
 the walls of the churches to be whitewashed, and prosecuted 
 with honest but imprudent vigor his design of extirpating 
 idolatry. But a fierce dissension at once raged throughout 
 all Christendom, the monks and the people rose in defense of 
 their images and pictures, and the emperor, even in his own 
 capital, was denounced as a heretic and a t^-rant. There was 
 an image of the Saviour, renowned for its miraculous powers, 
 over the gate of the imperial palace, called the Brazen Gate, 
 from the rich tiles of gilt bronze that covered its magnificent 
 vestibule. The emperor ordered the sacred figure to be taken 
 down and broken to pieces. But the people from all parts of 
 the city flew to the defense of their favorite idol, fell upon the 
 oflicers, and put many of them to death. The women were 
 even more violent than the men ; like furies they rushed to 
 the spot, and, finding one of the soldiers engaged in his un- 
 hallowed labor at the top of a ladder, they pulled it down 
 and tore him to pieces as he lay bruised upon the ground. 
 " Thus," exclaims the pious annalist, " did the minister of the 
 emperor's injustice fall at once from the top of a ladder to the 
 bottom of hell." The women next flew to the great church, 
 and finding the iconoclastic patriarch ofticiating at the altar, 
 overwhelmed him with a shower of stones and a thousand 
 opprobrious names. lie escaped, bruised and fainting, from 
 the building. The guards were now called out, and the fe- 
 male insurrection suppressed, but not until several of the 
 women had perished in the fray.
 
 THE POPES DEFEND IMAGE-WOESHIP. 31 
 
 The Pope, Gregory II., assumed the defense of image-wor- 
 ship. The Italian provinces of the Greek emperor, known as 
 the Exarchate, threw off the imperial authority rather than part 
 with their images ; and it was these provinces that finally be- 
 came the patrimony of St. Peter, and formed the chief part 
 of the papal domain. A long struggle, however, arose for the 
 possessions of the Greeks. The Lombard kings, always hos- 
 tile to the Popes, sought to appropriate the Exarchate, and 
 the acute Popes appealed for aid to the rising power of 
 France. But it was not to tlie feeble Merovintrian kino-s that 
 they addressed themselves, but to Charles Martel and his am- 
 bitious descendants. To gratify their own craving for tem- 
 poral power, the Popes founded the new dynasty of the Car- 
 lovingians. By the sanction and perhaps the suggestion of 
 Pope Zacharias, the last of the phantom kings ceased to reign 
 in France, and Pepin, the founder of the Carlovingians, as- 
 cended the throne of Clovis. The powerful Franks now be- 
 came the protectors of the papacy. Pepin, liberal to his spir- 
 itual benefactor, gave to the Popes the Exarchate and protect- 
 ed them from the Lombards ; and thus France, always Cath- 
 olic and always orthodox, founded the temporal power of 
 Rome. The Lombards, hoM-ever, did not yield without a 
 struggle. On one occasion they threatened Pome itself with 
 destruction ; and the Pope, Stephen III., in an agony of terror, 
 wrote two letters to Pepin claiming his protection. When 
 the Frank neglected his appeals, the Pope ventured upon 
 the most remarkable and the most successful of all the pious 
 frauds. Pepin received a third letter, addressed to him by 
 the Apostle Peter himself, in his own handwriting. St. Pe- 
 ter and the Holy Virgin, in this curious epistle, adjure the 
 Frankish king to save their beloved city from the impious 
 Lombards, and paradise and perpetual victory and prosperity 
 are promised him as his rewards. Pepin obeyed the di\ane 
 summons, entered Italy as the champion of St. Peter, and in 
 755 bestowed upon the bishops of Pome the authority and the 
 dominions of a temporal prince. The gift was afterward en- 
 larged and confirmed by Charlemagne. This eminent man, 
 who ruled over France, Germany, Italy, and a part of Spain,
 
 32 TEE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 altogether destroyed the Lomljard kingdom, and placed Leo 
 III. securely on the papal throne. In return the grateful 
 Pope crowned the half -barbarous Karl, Augustus and Emper- 
 or of the West.(') It was on Christmas of the last year of 
 the eighth century. Charles and his magnificent court were 
 assembled at the celebration of the Nativity at Rome ; the Ko- 
 man nobles and clergy looked on in a splendid throng ; the 
 Pope himself chanted mass. At its close he advanced to 
 Charles, placed a golden crown upon his head, and saluted 
 him as Cajsar Augustus. The assembly broke into loud ac- 
 clamations, and Charles, with feigned or real reluctance, con- 
 sented to be anointed by the hands of the Pope. 
 
 From this time the Poman bishops began to take part in the 
 politics of Europe. They made war or peace, formed leagues 
 and unholy alliances, intrigued, plotted, plundered their neigh- 
 bors, oppressed their subjects, and filled Italy and Europe with 
 bloodshed and crime. The possession of temporal power, that 
 " fatal gift," denounced by Dante and Milton, his translator, 
 corrupted the sources of "Western Christianity until it became 
 the chief aim of the later Popes to enlarge their possessions 
 by force or fraud, and add to those rich territories which they 
 had won from the superstition of Pepin and the policy of 
 Charlemagne. 
 
 The great emperor died ; Europe fell into the anarchy of 
 feudalism, and the bishops of Rome rose into new grandeur 
 and importance. As the successors of St. Peter, they assert- 
 ed their supremacy over kings and emperors, and claimed the 
 right of disposing of crowns and kingdoms at will. St. Pe- 
 
 (') Annales Veteres Francorum. Migne, second series, xcviii., pp. 1410- 
 1430: "Leo papa cura cousilio onmiiini episcoponim sive sacerdotum seu 
 Sonatu Framoruin, necnou et Romanornra, coronam auream capiti ejus 
 imposuit, adjuncto etiam popiilo, acclaiuant, Carolo Augusto a Deo coro- 
 nato magno et pacifico imperator Roniaiiorum vita et victoria." His title 
 ■was Emperor of the Romans. So Odilbert addresses him, " Caroliis Sere- 
 nissimus Augustus a Deo coronatus pacificns imperator Romanorum gu- 
 hernans imperium." — Migne, xcviii., p. 919. And Bryce, Holy German Em- 
 pire, p. 205: "Germany had adopted even the name of the Empire." It 
 ■was Charlemagne's aim to assume the place of Constantiue and Trajan.
 
 HILDEBBAND. 33 
 
 ter no longer wrote humble letters asking aid from the bar- 
 barous Frank ; he thundered from dismantled Kome in the 
 menacing tone of command. The representative Pope of this 
 new era was the illustrious, or the infamous, Ilildebrand, the 
 Csesar of the papacy. Hildebrand was the son of a carpenter, 
 but he was destined to rule over kings and nobles. Ilis youth 
 was marked by intense austerity, and he was a monk from 
 his boyhood. He early entered upon the monastic life, but 
 his leisure hours were passed in acquiring knowledge, and his 
 bold and vigorous intellect was soon filled with schemes for 
 advancing the power and grandeur of the Church. Small, 
 delicate, and unimposing in appearance, his wonderful eyes 
 often terrified the beholder. He came up to Eome, became 
 the real master of the Church, and was long content to rule 
 in a subordinate position. Pope after Pope died, but Hilde- 
 brand still remained immovable, the guide and oracle of Kome. 
 He revolved in secret his favorite principles, the celibacy of 
 the clergy, the supremacy of the Popes, the purification of the 
 Church. At length, in 1073, on the death of Alexander II,, 
 the clergy with one voice named Hildebrand the successor of 
 St. Peter. He was at once arrayed in the scarlet robe, the 
 tiara placed upon his head, and Gregory VII. was enthroned, 
 weeping and reluctant, in the papal chair. 
 
 His elevation was the signal for the most wonderful change 
 in the character and purposes of the Church. The Pope as- 
 pired to rule mankind. He claimed an absolute power over 
 the conduct of kings, priests, and nations, and he enforced his 
 decrees by the terrible weapons of anathema and excommuni- 
 cation. He denounced the marriages of the clergy as impi- 
 ous, and at once there arose all over Europe a fearful struggle 
 between the ties of natural affection and the iron will of Greg- 
 ory. Heretofore the secular priests and bishops had married, 
 raised families, and lived blamelessly as liusbands or fathers, 
 in the enjoyment of marital and filial love. But suddenly 
 all this was changed. The married priests were declared pol- 
 luted and degraded, and were branded with ignominy and 
 shame. Wives were torn from their devoted husbands, chil- 
 dren were declared bastards, and the ruthless monk, in the face 
 
 3
 
 34 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 of the fiercest opposition, made celibacy the rule of the Church. 
 The most painful consequences followed. The wretched wom- 
 en, thus degraded and accursed, were often driven to suicide 
 in their despair. Some threw themselves into the flames ; 
 others were found dead in their beds, the victims of grief or 
 of their own resolution not to survive their shame, while the 
 monkish chroniclers exult over their misfortunes, and tri- 
 umphantly consign them to eternal woe.(') 
 
 Thus the clergy under Gregory's guidance became a mo- 
 nastic order, wholly separated from all temporal interests, and 
 bound in a perfect obedience to the Church. He next for- 
 bade all lay investitures or appointments to bishoprics or oth- 
 er clerical ofiices, and declared himself the supreme ruler of 
 the ecclesiastical affairs of nations. No temporal sovereign 
 could fill the great European sees, or claim any dominion over 
 the extensive territories held by eminent churchmen in right 
 of their spiritual power. It was against this claim that the 
 Emperor of Germany, Henry IV., rebelled. The great bishop- 
 rics of his empire, Cologne, Bremen, Treves, and many oth- 
 ers, were liis most important feudatories ; and should he suf- 
 fer the imperious Pope to govern them at will, his O'wn do- 
 minion would be reduced to a shadow. And now began the 
 famous contest between Hildebrand and Henry — between the 
 carpenter's son and the successor of Charlemagne, between the 
 Emperor of Germany and the Head of the Church. It open- 
 ed with an adventure that marks well the wild and lawless 
 nature of the time. On Christmas -eve, 1075, the rain pour- 
 ed down in torrents at Rome, confining the peojDle to their 
 houses, while the Pope, with a few ecclesiastics, was keeping 
 a holy vigil in the distant Church of Santa Maria Maggiore. 
 The wild night and the favorable opportunity were seized 
 upon by Cencius, a Roman baron, to wreak his vengeance 
 upon Gregory for some former offense. His soldiers broke 
 into the church while the Pope was celebrating mass, rushed 
 
 (') Migne, Greg. Pap. VII. Vita, vol. cxlviii., p. 153. Migne's editor insists 
 tliat Gregory was of noble origin — "nobile genere ortus" — but adds, " Sunt 
 qui dicunt eum infirao ac penes sordido loco natum," etc. But see Voigt, 
 Papst Gregor VII. ; Delecluze, etc.
 
 GREGORY VIL 35 
 
 to the altar, and seized the sacred person of the pontiff. He 
 was even wounded in the forehead ; and, being stripped of his 
 holy vestments, was dragged away bleeding and faint, but pa- 
 tient and unresisting, and was imprisoned in a strong tower. 
 Two of the worshipers, a noble matron and a faithful friend, 
 followed him to his prison. The man covered him with furs, 
 and warmed his chilled feet in his own bosom ; the woman 
 stanched the blood, bound up the wound, and sat weeping at 
 liis side. But the city was now aroused ; the bells tolled, the 
 trumpets pealed, and the clergy who were officiating in the 
 different churches broke off from their services, and summon- 
 ed the people to the rescue of the Pope. As the morning 
 dawned a great throng of his deliverers assembled around the 
 place of Gregory's imprisonment, uncertain whether he were 
 alive or dead. Engines were brought and planted against the 
 tower; its walls began to tremble ; and the tierce Cencius, now 
 terrified and despairing, threw himself at the Pope's feet, beg- 
 ging his forgiveness. The j)atient Pope consented, and only 
 imposed upon Cencius the penance of a pilgrimage to Jerusa- 
 lem. In the mean time the people broke into the tower, and 
 carried Gregory in triumph to the church from whence he had 
 been taken, where he finished the sacred rites which had been 
 so rudely interrupted. The assassin Cencius and his kindred 
 were driven from the city, and their houses and strong towers 
 were razed to the ground. 
 
 It was plain to all that no physical danger could shake the 
 iron resolution of Gregory: he next determined to hmnble 
 the seK- willed emperor. Henry, flushed with victory, sur- 
 rounded by faithful bishops and nobles, attended by mighty 
 armies, had refused, with petulant contempt, to obey the de- 
 crees of Eome. Ilildebrand summoned him to appear before 
 his tribunal, and, if he should refuse to come, appointed the 
 day on which sentence of excommunication should be pro- 
 nounced against him. The emperor replied by assembling a 
 council of his German nobles and priests, who proclaimed the 
 deposition of the Pope. All Christendom seemed united to 
 crush the Bishop of Rome ; the married clergy, the Simon- 
 ists, and all who had received their mvestiture from temporal
 
 36 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 sovereigns, joined in a fierce denunciation of his usurpation. 
 But Gregory called together a third council in the Lateran, 
 and a miracle or an omen inspired the superstitious assembly. 
 An egg was produced with much awe and solemnity, on which 
 a serpent was traced in bold relief, recoiling in mortal agony 
 from a shield against which it had vainly struck its fangs. 
 The bishops gazed upon the prodigy with consternation, but 
 Gregory interpreted it with the skill of a Koman augur. The 
 serpent was the dragon of the Apocalypse ; its mortal agony 
 foretold the triumph of the Church. A wild enthusiasm fill- 
 ed the assembly, the anathema of Rome was hurled against 
 Henry, his subjects were absolved from their allegiance, and 
 the king was declared excommunicated. The effect of this 
 spiritual weapon was wonderful : the power of the great em- 
 peror melted away like mist before the wind. His priests 
 shrunk from him as a lost soul, his nobles abandoned him, his 
 people looked upon him with abhorrence, and Henry was left 
 with a few armed followers and a few faithful bishops in a 
 lonely castle on the Rhine. 
 
 Henry, with abject submission, now resolved to seek the 
 forgiveness of the Pope in Rome. In mid-winter, accompa- 
 nied by his wife, his infant son, and one faithful attendant, 
 having scarcely sufiicient money to pay the expenses of his 
 travel, he set out to cross the Alps and throw himself at Greg- 
 ory's feet.(') Never was there a more miserable journey. The 
 vnnter was unusually severe, and great quantities of snow fill- 
 ed up the Alpine passes. The slippery surface was not hard 
 enough to bear the weight of the travelers, and even the most 
 experienced mountaineers trembled at the dangers of the pas- 
 sage. Yet the imperial party pressed on ; the king must reach 
 Italy, or his crown was lost forever. When, after much toil 
 and suffering, they reached the summit of the pass, the danger 
 was increased. A vast precipice of ice spread before them so 
 slippery and smooth that he who entered upon it could scarce- 
 
 (') Voigt, p. 467: "Es war furclitbare Winter Kiilte, so dass alle Fliisse, 
 selbst der Rliein, stark gefroren waren. Der Schnee im October des vori- 
 gen Jahres gefalleu bedeckte das Land bis zu Eude des Miirz." Bert. 
 Constantin, an, 1077.
 
 THE EMPEROR AT CANOSSA. 37 
 
 ly avoid being hurled into the depths below. Yet there was 
 no leisure for hesitation. The queen and her infant son were 
 wrapped in the skins of oxen and drawn down as if in a sled ; 
 the king, creeping on his hands and knees, clung to the shoul- 
 ders of the guides, and thus, half sliding, and sometunes roll- 
 ing down the steeper declivities, they reached the plain un- 
 harmed.Q 
 
 Gregory, meanwhile, doubtful at first of Henry's real de- 
 sign, had taken refuge in the Castle of Canossa, the mountain 
 stronghold of his unchanging friend and ally, the great Count- 
 ess Matilda. The praises of this eminent woman have been 
 sung by poets and repeated by historians, but the crowning 
 trait of her singular life was her untiring devotion to Greg- 
 ory. For him she labored and lived ; on him her treasures 
 were lavished ; her mountain castles were his refuge in mo- 
 ments of danger ; her armies fought in his defense ; she was 
 never satisfied unless the Pope was at her side ; and she made 
 a will by which at her death all her rich possessions should re- 
 vert to Gregory and the Church. Matilda was the daughter 
 of Boniface, Margrave of Tuscany, and his only heir. A celi- 
 bate although wedded, she had been married against her will 
 to the Duke of Lorraine, and had parted forever from her un- 
 welcome husband on her wedding-day. Hildebrand alone, the 
 low-born and unattractive monk, had won the affections of the 
 high-bred and seK-willed woman ; they were inseparable com- 
 panions in adversity or success, and the Pope owed his life, his 
 safety, and his most important achievements to a member of 
 that sex which he had so bitterly persecuted and contemned. 
 
 To Canossa came Henry, the fallen emperor, seeking per- 
 mission to cast himself at his enemy's feet-C*) On a bitter 
 winter morning, when the ground was covered deep with 
 
 (') Voigt, p. 468: "Der Konig langte zu Canossa au, nachdem er vorana 
 selbst noch Italien betreteu hatte, mehrere Gesandte an den Papst ge- 
 sendet" (p. 417). 
 
 (*) Vita Matbildis, Migne, exlviii. : "Cumque dies starent per tres pro 
 pace loquentes et pax nou esset, rex atque recedere vellet," etc. Said 
 Prince Bismarck, in 1873, "We will not go to Canossa;" and Germany 
 etill remembers its humiliation. 
 
 432740
 
 38 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 snow, lie approaclied the eastle gate, and was admitted within 
 tlie first of the three walls that sheltered Gregory and Matil- 
 da. Clothed in a thin white linen dress, the garb of a peni- 
 tent, his feet bare, his head uncovered, the king awaited all 
 day, in the outer court, the opening of the gate which should 
 admit him to the presence of Gregory. But the relentless 
 Pope left him to shiver in the cold. A second and a third 
 day Henry stood as a suppliant before the castle gate, and, 
 hungry, chilled, disheartened, besought admission, but in vain. 
 The spectators who witnessed his humiliation were touched 
 with compassion, and every heart but that of Gregory soften- 
 ed toward the penitent king. At length Henry was admitted 
 to the presence of the compassionate Matilda, fell on his knees 
 before her, and besought her merciful interference. Gregory 
 yielded to her prayers, and the Pope and his rightful lord, 
 whom he had subjugated, met at a remarkable interview. 
 Tall, majestic in figure, his feet bare and still clad in a peni- 
 tential garb, the haughty Henry bowed in terror and contri- 
 tion before the small and feeble gray-haired old man who had 
 made kings the servants of the Church. 
 
 Henry subscribed to every condition the Pope imposed; 
 obedience to ecclesiastical law, perfect submission to the Pope, 
 even the abandonment of his kingdom, should such be Greg- 
 ory's will. On these terms he was absolved, and with down- 
 cast eyes and broken spirit returned to meet the almost con- 
 temptuous glances of his German or Lombard chiefs. Yet 
 no man at that moment was so bitterly hated by hosts of foes 
 as the triumphant Gregory. Christendom, which had yielded 
 to his severe reforms, abhorred the reformer; Italy shrunk 
 from his monastic rigor ; even Rome was unquiet, and Hilde- 
 brand's only friends were his faithful Countess and the Nor- 
 man conquerors of Naples. 
 
 No sooner had Henry left Canossa than he seemed sudden- 
 ly to recover from that strange moral and mental prostration 
 into which his adversary's spiritual arts had thrown him. He 
 was once more a king. He inveighed in bitter terms against 
 the harshness and pride of Gregory ; his Lombard chiefs 
 gathered around him and stimulated him to vengeance, while
 
 GREGORY DELIVERED BY THE NORMANS. 39 
 
 Matilda hurried the Pope back again, fearful for his life, to 
 the impregnable walls of Canossa. But the dangerous condi- 
 tion of his German dominions for a while delayed his plans 
 of vengeance. The German and Saxon princes and bishops 
 who had abandoned him in his moment of humiliation, now 
 fearful of his power, met in a solemn diet at Forchheira, 
 deposed Henry, and elected Rudolph of Swabia in his place. 
 A terrible civil war, nourished by the arts of Gregory, desolated 
 all Germany. The Pope once more excommunicated Henry, 
 and declared his rival king ; and he even ventured to prophesy 
 that, unless Henry made his submission by the 29th of June, 
 the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, he would either be de- 
 posed or dead. The fierce priest, assuming to speak by in- 
 spiration, was willing to be judged by the failure or the suc- 
 cess of his vaticination. But the result was far different from 
 his hopes. Henry met his adversary, Rudolph, on the field of 
 Elster; the Saxons conquered, but Rudolph was slain. His 
 death allowed Henry to turn his arms against his spiritual foe 
 at Rome*. He crossed the Alps into Italy, but not as he had 
 crossed them four years before, a heart-broken and trembling 
 suppliant weighed down by superstitious dread. Excom- 
 munication had lost its terrors ; Gregory had been proved a 
 false prophet and a deceiver, and Matilda's forces, defeated 
 and disheartened, had fled to their strongholds in the Apen- 
 nines. Henry advanced, unchecked, to the walls of Rome, and 
 laid siege to the Holy City.(') Gregory, whom no dangers 
 could move, firm in his spiritual superiority, made a bold de- 
 fense ; his people were united in his cause, the countess sup- 
 plied him with considerable sums of money, and for three 
 years the massive walls repelled the invader, and the Italian 
 saw with natural exultation the host of abhorred Germans 
 and Lombards decimated by malarias, disease, and perpetual 
 fevers. At length, however, the city fell, Gregory retreated 
 
 (') Matilda was to Hilclebraud another Martha. " Cui servat \\t altera 
 Martha." In his distress, "Arma, voluptatem, fanuilos, gazani, propri- 
 amque excitat, expendit." Migne, cxlviii., p. 1003. Says Voigt : " Ma- 
 thilda zeigte schon in diesen Zeiten " (in early youth) " uubegriiuzte An- 
 hanglichkeit an den romischen Stuhl."
 
 40 THE BISHOPS OF EOME. 
 
 into the Castle of St. Angelo — a temporary refuge from the 
 vengeance he had invoked — and Henry caused a rival Pope, 
 under the name of Clement III., to be consecrated in St. Pe- 
 ter's, and received from his hands the imperial crown. 
 
 Gregory's end seemed now drawing near. Famine and the 
 sword must soon drive him from his retreat, and he well knew 
 that he would receive short shrift from his enraged German 
 lord. But at this moment news came that Robert Guiscard, 
 at the head of a powerful force, was advancing from Southern 
 Italy to his rescue. Henry retreated, and the Norman soon 
 became master of Pome. Gregory was released, and respect- 
 fully conducted to the Lateran Palace ; but a fatal event made 
 his return to power the source of incalculable woes to his 
 faithful people. The army that had conquered Pome was 
 composed of half-savage Normans and inlidel Saracens — the 
 peculiar objects of hatred to the Poman populace — and they 
 had marked their entry into the city by a general pillage and 
 Hcense. The Pomans resolved upon revenge. While the 
 Normans were feasting in riotous security, they rose in revolt, 
 and began a terrible carnage of their conquerors. The Nor- 
 mans, surprised, but well disciplined, soon swept the streets 
 with their cavalry, while the citizens fought boldly from their 
 houses, and seemed for a moment to gain the superiority. 
 Guiscard then gave orders to set fire to the houses. The city 
 was soon in flames ; convents, churches, palaces, and private 
 dwellings fed the conflagration ; the people rushed wildly 
 through the streets, no longer thinking of defense, but only of 
 the safety of their wives and children ; while the fierce Nor- 
 mans and Saracens, maddened by their treachery, perpetrated 
 all those horrible deeds that mark the sack of cities. Pome 
 suffered more in this terrible moment tlian in all the invasions 
 of the Goths and Yandals. Thousands of its citizens were 
 sold into slavery or carried prisoners to Calabria, and its mis- 
 erable ruin was only repaii-ed when a new city was gradually 
 built in a different site on the ancient Campus Martius.(') 
 
 (') Voigt, p. 613 : " In Robert's Schaaren war eine bedeutende Zabl Sara- 
 cenen, die weder Mass nocb Ziel kannten." The horrors of the sack sur-
 
 DEATH OF GREGORY VII. 41 
 
 Gregory, it is said, looked calmly on the sack of his faithful 
 city. For its destroyers he had no word of reproof. The 
 ferocious Guiscard was still his ally and his protector. He 
 retired, however, to Salerno, being afraid to trust himself in 
 Rome, and from thence issued anew an excommunication 
 against Henry and the usurping pontiff, Clement III. As 
 death approached, no consciousness of the great woes he had 
 occasioned, of the fierce wars he had stirred up, of the ruin he 
 had brought upon Germany, of the desolation he had spread 
 over Italy, of the miserable fate of Rome, seems to have dis- 
 turbed his sublime serenity. At one moment he had believed 
 himself a prophet, at another an infallible guide ; he was al- 
 ways the vicegerent of Heaven ; and just before his death he 
 gave a general absolution to the human race, excepting only 
 Henry and his rival Pope. He died May 25tli, 1085, having 
 bequeathed to his successors the principle that the Bishop of 
 Rome was the supreme power of the earth. This was the 
 conception which Gregory plainly represents. 
 
 The idea was never lost to his successors. It animated the 
 Popes of the eleventh century in their long struggle against 
 the Emperors of Germany; it stimulated the ardor of the 
 Guelphic faction, whose vigor gave liberty to Italy ; but its 
 full development is chiefly to be traced in the character of In- 
 nocent III.(') Of all the Bishops of Rome, Innocent approach- 
 ed nearest to the completion of Gregory's grand idea. He 
 was the true Universal Bishop, deposing kings, trampling upon 
 nations, crushing out heresy with fire and the sword, relentless 
 to his enemies, terrible to his friends — the incarnation of spirit- 
 ual despotism and pride. In the year 1198, at the age of thir- 
 ty-seven, in the full strength of manhood. Innocent ascended 
 the papal throne. His learning was profound, his morals 
 pure ; he was descended from a noble Italian family ; he had 
 
 passed all the earlier woes of Rome. So Voigt, p. 613. Says Delecluze, 
 Gr^goire VII. (1844) : "La plume se refuse ^ tracer les borreurs sauglantes 
 qui eurent lieu," etc. 
 
 Q) Gesta Innocentii PP. III., ab auctore anonymo. Migne, vol. ccxiv. 
 His numerous letters sbow bis imperious disposition, bis wide ambition, 
 and bis active miud.
 
 42 TEE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 already written a work on " Contempt of the World, and the 
 Misery of Human Life," and his haughty and self-reliant in- 
 tellect was well fitted to subdue that miserable world which 
 he so pitied and contemned. Yet his ruthless policy filled 
 Europe with bloodshed and woe. He interfered in the affairs 
 of Germany, and for ten years, with but short intervals of 
 truce, that unhappy land was rent with civil discord. He de- 
 posed his enemy, the Emperor Otho, and placed Frederick IL, 
 half infidel, half Saracen, the last of the Hohenstaufens, on 
 the German throne. He ruled over Rome and Italy with an 
 iron hand. But it was in France and England that the des- 
 potic power of the Church was felt in its utmost rigor, and 
 both those mighty kingdoms were reduced to abject submis- 
 sion to the will of the astute Italian. France, in the year 
 1200, was ruled by the firm hand of the licentious, self-willed, 
 but vigorous Philip Augustus. Philip, after the death of his 
 first wife, Isabella of Hainault, had resolved upon a second 
 marriage. He had heard of the rare beauty, the long bright 
 hair, the gentle manners of Ingeburga, sister to the King of 
 Denmark, and he sent to demand her hand. The Dane con- 
 sented, and the fair princess set sail for France, unconscious of 
 the Ions succession of sorrows that awaited her in that south- 
 ern land. The nuptials were celebrated, the queen was crown- 
 ed ; but from that moment Philip shrunk from his bride with 
 shuddering horror. No one could tell the cause, nor did the 
 kino; ever reveal it. Some said that he was under the influ- 
 ence of a demon, some that he was bewitched. Yet certain it 
 is that he turned pale and shuddered at the very sight of the 
 gentle and beautiful Ingeburga, that he hated her with intense 
 vigor, and that he sacrificed the peace of his kingdom, the 
 welfare of his people, and very nearly his crown itself, rather 
 than acknowledge as his wife one who was to him all gentle- 
 ness and love. At all hazards, he resolved to obtain a divorce, 
 and the obsequious clergy of France soon gratified his wishes 
 in this respect, upon the pretense that the ill-assorted pair 
 were within the degree of consanguinity limited by the Church. 
 The marriage was declared dissolved. When the news of her 
 humiliation was brought to the unhappy stranger-queen, she
 
 INNOCENT III. AND PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 43 
 
 cried out, in her broken language, " Wicked, wicked France ! 
 Eome, Eome !"(') She refused to return to Denmark to be- 
 tray her disgrace to her countrymen, but shut herself up in a 
 convent, where her gentleness and her piety won the sympa- 
 thy of the nation. 
 
 Philip, having thus relieved himself forever, as he no doubt 
 supposed, of his Danish wife, began to look round for her suc- 
 cessor. Three noble ladies of France, however, refused his 
 offers, distrustful of his fickle affections ; a fourth, Agnes, 
 daughter of the Duke of Meran, was more courageous, and 
 was rewarded by a most unusual constancy. To the fair Ag- 
 nes, Philip gave his heart, his hand, his kingdom. His love 
 for her rose almost to madness. For her he bore the anathe- 
 mas of the Church, the hatred of his people, the murmurs of 
 his nobles, the triumph of his foes. Beautiful, young, intelli- 
 gent, graceful, Agnes seems to have w^ell deserved the devo- 
 tion of the king. Her gentle manners and various accom- 
 plishments won the hearts of the gallant chivalry of France, 
 and even touched and softened her enemies — the austere cler- 
 gy. She bore the king three children, and his affection for 
 her never ceased but with her death. Miserable, however, 
 was the fate of the rival queen, Ingeburga, in her distress, 
 had appealed to Pome ; her brother, the King of Denmark, 
 pressed her claims upon the Pope ; while Philip, enraged at 
 her obstinacy, treated her with singular cnielty. She was 
 dragged from convent to convent, from castle to castle, to in- 
 duce her to abandon her appeal ; her prayers and her entreat- 
 ies were received with cold neglect, and she who was entitled 
 to be Queen of France was the most ill-used woman in the 
 land. 
 
 She was now at last to find a champion and a protector. 
 Innocent, soon after his accession, resolved to interfere in the 
 affair, and to build up the grandeur of his see upon the misfort- 
 unes of two unhappy wives and the violent king. Ingeburga, 
 however gentle and resigned, had never ceased to assert open- 
 
 (') Gesta, p. 95 : " Flens et ejulans exclamavit, ilala Francia, mala Fran- 
 da ! et adjecerat, Poma, Roma .'"
 
 44 THE BISROPS OF ROME. 
 
 ly her marital claims ; she pursued her recreant husband with 
 a persistency only equaled by his own obstinate aversion to 
 her person, and she now joined with Innocent in a last effort 
 to reclaim him.(') The Pope sent a legate into France with a 
 command to Philip to put away the beautiful Agnes, and re- 
 ceive back the hated Dane. If he did not comply with the or- 
 ders of his spiritual father within thirty days, France was to 
 be laid under an interdict, and the sin of the sovereign was to 
 be visited upon his unoffending people. Philip, enraged rath- 
 er than intimidated, treated Innocent's message with contempt ; 
 the thirty days expired, and the fatal sentence was pronounced. 
 For the iirst time in the annals of Rome it ventured to inflict 
 a spiritual censure upon a whole nation ; for the effect of an 
 interdict was to close the gates of heaven to mankind. All 
 over gay and prosperous France rested a sudden gloom.f ) The 
 churches were closed, and the worshipers driven from their 
 doors ; the rites of religion ceased ; marriages were celebrated 
 in the church-yards ; the bodies of the dead were refused bu- 
 rial in consecrated ground, and flung out to perish in the cor- 
 rupted air ; baptism and the last unction were the only services 
 allowed ; the voice of prayer and praise ceased throughout the 
 land; and the French with astonishment found themselves 
 condemned to eternal woe for the sin of Philip and fair Agnes 
 of Meran. 
 
 The punishment seemed no doubt irrational and extravagant 
 even to the clouded intellect of that half -savage age ; but it 
 was no less effectual. Philip sought to prevent the enforce- 
 ment of the interdict by punishing the clergy who obeyed it; 
 and he swore that he would lose half his kingdom rather than 
 part with Agnes. But Innocent enforced the obedience of the 
 priests, France grew mutinous under its spiritual sufferings, 
 and the king was forced to submit. " I will turn Mohammed- 
 
 (') Innocent's letter to Philip is excellent, yet he was "willing to sacrifice 
 all France to an imperious church. See Migue, vol. ii. Innocent III., p. 
 87 : " Sane nee timor Domini nee reverentia sedis apostolicse matris tusB," 
 etc. 
 
 C) Gesta, p. 99 : " Sicque tota terra regis Francorum arctissimo est inter- 
 dicto conclusa."
 
 PHILIP SUBDUED. 45 
 
 an," lie cried, in his rage. " Happy Saladin, who has no Pope 
 above him !" Agnes, too, wrote a touciiiug letter to the Pope, 
 in which she said " she cared not for the crown ; it was on the 
 husband that she had set her love. Part me not from him." 
 But Innocent never relented. Agnes was torn from her hus- 
 band and her love, and was confined in a lonely castle in^ISTor- 
 mandy, where she was seen at times wandering upon the bat- 
 tlements with wild gestures and disheveled hair, her face wan 
 and pale, her eyes streaming with tears, and then was seen no 
 more. Nor was Ingeburga more happy. She was conducted, 
 indeed, by a train of Italian priests to the arms of her loathing 
 husband, and, whether witch or woman, Philip was forced to 
 receive her publicly as his wife. France rejoiced, for the in- 
 terdict was removed ; a clang of bells announced the return of 
 spiritual peace ; the curtains were withdrawn from crucifixes 
 and images ; the doors of churches flew open ; and a glad 
 throng of worshipers poured into the holy buildings, from 
 which for seven months they had been rigidly excluded. Yet 
 the change brought little joy to the Queen of France. For 
 the remainder of her life her husband treated her sometimes 
 with harshness, always with neglect and contempt, and her 
 plaintive appeals against his cruelty sometimes reached the 
 ears of Innocent at Rome, who would then remonstrate with 
 Philip upon his unworthy conduct toward the daughter, the 
 sister, and the wife of a king. 
 
 The Pope next turned his spiritual arais against England, 
 and soon reduced that powerful and independent kingdom to 
 the condition of a vassal of the Poman See. John, the wick- 
 edest and the basest of English kings, now sat on the throne. 
 His life had been stained by almost every form of licentious- 
 ness and crime ; he had murdered his nephew, Arthur, and 
 usurped his crown ; he had shrunk from no enormity, and his 
 subjects looked upon him with horror and disgust ; Philip had 
 torn from him all his continental possessions ; and his coward- 
 ice had been as conspicuous as his vices. Yet John had ever 
 remained the favorite son of the Church, and Innocent would 
 still have continued his ally and his friend had not a sudden 
 quarrel made them, for the moment, the bitterest of foes. It
 
 46 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 would be impossible for us to review the full particulars of 
 this memorable affair. It is sufficient to say that Innocent 
 claimed the right of controlling the election of the Archbish- 
 op of Canterbury, and that John resisted his pretension. The 
 Pope employed the instrument which had been so effective 
 against France ; in 1208 England was laid under an interdict, 
 and for four years beheld its churches closed, its dead cast out 
 into unconsecrated ground, and its whole religious life crushed 
 beneath a fatal malediction. Yet John resisted the clerical as- 
 sailant with more pertinacity than Philip, and even endured 
 the final penalty of excommunication, and it was not until In- 
 nocent had bestowed England upon Philip, and that king had 
 prepared a considerable army to invade his new dominions, 
 that John's courage sunk. Full of hatred for the Pope and 
 for religion, it is said that he had resolved to become a Mo- 
 hammedan, and sent embassadors to the Caliph of Spain and 
 Africa offering to embrace the faith of the Koran in return for 
 material aid ; and it is further related that the cultivated Mo- 
 hammedan rejected with contempt the advances of the Chris- 
 tian renegade. So low, indeed, was sunk the moral dignity of 
 Christianity under the papal rule, so oppressive was that pow- 
 er, that of the three great potentates of Christendom at this 
 period, Frederick II. was suspected of preferring the Koran to 
 the Bible, and both Philip Augustus and John are believed to 
 have entertained the desire of adopting the tenets of the Ara- 
 bian impostor ; and all three were no doubt objects of polish- 
 ed scorn to the cultivated Arabs of Bagdad and Cordova. 
 
 John was soon reduced to submission, and his conduct was 
 so base and dastardly as to awaken the scorn of his own sub- 
 jects and of Europe.(') He gave up his independent kingdom 
 to be held as a fief of the Eoman See, took the oath of fealty 
 to Innocent, and bound himself and his successors to become 
 the vassals of an Italian lord. But his shame was probably 
 lightened by a sense of the bitter disappointment which he 
 
 (') Innocent to John. Migne, vol. iii., p. 925, Epist. : " Quod tu, fili charis- 
 sime, prudeuter attendens," etc. Tlie Pope accepts the gift of England, 
 and confers it as a fief upon John and his heirs.
 
 THE ALBIGENSES. 47 
 
 was thus enabled to inflict upon his enemy, Philip Augustus. 
 The Pope, with his usual indifference to the claims of honor 
 and of faith, now prohibited the King of France from pros- 
 ecuting his designs against England ; and Philip, who at a 
 great expense had assembled all the chivalry of his kingdom, 
 was forced to obey. The barons of England soon after wrest- 
 ed from their dastard king the Magna Charta, and Innocent 
 in vain endeavored to weaken the force of that instrument 
 which laid the foundation of the liberties of England and of 
 America. 
 
 But it is chiefly as the first of the great persecutors that In- 
 nocent III. has deserved the execration of posterity. lie was 
 the destroyer of the Albigenses and the troubadours, and the 
 first buds and flowers of European literature were crushed by 
 the ruthless hand of the impassive Bishop of Kome. Langue- 
 doc and Provence, the southern provinces of modern France, 
 were at this period the most civilized and cultivated portions 
 of Europe. Amidst their graceful scenery, their rich fields, 
 and magnificent cities, the troubadours had first sung to the 
 lute those plaintive love-songs, borrowed from the intellectual 
 Arabs, which seemed to the rude but impassioned barons of 
 the South almost inspired. The Gay Science found its fitting 
 birthplace along the soft shores of the Mediterranean Sea, the 
 Courts of Love were held of tenest at Montpellier, Toulouse, or 
 Marseilles. The princes and nobles of that southern clime 
 were allowed to be the models of their age in chivalry, good- 
 breeding, and a taste for poetry and song ; and the people of 
 Languedoc and Provence lived in a luxurious ease, rich, hap- 
 py, and secure. Upon this Eden Innocent chanced to turn 
 his eyes and discover that it was infested by a most fatal form 
 of heresy. The troubadours — gay, witty, and indiscreet — had 
 long been accustomed to aim sharp satires at the vices or the 
 superstitions of monks and bishops; the people had learned to 
 look with pity and contempt upon the ignorance of their spir- 
 itual guides ; the authority of the Church was shaken ; the 
 priest was despised, and the "Waldensian and Albigensian doc- 
 trines made rapid progress and found an almost universal ac- 
 ceptance in the sunny lands of the South of France. Pay-
 
 48 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 mond VI., Count of Toulouse, now reigned with an easy sway 
 over this delightful territory. lie was believed to be a here- 
 tic, yet he was evidently no Puritan. Gay, licentious, gener- 
 ous, afEable, the count had three wives living at the same time, 
 and might well have merited, by his easy morals, the confi- 
 dence of the Church of Rome. But, unhappily for Raymond, 
 his humanity surpassed his faith, and drove him to his ruin. 
 Innocent was resolved to extirpate heresy by fire and sword, 
 and Raymond was required to execute the papal commands 
 upon his own people. He was to bring desolation to the fair 
 fields of Languedoc, to banish or destroy the heretics, to lay 
 waste his own happy dominions, depopulate his cities, cut off 
 the wisest and best of his subjects, for the sake of a corrupt 
 and cruel Church, which he must now more than ever have 
 abhorred. Life meanwhile had flowed on for the happy peo- 
 ple of Languedoc in mirth and perpetual joy. They sung, 
 they danced ; the mistress was more honored than the saint, 
 and churches and cathedrals were abandoned for the Courts 
 of Love. In the fair city of Toulouse a perfect tolerance pre- 
 vailed.(') The " good men " of Lyons, the Cathari or Puritans, 
 made converts undisturbed, and even the despised and reject- 
 ed Jews were received with signal favor by the good-humored 
 Proven§als. Nothing was hated but the bigotry and pride of 
 priestcraft ; and when Arnold, Abbot of Citeaux, a severe and 
 stern missionary of Rome, came to preach against heresy and 
 reclaim the erring to the orthodox faith, his most vigorous 
 sermons were received with shouts of ridicule. " The more he 
 preached," says the Provengal chronicler, " the more the peo- 
 ple laughed and held him for a fool." But a terrible doom was 
 now impending over the merry land of song, for Innocent 
 had resolved to call in the aid of the temporal power, and in- 
 volve both Raymond and his subjects in a common ruin. A 
 fatal event urged him to immediate action. The papal legate 
 was assassinated as he was crossing the Rhone, and the Pope 
 charged the crime upon Raymond, who, however, was wholly 
 guiltless. The blood of the martyr called for instant venge- 
 
 (') See Fauriel, Provenjals, and the Provencal accounts.
 
 DEATH OF THE TBOUBADOUBS. 49 
 
 ance, and Innocent summoned the king, the nobles, and the 
 bishops of France to a crusade against the devoted land. 
 " Up, most Christian king," he wrote to Philip Augustus ; 
 " up, and aid us in our work of vengeance !" His vengeful 
 cries were answered by a general uprising of the chivalry and 
 the bishops of the North of France, who, led by Simon de 
 Montfort, hastened to the plunder of their brethren of the 
 South. An immense army suddenly invaded Languedoc ; the 
 war was carried on with a barbarity unfamiliar even to that 
 cruel age ; and the Albigenses and the troubadours were almost 
 blotted from existence. No Cjuarter was given, no mercy 
 shown, and the battle-cry of the invading army was, " Slay all. 
 God will know his own." At the capture of Beziers it is es- 
 timated that fifty thousand persons perished in the massacre. 
 Harmless men, wailing women, and even babes at the breast 
 fell equally before the monkish rage of Innocent, and the 
 beautiful city was left a smoldering ruin. At the fall of 
 Minerve, a stronghold in the Cevennes, one hundred and forty 
 women, rather than change their faith, leaped into a blazing 
 pyre and were consumed. When Lavaur, a noted seat of her- 
 esy, was taken, a general massacre was allowed ; and men, 
 women, and children were cut to pieces, until there was noth- 
 ing left to kill, except four hundred of the garrison, \vho were 
 burned in a single pile, which, to the great joy of the victo- 
 rious Catholics, made a wonderful blaze. After a long and 
 brave resistance, the Albigensian armies were destroyed, and 
 the desolate land, once so beautiful, fell wholly into the power 
 of the Catholics. The song of the troubadour was hushed 
 forever, the gay people sunk into melancholy under the monk- 
 ish rale, their very language was proscribed, and a terrible in- 
 quisition was established to crush more perfectly the lingering 
 seeds of heresy. Every priest and every lord was appointed an 
 inquisitor, and whoever harbored a heretic was made a slave. 
 Even the house in which a heretic was found was to be razed 
 to the ground ; no layman was permitted to possess a Bible ; 
 a reward of a mark was set for the head of a heretic ; and all 
 caves and hiding-places where the Albigenses might take ref- 
 uge were to be carefully closed up by the lord of the estate. 
 
 4:
 
 50 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 Two agents of rare vigor had suddenly appeared to aid In- 
 nocent in his conquest of mankind ; two men of singular mor- 
 al and mental strength placed themselves at his command. (') 
 St. Dominic and St. Francis of Assisi founded, under his su- 
 pervision, the two great orders of mendicant monks. Dominic 
 was a Spaniard of high hirth, fierce, dark, gloomy, unsparing, 
 the author of the Inquisition. His history is lost in a cloud 
 of miracles, in which it has been enveloped by his devout dis- 
 ciples ; he cast out Satan, who ran from him in the form of a 
 great black cat with glittering eyes ; he raised the dead, heal- 
 ed the sick, and more than equaled the miracles of the Gospel. 
 Yet the real achievements of Dominic are sufficiently wonder- 
 ful. He founded the order of preaching friars, who, living 
 upon alms and bound to a perfect self-denial, knew no master 
 but Dominic and the Pope, and before he died he saw a count- 
 less host of his disciples spread over every part of Europe. 
 Dominic is chiefly known as the persecutor of the heretics. 
 He infused into the Eoman Church that tierce thirst for blood 
 which was exemplified in Philip II. and Alva ; he hovered 
 around the armies that blasted and desolated Languedoc, and 
 his miraculous eloquence was aimed with fatal effect against 
 the polished freethinkers of that unhappy land. His admir- 
 ers unite in ascribing to him tlie founding of the Inquisition. 
 "What glory, splendor, and dignity," exclaims one of them, 
 "belong to the Order of Preachers words can not express! 
 for the Holy Inquisition owes its origin to St. Dominic, and 
 was propagated by his faithful followers." 
 
 St. Francis of Assisi, a gentler madman, was equally suc- 
 cessful with Dominic in founding a new order of ascetics. 
 Born of a wealthy parentage, Francis passed his youth in 
 song and revel until a violent fever won hira from the world. 
 His mild and generous nature now turned to universal benev- 
 olence ; he threw asid-e his rich dress and joined a troop of 
 beggars ; he clothed himself in rags and gave all that he had 
 to the poor. His bride, he declared, was Poverty, and he would 
 only live by mendicancy ; he resolved to abase himself below 
 
 (') Miluiau, Lat. Christ.; Gieseler, Eccl. Hist.
 
 MEXDICAXT ORDERS. 51 
 
 the meanest of his species, and he devoted himself to the care 
 of lepers — the outcasts of mankind ; he tended them with af- 
 fectionate assiduity, washed their feet, and sometimes healed 
 them miraculously with a kiss. This strange and fervent pi- 
 ety, joined to his touching eloquence and poetic fancy, soon 
 won for St. Francis a throng of followers, who imitated his 
 humility and took the vow of perpetual poverty. He now re- 
 solved to convert the world ; but he must first gain the sanc- 
 tion of the Pope. Innocent III. was walking on the terrace 
 of the splendid Lateran when a mendicant of mean appear- 
 ance presented himself, and proposed to convert mankind 
 through poverty and humility. It was St. Francis. The Pope 
 at first dismissed him with contempt ; but a vision warned him 
 not to neglect the pious appeal. The Order of St. Francis was 
 founded, and countless hosts soon took the vow of chastity, 
 poverty, and obedience. The Franciscans were the gentlest 
 of mankind : they lived on alms. If stricken on one cheek, 
 they offered the other ; if robbed of a part of their dress, they 
 gave the whole. Love was to be the binding element of the 
 brotherhood ; and the sweet effluence of universal charity, the 
 poetic dream of the gentle Francis, was to be spread over all 
 mankind. 
 
 How rapidly the Franciscans and Dominicans declined from 
 the rigid purity of their founders need scarcely be told. In a 
 few years their monasteries grew splendid, their possessions 
 were vast, their vows of poverty and purity were neglected or 
 forgotten, and the two orders, tilled with emulation and spirit- 
 ual pride, contended with each other for the control of Cliris- 
 tendoni. Innocent, meantime, died in 1216, in the full strength 
 of manhood, yet having accomplished every object for whicli 
 his towering spirit had lalxjred so unceasingly. He liad crnsli- 
 ed and mortified the pride of every European monarch, had 
 exalted the Church upon the wreck of nations, had seeming- 
 ly extirpated heresy, and was become that Universal Bishop 
 which, to the modest Gregory the Great, had seemed the sym- 
 bol of Antichrist and the invention of Satanic pride. 
 
 The next phase in which the papacy exhibits itself is the 
 natural result of the possession of absolute temporal and spir-
 
 52 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 
 
 itiial power; the next representative Pope is a Borgia. In 
 no other place than Rome could a Borgia have arisen; in no 
 other position than that of Pope could so frightful a monster 
 have maintained his power. Alexander YI., or Koderic Bor- 
 gia, a Spaniard of noble family and nephew to Pope Calixtus 
 III., was early brought to Eome by his uncle, and made a 
 cardinal in spite of his vices and his love of ease. He became 
 Pope in 1492 by the grossest simony. Alexander's only ob- 
 ject was the gratification of his own desires and the exaltation 
 of his natural children. Of these, whom he called his neph- 
 ews, there were five — one son being Caesar Borgia, and one 
 daughter the infamous Lucrezia.(') Alexander is represented 
 to have been a poisoner, a robber, a hypocrite, a treacherous 
 friend. His children in all these traits of wickedness sur- 
 passed their father. Ceesar Borgia, beautiful in person, and 
 so strong that in a bull-fight he struck off the head of the ani- 
 mal at a single blow — a majestic monster ruled by unbridled 
 passions and stained Mnth blood — now governed Rome and his 
 father by the terror of his crimes. Every night, in the streets 
 of the city, were found the coii^ses of persons whom he had 
 murdered either for their money or for revenge ; yet no one 
 dared to name the assassin. Those whom he could not reach 
 by violence he took off by poison. His first victim was his 
 own elder brother, Francis, Duke of Gandia, whom Alexander 
 loved most of all his children, and whose rapid rise in wealth 
 and station excited the hatred of the fearful Caesar. Francis 
 had just been appointed Duke of Benevento ; and before he 
 set out for Naples there was a family party of the Borgias 
 one evening at the papal palace, where no doubt a strange 
 kind of mirth and hilarity prevailed. The two brothers left 
 together, and parted with a pleasant farewell, Caesar having 
 meantime provided four assassins to waylay his victim that 
 very night. The next morning the duke was missing ; sev- 
 
 (') Ranke, Popes, p. 30, describes the horrible family. Gregorovius (Lu- 
 crezia Borgia), iu his recent work, -would soften the terrible lineameuts of 
 Lncrezia's historical renown. But even at Ferrara Mr. Symonds (Renais- 
 sance) indicates that she must have lived in an atmosphere of fearful 
 deeds.
 
 THE BORGIAS. 53 
 
 eral days passed, but he did not return. It was believed that 
 he was murdered ; and Alexander, full of grief, ordered the 
 Tiber to be dragged for the body of his favorite child. An 
 enemy, he thought, had made away with him. He little sus- 
 pected who that enemy was. At length a Sclavonian water- 
 man came to the palace with a startling story. He said that 
 on the night when the prince disappeared, while he was watch- 
 ing some timber on the river, he saw two men approach the 
 bank, and look cautiously around to see if they were observed. 
 Seeing no one, they made a signal to two others, one of whom 
 was on horseback, and who carried a dead body swung care- 
 lessly across his horse. He advanced to the river, flung the 
 corpse far into the water, and then rode away. Upon being 
 asked why he had not mentioned this before, the waterman re- 
 plied that it was a common occurrence, and that he had seen 
 more than a hundred bodies thrown into the Tiber in a simi- 
 lar manner. The search was now renewed, and the body of 
 the ill-fated Francis was found pierced by nine mortal wounds. 
 Alexander buried his son with great pomp, and offered large 
 rewards for the discovery of his murderers. At last the terri- 
 ble secret was revealed to him ; he hid himself in his palace, 
 refused food, and abandoned himself to grief. Here he was 
 visited by the mother of his children, who still lived at Kome. 
 What passed at their interview was never known ; but all in- 
 quiry into the murder ceased, and Alexander was soon again 
 immersed in his pleasures and his ambitious designs. 
 
 Cgesar Borgia now ruled unrestrained, and preyed upon the 
 Romans like some fabulous monster of Greek mythology. 
 He would suffer no rival to live, and he made no secret of his 
 murderous designs.. His brother-in-law was stabbed by his 
 orders on the steps of the palace. The wounded man was 
 nursed by his wife and his sister, the latter preparing his food 
 lest he might be carried off by poison, while the Pope set a 
 guard around the house to protect his son-in-law from his son. 
 Csesar laughed at these precautions. "What can not be done 
 in the noonday," he said, " may be brought about in the even- 
 ing." He broke into the chamber of his brother-in-law, drove 
 out the wife and sister, and had him strangled by the common
 
 54 THE BISHOPS OF EOME. 
 
 executioner. He stabbed his father's favorite, Perotto, while 
 he ckiiig to his patron for protection, and the blood of the vic- 
 tim flowed over the face and robes of the Pope. Lucrezia 
 Borgia rivaled, or surpassed, the crimes of her brother ; while 
 Alexander himself performed the holy rites of the Church 
 with singular exactness, and in his leisure moments poisoned 
 wealthy cardinals and seized upon their estates. He is said 
 to have been singularly engaging in his manners, and most 
 agreeable in the society of those whom he had resolved to de- 
 stroy. At length, Alexander jierished by his own arts. He 
 gave a grand entertainment, at which one or more wealthy 
 cardinals were invited for the pm'pose of being poisoned, and 
 Caesar Borgia was to provide the means. He sent several 
 flasks of poisoned wine to the table, with strict orders not to 
 use them except by his directions. Alexander came early to 
 the banquet, heated with exercise, and called for some refresh- 
 ment ; the servants brought him the poisoned wine, supposing 
 it to be of rare excellence ; he drank of it freely, and was 
 soon in the pangs of death. His blackened body was buried 
 Avitli all the pomp of the Eoman ritual. 
 
 Scarcely is the story of the Borgias to be believed : such a 
 father, such children, have nev^er been known before or since. 
 Yet the accurate historians of Italy, and the careful Ranke, 
 unite in the general outline of their crimes. On no other 
 throne than the temporal empire of Pome has sat such a crim- 
 inal as Alexander ; in no other city than Pome could a Caesar 
 Borgia have pursued his horrible career; in none other was 
 a Lucrezia Borgia ever known. The Pope was the absolute 
 master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects ; he was also 
 the absolute master of their souls ; and the union of these two 
 despotisms produced at Rome a form of human wickedness 
 which romance has never imagined, and which history shud- 
 ders to describe. 
 
 AVe may pause at this era in our review of the represent- 
 ative bishops of Pome, since the Peformation was soon to 
 throw a softening and refining light upon the progress of the 
 papacy. There were to be no more Borgias, no second Inno- 
 cent ; the fresh blasts from the North were to purify in some
 
 THE MODERN POPES. 55 
 
 measure the malarious atmospliere of the Holy Citj.(') Yet 
 I trust tliis brief series of pictures of the early bishops will 
 not hav^e been without interest to the candid reader, and he 
 will observe that it was only as the Koman Church aban- 
 doned the primeval laws of gentleness, humility, and humani- 
 ty that it ceased to be the benefactor of the barbarous races it 
 had subdued. As the splendid panorama passes before us, and 
 we survey the meek and holy Stephen perishing a sainted 
 martyr in the Catacombs ; the modest Gregory, the first sing- 
 ing-master of Europe, soothing the savage world to obedience 
 and order by the sweet influence of his holy songs ; the cun- 
 ning Zacharias winning a temporal crown from the grateful 
 Frank; Hildebrand rising in haughty intellectual pre-emi- 
 nence above kings and princes ; Innocent III. trampling upon 
 the rights of nations, and lifting over Europe his persecuting 
 arm, red with the guiltless blood of the troubadours and the 
 Albigenses ; or a Borgia, the incarnation of sin — we shall have 
 little difficulty in discovering why it is that the bishops of 
 Rome have faded into a magnificent pageant before the rise 
 of a purer knowledge, and why it is that the Pope of to-day, 
 surrounded by the most splendid of earthly rituals, and pro- 
 nouncing from the Vatican the anathemas of the Middle 
 Ages, is heard with mingled pity and derision by the vigor- 
 ous intellect of the nations over which his predecessors once 
 held an undisputed sway. 
 
 (') Yet the inventors of the Eoman Inquisition may possibly not deserve 
 even this doubtful praise. From 1540 to 1700, the popes were possibly 
 more dangerous to mankind than many Borgias.
 
 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 Theke was joy at Home in tlie year 1513, for Pope Julius 
 II. was dead. It was no unusual thing, indeed, for the Eo- 
 mans to rejoice at the death of a Pope. If there was any one 
 the i)eople of the Holy City contemned and hated more than 
 all other men, it ras usually their spiritual father, whose bless- 
 ings they so devoutly received ; and next to him his countless 
 officials, who preyed upon their fellow-citizens as tax-gather- 
 ers, notaries, and a long gradation of dignities. But upon Ju- 
 lius, the withered and palsied old man, the rage of the people 
 had turned with unprecedented vigor.(') He had been a light- 
 ing Pope. His feeble frame had been torn by unsated and in- 
 satiable passions that would have become a Csesar or an Alex- 
 ander, but which seemed almost demoniac in this terrible old 
 man. His ambition had been the cui'se of Eome, of Italy, of 
 Europe ; he had set nations at enmity in the hope of enlarging 
 his temporal power ; he had made insincere leagues and trea- 
 ties in order to escape the punishment of his crimes ; his plight- 
 ed faith was held a mockery in all the European courts ; his 
 fits of rage and impotent malice made him the laughing-stock 
 of kings and princes; and the cost of his feeble wars and 
 faithless alliances had left Rome the pauper city of Europe. 
 
 And now Julius M-as dead. The certainty that his fierce 
 
 •spirit was fled forever had been tested by all the suspicious 
 
 forms of the Roman Church. The Cardinal Camerlengo 
 
 stood before the door of the Pope's chamber, struck it with a 
 
 gilt mallet, and called Julius by name. Receiving no answer, 
 
 (*) He was in the habit of using his pastoral staflf to punish dull bishops 
 — probably its original design. De La Chatre, Hist, des Papes: "Desrjne 
 Jules II. cut terniiuc sou execrable vie." Eoscoe and Raukc are more fa- 
 vorable to Julius.
 
 A CONCLAVE. 57 
 
 he entered tlie room, tapped tlie corpse on tlie head with a 
 mallet of silver, and then, falling npon his knees before the 
 lifeless body, proclaimed the death of the Pope.(') Next the 
 tolling of the great bell in the Capitol, which was sounded 
 upon these solemn occasions alone, announced to Rome and 
 to the Church that the Holy Father was no more. Its heavy 
 note was the signal for a reign of universal license and mis- 
 rule. Ten days are always allowed to pass between the death 
 of a Pope and the meeting of the conclave of cardinals for the 
 election of his successor ; and during that period it was long 
 an established custom that Kome should be abandoned to riot, 
 bloodshed, pillage, and every species of crime. The very 
 chamber of the dead Pope was entered and sacked. The city 
 wore the appearance of a civil war. The papal soldiery, ill 
 paid and half fed, roamed through the streets robbing, mur- 
 dering, and committing a thousand outrages unrestrained. 
 Palaces were plundered, houses sacked, quiet citizens were 
 robbed, murdered, and their bodies left in the streets or thrown 
 into the Tiber. " Not a day passed," wrote Gigli, an observer 
 of one of these dreadful saturnalia, " without brawls, murders, 
 and waylayings." At length the nobles fortified and garri- 
 soned their palaces, barricades were drawn across the principal 
 streets, and only the miserable shop-keepers and tradesmen 
 were left exposed to the outrages of the papal banditti. (*) 
 
 Meantime the holy conclave of cardinals was sunnnoned to 
 meet for the election of a successor to St. Peter. The whole 
 of the first-floor of the Vatican, an immense range of apart- 
 ments, now no longer used for electoral purposes, was pre- 
 pared for the important occasion. Within its ample limits a 
 booth or cell was provided for each cardinal, where he lived 
 during the sitting of the assembly separate from his fellows. 
 The booths were distributed by a raffle. A certain number 
 of attendants, called conclavists, were allowed to the cardi- 
 
 es ) I have assumed that all tlie usual ceremonies were emploj-cd at the 
 death of Julius. 
 
 (^) Coriueuin, Hist. Popes, Leo X. See North British lievieic, December, 
 1866, art. Conclaves.
 
 58 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 nals, wlio remained shut up with them during the election, 
 and whose privilege it was to plunder the cell of the newly 
 chosen Pope the moment the choice was announced.(') 
 
 Before the final closing of the assembly to the world the 
 Vatican presented a gay and splendid scene. All the great 
 and noble of Rome came to visit the cardinals in their cells. 
 Princes and magnates, foreign embassadors and political en- 
 voys from the various Catholic powers, aspiring confessors 
 and diplomatic priests, hurried from cell to cell on that impor- 
 tant afternoon, whispering bribes, flatteries, or threats into 
 each sacred ear ; electioneering with all the ardor of a village 
 politician for their favorite candidate, or the choice of their 
 mighty courts at home ; or indicating in distinct menace those 
 persons whom Austria, France, and Spain would never snfier 
 to w^ear the triple crown. At three hours after sunset a bell 
 was heard ringing loudly, and the master of ceremonies com- 
 ing forward called out, JS'd'tpa omnes. The vast and busy 
 throng was slowly and reluctantly dispersed. The last per- 
 suasion was ofliered, the last bribe promised, the last threat of 
 haughty Bourbons or Ilapsburgs whispered, and the gorgeous 
 assembly of electioneering princes and embassadors melted 
 away along the dusky streets of Rome. 
 
 Tlie cardinals were now shut up in close confinement.^) 
 All the windows and doors of the lower floors of the Yatican 
 had been walled up except the door at the head of the prin- 
 cipal staircase, which was secured by bolts and bars. By the 
 side of this entrance were placed turning-boxes like those used 
 in convents or nunneries, through which alone the imprisoned 
 cardinals were allowed to hold any intercourse with the outer 
 world ; while whatever passed through these was carefully in- 
 spected by officers both within and without. Guards of sol- 
 diers were posted around the palace to insure the isolation of 
 the holy prisoners, and the anathema of the Church was de- 
 nounced against any cardinal or conclavist who should reveal 
 the secrets of the inspired assembly. To insure a speedy de- 
 
 (■) The physician of the Cardiual de' Medici Tvas admitted to atteud him. 
 (-) Mosbeim, ii., p. 347.
 
 THE PAPAL ELECTORS. 69 
 
 cision, liowever, a soniewliat carnal device had been lighted 
 upon. It was ordered that if after three days the cardinals 
 should have made no choice, they should each be coniined to 
 a single dish at every meal ; if they remained obstinate for 
 five days longer, they must be restricted in their diet to bread, 
 wine, and water alone as long as the session continued. 
 
 All the cumbrous forms employed at a papal election have 
 been gradually introduced by tlie Popes themselves, and were 
 designed to strengthen and complete the supremacy of the 
 Chief Pontiff .(') In the early ages of the Church, the Popes 
 were elected by the assembled clergy and people of Rome, 
 and the sacred privilege was cherished by the turbulent Ro- 
 mans as their most valued possession. But the pontiffs, as 
 they advanced in earthly power and grandeur, began to dis- 
 dain or dread the tumultuous throng from whence they de- 
 rived their holy office ; and Nicholas II., in 1059, under the 
 guidance of the haughty Ilildebrand, snatched the election of 
 the Popes from the people, and placed it in the hands of the 
 cardinals alone. None but the college of cardinals from that 
 time have had any vote in the choice. But France, Austria, 
 and Spain are each allowed to veto the election of some single 
 cardinal. Custom, too, has sanctioned that none but a cardi- 
 nal shall be chosen, and the bull of iS icholas II. promises or 
 suggests that the successful candidate shall come from the 
 bosom of the Roman prelacy.Q Pope Alexander III. added 
 the provision that a vote of two-thirds of the college should 
 be necessary to a choice ; while Gregory X., elected in 1271, 
 called together a General Council at Lyons (1274), where 
 many abuses of the past were reformed, and the ceremonial 
 of election arranged nearly in the form in which it now exists. 
 Each cardinal has a single vote, and his right of suffrage can 
 scarcely be taken from him even by tlie Pope himself. It is 
 looked upon as a privilege almost immutable. Cardinals cov- 
 ered with crimes and shut up in St. Angelo have been taken 
 
 (') See Stendhal, Promeuades dans Rome, for a late conclave, pp. 176, 177. 
 C) Baiouins, Ann. Ecc, ii., p. 314: "De ipsius Ecclesise gremio." The 
 language is very cautious.
 
 60 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 from tlieir j)rison to the sacred college, and then, when thej 
 had voted, were sent back to their dungeon. Cardinals con- 
 victed of poisoning or attempts to murder have regained, on 
 the death of a Pope, their official privilege of aiding in the 
 election of a successor to St. Peter. But Cardinal Eohan was 
 deofraded from all his offices for his share in the affair of the 
 Diamond Necklace; and during the French Revolution two 
 cardinals renounced their sacred dignity, and were held to 
 have lost even their right of voting. Yet the cardinals, the 
 princes of the Roman Clim-ch, form an immutable hierarchy, 
 independent, in some respects, of the Chief Pontiff himself. 
 From their body the new Pope must be chosen ; to them, on 
 the death of a Pope, falls the selection of his successor ; and 
 their elevated position as the creators of the vicegerent of 
 Heaven would seem naturally to require that they should dis- 
 play in the highest degree the purest traits of Christian virtue. 
 In the sacred college that assembled on the death of Julius 
 n. were gathered a band of men corrupted by power, avari- 
 cious, venal, unscrupulous, and capable of every crime. One 
 had been engaged in the plot for the assassination of Lorenzo 
 de' Medici. One was a poisoner and a murderer of old stand- 
 ing. Most of them had been educated in the horrible school 
 of the Borgias.(') Scarcely one that was not a shame and hor- 
 ror to the eyes of pious men ; scarcely one that was not ready 
 with the dagger and the bowl. Ambitious of power, eager 
 for the plunder of the Church, the conclave resolved to choose 
 a Pope who would give them little trouble, whom they could 
 mold and intimidate, and from whom they could extract at 
 will the largest revenues and the richest benefices.(") Such a 
 man seemed the Cardinal de' Medici, the second son of Lo- 
 renzo the Magnificent, of Florence. Lie was the most polish- 
 ed and elegant prelate of his time. His disposition was mild 
 and even, his person graceful and imposing, his generosity 
 unbounded, and his love for letters and his familiarity with 
 
 (') Most of them were afterward eugaged in a plot to poison Leo. X. 
 (^) It was said iu the conclave that the Cardinal de' Medici could not 
 live a mouth.
 
 GIOVANNI DE' MEDICI. 61 
 
 literary men had thrown around him an intellectual charm 
 which was felt even by the coarsest of his contemporaries. 
 But, above all, it was believed in the sacred college that his 
 nature was so soft and complying that he would readily yield 
 up the government of the Church to the bolder spirits around 
 him. Yet the contest within the walls of the Vatican lasted 
 for seven days,(') during all which time the bland Cardinal 
 de' Medici, with the usual policy of his race, was engaged in 
 secretly or openly promoting his own election. He softened 
 and subdued his enemies by flatteries and promises ; he was 
 seen talking in a friendly and confidential way with Cardinal 
 San Giorgio, the assassin of his uncle ; he won Soderini, the 
 persecutor of his race, by ample expectations ; all the cardinals 
 connected with royal families were especially favorable to the 
 descendant of a line of princely money-lenders ; the holy col- 
 lege yielded to the claim of the graceful Medici, and a major- 
 ity of ballots inscribed with his name were found in the sacred 
 chalice. Then a window in the Vatican was broken open, and 
 Leo X. proclaimed Pope to the assembled people of Rome. 
 He was placed in the pontifical chair and borne to St. Peter's, 
 followed by the rejoicing populace, the excited clergy, the 
 holy conclave; and as the procession passed on its way can- 
 non were discharged, the populace applauded, and the long 
 train of ecclesiastics, transported by a sudden fervor, broke 
 out into a solemn strain of praise and glory to the Most High. 
 Giovanni de' Medici was the descendant of that great mer- 
 cantile family at Florence which had astonished Europe by its 
 commercial grandeur and elegant taste, and whose founders 
 had learned complaisance and democracy in the tranquil pur- 
 suits of trade.(°) Their fortunes had been built upon indus- 
 try, probity, politeness, and a careful attention to business. 
 They had long practiced the virtues of honor and good faith 
 when their feudal neio-hbors had been distinguished onlv bv 
 utter insincerity. The Medici had increased their wealth 
 from father to son until they became the richest bankers in 
 
 (') The votes were taken twice a clay, aud the ballots hurued. Stend- 
 hal, p. 177. 
 
 O Vita Leouis Decimi, a Paulo Jovio, i. Roscoe, Leo X.
 
 62 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 Europe, and saw tlie miglitiest kings, and a throng of princes, 
 priests, and warriors, suppliants at their counters for loans and 
 benefits, which sometimes they never intended to repay. At 
 lenffth Lorenzo, the father of Leo X., retired from business to 
 give himself to schemes of ambition, and to guide the affairs 
 of Italy. His immense wealth, pleasing manners, prudence, 
 and ffood sense made him the most eminent of all the Ital- 
 ians : nnhappily Lorenzo sunk from the dignity of an honest 
 trader to share in the ambitious diplomacy of his age, and lost 
 his virtue in his effort to become great. Giovanni was his fa- 
 vorite son — the only one that had any ability ; and Lorenzo 
 had resolved, almost from his birth, that he should wear the 
 triple crown. 
 
 At seven years of age Giovanni was made an abbot. His 
 childish head was shaven with the monkish tonsure. He was 
 addressed as Messire, was saluted with reverence as one of the 
 eminent dignitaries of the Church, and was supposed to con- 
 trol the spiritual concerns of various rich benefices. The 
 child-abbot soon showed an excellent intellect, and, under the 
 care of Politian, became learned in the rising literature of the 
 day. All that the immense wealth and influence of his father 
 could give him lay at his command. He was educated in the 
 magnilicent palace of the Medici which Cosmo had complain- 
 ed was too laro;e for so small a familv, shared in those lavish 
 entertainments of which Lorenzo was so fond, was familiar 
 with the wits, the poets, the painters of that gifted age, and 
 learned the graceful skepticism that was fashionable at his 
 father's court. When Giovanni was thirteen, (') Lorenzo re- 
 solved to raise him to the highest dignity in the Church be- 
 low that of the Supreme Pontiff. He begged the Pope, with 
 prayers that seem now strangely humiliating, to make his son 
 a cardinal. He enlisted in his favor all whom he could influ- 
 ence at the papal court. " It will raise me from death to life," 
 lie cried, when the Pope seemed to hesitate. The boon was 
 at last obtained, and the boy of fourteen, the child of wealth 
 and luxurious ease, with no effort of his own, became one of 
 
 (') " Vix turn tertiumdecimum excedentem annum." P. Jovius, p. 15.
 
 LUTHER'S CHILDHOOD. 63 
 
 tlie chief priests of Christendom. The Pope, however, with 
 some show of propriety, required that the investiture should 
 not take j)lace in three years, during wliich time the young 
 Medici was to give his attention to study, Pohtian still di- 
 rected his studies. Giovanni was grave, graceful, formal, am- 
 bitious; and at seventeen, in the year 1492, so fatal to the 
 glory of his family, he took his place in the sacred college at 
 Home, and was received in the Holy City with a general re- 
 spect that seemed not unworthy of its future master. 
 
 Meanwhile, far away in a little hamlet of Germany, a beg- 
 . gar-child was singing mendicant songs from door to door, and 
 living upon the insufficient alms which he won from the com- 
 passion of the charitable. It was a delicate and feeble boy, to 
 whom childhood offered no joys, whose youth was a perpetual 
 woe. Luther was a peasant's son, and all his ancestors had 
 been peasants.(') His father was a miner in the heart of the 
 Thuringian forest. The manners of the peasants were harsh 
 and cruel : Luther's parents' drove him out to beg ; his moth- 
 er sometimes scourged him till the blood came for a trivial 
 offense ; his father punished him so severely and so often that 
 the child fled from his presence in terror ; and his little voice, 
 as he chanted his mendicant hymns, must often have been 
 drowned in tears. Yet so sweet and tender was the heart of 
 the great reformer that he ever retained the most sincere love 
 and reverence for the parents whom poverty and their own 
 sufferings had made so severe. He was ever a fond and duti- 
 ful son. He wept bitterly, like Mohammed, over his mother's 
 grave. He was proud to relate that his father won a hard 
 and scanty living in the mines of Mansfeld, and tliat his 
 mother carried wood from the forest on her back to t]ieir 
 peasant home; and when he came to stand before Europe the 
 adversary of the elegant Leo, and the companion of kings and 
 princes, he M^as never weary of modestly boasting that he was 
 a peasant's son.Q 
 
 (') Tischreden, p. 581. Eauke, Reformation in Germany, i., p. 136. 
 (^) Michelet, M^moires cle Luther, i. The best account of Luther is that 
 of Walch, Nachricht von D. Martin Luther, vol. xxiv., Siiunntlicho Werke.
 
 64 LEO AND LVTHER. 
 
 Luther was eia'lit vears youno-er than the Cardinal de' Me- 
 dici. lie beirsed liis education at Eisenach, a small German 
 town, until he was thirteen, and was then maintained by a 
 charitable relative. Afterward his father, who had thriven 
 by industry and toil, was enabled to send his son to the uni- 
 versity at Erfurth, and hoped to make him a lawyer.(') But 
 now that mighty intellect, which was destined to spread its 
 banyan -like branches over Europe and mankind, began to 
 flourish with native vigor. Luthers rare versatility embraced 
 every form of mental accomplishment. He loved music with 
 intense devotion ; his sensitive frame responded to the slight- 
 est touch of instrumental sounds; he believed that demons 
 fled at the sound of his flute ; and when he had fallen into 
 one of his peculiar trances in his cell, his fellow-monks knew 
 that music was the surest medicament to bring him back to 
 consciousness and activity. f) He was a poet, and his relig- 
 ious impulses often expressed themselves in sacred songs — 
 rude, bold, and powerful — that have formed the germ and 
 model of those of many lands. His love for pure literature 
 was in no degree inferior to that of his elegant rival, Leo X. ; 
 he studied day and night the few works of classic or mediae- 
 val writers that were then accessible to the humble scholar or 
 the penniless monk ; and his craving mind was never sated in 
 its ceaseless appetite for knowledge. Yet his disposition was 
 never saturnine or desponding ; as a student he was often 
 gay, joyous, and fond of cheerful company ; his tuneful voice 
 was no doubt often heard at convivial meetings at Erfurth ; 
 his broad and ready wit must have kept many a table in a 
 roar; and his loving heart seems to have gathered around 
 him many friends. So varied were his tastes, so vigorous his 
 powers, that, in whatever path his intellect had been directed, 
 he must have risen high above his fellow-men. He might 
 have shone as a lawyer and a famous statesman; he might 
 have been the Homer of Germany, or the autlior of a new 
 Nibelungenlied ; his classic taste miglit easily have been 
 
 (') Andin, Histoire de Martiu Luther, i. Eanke, Keforiuatiou, i., p. 318. 
 (') Raiike,i.,p. 321.
 
 LUTHER A MONK. 65 
 
 turned to the revival of letters ; his musical powers have pro- 
 duced an earlier Mozart ; or his rare and boundless originality 
 have been expended in satiric or tragic pictures of that world 
 around him of whose folly and dullness he had so clear a con- 
 ception. 
 
 One day Luther was walking through the fields with one of 
 his young companions from his father's home in the forest to 
 Erfurth.(') It was July, and suddenly a fierce storm gather- 
 ed over the bright sky ; the mountains around were hidden in 
 gloom ; the lightning leaped from cloud to cloud ; all nature 
 trembled ; when a sharp bolt from heaven struck Luther's 
 companion dead at his side, and left him for a time senseless 
 beside him. He wandered home on his solitary way, oppress- 
 ed with an intolerable dread ; he believed that he had heard 
 the voice of Heaven calling him to repent ; he vowed that he 
 would give his whole future life to asceticism and monastic 
 gloom. The next evening, with the impulsive inconstancy of 
 youth, he passed with his young companions in the pleasures 
 of music, wine, and song, anxious perhaps to try if he could 
 drown in the joys of the world the pains of a wounded spirit. 
 But the next day he hastened to the convent of the Augus- 
 tines at Erfurth, and took the irrevocable vow.(°) He re- 
 solved by the practice of the severest austerity to escape the 
 pains of purgatory. He was the most faithful of ascetics. 
 All his great powers, all the joyousness of his youthful spir- 
 it, all the abundant growth of his fertile intellect, were shut 
 up in a narrow cell and wasted in the closest observance of 
 monkish rites. And the result was sufficiently appalling. 
 He was weighed down by an ever-increasing consciousness 
 of sin. Despair and death seemed his only portion. His life 
 was agony, and sometimes he would sink down in his cell in a 
 deep swoon, from which he could only be aroused by the gen- 
 tle touch of a stringed instrument.(^) 
 
 (') Ranke, i., p. 318, somewhat varies the comniou story. Sec Michelet, 
 i., p. 5. 
 
 (") Ranke, i., p. 319. Walch, xxiv., p. 76, gives the various accounts of 
 Luther's couversion. 
 
 C) Ranke, i., p. 321. Michelet, i., p. 10. 
 
 5
 
 66 LEO AND LUTHEB. 
 
 AVTiIle Lutlier was thus passing through the rude ordeal of 
 his painful youth, his companion spirit, the elegant Cardinal 
 de' Medici, had glided gracefully onward in a career of unsul- 
 lied prosperity.(') His sins had never given liini any trouble. 
 His conscience was soothed and satislied by the united ap- 
 plause of all his associates. The learned Politian, a polished 
 pagan, wrote in the most graceful periods of his piety and de- 
 corum. His father, Lorenzo, had never been weary of spread- 
 ing the report of his early fitness for the highest station in the 
 Church. He was looked upon as an especial ornament to the 
 sacred college of cardinals ; and the cardinal himself seems 
 never to have doubted his own piety, or to have shrunk from 
 the responsibility of holding in his well-trained hands the des- 
 tiny of the Christian world. For him purgatory had no ter- 
 rors ; the future world was a fair and faint mirage over which 
 he aspired to spread his sceptre in order to rebuild St. Peter's 
 or to immortalize his reign ; but beyond that he seems scarce- 
 ly to have looked within its veil. That future upon which 
 Luther gazed with wild, inquiring eyes, for Leo seemed scarce- 
 ly to exist. He was more anxious to know, with Cicero, what 
 men would be saying of him six hundred years from now ; or 
 more engaged in speculating upon his own prospect of filling 
 with grace and dignity the chair of St. Peter. 
 
 At eighteen the young cardinal seems almost to have at- 
 tained the maturity of his physical and mental powers. He 
 was tall, handsome, graceful, intellectual. His complexion 
 was fair and florid, his countenance cheerful and benignant. 
 He was famed for the magnificence of his entertainments, his 
 love of disphw, his unbounded extravagance, his open gener- 
 osity. He wasted his father's wealth, as afterward his own, 
 in feasts, processions, and deeds of real benevolence. He was 
 the. spendthrift son of an opulent parent ; he became the 
 wasteful master of the resources of the Church. Like Luther, 
 he was passionately fond of music. He played and sung him- 
 self ; he studied his art with care ; and his leisure hours were 
 seldom without musical employment. Like Luther, too, he 
 
 (') P. Jovius, p. 15.
 
 LEO IN MISFORTUNE. 67 
 
 loved letters witli a strange and surpassing regard. Heading 
 was his chief pleasure, and he seldom sat down to table with- 
 out having some poem or history before him, or without 
 lengthening his repast by reading aloud fine passages to his 
 literary friends. He had some imperfect sense of the real 
 power of the intellect, and the man of letters was always to 
 Leo a kind of deity whom he was glad to worship or to ap- 
 proach. But his own productions are never above medioc- 
 rity, and the real genius that glowed in the breast of Luther 
 was an inscrutable mystery to the ambitious Pope. 
 
 Calamity in a magnificent form at length came even to the 
 prosperous cardinal. In 1492 his father Lorenzo died, and 
 two years afterward the Medici were driven out of Florence. 
 Savonarola,(') the Luther of Italy, the gifted monk whose 
 fierce eloquence had transformed the skeptical Florentines 
 from pagan indifference to puritanic austerity,(°) who had 
 preached freedom and democracy, who had inveighed against 
 the vices of the clergy and the despotism of Rome, and whose 
 fatal and unmerited doom must have been ever before the 
 mind of his German successor, became for a time the master 
 of his country. Florence was once more a republic, the cen- 
 tre of religious reform. The theatres were closed, the spec- 
 tacles deserted, and the churches were filled with immense 
 throngs of citizens who were never weary of listening to the 
 stern rebukes of the inspired monk. But in 1494 Savonaro- 
 la fell before the intrifijues of his enemv, Alexander YL, the 
 Borgia ; he was hanged, his body burned, and his ashes cast 
 into the Arno.(') The Church triumphed in the destruction 
 of its saintly victim; but the Medici were exiles from their 
 native city for eighteen years, and were only restored in 1512, 
 by the favor of Julius II. and the arms of the Spaniards. 
 During this long period of disaster the cardinal lived in 
 great magnificence, and wasted much of his fortune. Pover- 
 ty even threatened him who had never known any thing but 
 
 (') Jovius admits the eloquence of Savonarola. 
 
 {^) "Ut nihil sine ejus viri consilio recte geii jiosse videretnr." P. Jo- 
 vius, p. 21. 
 
 (') " lu area curite foedissinio snpplicio concreuiatus." P. Jovins, p. 24.
 
 68 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 boundless \vealtli. In the fearfnl reign at Rome of Alexan- 
 der VI. and Caesar Borgia, he Avandered over Europe, visited 
 Maximilian in Germany, and his son Philip in the Low Conn- 
 tries ; passed over France, paused a while at Marseilles, and 
 then returned to Ital}'.(') Here, at the town of Savona, met 
 at table three exiles, each of whom was destined to wear the 
 papal crown ; Rovere, afterward Julius II. ; the Cardinal de' 
 Medici, Leo X. ; and Giuliano de' Medici, afterward Clement 
 VII. When Julius was made Pope, the Cardinal de' Medici 
 returned to Rome, and became the chosen adviser of that 
 pontiff. He shared in the various unsuccessful attempts of 
 his family to regain their control over Florence, was often in 
 command of the papal armies, and shone in the camp as 
 well as the court ; saw in 1512 the restoration of the Medici 
 to Florence; and the next year, on the death of his friend 
 Julius II., was enthroned as Pope at Rome — the magnilicent 
 Leo X. 
 
 In the close of the reign of Julius, Luther visited Rome. 
 The poor monk, worn with penances and mental toil, was sent 
 upon some business connected with his convent to the papal 
 court.(°) He crossed the Alps full of faith and stirred by a 
 strong excitement. He was about to enter that classic land 
 with whose poets and historians he had long been familiar: 
 he was to tread the sacred soil of Virgil, Cicero, and Livy. 
 But, more than this, he saw before him, rising in dim majesty, 
 the Holy City of that Church from whose faith he had never 
 yet ventured to depart, whose supreme head was still to him 
 almost the representative of Deity, and whose princes and 
 dignitaries he had ever invested with an apostolic purity and 
 grace. Rome, hallowed by the sufferings of the martyrs, till- 
 ed with relics, and redolent with the piety of ages, the untu- 
 tored monk still supposed a scene of heavenly rest. " Hail, 
 holy Rome !" he exclaimed, as its distant towers first met his 
 eyes. His poetic dream was soon dispelled. Scarcely had he 
 entered Italy when he M'as shocked and terrified by the luxu- 
 ry and license of the convents, and the open depravity of the 
 
 (') P. Jovius, p. 27. (") Walch, xxiv., \^. 102 et seq.
 
 LEO X. AS POPE. 69 
 
 priesthood. He fell sick with sorrow and shame. He com- 
 plained that the very air of Italy seemed deadly and pestilen- 
 tial. But he wandered on, feeble and sad, nntil he reached 
 the Holy City, and there, amidst the mockery of his fellow- 
 monks and the blasphemies of the impious clergy, perfonned 
 with honest superstition the minute ceremonial of the Church. 
 Of all the pilgrims to that desecrated shrine none was so de- 
 vout as Luther. He was determined, he said, to escape the 
 pains of purgatory, and win a plenary indulgence : he dragged 
 his frail form on his knees up the painful ascent of the Holy 
 Stairs, while ever in his ears resounded the cry, " The just 
 shall live by faith." He heard with horror that the head 
 of the Church was a monster stained with vice; that the 
 cardinals were worse than their master; the priests, mock- 
 ing unbelievers ; and fled, heart-broken, back to his German 
 cell. 
 
 On the 11th of April, 1513, Leo X. opened his splendid 
 reign by the usual procession to the Lateran, but the magnifi- 
 cence of his pageant was such as had never been seen at Home 
 since the fall of the Western Empire. It was the most im- 
 posing and the last of the triumphs of the undivided Church. 
 The Supreme Pontiff, clothed in rich robes glittering with 
 rubies and diamonds, crowned with a tiara of precious stones 
 of priceless value, and dazzling all eyes by the lustre of his 
 decorations, rode on an Arab steed at the head of an assem- 
 bled throng of cardinals, embassadors, and princes. The cler- 
 gy, the people of Rome, and a long array of soldiers in shin- 
 ing armor, followed in his train. Before him, far away, the 
 streets were spread with rich tapestry, spanned by numerous 
 triumphal arches of rare beauty, and adorned on every side 
 by countless statues and works of art. Young girls and chil- 
 dren, clothed in white, cast flowers or palms before him as he 
 passed. A general joy seemed to fill the Holy City ; the sa- 
 cred rites were performed at the Lateran with a just deco- 
 rum ; and in the evening of the auspicious day Leo entertain- 
 ed his friends at a banquet in the Vatican, whose luxury and 
 extravagance are said to have rivaled the pagan splendors of 
 Apicius or LucuUus.
 
 70 LEO AND LVTEEE. 
 
 And now began the Golden Age of Leo X.(') The descend- 
 ant of the Medici ruled over an undivided Christendom. But 
 lately his spiritual empire had been enlarged by the discov- 
 eries of Columbus and Gama, and the conquests of the Span- 
 iards and Portuguese. India and America lay at the feet of 
 the new Pope. In Europe his authority was greater than 
 that of any of his predecessors. The Emperor of Germany, 
 the kings of England, France, and Portugal, became at length 
 his obedient vassals. Henry, Charles, and Francis looked to 
 the accomplished Leo for counsel and example, and paid sin- 
 cere deference to the court of Pome. He was the master 
 spirit of the politics of his age ; and the three brilliant young 
 monarchs, whose talents seemed only directed to the ruin of 
 Europe and of mankind, were held in check by the careful 
 policy of the acute Italian. With the clergy Leo was still 
 more successful. He was the idol of the priests and bishops 
 of the Continent and of England. In Germany, his name 
 stood high as a man of probity and dignity ; Luther avowed 
 his respect for the pontiff's character ; in England, "Wolsey led 
 the Church to his support. A common delusion seems to 
 have prevailed that Leo was either sincerely pious or singu- 
 larly discreet. The people, too, so far as they were familiar 
 with the pontiff's name, repeated it with respect. Compared 
 with the passionate, licentious Julius, or the monster Alexan- 
 der, he seemed of saintly purity ; while the scholars of every 
 land united in spreading the fame of that benevolent poten- 
 tate whose bounty had been felt by the humblest of their or- 
 der, as well as the most renowned. 
 
 The age of Leo X. was golden with the glories of art.Q 
 He was the most bountiful and unwearied friend of intellect 
 the world has ever seen. His most sincere impulse was the 
 homage he paid to every form of genius. Ambitious stu- 
 dents and impoverished scholars hastened to Pome with their 
 imperfect poems and half-finished treatises, submitted them to 
 the kindly critic, were received with praise and just congratu- 
 
 (*) Jovius: "Anream setatem post multa stecula coudidisse." 
 0) Jovius, p. 109.
 
 THE GOLDEN AGE OF LEO. 71 
 
 lation, and never failed to win a rich benefice or a high posi- 
 tion at the papal court. Leo read with fond and friendly at- 
 tention the first volume of Jovius's history, pronounced him 
 a new Livy, and covered him with honors and emoluments. 
 He made the elegant style of Bembo the source of his w^ealth 
 and greatness. He made the learned Sadoleto a bishop ; he 
 cultivated the genius of the graceful Yida. For Greek and 
 Latin scholars his kindness was unwearied; he aided Aldus 
 by a liberal patent, and sought eagerly for rare manuscripts 
 of the Greek and Latin classics. His hours of leisure were 
 often passed in hearing some new poem or correcting some 
 unpublished manuscript ; his happiest days were those he was 
 sometimes enabled to spend amidst a throng of his friendly 
 authors. For science he was no less zealous, and mathema- 
 ticians, astronomers, geograpliers, and discoverers were all 
 equally sure of a favorable reception at Rome. Leo was al- 
 ways eager to hear of the strange adventures of the Spanish 
 and Portuguese in the unknown lands, to converse with the 
 brave Tristan Cunha, or to listen to Pigafetta's unpolished 
 narrative of Magellan's wonderful voyage. 
 
 Thus for eight years Pome echoed to the strains of count- 
 less rival or friendly bards who sung to the ever-kindly ear of 
 the attentive pontiff ; and a vast number of poems in Latin or 
 Italian rose to renown, were quoted, admired, praised as not 
 unworthy of Virgil or Catullus, and then sunk forever into 
 neglect. Of all the poets of this fertile age, scarcely one sur- 
 vives.(') The historians have been more fortunate. Machia- 
 velli, Guicciardini, perhaps Jovius, are still remembered among 
 the masters of the art. Castiglione is yet spoken of as a 
 purer Chesterfield ; the chaste and gifted Yittoria Colonna 
 still lives as one of the jewels of her sex. But it is to its 
 painters rather than its poets tliat this illustrious epoch owes 
 its immortality. It is to Paftaello that Leo X. is indebted 
 for many a lovely reminiscence that aids in rescuing his glory 
 from oblivion. The traveler who wanders to Pome is chiefly 
 reminded of Leo by the graceful flattery with which the first 
 
 (') Roscoe, Leo X.
 
 72 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 of painters has interwoven the life of his friend and master 
 with his own finest works. lie sees the portrait and exact 
 features of Leo X. in the famous picture of Attila ; discovers 
 an allusion to his life in the Liberation of St. Peter ; or re- 
 members that it was to the taste and profuse liberality of the 
 pontiff that we owe most of those rare frescoes in the Vatican 
 with which Raffaello crowned his art. 
 
 All through the brief period of scarcely seven years, so 
 wonderful and varied were the labors of Raffaello, so constant 
 the demands of the friendly but injudicious Pope, that we 
 might well suppose the two friends to have been incessantly 
 occupied in their effort to revive and recreate the ancient 
 glory of Rome. To Raffaello these years were spent in fatal 
 toil. His fancy, his genius, were never suffered to rest.(') 
 Gentle, loving, easily touched, and fired by artistic ambition, 
 soft and luxurious in his manners, unrestrained by moral laws, 
 the great painter yielded to every wish of the eager Pope 
 with an almost affectionate confidence, reflected all Leo's high 
 ambition and longing after fame, toiled to complete St. Peter's, 
 to adorn the Vatican, to perfect tapestries, paint portraits, to 
 discover and protect the ancient works of art, to rebuild 
 Rome; until at last, in the spring of 1520, his genius faded 
 away, leaving its immortal fruits behind it. Other painters 
 of unusual excellence took liis place, but an illimitable dis- 
 tance separates them all from Raffaello. 
 
 Two great names are wanting to the splendid circle of Leo's 
 court, and neither Ariosto nor Michael Angelo can be said to 
 have belonged to his Golden Age. They seem to have shrunk 
 from him almost with aversion. Ariosto was the only true 
 genius among the poets of his time.(°) His varied fancy, his 
 brilliant colors, are the traits of the true artist. He had early 
 been the friend of Leo before he becanie Pope ; he went up 
 to Rome to congratulate the pontiff on his accession ; but some 
 sudden coldness sprung up between the poet and the Pope 
 which led to their complete estrangement. Ariosto was never 
 seen at the banquets and splendid pageants of the Holy City ; 
 
 (') Eoscoe, Leo X., ii., p. 110. C) Id., p. 122.
 
 THE POPE IN DANGER. Y3 
 
 his claims were neglected, his genius overlooked ; and the au- 
 thor of '' Orlando Furioso " lived and died in poverty, while 
 Accolti and Aretino glittered in the prosperity of the papal 
 court. Michael Angelo, too, stood aloof from the pontiff. 
 His clear eye saw through the jewels and gold with which 
 Leo had decked himself to the corruption of his inner life. 
 Luxurious, licentious Kaffaello might consent to obey the 
 imperious will of the graceful actor, but his rival and master 
 lived in a stern isolation. He preferred the conversation and 
 the correspondence of the dignified Vittoria Colonna to the 
 luxurious revelry of Leo and his satyr train. 
 
 But Leo cared little for the absence of those whose deeper 
 sensibilities might have disturbed the progress of his splendid 
 visions. It was enough for him that he was the Sovereign 
 Pontiff ; that he wore the tiara to w^hich he had been destined 
 from his birth. His life was to himself a complete success. 
 It was passed in revelries and pageants, in the society of the 
 rarest wits and the greatest of painters, in the government of 
 nations and the defense of Italy. He was almost always 
 cheerful, hopeful, busy, full of expedients. He lived seem- 
 ingly unconcerned amidst a band of poisoners who were al- 
 ways plotting his death, and a circle of subject princes who 
 might at any moment overthrow his power. He smiled while 
 the glittering sword hung over his liead, and snatched the 
 pleasures of life on the brink of a fearful abyss. To carry 
 out his favorite plan, the elevation of his family to the regal 
 rank, he had done many evil deeds. He robbed a Duke of 
 Urbino of his patrimony through war and bloodshed; had 
 driven the Petrucci from Siena ; was the relentless despoiler 
 of the small states around him. Italy mourned that the Me- 
 dici might become great. Yet so shrunken in numbers was 
 the famous mercantile family, that of the direct legitimate 
 descendants of Cosmo, Leo and his worthless nephew Lorenzo 
 were all that were left. Lorenzo, a drunkard and a monster 
 of vice, was the ruler of Florence, and for him Leo despoiled 
 the Duke of Urbino ; to advance Lorenzo was the cliief aim 
 of his politics. He married him, at length, to Madeline of 
 Tours ; he incurred a vast expense to make him great ; but,
 
 74 LEO AND LVIHEB. 
 
 happily for Florence, Lorenzo not long after died, leaving a 
 daughter, the infamous Catherine de' Medici, the persecutor 
 and the murderess ; and thus a descendant of Cosmo de' Me- 
 dici became the mother of three kings of France. 
 
 In the eyes of Europe, Leo seemed the most fortunate of 
 men, the most accomplished of rulers, a model Pope. The 
 manners and the gayeties of Rome and Florence were imi- 
 tated in the less civilized courts of England, France, and Ger- 
 many. The respect which Leo ever paid to artists, scholars, 
 and men of letters led Francis, Charles, and Henrv YIII. to 
 become their patrons and their friends. Literature became 
 the fashion. The polished student Erasmus wandered from 
 court to court, and was everywhere received as the compan- 
 ion of kings and princes. Henry YIII. aspired to the fame 
 of authorship, and wrote bad Latin. Francis cherished poets 
 and painters. Even the cold Charles V. caught the literary 
 flame. Yet the manners of the court of Eome can scarcely 
 be called refined. Leo was fond of coarse buffoonery and 
 rude practical jokes. lie invited notorious gluttons to his ta- 
 ble, and was amused at the eagerness with which they devour- 
 ed the costly viands, the peacock sausages, or the rare confec- 
 tions.(') He was highly entertained by the sad drollery of 
 idiots and dwarfs. A story is told of Baraballo, a silly old 
 man of a noble family, who wrote bad verses and thought 
 himself another Petrarch. Leo resolved to have him crowned 
 like Petrarch in the Capitol. A day was appointed for the 
 spectacle, costly preparations were made, and the silly Bara- 
 ballo, decked with purple and gold, and mounted upon an ele- 
 phant, the present of the King of Portugal, was led in tri- 
 umph through the streets of Rome, amidst the shouts of the 
 populace and the clamor of drums and trumpets.(°) At the 
 Bridge of St. Angelo, the elephant, more sensible than his 
 rider, refused to go any farther ; Baraballo was forced to dis- 
 mount ; all Rome was filled with laughter ; and Leo commem- 
 orated his unfeeling joke by a piece of sculpture in wood, 
 which is said to be still in existence. Leo was also passion- 
 
 C) Jovius, p. 99. (=) Id., p. 97.
 
 THE CARDINALS WOULD POISON LEO. 75 
 
 ately fond of liimting. No. calls of business, no inclemency 
 of the weather, could keep him from his favorite sport. lie 
 was never so happy as when shooting- partridges and pheas- 
 ants in the forests of Yiterbo, or chasing wild boars on the 
 Tuscan plains. To the tine ceremonial of his Church he is 
 said to have been unusually attentive. He fasted often, in- 
 toned with grace, and his love for music led him to gather 
 from all parts of Europe the sweetest singers and the most 
 skillful instrumental performers to adorn the Roman churches. 
 
 Thus Leo glided gracefully onward, an accomplished actor, 
 always conscious that the eye of Europe was upon him, and 
 always elegant, polite, composed. Yet there must often have 
 been moments when his gracious smile covered an inward ag- 
 ony or a secret terror. His handsome, stately form was al- 
 ways internally diseased; he suffered tierce pangs of pain 
 which he told to few ; and often, as he presided at the gay 
 banquet or some stormy meeting of his holy college, he must 
 have mastered with iron energy the terrible agony inflicted by 
 a hidden disease. But far worse even than actual suffering 
 was the constant dread in which he must have always lived. 
 He was surrounded by poisoners Avho sought his life. His 
 daily associates were those most likely to present to him the 
 deadly draught. It was the holy college that had resolved 
 upon his destruction. 
 
 The cardinals formed a plot to poison the Pope.(') He had 
 disaj)pointed them in living when they had looked for his 
 speedy death, and he had never been able to gratify the bound- 
 less claims they had made upon the sacred treasury. They 
 were the most resolute and unwearied of beggars. "■ You had 
 better at once take my tiara," said the weary pontiff when he 
 was once sun*ounded by the holy mendicants ; and he ever 
 after was hated by most of his cardinals. Among them, too, 
 were several who had some private reason for seeking Leo's 
 death. The author of the plot, Alfonso Petrucci, had lost his 
 revenues at Siena by the fall of his family in that city, and 
 had vowed revenge. He was a young man, fierce, dissolute, 
 
 (') Jovius,pp.88,89.
 
 76 LEO AND LVTHEB. 
 
 gay, feeble. He was accustomed to proclaim openly among 
 his wild companions his hatred for Leo and his plans of venge- 
 ance. Often he came to the meetings of the sacred college 
 with a dagger hidden in his breast, and was only withheld 
 from plunging it in Leo's heart by the fear of seizure. At 
 length he concerted with a famous physician the plan of poison. 
 The most eminent man in the college of cardinals was Riario, 
 Cardinal San Giorgio. He was the wealthiest of his order. 
 He had been a cardinal for forty years. In his yoath he had 
 shared in the plot to murder Lorenzo de' Medici, and now in 
 his old age he aided Petrucci in his design against Leo. He 
 hoped, on the Pope's death, to become his successor. Another 
 conspirator was the Cardinal de' Sauli, who had furnished Pe- 
 trucci with money. Another, Soderinus, the enemy of the 
 Medici, from Florence. The last was the silly Adrian of 
 Corneto. This foolish old man had been assured by a female 
 prophet that the successor to Leo would be named Adrian, 
 and felt sure that no one but himself could be meant. It was 
 observed that the soothsayer spoke truly, and that the next 
 Pope was Adrian ; but not the poisoner. How many others 
 of the college M'ere engaged in the plot is not told. Happily 
 Leo had been watching Petrucci for some time, and intercept- 
 ed a letter that revealed the whole design. Petrucci was ab- 
 sent from Rome, and Leo, in order to get him into his power, 
 sent him a safe-conduct, and even assured the Spanish embas- 
 sador that he would observe it. The conspirator came laughing 
 boastfully to the city. He was at once seized and shut up in 
 the Castle of St. Angelo with his friend De' Sauli ; and Leo 
 excused his own bad faith by alleging the enormity of the 
 crime. 
 
 Pale, agitated, trembling, the Pope now met his cardinals 
 in the consistory. There was scarcely one to whom he could 
 trust his life. He was surromided by secret or open assassins, 
 and he might well fear lest a dagger was hidden beneath each 
 sacred robe.(') He addressed them, however, with his usual 
 dignity ; he complained that he, who had always been so kind 
 
 (') Jovius, p. 89. Guicciard., xiii.
 
 LEO'S EXTRAVAGANCE. 77 
 
 and liberal to them, should thus be threatened by their con- 
 spiracies. Kiario, the head of the college, was already under 
 arrest ; Petrucci and De' Sauli were confined in horrible dun- 
 geons. The Cardinal Soderini fell down at Leo's feet, con- 
 fessing his guilt, and the foolish Adrian was equally penitent. 
 In his punishment of the offenders Leo showed all the severi- 
 ty of his nature. Petrucci was strangled in prison, De' Sauli 
 was released on paying a heavy fine, but died the next year, it 
 was believed of poison. Riario, the venerable assassin, was 
 also fined heavily and forgiven. Poor Adrian fled from Rome, 
 with the loss of his estate, and was never heard of more. Thus 
 Leo broke forever the power of his enemies, the sacred college, 
 and at the same time replenished his treasury by the confisca- 
 tion of their estates. Soon after, by a vigorous stroke of pol- 
 icy, he created thirty-one new cardinals. In many cases the 
 ofiice was sold to the highest bidder, and thus Leo was once 
 more rich and happy.(') He was now (1517) at the height 
 of his power. The Church was omnipotent, and Leo was the 
 Church. His cardinals never afterward gave him any trou- 
 ble ; every heretic had been suppressed or burned ; the city of 
 Rome was the centre of civilization as well as of religion; 
 money flowed in upon it from all the world ; and the lavish 
 pontiff wasted the treasures of the Church in every kind of 
 magnificent extravagance. 
 
 It was because Leo was a splendid spendthrift that we have 
 the Reformation through Luther. The Pope was soon again 
 impoverished and in debt. He never thought of the cost of 
 any thing ; he was lavish without reflection. His wars, in- 
 trigues, his artists and architects, his friends, but above all the 
 miserable Lorenzo, exhausted his fine revenues ; and his treas- 
 ury must again be supplied. When he was in want, Leo was 
 never scrupulous as to the means by which he retrieved his 
 affairs ; he robbed, he defrauded, he begged ; he drew contri- 
 butions from all Europe for a Turkish war, which all Europe 
 knew had been spent upon Lorenzo ; he collected large sums 
 for rebuilding St. Peter's, which were all expended in the same 
 
 (') Jovius,p.90.
 
 78 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 way ; in fine, Leo early exhausted all his spiritual arts as well 
 as his treasury .(') 
 
 Suddenly there opened before liis hopeless mind an El Do- 
 rado richer than ever Spanish ad^■enturer had discovered, 
 more limitless than the treasures of the East and West. It 
 was purgatory. Over that shadowy realm the Pope held un- 
 disputed sway. The severest casuist of the age would admit 
 that the spiritual power of the Church was in that direction 
 limitless. It was nearly a hundred years since Tauler, the 
 German reformer, had suffered martyrdom for denying that 
 the Pope could condemn an innocent man to eternal woe or 
 raise the guiltiest to the habitations of the blest ; and from 
 that hour the authority of the pontiff had been constantly in- 
 creasing, until now he was looked upon as nothing less than 
 Deity upon earth. lie held in his polluted hands the key of 
 immortality. But even had a doubt arisen as to the etficacy 
 of the keys, the pious Aquinas had shown by the clearest ar- 
 gument that the Church possessed a boundless supply of the 
 merits of the saints, and even of its Divine Head^ which 
 might be applied to the succor of any soul that seemed to re- 
 quire external aid. Leo seized upon the notion of the school- 
 men, and extended it to an extreme which they perhaps had 
 never anticipated. He pressed the sale of his indulgences. 
 He offered full absolution to every criminal who would pay 
 him a certain sum of money, joined with contrition ; without 
 contrition, and for a similar payment, he offered to diminish 
 the term for which any person Avas condemned to purgatory, 
 or to set free from the pains of purgatory the dej)arted spirit 
 whose friends Avould pay a proper remuneration.^ Over the 
 shadowy land in Avliose existence he can scarcely have be- 
 lieved, the pontiff presumed to extend his earthly sceptre — to 
 divide it into periods of years, to map it out in distinct grada- 
 tions, and to sell to the highest bidder the longest exemption 
 or a swift release. It was a dreadful impiety, a horrible 
 mockery ; it was selling immortal bliss for money. 
 
 (') Joviiis, p. 92-96. 
 
 (■) Eauke, Ecf., i., p. 335, Robertson, Charles Y., book 
 
 ii.
 
 IND ULGENCES. 79 
 
 The indulgence was first used by Urban II., in the period 
 of the first crusade, to reward those who took up arms for the 
 relief of the Holy Land. It was then granted to any one 
 who hired soldiers for the war; and was next extended to 
 those who gave money to the Pope for some pious purpose. 
 Julius 11. had employed it to raise money to rebuild St. 
 Peter's, and Leo X. sold his indulgences upon the same pre- 
 text.(') But Leo's indulgence, as set forth by his agents in 
 Germany, far excelled those of his predecessors in its daring 
 assumption. It pardoned all sins however gross, restored its 
 purchaser to that state of innocence which he had possessed at 
 baptism, and at his death opened at once to him the gates of 
 paradise. From the moment that he had obtained this valua- 
 ble paper he became one of the elect. lie could never fall.f ) 
 Whatever his future crimes, his salvation was assured. The 
 honor of the Pope and the Church was pledged to secure him 
 against any punishment he might merit in a future world, and 
 to raise him at last to the society of the blessed. But proba- 
 bly the most attractive and merchantable part of the indul- 
 gence was that which set free departed spirits from purgato- 
 rial pains. This ingenious device played upon the tenderest 
 and most powerful instincts of nature. What parent could 
 refuse to purchase the salvation of a dead child ? What son 
 but would sell his all to redeem parents and relatives from 
 purgatory ? It was upon such themes that the strolling vend- 
 ers of indulgences constantly enlarged. They gathered around 
 them a gaping throng of wondering rustics; they stood by 
 the village church-yard and pointed to the humble graves. 
 " Will you allow your father to suffer," Tetzel cried out to a 
 credulous son, " when twelve pence will redeem him from tor- 
 inent ? If you had but one coat, you should strip it off, sell 
 it, and purchase my wares." " Hear you not," he would say 
 to another, " the groans of your lost child in yonder church- 
 yard? Come and buy his immediate salvation. No sooner 
 shall your money tinkle in my box than his soul will ascend to 
 
 (') Sarpi, Con. Tri., p. 4 et seq. Paluviciui, Hist. Con. Tiideut. 
 C) Seckeudorf, Com., i., p. 14.
 
 80 LEO AXD LUTHER. 
 
 heaven." Thus Leo made a traffic of immortal bliss. There 
 is something almost sublime in his presumption. From his 
 gorgeous throne in the Eternal City he stood before mankind 
 claiming a divine authority over the world and all that it con- 
 tained. Kings, emperors, princes, were his infenors and his 
 spiritual sei-fs. He divided the globe between the Spaniards 
 and Portuguese. His simple legate was to take the prece- 
 dence of princes. It was the fashion of the churchmen of the 
 day to magnify their office, to claim for it an immutable supe- 
 riority, as if the office sanctified the possessor.(') Conscious of 
 their own impurity and hypocrisy, they sought, as is so often 
 the case with immoral priests, to raise themselves above pub- 
 lic scrutiny, and to create for themselves a position amidst 
 the clouds of imputed sanctity, where, like their prototypes, 
 the heathen gods, they might sin unchallenged. They looked 
 down with contempt upon the too curious worshiper, who was 
 unfit to touch their garments ; they veiled themselves in the 
 dignity of the office they degraded. But the earthly state 
 assumed by the haughty priests was as nothing compared to 
 their spiritual claims. The Popes professed to concentrate in 
 themselves all the power and virtue of the Church. They 
 were its despots.('') The evil Alexander and the fierce Julius 
 had condemned to eternal woe whoever should appeal to a 
 council. Leo spoke to the world as its divine ruler. He was 
 the possessor of all the merits of the saints and martyrs, and 
 of the boundless sufficiency of Calvary. He ruled over the 
 future world as well as the present ;Q he could unfold the 
 gates of paradise, and snatch the guilty from the jaws of hell ; 
 his power extended over countless subjects in the shadowy 
 world, whose destiny depended on his pleasure, and who were 
 the slaves of his caprice. 
 
 The indulgences at first sold well. But their sale was 
 chiefly confined to Gennany.(') Spain, under the control of 
 
 (') See Eccius, De Priniatu Petri, 1520. 
 
 {^) Eccius argues that the Church must be a monarchy, ii., p. 81. 
 (^) The control of demons is still asserted. See Propagatiou de la Foi, 
 1867, pp. 39, 439. At least Chinese demons. 
 (*) Ranke, Ref., i., p. 332-335.
 
 ^.V EL DORADO. 81 
 
 Ximenes, liad long before refused to permit its wealtli to be 
 drained into the treasury of Rome. France was liostile to the 
 Pope. England yielded only a small return. But over the 
 dull peasants of Germany the acute Italians had succeeded in 
 weaving their glittering web of superstition, until that unhap- 
 py land had become the El Dorado of the Church. Every 
 year immense sums of money had flowed from Germany to 
 Kome for annats, palliums, and various other ecclesiastical de- 
 vices ; and now the whole country was divided into three great 
 departments under the care of three commissions for the sale 
 of indulgences.(') Itinerant traders in the sacred commodity 
 passed from town to town and fair to fair, extolling the value 
 of their letters of absolution and pressing them upon the pop- 
 ular attention. They were followed wherever they went by 
 great throngs of people ; and their loud voices, coarse jokes, 
 and shameless eloquence seem to have been attended with 
 extraordinary success. They are represented as having been 
 usually persons of worthless characters and licentious morals, 
 who passed their nights in drinking and revelry at taverns, 
 and their days in making a mockery of religion ; who proved 
 the value of the plenary indulgence by the daring immorality 
 of their lives. They were secure in the shelter of Rome, and 
 had a safe-conduct to celestial bliss. 
 
 The Elector Frederick of Saxony was now the most power- 
 ful of the German princes. His dominions were extensive 
 and wealthy ; he was sagacious, Arm, and honest ; and he had 
 always opposed with success the various eiforts of the Popes 
 to draw contributions from his priest-ridden subjects.(^) Fred- 
 erick was already irritated against the Elector of Mentz, who 
 had in charge the sale of indulgences ; and he openly declared 
 that Albert should not pay his private debts " out of the pock- 
 ets of the Saxons." He saw with indignation that his people 
 were beginning to resort in great numbers to the sellers of the 
 pious frauds. But the resistance of Frederick to the religious 
 excitement of the day would have proved ineffectual had he 
 not been aided by an humble instrument whose future omnip- 
 
 (') Rauke, Eef., i., p. 333. C) Id., p. 341. • 
 
 6
 
 82 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 otence lie could scarcely liave foreseen. It was to a poor monk 
 that Saxony and Germany were to owe their deliverance from 
 Italian priestcraft. Five years had passed since Martin Lu- 
 ther had returned from his pilgrimage to Rome, with his hon- 
 est conscience stricken and horrilied by the pagan atmosphere 
 of the Holy City. During that period the poor scholar had 
 risen to eminence and renown.(') He had become professor 
 in the university at Wittenberg, wdiich the Elector Frederick 
 had founded ; his eloquence and learning, his purity and his 
 vigor, had given him a strong control over the students and 
 the people of the small scholastic city. Already he had 
 wrought a lesser reformation in the manners and the lives of 
 the throngs who listened to his animated preaching ; already 
 he had even planned a general reform of the German Church. 
 But as yet Luther had entertained no doubts of the papal su- 
 premacy. He still practiced all the austerity of penance, and 
 still clung to all the formulas of his faith. The Pope was 
 still to him a deity upon earth ; Eome, the city of St. Peter 
 and the martyrs ; the Fathers, an indisputable authority ; and 
 although he had learned to study the Scriptures with earnest 
 attention, he yet interpreted them by the light of other con- 
 sciences than his own. His honest intellect still slumbered 
 under that terrible weight of superstition beneath which the 
 cunning Italians had imprisoned the mind of the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 A shock aroused Luther from his slumber ; a shock startled 
 all Germany into revolt. The loud voice of the shameless 
 Tetzel was heard in Saxony extolling his impious wares, and 
 claiming to be the dispenser of immortal bliss. His life had 
 been one of gross immorality ; he was an ignorant and coarse 
 Dominican ; his rude jokes and brutal demeanor, his reveh-ies 
 and his licentious tongue, filled pious men with affright. He 
 ventured to approach Wittenberg, and some of Luthers i)a- 
 rishioners wandered away to the neighboring towns of Jiiter- 
 bock to join with the multitude who were buying absolution 
 
 (') Luther's Briefweclasel, by Burkliardt, 16GG. lie soou begius to corre- 
 spoud with the highest officials.
 
 LUTHER'S DANGER. 83 
 
 from the dissolute friar.(') It was the decisive moment of 
 modern history. The mightiest intellect of the age was 
 roused into sudden action ; the intellect whose giant strength 
 was to shiver to atoms the magnificent fabric of papal super- 
 stition, and give freedom to thought and liberty to man. Lu- 
 ther rose up inspired. He wrote out in fair characters his 
 ninety -five propositions on the doctrine of indulgences, and 
 nailed them (1517) to the gates of liis j)arochial church at 
 Wittenberg. lie proclaimed to mankind that the Pope had 
 no power to forgive sin ; that the just must live by faith. 
 Swift as the electric flash which had won him from the world 
 his bold thoughts rushed over Germany, and startled the cor- 
 rupt atmosphere of Rome. It is related that just after his 
 daring act the Elector Frederick, as he slept in his castle of 
 Schweinitz, on the night of All-Saints, dreamed that he saw 
 the monk writing on the chapel at "Wittenberg in characters 
 so large that they could be read at Schweinitz ; longer and 
 longer grew Luther's pen, till at last it reached Rome, struck 
 the Pope's triple crown, and made it tremble on his head. 
 Frederick stretched forth his arm to catch the tiara as it fell, 
 but just then awoke. All Germany dreamed a similar dream ; 
 it awoke to find it a reality.(*) 
 
 Germany was then no safe place for reformers or heretics. 
 It was in a state of miserable anarchy and barbarism. The 
 great cities, grown rich by commerce and honest industry, 
 were engaged in constant hostilities with the robber knights 
 whose powerful castles studded the romantic banks of the 
 Rhine and filled the fastnesses of the interior. (') Often the 
 long trains of wealthy traders on their way to Nuremberg or 
 the fair at Leipsic were set upon by the lordly robbers, who 
 sprung upon them from some castled crag, their rare goods 
 were ravished away, their hard-earned gains torn from them, 
 and the prisoners condemned to torture and dismal dungeons 
 until they had paid an excessive ransom. Often rich burgh- 
 ers came back to their native cities from some unfortunate 
 trading expedition impoverished, with one hand lopj)ed off, 
 
 (•) Ranke, Eef., i., p. 343. C) Id, i., p. 343. C) Id., l, p. 223.
 
 84 LEO AXD LUTHER. 
 
 and sliowiiig their bleeding arms to tlicir enraged fellow-citi- 
 zens. Even poor scholars were often seized, tortured, and the 
 miserable sums they had won by begging torn from them by 
 the brutal nobles. The knights, like Gotz von Berlichingen, 
 boasted that they were the wolves, and the rich traders the 
 sheep upon whom they preyed. But terrible was the revenge 
 which the citizens were accustomed to take upon their de- 
 spoilers. When their mounted train-bands issued forth from 
 the gates of Nuremberg the tenants of every castle trembled 
 and grew pale. The brave Nurembergers swept the country 
 far and wide. They scaled the lofty crags, swarmed over the 
 tottering walls, and burned or massacred the robbers in their 
 dens. Noble birth was then of no avail; knightly prowess 
 awoke no pity ; the castle was made the smoldering grave of 
 its owners. Yet the knights would soon again renew their 
 strongholds, and once more revive this perpetual civil war. 
 Every part of Germany was desolated by the ruthless strife. 
 
 Above the knights were the princes and electors, who prey- 
 ed upon the people by taxes and heavy contributions. At the 
 head of all stood the Emperor Maximilian, who seized upon 
 whatever he could get by force or fraud. Yet the influence 
 most fatal to the prosperity of Germany was that of the Ital- 
 ian Church. Eome raled over Germany with a remorseless 
 sway. Heresy was punished by the fierce Dominicans with 
 torture and the stake. The Church, it is estimated, held near- 
 ly one-half of all the land, and would pay no taxes. Every 
 church was an asylum in which murderers and malefactors 
 found a safe refuge, and the Church establishments in the rich 
 cities were looked upon by the prosperous citizens as fatal to 
 the public peace. They were dens of thieves and assassins. 
 The characters of the German priests and monks, too, were 
 often vile beyond description, and the classic satire of Eras- 
 mus and the skillful pencil of Holbein have portrayed only 
 an outline of their crimes. 
 
 In such a land Luther must have felt that he could scarcely 
 hope for safety. He must have foreseen, as he took his ir- 
 revocable step, that he exposed himself to the Incpiisition and 
 the stake. He was at once encountered by a host of enemies.
 
 GEEMANY UXQUIET. 85 
 
 Tetzel declaimed against him in coarse invectives as a heretic 
 worthy of death.(') Priests and professors, the universities 
 and the pulpit, united in his condemnation. He was already 
 marked out by his enemies as the victim whose blood was to 
 seal the supremacy of the Pope. Yet his wonderful intellect 
 in this moment of danger began now to display its rare fer- 
 tility. He wrote incessantly in defense of his opinions ; his 
 treatises spread over Germany ; and very «soon the reform 
 tracts, multiplied by the printing-press, were sold and distrib- 
 uted in great numbers through all the fairs and cities of the 
 land. The German intellect awoke with the controversy, and 
 all true Geraians began to look with admiration and sjm- 
 pathy upon the brave monk who had ventured to defy the 
 power of the papal court. At Pome, meantime, nothing was 
 less thought of than a schism in the Church. Leo was at the 
 height of his prosperity. He had just dissolved the Lateran 
 Council, which had yielded him a ready obedience ; his cardi- 
 nals were submissive ; he was the most powerful and fortunate 
 of Popes. From dull and priest-ridden Germany he looked 
 for no trouble, and when he first heard of the controversy be- 
 tween Luther and the Dominicans he spoke of it as a wrangle 
 of barbarous monks. The fierce storm that was gathering in 
 the North was scarcely noticed amidst the gay banquets and 
 tasteful revelries of Pome. But this could not continue long. 
 It was soon seen by the papal courtiers that if Luther was 
 permitted to write and live, a large part of their revenues 
 would be cut off ; and Leo himself felt that if he allowed his 
 dominion over purgatory to be called in question, he must 
 soon cease to adorn the Vatican or subsidize Lorenzo. If he 
 lost his shadowy El Dorado, where could he turn for money ? 
 The remedy was easy ; he must silence or destroy the monk. 
 He issued a summons (July, 15IS) for Luther to appear at 
 Pome within sixty days, to answer for his heresies before his 
 Inquisitor-General. Soon after, as he learned the extent of 
 his danger, he sent orders to his legate in Germany to have 
 the monk seized and brought to the Holy City. 
 
 C) Rauke, Ref., i., p. 347.
 
 86 LEO AND LVTEEE. 
 
 If this arrogant decree had been executed, there can be little 
 doubt as to what must have been Luther's fate. He must have 
 pined away in some Iloman dungeon, have perished under 
 torture, or have sunk, Hke the offending cardinals, beneath the 
 slow effect of secret poison. The insignificant monk would 
 have proved an easy victim to the experts of Rome, But, 
 fortunately for the reformer, all Germany was now become 
 his friend. In a few brief months he had become a hero. 
 Never was there so sudden a rise to influence and renown. 
 His name was already famous from the Baltic to the Alps ; 
 scholars and princes wrote to him words of encouragement ; 
 the common people followed him as their leader; and the 
 great Elector of Saxony, the most potent of the German 
 princes, was the open patron of the eloquent monk. Ger- 
 many was resolved that its honest thinker should not be ex- 
 posed to the evil arts of liome ; and Leo, obliged to employ 
 milder expedients to enforce his authority, consented that his 
 chief adversary should be permitted to defend his opinions 
 before Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg. It was Luther's first 
 great victory. 
 
 Still, however, he was in imminent danger. If Germany 
 was on his side, yet all the Italian Germans were more than 
 ever eager for his destruction. The corrupt priests, the dis- 
 solute monks, the fierce Dominicans, the Pope, the Church, 
 even the Emperor Maximilian, were arrayed against the true- 
 hearted monk. He lived in the constant presence of death. 
 Yet his spiritual agonies were, no doubt, to Luther more intol- 
 erable than any physical danger ; for he was still only a search- 
 er after truth. Ilis nights and days were passed in an eager 
 study of the Scriptures ; he moved slowly onward through 
 an infinite course of mental improvement ; he was forced to 
 snatch the jewels of faith from the dim caverns of supersti- 
 tion; he groped his way painfully toward the light. Yet so 
 admirable was the disposition of this renowned reformer that 
 through all his dangers he was always hopeful, often joyous 
 and gay. Sickness, pain, mental or physical terrors, could nev- 
 er deprive his gallant nature of its hidden stores of joy and 
 peace. His clear voice often rose high in song or hymn ; he
 
 INTELLECTUAL TOUEXEYS. 87 
 
 was the gay and cheerful companion, always the tender friend ; 
 his lute often sounded cheerfully in still nights at Wittenberg 
 or Wartburg; and his love for poetry and letters soothed 
 many an hour he was enabled to win from his weary labors. 
 Compared with his persecutor, Leo, Luther's was by far the 
 happier life. His joys were pure, his impulses noble, his con- 
 science stainless; while Leo strove to find his joy in coarse 
 buffoonery and guilty revels, in outward magnificence and 
 idle glitter. 
 
 There now began a series of wonderful intellectual tourna- 
 ments, the successors of the brutal encounters of chivalry and 
 the Middle Ages, in which the true knight, Luther, beat down 
 his pagan assailants with the iron mace of truth.(') It had be- 
 come the custom in Germany for scholars to dispute before 
 splendid audiences abstruse questions of philosophy and learn- 
 ing; but the questions which Luther discussed were such as 
 had never been ventured upon before. Was the Pope infalli- 
 ble ? Could he save a guilty soul ? Could not even councils 
 err ? Was not Huss a true martyr ? Knights, princes, emper- 
 ors, gathered round the pale, sad monk as he discussed these 
 daring themes, heard with a strange awe his eloquent argu- 
 ment which they scarcely understood, and were still in doubt 
 whether to accept him as a leader or to bind him to the stake. 
 The first of these noted encounters occurred (1518) at Augs- 
 burg, where the graceful Cardinal Cajetan, fresh from the At- 
 tic atmosphere of Rome, came to subdue the barbarous Ger- 
 man by force or fraud. Luther came to the hostile city full 
 of fears of the subtlety of his polished opponent-C") He felt 
 that it was by no means incredible that the cardinal was com- 
 missioned to seize him and carry him to a Roman prison ; he 
 knew that Maximilian, who was still Emperor of Germany, 
 was not unwilling to gratify the Pope by his surrender. Yet 
 so poor and humble was this object of the enmity of prelates 
 and rulers that Luther was obliged to beg his way to Augs- 
 burg. Sick, faint, dressed in a borrowed cowl, his frame 
 gaunt and thin, his wild eyes glittering with supernatural 
 
 C) Walch, xxiv., p. 434. C) Rauke, Ref., i., p. 427.
 
 88 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 lire, the monk entered the city. Tlie people crowded to see 
 him pass; he was protected by a safe conduct from Maximil- 
 ian and the patronage of Elector Frederick ; and he met the 
 cardinal boldly. Yet it was hardly an equal encounter ; for 
 Lnther was sick, faint, poor, and in peril of his life, while 
 Cajetan, in the glow of wealth and power, was the legate and 
 representative of infallible Rome. At first, in several inter- 
 views, the cardinal consented to argue, but when Luther com- 
 pletely confused and overthrew him, the enraged combatant, 
 with a false and meaning smile, commanded the monk to sub- 
 mit to the judgment of the Church. Luther soon after fled 
 from Augsburg, conscious that he was no longer safe in the 
 hands of his enemies. Leo, in November, issued his bull de- 
 claring his right to grant indulgences, and the monk replied, 
 with bold menaces, by an appeal from the Pope to the decis- 
 ion of a council of the Church. 
 
 Maximilian died, and an interregnum followed, during 
 which the Elector of Saxony became the ruler of Germany. 
 Safe in his protection, the monk continued to write, to preach, 
 to advance in religious knowledge ; and a wild excitement 
 arose throughout the land. Melanchtlion joined Luther at 
 "Wittenberg, a young man of twenty, the best Greek scholar 
 of his time, and the two friends pursued their studies and 
 their war against the Pope together. But a second grand in- 
 tellectual tournament soon summoned the knight-errant of re- 
 ligious liberty to buckle on his armor. It was at Leipsic, a 
 city devoted to the papacy, that Luther was to defend the 
 E,eformation.(') His chief opponent w^as Eck or Eccius, a 
 German priest, learned, eloquent, ambitious, corrupt, and eager 
 to win the favor of his master at Rome. He had assailed the 
 opinions of Carlstadt, one of Luther's associates at Witten- 
 berg, and now the reformer was to appear in defense of his 
 friend. The Leipsic university M-as bitterly hostile to Wit- 
 tenberg and reform, and Eck rejoiced to have an opportunity 
 to display his eloquence and learning in the midst of the most 
 Catholic city of Germany. It was whispered that Eck was 
 
 (') W;ilcb, xxiv., p. 434.
 
 LVTHEB AND ECK. 89 
 
 too fond of Bavarian beer, and tliat his morals were far from 
 purity ; yet he was welcomed by the students and professors 
 of Leipsic with joy and proud congratulations as the invincible 
 champion of the Church. 
 
 Soon the Wittenbergers appeared, riding in low, open wag- 
 ons, to the hostile city, in the pleasant month of June. Carl- 
 stadt came first, then Luther and Melanchthon, then the young 
 Duke of Pomerania, a student and rector of Wittenberg, and 
 then a throng of other students, most of them on foot and 
 armed with halberds, battle-axes, and spears, to defend them- 
 selves or their professors in case of attack ; and it was noticed 
 as a mark of unusual discourtesy that none of the Leipsic col- 
 leg-ians or teachers came out to meet their literarv rivals. Yet 
 every necessary preparation had been made by the good-nat- 
 nred Duke George for the mental combat. A spacious hall 
 in the castle, hung with tapestry and provided with two pul- 
 pits for the speakers and seats for a large audience, was ar- 
 ranged for the occasion ; and the proceedings opened with 
 a solemn mass. A noble and splendid audience filled the 
 room.(') The interest was intense ; the champions, the most 
 renowned theologians in Germany ; their subject, the origin 
 and authority of the papal power at Eome.(^) Carlstadt com- 
 menced the argument, but in a few days he was completely 
 discomfited by his practiced opponent. The Wittenbergers 
 were covered with confusion. Eck's loud voice, tall, muscular 
 figure, violent gestures, quick retort, and ready learning seem- 
 ed to carry him over the field invincible. But on the 4th of 
 July, a day memorable for another reform, the interest was re- 
 doubled as Martin Luther rose. He was of middle size, and 
 so thin as to seem almost fleshless. His voice was weak com- 
 pared to that of his opponent ; his bearing mild and modest. 
 But he was now in his thirty-sixth year ; his intellect, worn by 
 many toils and ceaseless labor, was in its full vigor ; and his 
 eager search after truth had given him a strength and novelty 
 of thought that no scholar of the age could equal. He as- 
 cended the platform with joy, and it w^as noticed that the fond 
 
 (') Walch, sxiv., p. 434-437. (=) It led to this.
 
 to LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 lover of nature carried a nosegay in his hand. Luther, at once 
 neglecting all minor topics, assailed the authority of the Pope. 
 With perfect self-command he ruled his audience at will, and 
 princes and professors listened with awe and almost terror as 
 tliey heard the daring novelty of his argument. From deny- 
 ing the authority of the Pope he advanced to the denial of 
 the supremacy of a council ; he unfolded with eloquent candor 
 the long train of progressive thought through which his own. 
 mind had just passed ; to the horror of all true Catholics, he 
 suggested tliat IIuss might have been a martyr. The audience 
 was appalled ; Duke George, startled, uttered a loud impreca- 
 tion. The discomfited Eccius exclaimed, " Then, reverend fa- 
 ther, you are to me as a heathen and a publican." 
 
 The Wittenbergers retm'ned in safety and triumph to their 
 college. But the corrupt nature of Eck, exasperated by Lu- 
 ther's bold defiance, led him to resolve on the destruction of 
 his opponent. Nothing would satisfy him but that the brave 
 monk should meet the fate of John Huss or Jerome of Prague. 
 Eck, like Luther, was a German peasant's son ;(') his persistent 
 malignity now decided the destiny of the Church. He has- 
 tened to Rome, and aroused the passions of Leo by his fierce 
 declamations against Luther ; the prudent pontiff seems to have 
 been forced into extreme measures by the violence of the cor- 
 rupt German; and Eck returned to Germany armed with a 
 papal bull condemning Luther's writings to the flames,Q and 
 commanding him to recant his heresies within sixty days, or 
 to be expelled from the Church. But Luther had already re- 
 solved to abandon the Church of Rome forever. He pro- 
 claimed his decision by a remarkable act. On the 10th of De- 
 cember, 1520, in the presence of an immense throng of stu- 
 dents, magistrates, and persons of every rank, the bold monk 
 cast into a blazing fire, without the walls of Wittenberg, 
 the Pope's bull and a copy of the papal decrees. Erom their 
 smoldering ashes sjDrung up the Church of the Reformation. 
 
 Leo, enraged beyond endurance, now issued the bull of ex- 
 communication, the most terrible of the anathemas of the 
 
 (') Rauke, Ref., i., p. 444. C) Dated Juue 15tb, 1520.
 
 LUTHEB SUMMONED TO WORMS. 91 
 
 Churcli. Luther was declared accursed of God and man. 
 Tliere had been a time when such a sentence would have ap- 
 palled the greatest monarch in Christendom ; when the ex- 
 communicate had been looked upon by all men with horror 
 and dread ; when he was cut off from the society of his fel- 
 lows, and was held as an outlaw deserving of instant death. 
 But to Luther no such fatal consequences followed. Ilis 
 friends gathered around him more firmly than ever; men of 
 intellect in every land acknowledged his greatness, and Ger- 
 many rejoiced in the fame of its hero. Yet nothing is more 
 remarkable in the history of this wonderful man than that 
 he escaped death by poison or assassination ; that in the midst 
 of a land of anarchy and crime, surrounded by powerful en- 
 emies, cut oif from the Church, accursed by the Pope, he 
 should yet have been permitted to pursue, unmolested, his 
 career of reform, to succeed in all his designs, to baffle all his 
 foes, and finally to die in peace, sm-rounded by his loving 
 family, in the very town where he was born. Another mighty 
 foe had now suddenly started up as if to complete Luther's 
 ruin. Charles Y. had become Emperor of Germany. He 
 was a young man of twenty, cold, grave, sickly, unscrupulous ; 
 he had been educated in the remorseless school of the Domin- 
 icans, and was the most devoted servant of the Church. To 
 Charles Leo now appealed for aid against the arch-heretic, and 
 the young monarch summoned Luther before him at the fa- 
 mous Diet of Worms."(') 
 
 Far and wide over Germany spread the news that the re- 
 former had been cited to appear before the Emperor, and all 
 men believed that the crisis of his fate was at hand. Every 
 eye was turned upon the humble monk. The peasant's son 
 was about to stand before princes, and every true German 
 heart warmed with love and pity for him, who seemed certain 
 to fall before his mighty foes. Luther's friends strove to 
 prevent him from venturing within the hostile city. " You 
 will be another Huss!" they exclaimed.(') They suggested 
 
 (*) Walch, xxiv., p. 459. Audiu, ii., p. 101, and Miclielet, cbiefly follow 
 Walcb.
 
 92 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 the subtle cruelty of the Italians and the implacable enmity 
 of the priests. But Luther seemed urged on by an irresistible 
 impulse to go to Worms and plead his cause before the em- 
 peror, the princes, Europe, and all coming ages. " I would 
 go," he cried, " though my enemies had raised a wall of tire 
 between Eisenach and Worms reaching to the skies !" " I will 
 be there," he said again, " though as many demons surround 
 me as there are tiles on the roofs of the houses !" In his 
 rapt, half -in spired state he believed that Satan and his angels 
 had encompassed him on every side, and that their chief object 
 was to prevent his reaching the city. It is certain that all 
 the evil passions, every corrupt desire, every immoral impulse 
 of the age, hung like raging demons over the path of the re- 
 former.(^) 
 
 Never was there a more memorable journey than that of 
 Luther over the heart of Germany, from Wittenberg to 
 Worms. It was Daniel going to the lions' den ; it was a hero 
 traveling to his doom ; it was the successful champion of 
 many an intellectual tournament couching his gallant lance 
 against the citadel of his foes. It was spring, and the early 
 leaves and flowers were clustering around the pleasant paths 
 of Germany. Sturm, the emperor's herald, appeared at 
 Wittenberg, and said, " Master Luther, are you ready ?" The 
 monk assented cheerfully, and at once set out. He traveled 
 in a very different way from that in which he had entered 
 Augsburg two years before, begging his subsistence from 
 town to town. Now he was the renowned champion of a 
 new Germany ; the harbinger of a brighter era. The herald, 
 clothed in gay attire, rode before him. Luther followed in a 
 low wagon or chariot, accompanied by several friends. By 
 his side was the learned doctor of laws, Schurf, his legal 
 adviser, and several theologians. As he passed the popula- 
 tion of the cities came out to meet him ; princes and nobles 
 greeted liim on every hand, and pressed money upon him to 
 
 (') Walch, xxiv., p. 4G0: "Seine gute Freunde riethen ibm vou der 
 Ersclieinnug ab uud stellen ilim Hussens Exempel vor." 
 (') Walcb,xxiv., p. 462.
 
 LUTHEE'S HYMX. 93 
 
 pay Ms extraordinary expenses ; even hostile Leipsie offered 
 him as a pledge of hospitality a draught of rare wine ; at 
 "Weimar the good duke forced gold upon him; at various 
 places he was forced to preach before immense congregations. 
 Yet in every city he saw posted in the public streets the bull 
 condemning his writings to the flames. He paused a while 
 at Erfurth, and wept as he revisited his little cell, with its 
 solitary table and small garden, and remembered the wild July 
 morning when the angry lightning-flash had won him from 
 the world. (') He passed through Eisenach, was taken very 
 ill there, and had nearly died in the town where, a beggar- 
 child, thirty years before, he sung his mournful melodies from 
 door to door. He saw his relatives from Mansfeld, his peas- 
 ant family, and parted in tears from the well-known scenes. 
 And thus, as if to prepare him for his doom, or to arm him 
 for the fight, in this memorable journey, Luther's vivid mind 
 must have pictured to itself a perfect outline of his by-gone 
 life. 
 
 On the 16th of April Luther saw in the distance the towers 
 of Worms. The fiery furnace lay before him.(^) He firmly 
 believed that he was going to his death, but his only fear was 
 that his cause might perish with him. Tradition relates that, 
 as he saw the city afar off, Luther rose up in his chariot and 
 sung, in a resonant voice, a noble hymn which he had com- 
 posed on the way, " God, our strong tower and defense, our 
 help in every need." It is a poetical thought ; it stirs the 
 fancy as we narrate it. The venerable city of "Worms was 
 now thronged with all the great and powerful of Germany : 
 the emperor, the bishops, the papal legate, the princes, and a 
 host of armed men, citizens, and priests. As the monk ap- 
 proached in his wagon, he was met by a wild enthusiasm 
 greater than ever princes or bishops liad awakened. He was 
 surrounded by throngs of people ; the roofs of the houses 
 were covered with eager spectators ; his pale, worn counte- 
 nance must have been brightened by a sentiment of gratitude 
 
 (') Audin, ii., p. 101-105. He " railed at monks and priests on his way," 
 says Audin. (") WalcL, xxiv., p. 463.
 
 94 LEO AND LUTHEE. 
 
 and triumph as lie felt that the people were his frieiicls.(') lie 
 was taken to the lodgings prepared for him by the careful 
 Elector Frederick ; but even there he could have found little 
 repose from the constant throng of visitors of high rank who 
 pressed in to see him and cheer him with encouraging words. 
 The next day, toward evening, the setting sun flashed his 
 last rays through the great hall at Worms over an assemblage 
 of the Emperor and princes of Germany. On a throne of 
 state, clothed in regal robes, a collar of pearls around his neck, 
 the insignia of the Golden Fleece glittering on his breast, sat 
 the youthful and impassive Charles. Every eye in the splen- 
 did assembly had been turned with eager interest to his grave, 
 young face, for to his narrow intellect was committed the de- 
 cision of a cause that involved the destiny of ages. On his 
 right sat a dignified array of the electoral bishops of the em- 
 pire.(^) Each was a lesser pope, a spiritual and temporal lord, 
 the firm opponent of heresy, the persecutor of the just. The 
 bishops in gorgeous attire, their red and blue robes bordered 
 with ermine, with all the imposing decorations of their order, 
 assumed the highest places next to their imperial lord. On 
 the left hand of the emperor the temporal electors, mighty 
 warriors, and imperious rulers had their seat. They, too, wore 
 robes bordered with ermine, and glittered with diamonds and 
 rubies ; but the lustre of their almost regal power and ancient 
 state was more imposing than any external pomp. Among 
 them was seen the calm, firm countenance of Frederick, Elect- 
 or of Saxony. On lower seats were gathered six hundred 
 princes, lords, and prelates. There were fierce Dominicans 
 from Spain, with dark, menacing eyes, the sworn extii-pators 
 of heresy.(') There were brave German knights, renowned 
 for valiant or cruel deeds, seamed with the scars of battle. 
 There were jurisconsults in black ; monks with cowl and 
 
 C) Walch, xxiv., p. 463 ; xv., p. 2192. Luther's own account of his jour- 
 ney. 
 
 C) See list of persons at the Diet. Walch, xv., p. 2227. 
 
 (') The Spaniards always boasted that there was no heretic in all Spain. 
 See Muerte de Diaz, Reformistas Antiq. Esp., vol. xx. "WTieu Alfonso Diaz 
 assassinated his heretic brother, his countrymen approved the act.
 
 THE DIET OF WORMS. 95 
 
 shaven heads ; abbots, orators, and priests. There a vast as- 
 sembly of all whom Germany had been accnstomed to fear 
 and to obey awaited in stern expectation the approach of an 
 excommunicated monk. But the spectacle without was far 
 more imposing; it was a triumph of the mind. Every roof, 
 tower, or convenient place was covered with people waiting to 
 see Luther pass. A great multitude had gathered to devour with 
 eager eyes the form and features of one whose humble brow and 
 shaven head were made illustrious by the coronal of genius. 
 
 So dense was the throng that Luther was obliged to go 
 through gardens and private ways in order to reach the Diet. 
 As he entered the magnificent assembly, he heard friendly 
 voices on all sides bidding him godspeed. He pA'essed 
 through the crowd ; he stood in the presence of the emperor. 
 Every eye was turned away from Charles and fixed upon the 
 humble monk ; he seemed confused by the scrutiny of the 
 princely multitude, and his voice, when the proceedings began, 
 was faint and low. Little was done at the first meeting; 
 Luther was required to admit that he was the author of the 
 writings published under his name, and to recant his heresies. 
 By the advice of his counsel, Schurf, he asked for time to re- 
 ply to the demand. The assembly broke up, to meet again 
 the next day ; and the emperor, deceived by Luther's modest 
 bearing, said to his attendants, " That man will never make 
 me a heretic." In his old age, Charles V. was suspected of 
 having adopted the opinions of the reformer whom in his 
 youth he had despised. That evening Luther's room was 
 again filled with princes and nobles, who came to press his 
 hand and congratulate him upon his courageous bearing. He 
 passed the night in prayer, and sometimes was heard playing 
 upon a lute. But the next afternoon, about six o'clock, when 
 torches had been lighted in the great hall and flashed upon 
 the glittering jewels and stern countenances of the assembled 
 diet, Lutlier arose, in the conscious pride of commanding elo- 
 quence and a just cause, to defend the Eeformation. He was 
 assailed and interrupted by the constant assaults of his oppo- 
 nent ; he replied to every charge with vigor and acuteuess ; he 
 spoke with a full flow of language, whether in German or Lat-
 
 96 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 in.(') "Martin Luther," said the imperial counselor, "yester- 
 day you acknowledged the authorship of these books. Do you 
 now retract or disown them ?" Luther fixed his inspired eyes 
 upon the emperor and the long array of dignitaries around 
 him, and replied :(°) " Most serene emperor, illustrious princes, 
 most clement lords, I claim your benevolence. If in my re- 
 ply I do not use the just ceremonial of a court, pardon me, 
 for I am not familiar with its usages. I am but a poor monk, 
 a child of the cell, and I have labored only for the glory of 
 God." For two hours he spoke upon conscience and its priv- 
 ileges, of its superiority to the claims of popes or councils, of 
 the right of private judgment, of the supremacy of the Script- 
 ures. The assembly listened with eager interest to his won- 
 derful voice as it rose and fell in natural cadences, reflecting 
 the varied novelty of his thoughts. The honest German 
 princes heard with pride and joy an eloquence which they 
 could scarcely understand. Erick of Brunswick sent him a 
 tankard of wine through the press of the crowd.(') " How 
 well did our Doctor Luther speak to-day !" said the calm Elect- 
 or Frederick, in a moment of unusual enthusiasm. But to 
 the emperor and his papal followers Luther had spoken in 
 vain. They said the monk was imbecile ; they did not know 
 what he meant when he appealed to conscience and the right 
 of private judgment. Meantime the torches were burning 
 low in the great hall, and night gathered around the assembly. 
 Luther's enemies pressed upon him w^ith new violence ; they 
 commanded him to retract his heresies in the name of the 
 Pope and the Church ; they threatened him with the punish- 
 ment of the heretic. Then the reformer, once more confront- 
 ing tlie hostile emperor, the persecuting bishops, the frowning 
 Spaniards, and the papal priests, said, in a bold and resonant 
 voice : " Unless, your majesty, I am convinced by the plain 
 words of the Scriptures, I can retract nothing. God be my 
 help. Here I take my stand."(^) 
 
 C) Walch, XV., p. 2231. (") Id. 
 
 C) Audin, ii., p. 129. Ranke, Ref., i., p. 538. 
 
 C) Ranke, Ref., i., p. 536. I trauslate the mcauiiig ratlier than the exact 
 words.
 
 LUTHER COXDEMXED. 97 
 
 It "U'as the voice of awakening reason ; the bugle - note of 
 modern reform. Never since the days of the martyrs and 
 the apostles had that noble somid been heard. Never had 
 the right of private judgment been so generously asserted; 
 never had the apostolic doctrine of conscience been so dis- 
 tinctly proclaimed. Luther's bold vrords have since that time 
 been ever on the lips of good, great men. Latimer and Cran- 
 mer repeated them in the midst of the flames. Hampden 
 and Sidney followed in his path. The freemen of Holland 
 and America caught the brave idea. The countless victims 
 of the Inquisition, the martyred foes of tyranny, the men who 
 died for human liberty at Gettysburg or Bmiker Hill, a War- 
 ren or a Lincoln, have said in their hearts as they resolved 
 on their path of duty, " God be my help. Here I take my 
 stand." 
 
 Luther left the assembly, resolved never to enter it again. 
 He was now in great danger of his life. The Spaniards had 
 hissed him as he left the diet ; he heard that the papal agents 
 were urging the emperor to violate his safe -conduct and try 
 him for his heresy. Nor would Charles have hesitated a mo- 
 ment to destroy the reformer and gratify the Pope, had he not 
 been held in check by the menacing array of German princes 
 and knights. They, at least, felt that it was Germany, not 
 Luther, that had been on trial at the Diet of Worms. They 
 declared that if the reformer were burned, all the German 
 princes must be burned with him. (') The knights and the 
 peasants fonned a secret league to defend Luther; and the 
 emperor and his courtiers trembled in the midst of the ex- 
 cited throng. He was suffered to leave the city unharmed. 
 A sentence of condemnation, however, was forced through the 
 assembly ; he was placed under the ban of the empire, togeth- 
 er with all his friends and adlierents ; his works ordered to 
 be burned ; and a severe censorship of the press was estab- 
 lished, to prevent the publication in future of any heretical 
 writings. But Luther was now hidden in his Patmos, con- 
 cealed from friends and ioes.{') As he was traveling cheer- 
 
 C) Ranke, Kef., i., p. 538. C) Walcb, xv., p. 2327.
 
 98 LEO AND LUTHER. 
 
 fully toward Wittenberg, defiant of both emperor and Pope, 
 in a thick wood near Eisenach, he was set upon by a band of 
 armed men with visors down, who carried him away to the 
 grim castle of "Wartburg, where he remained in a friendly im- 
 prisonment until the danger was over. It was a prudent de- 
 vice of the sagacious Elector Frederick. 
 
 Once more, in December, 1521, Rome rejoiced over the 
 death of a Pope ; once more the Cardinal Camerlengo had 
 risen from his bended knees to proclaim the certainty of the 
 event. Again the great bell on the Capitol tolled heavily, 
 and riot and disorder reigned in the sacred city. Leo was 
 dead. An inscrutable mystery hangs over the last days of 
 his life, and it is still in doubt whether the poisonous draught 
 which his cardinals had prepared for him in the opening of 
 liis reign did not hnally reach his lips. His people, impover- 
 ished by his excesses, exulted in his death. " Oh, Leo," they 
 cried, " you came in like a fox ; you ruled like a lion ; you 
 died hke a dog !" Posterity has been more favorable to his 
 memory, and men of intellect have ever looked with sympa- 
 thy upon that graceful pontiff who was the friend of Erasmus 
 and Eaffaello, and who, if he had lived in a less corrupt at- 
 mosphere, might have yielded to the reforms of Luther. But 
 the Golden Age of Leo X. is chiefly memorable as the peri- 
 od when the magnificent Church of the Middle Ages began 
 swiftly to wane before the rising vigor of the Chm'ch of the 
 Reformation.
 
 LOYOLA AND TEE JESUTTS. 
 
 A Spanish cavalier, who was gallantly defending Pampeliina 
 against the French, fell wounded in both legs by a cannon- 
 shot. In one he was struck by the ball, in the other by a 
 splinter of stone, and his agonizing wounds were destined to 
 be felt, in their consequences, like the concussions of an earth- 
 quake shock, in every part of the earth.(') They were the 
 cause of many an auto-da-fe in Italy, and of a persecution 
 worse than that of Diocletian in Spain. They aided in rousing 
 the Netherlands to revolt, and in awakening the patient Hol- 
 landers to heroic deeds. They made Holland free. They 
 created the wonderful Dutch navy that swept the Spaniards 
 from the seas, and made the East India trade retreat from 
 Lisbon to Amsterdam. They led to the massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew, the death of Mary Queen of Scots, the Spanish 
 Armada, the Gunpowder Plot. They disturbed the jSTew 
 World, gave rise to many deeds of self-denial and piety, and 
 many horrible crimes and woes. They were felt in distant 
 Russia. They aroused the Poles against the Russians, and ex- 
 cited a fierce war in which Poland inflicted injuries upon its 
 feeble neighbors that have scarcely yet been expiated in seas 
 of blood. They spread their fatal influence over China, and 
 stirred that vast empire with a violent impulse. They were 
 felt in Ethiopia and Hindostan, in Canada and Brazil ; they 
 gave rise, in fact, to the company of the Jesuits. 
 
 The wounded cavalier was Ignatius Loyola. He was a 
 brave Spanish nobleman, descended from a house of the high- 
 est rank, and his youth had been passed at the court of Ferdi- 
 nand the Catholic, in the society of the proudest grandees of 
 
 (') Maffreus, Ignati Vita, i., p. 2. Rauke, Hist. Popes, i., p. 56. Cr^ti- 
 ueau-Joly, Hist, Comp. de J6sus, i., p. 14.
 
 100 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 Spam.(') His literary education seems to have been neglect- 
 ed. At thirty-three he could do little more than read and 
 write. But he vras no doubt familiar with all courtly exer- 
 cises. He was a graceful page, a gallant cavalier. His dress 
 was splendid, his armor rich with gems and gold ; and al- 
 though he was the youngest of thirteen childi-en, he seems to 
 have possessed sufficient wealth to live in elegance and ease. ' 
 At his ancestral castle of Loyola, not far from the Pyrenees, 
 or at the court of the Catholic King, the young noble had been 
 trained in the school of St. Dominic, and in the most rigid 
 rides of loyalty and faith. He had a becoming horror of her- 
 esy and freedom. He seems, however, to have been a dutiful 
 son, an affectionate brother ; and although his youth may have 
 been marked by some trace of the gay license of the age, yet 
 he lived in comparative purity. As became a grandee of 
 Spain, he was a soldier. He entered the army of Charles Y. 
 and fought bravely in defense of his native land, and the un- 
 cultivated but ardent noble was always in the front of danger. 
 If the literary element was wanting to his nature, Loyola 
 still possessed a vigorous and fertile fancy. He was never 
 weary of reading "Amadis de Gaul," or the massive ro- 
 mances that fed the imagination of his chivalrous age. His 
 mind was full of the impossible feats of knighthood, of con- 
 quests in pagan lands, and the triumphs of the crusaders and 
 of the Cross. His strong ambition had been fired by the fa- 
 bled deeds of chivalry ; he longed, no doubt, to become as fa- 
 mous as Amadis, and to crush the hated infidel like the pala- 
 dins of Charlemagne. He had already chosen as his mistress 
 a fair princess, whose colors, with true chivalric devotion, he 
 was pledged to uphold in tilt or tom'nament ; and although 
 his suit does not seem to have prospered, for he was a bach- 
 elor of thirty-one, yet he was full of love as well as of ambi- 
 tion. In person he was of middle stature, strong, and well- 
 formed ; his complexion was a deep olive ; his nose aquiline, 
 his eyes dark and flashing ;{^) and his imperious will had been 
 
 (') Mafffens, i., p. 1. Daurignac, i., p. 40, who abridges Cr6tineau-Joly. 
 O Maffoeus, iii., p. 14 : " Statura fuit modica." He was born 1491.
 
 LOYOLA'S WOUXDS. 101 
 
 fostered in the labors of a military life. He was no doubt 
 a strict disciplinarian, and had learned to drill his native sol- 
 diery with the same precision with ^hlcli h6 afterwar*^' organ- 
 ized his priestly legions. And thus,, glowing with those chiv- 
 alric fancies which Cervantes -^gg not 'long "aftfer -to dissipate 
 with inextinguishable ridicule, the brave soldier threw himself 
 into Pampeluna (1521), and made a hopeless resistance to the 
 French invaders. The fortress fell, the wounded Loyola was 
 taken prisoner ; but his conqueror, Andre de Foix, treated him 
 with almost fraternal care, set him free, and had him carried 
 tenderly to his home, which was not far from Pampeluna. 
 
 Here, surrounded by his family and attended by skillful 
 surgeons, he slowly recovered from his wounds. Yet his suf- 
 ferings must have been terrible. He underwent a severe sur- 
 gical operation with singular resolution. A piece of bone 
 projecting from his knee was sawed ofi without calling forth 
 a groan. He became almost a cripple ; he saw, perhaps with 
 a mental agony deeper than the physical, that he could no 
 longer hope to shine in the tournament or the courtly revel, 
 or awaken by his grace and dexterity the admiration of his be- 
 loved princess. As he grew better, his love for romances re- 
 turned. He asked his brothers to bring him some of his fa- 
 vorite authors. They brought him instead, as more appropri- 
 ate, perhaps, to his condition, a " Life of Christ," and some 
 lives of the saints. Pain, suffering, and disappointment had 
 subdued Loyola's proud spirit ; the world had grown cold and 
 dark ; but his ardent fancy now found a new field of enjoy- 
 ment and consolation. The tales of I'eligious heroism, of 
 boimdless humility, of divine labor in the cause of faith, led 
 him away from the dreams of chivalry to an object still no- 
 bler and more entrancing. Alwaj's an ardent entliusiast, ea- 
 ger to emulate the examples of eminent men, a fond follower 
 of renown, he now began to believe himself destined to a life 
 of holy warfare. " Why can not I do what St. Dominic did ?" 
 he exclaimed. "Why can not I be as St. Francis was?"(') 
 The uncultivated but chivalrous soldier, shut up in his sick- 
 
 ed) MaffiEU8,i.,p.2.
 
 102 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 room, or slowly creeping along the sunny paths of Biscay, 
 meditated with characteri&tic ardor on his project of a spirit- 
 ual life • He would abandon the world and all its allurements, 
 would fly from riches, powb?', and pride ; instead of his fair 
 princess', ife' would have for his mistress a heavenly queen ; in- 
 stead of an earthly tournament, he would shine in a spiritual 
 warfare.(') His bride, like that of St. Francis, should be pov- 
 erty. His enemies, like those of St. Dominie, heretics and 
 devils. He would become a beggar and an outcast, the com- 
 panion of lepers; he would clothe himself in rags, and go 
 forth, like St. Francis and St. Dominic, to do battle for the 
 Queen of Heaven. 
 
 It had ever been the custom for the true knight- errant, as 
 we read in " Don Quixote " and the books of chivalry, to de- 
 vote himself by a solemn vigil before some holy shrine to his 
 appointed work. In May, 1522, a richly dressed cavalier, clad 
 in shining armor, appeared before the Benedictine monastery 
 of Mont Serrat in Catalonia, and asked hospitality from the 
 holy monks.('') He was taken to a cell, and when they in- 
 quired his name, said he would be called " The Unknown Pil- 
 grim." Three days he passed in making a general confes- 
 sion of all his sins. Thus purified, he left the monastery un- 
 observed ; and having called to him a beggar from the high- 
 way, gave him his rich dress, and in exchange clothed himself 
 in the beggar's rags.(') He then gave away all his money to 
 the poor. He put on a long, gray robe, bound by a thick cord 
 around the waist, to which he attached his glittering sword and 
 jeweled dagger, and thus attired fell down before the altar of 
 the Holy Virgin, to keep his solemn vigil. He left his sword 
 and poniard suspended at the shrine, and vowed thenceforth to 
 wear alone the spiritual arms of poverty and devotion. Thus 
 did the fanciful, impassioned Loyola fulfill the rites of chival- 
 ry and faith. 
 
 He was next seen wandering through the streets of Man- 
 reza, a little village near Mont Serrat, so sordid in his dress, 
 
 (') Ranke, Hist. Popes, i., p. 67. C) Maffeus, i., pp. 3, 4. 
 
 (') Pannoso cuidam ex iuftma plebe.
 
 LOYOLA A BEGGAB. 103 
 
 SO wild and haggard in appearance, that children mocked him, 
 and men shrunk from him as from a madman. His compan- 
 ions were beggars and outcasts. He wasted his manly strength 
 in fearful penances and fasting, that brought him near to death. 
 He courted contumely and shame. His chief emploj^nent was 
 waiting upon the diseased poor, and performing for tliem the 
 most repulsive offices. Like St. Francis, whom he evidently 
 followed as a guide, he sought to abase himself to the lowest 
 pitch of human degradation.(') He lived upon alms; he sold 
 all his possessions, and made himself a penniless beggar. His 
 home was a dark and noisome cave ; and here he composed 
 his " Spiritual Exercises," which are related to liave had a won- 
 derful effect in converting his disciples and founding his or- 
 der. His mind was now oppressed with terrible fancies ; he 
 believed himself forever doomed ; (') he was surrounded by 
 demons who meditated his eternal ruin ; and often the half- 
 maddened spirit longed for death, and was eager to find rest 
 in suicide. Yet this fearful penance and this condition of 
 wild hallucination have had their place in false religions as 
 well as the true. The self-inflicted tortures of Ignatius and 
 Francis of Assisi have often been far outdone by the Brah- 
 man fanatics or Mohammedan dervishes. The Brahman im- 
 pales himself on sharp iron hooks or flings himself beneath 
 the car of Juggernaut to expiate imaginary guilt ; the der- 
 vish often lives in squalid poverty, more hideous than that 
 of Ignatius, throughout a whole life - time ; and the follow- 
 ers of Boodh have invented penances that excel the wild- 
 est extravagances of the modern saint. As he advanced in 
 knowledge, Loyola probably grew ashamed of his early ex- 
 cesses, and discovered that squalor, fllth, and endless fasting 
 were no true badges of a religious life. He learned that re- 
 ligion was designed to refine and purify rather than to debase 
 human nature. 
 
 In his cave at Manreza it is said that Loyola first conceived 
 
 (') Maffjens. i.,p. 5. 
 
 (*) Maffieus, i., p. 6. His hair he left " impexum et squalidum ;" his nails 
 grew long ; he was filthy. Satan came and tempted him.
 
 104 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 the design of founding liis spiritnal army. He saw in the 
 heavens a vision of Babylon lighting against Jerusalem, of 
 the demons of pride, wealth, and worldly corruption mar- 
 shaling their hosts to assail the sacred city of humility ; and 
 he resolved to place himself at the head of a saintly brother- 
 hood and fly to the relief of the Cross. At this period his 
 ideas were few, his knowledge limited. His education had 
 been wholly military, and it is curious to observe how the tac- 
 tics of the camp and the siege blended almost of necessity 
 with the speculations of the uncultivated visionary .(') St. 
 Francis and St. Dominic, who had been bred in civil life, 
 were content with repeating in their institutions the monas- 
 tic rules of Benedict and the East. They strove to reform 
 mankind by silent asceticism, physical tortures, or touching 
 appeals ; by the eloquence of the pulpit or of a meek and 
 holy carriage. But Loyola, who was a soldier, accustomed to 
 command, and conscious of the necessity of subordination, 
 mtroduced into his society the strict discipline of the camp. 
 As his plans were finally unfolded, the Jesuits became a com- 
 pany ; their chief was called their general ; a perfect military 
 obedience was enforced ; the inferior was held to be a mere 
 instrument in the hands of his superior ; the common soldier 
 of the great spiritual army had no will, hardly a conscience, 
 but that of his general at Home. And thus, when the dim 
 vision of the cave of Manreza was presented to the world, 
 its chief novelty was the military rule of obedience. All 
 other virtues were held to be M'ithout value unless joined to 
 perfect submission to the will of another. Like a well-train- 
 ed soldier, the Jesuit must lirst learn to obey. If he failed in 
 this quality, the novice was rejected, the professed degraded, 
 the lesser offenders scourged, sometimes to death. 
 
 Thus, of the few ideas that Loyola possessed at Manreza he 
 made practical use chiefly of those that were military ; he at 
 least taught his followers obedience.^) And from this princi- 
 
 (') Constitutiones Societatis Jesu, p. 53. 
 
 C) See Ravignan, De I'Existeuco et do I'lustitut des Jesuites, i., p. 91. 
 The defense is feeble, but houest.
 
 TRE STRENGTH OF JESUITISM. 105 
 
 j)le have sprung the power and the weakness, the mingled good 
 and evil, of the order of the Jesuits. In obedience to the or- 
 ders of an irresponsible head, the devoted and often sincerely 
 pious priests have flung themselves boldly into savage lands ; 
 have endured pain, misery, and want with heroic zeal ; have 
 died in hosts in the jungles of India and hostile Ethiopian 
 wilds ; have won the hearts of the savages of Brazil by their 
 tender patience, and died with songs of holy joy amidst horri- 
 ble torments in Cliina and Japan. Yet, if we compare all the 
 heroic sufferings of the Jesuits in the cause of obedience with 
 those of the countless martyrs who have died for religious lib- 
 erty in the dungeons of the Holy OfSce, on the battle-iields of 
 Holland, or in the endless cruelties of Romish intolerance, they 
 seem faint and insignificant ; and where obedience has pro- 
 duced one martyr, a thousand have fallen to attest their belief 
 in Christianity. But if we turn to the dangerous side of obe- 
 dience to an irresponsible and often corrupt head, we see how 
 fatal was that weapon which the imprudent Loyola placed in 
 the hands of unscrupulous churchmen. The unhappy Jesuits, 
 bound by their oath of obedience, were soon made the instru- 
 ments of enormous crimes. Their activity and blind devotion, 
 their intelligence and secrecy, were qualities that peculiarly fit- 
 ted them to become the emissaries and executioners of kings 
 like Philip II. or popes like Caraffa. It is believed that the 
 Jesuits were chiefly instrumental in producing the worst per- 
 secutions in the Netherlands. A Jesuit plotted with Mary of 
 Scotland the assassination of Elizabeth. Another strove to 
 blow up James I. and the English Parliament with gunpow- 
 der. The Jesuits were charged with being constantly on the 
 watch to assassinate William of Orange and Henry of Na- 
 varre. Anthony Possevin, a Jesuit, is stated by Mouravieff, 
 the Church historian of Russia, to have taught the Polish Cath- 
 olics to persecute the Greek Christians, and to have plunged 
 Russia and Poland in an inexpiable war.(') Jesuits were con- 
 stantly gliding over Europe from court to court, engaged in 
 performing the mandates of popes and kings ; and, if we may 
 
 C) Mouravieff, Hist. Russian Church, p. 122, traus.
 
 106 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 trust the records of history, the fatal vow of obedience was 
 often employed by their superiors to crush the instincts of hu- 
 manity and the voice of conscience. 
 
 From his cave at Manreza Loyola now set out to assail her- 
 esy and corruption. He was sincere, ardent, and resolute ; but 
 the champion of the mediaeval faith soon found that he want- 
 ed an important part of his mental armor. Amidst his visions 
 and his spiritual exercises he had already discovered, in a mo- 
 ment of natural good sense, that he could do nothing without 
 knowledge. The age was learned and progressive. The re- 
 formers of Germany and Switzerland were men of profound 
 acquirements and intense application, while their Spanish op- 
 ponent had heretofore done little more than dream. We next, 
 tlierefore, find Loyola at Barcelona, when he was about thir- 
 ty-three years of age, painfully endeavoring to acquire the el- 
 ements of knowledge, in order to fit himself for the priesthood. 
 He was forced to enter the lower classes of the college, and 
 was condemned by his superiors to at least four years of pa- 
 tient study. But he was already widely known as a saint and 
 an enthusiast. He had already wandered to Eome and to Je- 
 rusalem. The stately Spanish clergy, the Dominican or Fran- 
 ciscan, looked with suspicion and dislike upon tlie wild and 
 haggard visionary who consorted only with the miserable poor, 
 and whose intense penances and self-chosen penury seemed a 
 reproach to their o^vn luxury and indifference. Loyola fell 
 under the suspicion of the Inquisition, and was even accused 
 of heresy ; he was persecuted and derided ; and, almost alone, 
 a faithful and tender-hearted woman, Isabella Eosello, watched 
 over his necessities and saved him from starving. She seems to 
 have been his earliest disciple. She, at least, believed him in- 
 spired from above, and saw, in moments of enthusiasm, rays of 
 celestial glory playing around his wan brow.('} And long aft- 
 erward, when Loyola guided the affairs of the Roman Church, 
 he was embarrassed and somewhat annoyed by the persistent 
 devotion of Isabella, who wished to found a company of female 
 Jesuits under the supervision of the great chief himself. 
 
 (') Maffaeus, ii., p. 17.
 
 LUTHER AND LOYOLA. 107 
 
 Luther and Loyola were contemporaries, and the latter the 
 younger by eight years. Both were enthusiastic, ardent men, 
 resolute and severe. Both had gone through religious expe- 
 riences not altogether dissimilar; had struggled with doubt 
 and terror, with remorse and shame. In their religious trials 
 they fancied that they saw demons and spirits, and had held 
 frequent contests with their great adversary. Both had labor 
 ed for purity of life, and had attained it. Both lived as far 
 as possible above the allurements of the present. But their 
 differences were still more striking than their resemblances. 
 Luther was learned, accomplished, creative, poetical. He had 
 been a profound student of the Scrijjtures ; he had marked ev- 
 ery line, interpreted every thought ; he labored night and day 
 to free his mind from the vain shadows of tradition, and to 
 hear and attend alone to the voice of inspiration. For the 
 teaching of man he cared nothing ; he heard only the apos- 
 tles and the Divine Preceptor ; and hence Luther had imbibed 
 much of the benevolence and charity of the earlier Church. 
 But Loyola was ever wrapped up in visions of the Middle 
 Ages. Unlearned and dogmatic, he saw only the towering 
 grandeur of Kome. He preferred tradition to the Scriptures, 
 the teaching of the Pope to that of the Bible. One article of 
 faith seemed to him alone important — the primacy of St. 
 Peter. One text alone seemed to him the key of revelation ; 
 one doubtful passage the only source of Christian life. To 
 the primacy, therefore, Loyola vowed obedience rather than to 
 the Scriptures ; to the enemies of the papacy he could assign 
 only endless destruction. Hence, while Luther's doctrines 
 tended to benevolence and humanity, those of his assailant 
 must lead to persecution and war : the one was the herald of 
 a gentler era, the other strove to recall the harsh traits of the 
 days of Innocent and Ilildebrand. 
 
 Driven from his native land by the persecutions of the rival 
 clergy, Loyola, in the year 1528, fled to Paris, and entered its 
 famous university. His enthusiasm was somewhat sobered by 
 time or knowledge ; but he still lived upon alms and with 
 strict austerity. He was probably a diligent if not a very suc- 
 cessful student. He was never learned, and his reading was
 
 108 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 not of a kind likelj to improve or enlarge his faculties. Com- 
 pared with his eminent Protestant opponents, his knowledge 
 was narrow, his mental powers obtuse, and the chief source of 
 his final success was his skill in organizing his followers and 
 the controlling influence of his imperious will. But at Paris 
 he no doubt became more than ever convinced of the power 
 of knowledge. Thrown amidst a busy throng of students, 
 priests, professors, many of whom were Lutherans, or who 
 shared in the advancing spirit of the age, he must have seen 
 that learning was chiefly on the side of the new opinions, and 
 that many of the disasters of the papal hierarchy were due 
 to their own ignorance or indolence. He resolved, with his 
 usual vigor, to create a new race of scholars, whose minds 
 should be filled with the rarest stores of classic letters, but 
 whose faith should be as firm and unswerving as his own. 
 The dull soldier(') was to give rise to an infinite number of 
 schools, colleges, and literary institutions whose teachers were 
 to shine among the literary glories of the time, but who in 
 matters of faith were to be chained and imprisoned by the fa- 
 tal vow of obedience. His free schools were to be the chief 
 agent in reviving tlie decaying vigor of the papacy. The chil- 
 dren of every land who could be allured to tlie Jesuit schools 
 were to be molded into active soldiers in his spiritual army. 
 Every Jesuit was to obtain freely that education which Loy- 
 ola so prized. By the free school he would defeat and beat 
 back Protestantism. 
 
 In Paris Loyola grew more rational. His spiritual agonies 
 departed forever. Satan, he believed, was conquered, and he 
 no longer meditated suicide. He was strong in the faith and 
 in the certainty of success.(°) His penances were still excess- 
 ive, and he was surrounded by visions and prodigies, but they 
 were all of a more hopeful aspect. But what was equally en- 
 couraging, he now began to gather around him converts who 
 were to form the germ of his spiritual army. His strong will 
 and ardent convictions linked to him like a fascinating spell a 
 
 (') Crdtineau-Joly, i., p. 18, tbiuks be read raeu better tban books. 
 (') Maflfajus, i., p. 21. He already persecuted Lutberans.
 
 LOYOLA'S DISCIPLES. 109 
 
 band of gifted young men who acknowledged him as their 
 master. The first was Peter Lefevre, the son of a Savoyard 
 goat-herd, inteUigent and confiding. With him came finally 
 his friend, Francis Xavier, a brilliant scholar, who at first had 
 shrunk almost with aversion from the squalid Loyola, but who 
 became at length the most devoted of his followers. Xavier 
 was rich,Q nobly born, famous, a favorite at the French court, 
 learned, and full of worldly ambition ; but after three years of 
 sturdy resistance he fell captive to the eloquent example of 
 the bold enthusiast. Several Spaniards, also, joined Loyola — 
 James Laynez, Bobadilla, Eodriguez, and others ; and at last, 
 in August, 153-i, the young men met together in a subter- 
 ranean chapel in Paris, and with solemn rites and holy vows 
 pledged themselves to a religious life. Their design was to 
 go to Jerusalem, and there devote themselves to the spiritual 
 welfare of Christian pilgrims. Loyola's vision of Jerusalem, 
 a reminiscence of chivalry, seems not yet to have faded from 
 his mind, and his fancy still brooded over the woes of the 
 Holy City. 
 
 But the young band of enthusiasts were never destined to 
 reach that goal. We next find them stopped at Venice, and 
 here their missionary work began. The gay, rich city, luxuri- 
 ous, licentious, and half heretic, was suddenly startled by the 
 appearance of a wild and haggard band of reformers, emaciated 
 with penances, ragged, and consorting with the wretched poor, 
 who preached in the highways to wondering throngs, and 
 whose imperfect pronunciation and broken language were 
 often met with shouts of derision. Yet the Spanish mission- 
 aries soon won attention by their fierce sincerity. Q They 
 taught perfect obedience to Home, and astonished the half -her- 
 etic Italians by the ardor of their faith. They proclaimed 
 themselves the soldiers of a new army that was rising to de- 
 stroy the enemies of the Church. They declared pei^petual 
 war against Lutheranism and ever}' form of doubt : Catholic 
 Spain was once more m arms to save the medifeval Church. 
 In 1538, Loyola, with Laynez and Lefevre, went on foot to 
 
 Q) Maffteus, i., p. 22. (^) Id. Palmamque martyrii studiose captareut.
 
 110 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 Home to procure the assent of the Pope to his new order. 
 On his way he entered a chapel near the Holy City and saw 
 a vision. He was alone. His followers stood without. The 
 Saviour descended ; the Holy A^irgin came to smile upon the 
 impassioned Loyola ; a glory rested upon him ; and when he 
 came from the little chapel his followers knew by his shining 
 countenance that Heaven had chosen him as its champion. 
 
 There are moments in the history of mankind when all 
 seems doubt and indecision ; when men stand around amazed 
 and not knowing what to do ; when the decision of a single 
 powerful will affects the destiny of ages. Such a moment 
 was the present. Paul III. sat upon the papal throne. He 
 was a man of mild disposition, elegant, refined. He had been 
 in his youth the friend of Leo X., and had imbibed the grace- 
 ful tastes, the genial culture, of his accomplished predecessor. 
 His manners were pleasing, his life somewhat licentious, but 
 thus far cruelty and austerity had formed no part of his relig- 
 ious policy. Under his pacific sway reform had made rapid 
 progress, and already Italy and Rome itself were swiftly yield- 
 ing to the purer teachings of the Protestflnt divines.(') Augus- 
 tinian monks preached in the very heart of the papal dominions 
 doctrines that differed little from those of Luther and Zuin- 
 glius. In Parma or Faenza the reformers taught as openly 
 and as successfully as in Wittenberg or in London. Italy was 
 filled with heretics to the papal rule; the splendid city of 
 Venice was very nearly won over to the new principles ; per- 
 secution for opinion's sake was scarcely known, and a hap- 
 py tranquillity prevailed throughout the peninsula that gave 
 liberty to thought and the promise of unexampled progress.(") 
 Paul III. was addicted to astrology, and Ijelieved more firm- 
 ly in the decisions of the stars than in those of the Church. 
 Gentle and not naturally cruel, had he possessed prudent 
 counselors he might now have placed himself at the head of 
 the reformers of Christendom, or at least have merited their 
 
 (') Father Paul, Con. Trent, i., p. 101 ; Cr^tineau-Joly, i., p. 31. 
 (^) Cr(^tiuean-Joly, i., p. 35: "La crise <ln Protestautisme ^tait," etc. 
 " It was," lie thinks, " the most dangerous period."
 
 PAUL III. Ill 
 
 forbearance. He seems not to have been without a eon- 
 science, and was at least sensible of his own imperfections, as 
 well as of the corrupt condition of his Church. He even re- 
 solved to reform his own life. He made some advances to- 
 ward a reconciliation with Luther, which the reformer repelled 
 as insincere; and Paul now looked with helpless indifference 
 upon the spread of Protestant opinions in Italy, and was per- 
 haps not altogether certain of his own infallibility. 
 
 But the moment was one that seemed to demand immediate 
 action. Paul stood amidst the ruins of the mediaeval Church. 
 More than half its ancient domain was in open revolt. En- 
 gland had thrown off its supremacy, and Henry YIII. was the 
 head of a rival see. Germany and the Xorth were in great 
 part lost. France was filled with Protestants. Even Spain 
 was tainted ; and now Italy itself, always rebellious, seemed 
 about to join the ranks of the reformed kingdoms, and deny 
 the authority of the Holy See. Two methods of action lay 
 before the hesitating pontiff. He might either attempt to re- 
 gain his supremacy by persecution, war, and bloodshed ; or he 
 might win back the revolted nations by Christian gentleness, 
 by a holy life and a sincere contrition.(') Had he pursued 
 the latter course, what endless woes would have been pre- 
 vented ! What fearful persecutions, what wild religious wars, 
 what a long scene of human calamity ! He might have re- 
 strained the cruel arm of the savage Charles Y., and his yet 
 more barbarous son. He might have softened the brutal Hen- 
 ry YIIL, and won the respect of Protestants in every land. 
 There would have been no Massacre of St. Bartholomew, no 
 slaughter of the just in Holland and the Netherlands, no 
 Papal Inquisition ; and the Koman Church would have stood 
 to-day free from those stains of blood-guiltiness which have 
 made it in the past a reproach and a horror to Christen- 
 dom. 
 
 But Paul had no prudent advisers. The Holy College of 
 Cardinals seem to have wanted both discretion and humanity ; 
 while at this decisive moment the wild and haggard Spanish 
 
 (') Father Paul, i., p. 69. The Poi)e had already tried to reform his court.
 
 112 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 soldier, Loyola, wrapped in his visions and filled with his im- 
 possible scheme of military rule and perfect obedience, enter- 
 ed Rome, His coming probably determined the future fate 
 of mankind. We have no means, indeed, of showing how far 
 the counsels of the narrow visionary influenced the conduct 
 of Paul III. and his cardinals ; but we know that the Jesuits 
 very soon became the favorite advisers and instruments of the 
 Pope, that they were his most trusted adherents, and that 
 Loyola's theory and practice of perfect obedience to the Holy 
 See at once won the heart of Paul. Accustomed only to a 
 general insubordination, surrounded everywhere by clamorous 
 reformers and Protestants who denied his authority, the pon- 
 tiff no doubt heard with double satisfaction the sincere profes- 
 sions of his new champion. By the year 15-10, Loyola and 
 his followers were supreme at Pome.(') The Pope authorized 
 the formation of the new order, approved its constitutions ; 
 and, in 154:1, Ignatius, reluctant and modest, was installed as 
 General of the Company of the Jesuits. The society occu- 
 pied a house in the Piazza Morgana, and their numbers rapid- 
 ly increased ; they preached with wild fervor in the churches 
 and public squares ; their fierce enthusiasm subdued the minds 
 of the Romans; and it is related that they silenced an elo- 
 quent rival preacher, an Augustinian monk, by having him 
 tried and condemned for heresy. 
 
 The future policy of tlie Roman Church was now decided 
 upon. It was death to the heretic and the reformer. Paul 
 no longer hesitated ; and, in 1542, he issued his bull creating 
 the Papal Inquisition. Ko similar institution had ever exist- 
 ed. The Spanish Inquisition had been comparatively narrow 
 in its influence; the Dominicans had long ceased to torture 
 German heretics at will. Persecution had for many years 
 died out, and the doctrine of toleration was practically ap- 
 plied in many lauds. But now an Inquisition was suddenly 
 erected which was to have its central seat at Rome, and which 
 was to extend its influence wherever the papal power was 
 
 (') Cr^tiDcau-Joly, i., p. 39 : "La bduddictiou du ciel s'etendit sur les tra-
 
 THE EOMAN INQUISITION. 113 
 
 acknowleclged.(') At its head were placed six cardinals, who 
 were to be the world's inquisitors. They were to exercise a 
 special supervision over Italy, but were empowered to appoint 
 inferior agents or deputies in all other countries, who were in- 
 trusted with authority as absolute as their own. The Inquis- 
 itors held in their hands the power of life and death. They 
 were directed to be swift and decided in their action. No 
 parley was to be held with the heretic. He was to be dis- 
 patched at once. The fatal crime of honest doubt was to be 
 punished with the rack and the stake. Death was the only 
 punishment. He who read his Bible was to be burned. To 
 read or study the Scriptures was the deadliest of crimes. To 
 pray in secret, to preach, to meet together in religious assem- 
 blies, to doubt the virtue of relics and holy sites, to question 
 the authority of the Roman Church, to discuss religious topics, 
 even to tliink heretical thoughts, were all held deserving of im- 
 mediate death. The Papal Inquisition, indeed, was a declara- 
 tion of war, murder, extermination, against all who refused to 
 submit to the spiritual rule of the Roman Church : it was the 
 invention of a malignant demon or of an insane fanatic. 
 
 Caraffa and Toledo, two cardinals of the Dominican school, 
 are said to have suggested the Inquisition to Paul ;(^) yet it 
 seems to have been the natural fruit of the austere lessons of 
 Loyola. It would be vain to command obedience without 
 possessing some means of enforcing it. By physical terrors 
 alone could the belief in the primacy be sustained ; and Loyo- 
 la, who had already aspired to a perfect tyranny over the in- 
 tellect, who wished to crush every rising doubt and bring back 
 his age to an implicit faith in the wildest delusions of the 
 mediaeval Church, could hope to do so only by a general in- 
 quisition. The Jesuit writers claim that he sustained the new 
 measure by a special memorial," and he evidently hailed it 
 with a fanatical delight. His military education had made 
 him familiar with bloodshed and violence ; he had been ac- 
 
 (') Ranke, Hist. Popes, i., p. 74; Bower, Popes, vii., p. 457. Naples re- 
 pelled the inquisitors. 
 
 C) Ranke, i., p. 74. ' (') hi. 
 
 8
 
 114 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 customed to inflict death for the slightest infraction of disci- 
 pline ; and he believed that the world of thought might be 
 ruled by the same harsh tyranny with which he had once gov- 
 erned a company of Spanish soldiers. A stern and unsparing 
 fanatic, just escaped from the squalor of a hermit's cave, de- 
 spising all that w^as pure and fair in life, and fed on visions, 
 Loyola rejoiced in the blood of the saints ; and, with Caraffa 
 and Toledo, his willing instruments, labored to make the 
 Spanish Inquisition universal. 
 
 The Inquisitors proceeded at once to their fearful work. 
 Caraffa and Toledo, who were at the head of the six, procured 
 some money from the papal treasury, almost its last resources, 
 and hired a suitable house. They next purchased a supply of 
 racks, chains, thumb-screws, and all the various instruments of 
 torture.(') As economy was needful, they probably began in 
 a very modest way. They provided fagots and pitch or sul- 
 phur, yellow robes painted with demons, ropes and chains for 
 the flnal catastrophe ; and soon men and women suspected of 
 holding heretical opinions began to be suddenly missed from 
 the streets of Rome. They had been seized upon by the as- 
 sassins of the Holy Office ; they would never be seen again 
 until they came forth bound and gagged to be laid on the 
 fatal pyre. Very soon, while Loyola and his followers were 
 preaching to horror-stricken throngs, the traditions of a bar- 
 barous past, the smoke of many an auto-da^e, began to rise 
 over the ruins of Rome. The favorite scene of the horrid 
 rite was in front of the Church of Santa Maria, Here once 
 more, as in the days of Nero, Christians died in horrible tor- 
 ments to gratify a worse than pagan malice ; and the pure 
 and the good often fell ready and joyous victims to the rage 
 of dissolute and savage priests. A universal horror settled 
 upon Rome. The reformers fled in crowds to Naples or the 
 North, or else concealed themselves, as in the days of Diocle- 
 tian, in hideous retreats. The Franciscans were silenced, the 
 Augustinians overawed, and no voice was heard in the Ro- 
 man churches but that of the haggard Jesuits and brutal Do- 
 
 (') Raulcc, Hist. Popes, Inquisition, i., p. 74.
 
 THE PAPAL MASSACRES. 115 
 
 minicans, recounting their legends and celebrating the Mother 
 of God.C) 
 
 The massacres were repeated and enlarged in all the Italian 
 cities. Everywhere the roads were filled with terrified throngs 
 of men, women, children, who, abandoning home, friends, and 
 property, were flying for safety across the Alps. Swift in pur- 
 suit came the Inquisitors, aided by the papal soldiery. They 
 were charged to show no toleration to heretics, especially Cal- 
 \anists. Eminent j)reacliers, who had ventured to deviate in 
 the slightest degree from the doctrine enforced by Loyola and 
 his followers, were the peculiar objects of vengeance. Caelio, 
 a noted reformer, had a narrow escape. He had waited until 
 the officers came to seize him, but, being a large and powerful 
 man, cut his way with a knife through the papal guards, and 
 made his escape over the Alps. Every city was filled with 
 terror, and the rival factions added to the horrors of civil 
 strife by denouncing their enemies to the Inquisition. Ven- 
 ice, rich, populous, and luxurious, was filled with German Lu- 
 therans or native heretics, who, when they heard of the fatal 
 persecution, hastened to make their way out of Italy. The 
 roads and villages of Switzerland and Germany were soon 
 beset by a multitude of exiles; the rich and the noble suf- 
 fered equally with the poor and the obscure.(') Happy fami- 
 lies were broken up and scattered ; the rich were reduced to 
 penury ; the artisan driven from his factory, the farmer from 
 his fields. But miserable was the fate of those who could not 
 escape. They were hurried on board of two vessels and car- 
 ried out to sea. Here a plank was placed from one ship to 
 the other ; the Protestants were forced upon it, and then, the 
 vessels being driven apart, tiie plank fell into the sea, and its 
 hapless occupants sunk with it, calling to their Saviour for aid. 
 It was said that no Christian could die in his bed in all Italy. 
 Meanwhile the Jesuit missionaries hastened to the terrified 
 cities, preached everywhere with triumphant vigor, and Lay- 
 nez, Lef^vre, and Bobadilla boasted that heresy was every- 
 where extirpated by their eloquence. 
 
 C) Rauke, Inquisition, i., p. 74. (^) '<l-
 
 116 LOYOLA AXD THE JESUITS. 
 
 It is painful, but useful, to review these scenes of human 
 folly and crime ; for History is never so instructive as when 
 she teaches us what to avoid. All Christians, whether Cath- 
 olic or Protestant, would now probably unite in reprobating 
 the Inquisition as established by Caraffa, Loyola, and Paul ; 
 and few but will now admit that the present decline of the 
 Roman Church is due to the unhappy counsels of those im- 
 prudent advisers. The persecutor, in whatever form, is al- 
 ways the enemy of himself, of his friends, and of the human 
 race ; and Loyola, as the founder or patron of a system of re- 
 ligious intolerance, displayed that fatal element in his nature 
 for which none of his really remarkable qualities could atone. 
 Cruelty, or that barbarous instinct which leads men to wound 
 or destroy each other, is man's crowning vice ; the one which 
 Christianity strives to eradicate by lessons of gentleness and 
 love ; which civilization abhors or contemns. As contrasted, 
 therefore, with their chief opponent, the eminent reformers of 
 that early age rise to a high and humane superiority. Lu- 
 ther, although severe in doctrine, never encouraged persecu- 
 tion. A single unhappy act of severity stains the career of 
 the gifted Calvin. Zuinglius taught, from his Swiss mount- 
 ains, universal toleration. Elizabeth professed a similar pol- 
 icy, and only departed from it when she believed that the 
 Jesuits pointed the daggers that were aimed at her heart; 
 and it is probable that many Catholics of that unhajjpy age 
 looked with shame and abhorrence upon the crimes of their 
 rulers. 
 
 From the squalid cave at Manreza was to come forth a still 
 more wonderful inspiration than even the Holy Office itself — - 
 no less than the reconstruction of the Church of Rome. Loy- 
 ola was to rebuild the shattered fabric, to renew its medigeval 
 towers anel battlements, to crowd its walls with a shining ar- 
 ray of spectral and saintl}" warriors, and to make it the gor- 
 geous reflex of his own teeming fancy. Since the Council of 
 Trent the Roman Church has been the representative of the 
 faith of the hermit of Manreza. The genius of Loyola pre- 
 sided at Trent, and the faitii of that last great Romish coun- 
 cil was determined by the eloquence and learning of Laynez,
 
 THE ''SPIRITUAL EXERCISES." 117 
 
 Salmeron, and Le Jay.(') But the Jesuits spoke only wliat 
 they believed to be the meaning of their spiritual chief at 
 Rome. They had sworn a perfect obedience to Loyola; in 
 him they heard the voice of Heaven ; in his " Spiritual Exer- 
 cises" they had sought salvation; they were passive tools in 
 the hands of the master ; in him they saw a god. And hence 
 the faith which the three Jesuits preached with modest elo- 
 quence and varied learning at the famous council, and which 
 was to become the law of the Roman Church, may be found 
 in the " Spiritual Exercises " and the final " Letter on Obedi- 
 ence."0 
 
 The faith which Loyola would impart to his disciples was 
 altogether a pictorial one. It was a series of splendid or touch- 
 ing visions which they were to endeavor to realize with an en- 
 ti'ancing clearness. The novice was instructed to withdraw 
 himself to some cell or solitude, and here, with fasting, severe 
 flagellation, and silent meditation, to crush every worldly im- 
 pulse. He was now in a condition for the highest spiritual 
 exercise, and he was to see in imagination the Holy Virgin and 
 her sacred Son standing before him and conversing with him 
 upon the vanity of the world. (^) He was next to image to 
 himself the vast fires of hell, and the souls of the lost shut up 
 in their eternal dungeons. He was to listen to their lamenta- 
 tions and their blasphemies, to smell the smoke of the brim- 
 stone and the fire, to touch the consuming flame itself. Now 
 kneeling, now lying prone on his face, and now on his back, 
 faint with fasting and half crazed for want of sleep, torn by 
 frequent scourging, his eyes ever streaming with tears, the 
 novice was to seek for that grace and pardon which came only 
 from unsparing penance.(^) Then he was to bring before his 
 mental eye the outline of the Gospel story. He saw the Vir- 
 gin sitting on a she-ass, and, with Joseph and a poor maid-serv- 
 ant, setting out for Bethlehem. He was to realize the weary 
 journey of the travelers, to strive to see the cavern or hut of 
 
 (') Danrignac, i., p. 40 ; Ranke, i., pp. 72, 73. 
 C) Cr^tineau-Joly, i., pp. 249,255. 
 
 C) Exer. Spirit., I, Hebd. : " Colloquium primum fit ad Douiiuam nos- 
 trara," etc. (^j Id.
 
 118 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 the nativity.(') Every event in the hfe of the Saviour was to 
 be painted to his fancy, and every sense was to lend its aid 
 to complete the accuracy of the picture. He would hear the 
 groans of the garden, touch the bleeding wounds, taste the bit- 
 ter gall. One of his own most striking visions Loyola dwells 
 upon with unusual fondness. On the fourth day of the sec- 
 ond week of the spiritual exercises the novice was to see the 
 battle of Babylon and Jerusalem. He was to imagine a bound- 
 less plain around the Sacred City, covered with hosts of the 
 pure and the good, in whose midst stood the Lord Christ, the 
 commander of the whole army. Upon another — the Babylo- 
 nian plain — he would see the captain of sinners, horrible in 
 aspect, sitting in a chair of lire and smoke, and marshaling his 
 legions for an assault upon the Church.(°) 
 
 Such were the visions the novice was to summon before 
 him. The spiritual exercises were divided into four weeks, 
 and every day and hour had its appropriate duty. But no 
 study of the Scriptures is enjoined ; and Loyola seems to have 
 scarcely been familiar' with the Sermon on the Mount, or the 
 practical wisdom of St. Paul. His whole fancy was apparent- 
 ly filled with the vision of his heavenly mistress, who had so 
 often vouchsafed to appear to him in person and smile upon 
 him benignantly, and whose champion he had so early avowed 
 himself ; and he evidently believed in his own inspiration, and 
 felt in himself a prophetic fervor. He, perhaps, thought him- 
 self above even the Church. But with exceeding discretion 
 he inculcated ujDon his disciples perfect obedience to the Ro- 
 man See. He taught a submission so thorough to every de- 
 cision or intimation of the Church as was never known before 
 to saint or hero. If the Church should say that black is 
 white, says Loyola, we must believe her, for she speaks the 
 voice of God.(') Thus did the unlearned enthusiast prostrate 
 all his mental faculties before that shadowy vision, the medi- 
 reval Church, whose limits and powers no one could define, 
 
 (•) Exer. Spirit., II. Hebd. (") Id. 
 
 (^) Exer. Spirit., Req. Aliquot: "Si quid, qnod oculis iiostris apparet 
 
 album, nigrum ilia esse defiuierit, debemus itidein, quod uigrum sit, pro- 
 nuiitiare."
 
 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 119 
 
 whose utterances were confessedly confused and contradicto- 
 ry, which to one-half the Christian world seemed to have de- 
 parted wholly from the simple faith of the Gospel, and whose 
 luxury, license, and pride were a gross parody upon religion 
 and truth. Yet Loyola, who professed and even practiced 
 humility, self - denial, and a spotless purity, was now, by a 
 strange contradiction, to become the champion of an institu- 
 tion whose corruption even popes and cardinals confessed. 
 
 The Council of Trent opened with imposing ceremonies.(') 
 It was designed to be the general assembly of all Christendom. 
 It was filled with the eminent dignitaries of the Catholic 
 world, with bishops and archbishops, with the cardinal legates 
 and two Jesuits as representatives of the Papal See, with 
 the delegates of the emperor and all the Catholic sovereigns. 
 Yet, after all, it was but a feeble and fragmentary gathering 
 compared with those magnificent assemblies which had been 
 summoned together by the Koman emperors, where the Patri- 
 archs of the East, the legates of Rome, and the representatives 
 of Gaul, Africa, and Spain mot to decide, with clamorous con- 
 troversy, the opinions of the early Church. The Council of 
 Trent had small right to call itself Ecumenical. One -half 
 the Christian world shi'unk with fear or horror from the he- 
 retical assembly. The whole Eastern Church, with the great 
 Patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow, denied its au- 
 thority. England and Germany, once the favored children 
 of Pome, had thrown off its allegiance. The most eminent 
 scholars of the time derided the claim of the fragmentary 
 gathering to decide the opinions of the faithful. Ko Protest- 
 ant dared venture to the hostile assembly, lest he might share 
 the fate of Jerome or IIuss; and Luther and Melanchthon, 
 the reformers of Geneva and of London, united in opposing 
 the assumption of a small faction of the Christian world to 
 control the Universal Church. The council, they said, was 
 only a factious assembly.(') It was only designed to spread 
 the Inquisition, to confirm the power of the papacy. It was a 
 
 (') Piatti, Storia de' Pontefici, x., p. 127 ; Sarpi, Cou. Trid. 
 C) Sarpi, i., p. 97 et seq.
 
 120 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 band of persecutors into Tvliose hands no Christian could trust 
 himself ; its theology was corrupt and unseriptural ; its poli- 
 cy that of cruelty and persecution ; it was an assembly of the 
 servants and adherents of the antichrist at Kome. 
 
 Spain, Italy, and Austria were the nations chiefly represent- 
 ed at the Council of Trent.(') They were the lands of the In- 
 C[uisition and the Jesuits. In all of them free opinion had late- 
 ly been extii-pated or repressed by the most horrible cruelties ; 
 and it was certain that if the people of those bleeding nations 
 had been allowed to send delegates to the council — if, as in 
 early and better ages, the popes and bishops had been elected 
 by a popular vote — the assembly would have condemned per- 
 secution and opened wide its doors to the pure and good of 
 everv land. Once more there mio-ht have been an undivided 
 Christendom ; once more the Sermon on the Mount might 
 have pervaded civilization. (*) But the Papal Church was con- 
 trolled by an autocrat at Rome who would abate none of his 
 tyranny; by a corrupt aristocracy of bishops and cardinals 
 who were dependent upon the papacy ; and by Loyola, who, 
 from his flourishing college, silent and grave, ruled his gift- 
 ed followers by their vows of passive obedience. More than 
 three centuries have passed since the Council of Trent. And 
 now once more a summons fi'om Kome calls the' faithful ad- 
 herents of the absolute tyranny of a pope to assemble and dis- 
 cuss the critical condition of the ancient see.(') The Jesuits 
 still rule at Rome ; the powerful order has become the last 
 stay of medireval Christianity ; but the people have long since, 
 in every land, rebelled against the teachings of Loyola. Spain, 
 hallowed or shamed by his nativity, has abolished the whole 
 mediaeval system, and invites free thought and speech to take 
 shelter within its bordei's. Italy, which, when the Council of 
 Trent was sitting, was crushed by the Inquisition into a hor- 
 rible repose that was to check her progress for centuries, now 
 defies the papal authority, confiscates the property of the 
 
 (') Daurignac, i., p. 53. 
 
 (^) Le Plat, Acta Cou. Trid., vii., part ii., p. 2, describes the slow gather- 
 ing of the council. 
 
 (^) This was written in 1869, before the Council met.
 
 THE JESUITS Al TRENT. 121 
 
 Church, and would gladly see both Pope and Jesuit take flight 
 to some more congenial land. Austria takes part in the gen- 
 eral revolt against the theory of passive obedience ; and if the 
 people of those three great Catholic powers were now permit- 
 ted to elect bishops and popes, and to select their delegates to 
 the approaching council, it is probable that the whole mediaeval 
 system would be swept away, and the tyranny of corrupt and 
 irresponsible churchmen be forever broken. Once more there 
 might be an undivided Christendom, in feeling if not in form. 
 The Council of Trent had been summoned by Paul to meet 
 in 1542, but it did not finally assemble until 1545. (') It contin- 
 ued to hold its sessions until 1552, when it was prorogued, and 
 did not meet again for ten years. In 1562 it assembled once 
 more, and continued for nearly two years, when it was finally 
 dissolved. Laynez, Salmeron, and Le Jay were the busiest of 
 its members. In one chief element of religious discussion the 
 Council was singularly deficient ; no one of the bishops had 
 read the fathers, or was able to trace to its sources the origin 
 of their traditional Church. The prompt Laynez offered to 
 supply the general want of learning. Night and day, it is 
 said, he toiled with enormous labor over the ponderous works 
 of the authoritative fathers ; his health gave way, and the pa- 
 tient and ignorant assembly adjourned until he had recovered ; 
 and at length the hasty theologian professed himself perfect in 
 his task. He was ready with reference and quotation to prove 
 the doctrine of penance or to refute the most moderate of the 
 reformers. Salmeron was equally active, and, in Father Paul's 
 opinion, his assumed modesty often concealed an extraordinary 
 impertinence.^ The moderate party in the council, led by 
 the tolerant Pole, would have been glad to have refined and 
 purified the Church ; but they were overawed by the Jesuits.(') 
 The most extreme measures were adopted ; the dreams of 
 Loyola were received as revelations from Heaven. It was de- 
 
 (') Acta Con. Trid., Le Plat. In January, 1546, only twenty bishops had 
 arrived to represent the Universal Church. Vol. vii., part ii., p. 10. 
 
 (=) Sarpi, 1562, i., p. 19 ; Cr6tiuean-Joly, i., p. 261. 
 
 (^) Salmerou's speech, Acta Cou. Trid., i., p. 93, shows his vigor and bit- 
 terness.
 
 122 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 cided tliat tradition was of equal authoritj with the Scriptures ; 
 that flagellations and self-infiicted tortures were acceptable to 
 God ; that the visions of the Queen of Heaven were proofs of 
 a divine mission ; that the cup should be forbidden to the lai- 
 ty ; that passive obedience was due to the Konian See. After 
 a weary session of eighteen years, in the midst of terrible wars 
 and constant scenes of horror, the unlucky assembly separated, 
 followed by the derision of the Protestants and the contempt 
 of the more thoughtful Catholics. Queen Elizabeth called it 
 a popish conventicle ; and only the papal party and the Jesu- 
 its obeyed the schismatic council. 
 
 Loyola, in the mean time, had seen his little society grow to 
 vast proportions. Nine members, in addition to himself, had 
 formed the whole company of the Jesuits in 1540, and now 
 the numbers had increased to thousands. Persecuted by the 
 Dominicans and Benedictines, feared and hated by the clergy 
 and the bishops, the wonderful brotherhood spread over South- 
 ern Europe, and filled the cities with its colleges and schools. 
 The constitution of the society is a perfect despotism.(') The 
 general has an absolute control over every one of the mem- 
 bers ; his voice is that of Heaven.Q The whole body of the 
 Jesuits is divided into four orders ; but of these only the 
 highest, composed of the professed or advanced, have any share 
 in the election of their chief. They form a severe aristocracy, 
 few in number, and holding a supreme control over the lower 
 orders. These consist of the Coadjutors, the Scholars, and 
 the Novices. They are bound by their vows to obey their su- 
 periors in all things, and are early taught by severe tasks and 
 the most degrading compliances to sacrifice wholly the sen- 
 timent of personal self-respect. The whole society forms a 
 well-disciplined army, governed by a single will, and every 
 member of the immense brotherhood, in whatever part of the 
 earth he may be found, looks to the central power at Rome 
 for the guidance of all his conduct. In this principle lies the 
 
 (') See Constitutioiies Societatis Jesn, 1558 ; printed at London, 1838. 
 
 {^) Const., p. 68. Tlie general, locum Dei tenenti, is supreme. See Ra- 
 viguan, i., p. 91 : " Je vois Dieu, j'euteuds J^sus-CIirist, lui-m6nie daus uiou 
 supdrieur."
 
 GREAT WEALTH OF THE JESUITS. 123 
 
 wonderful vigor that has made tlie Jesuits, for more than three 
 centuries, one of the chief powers of the earth. Implicit obe- 
 dience is the source of their unity and strength. 
 
 The Jesuits are supposed to live upon alms. But their col- 
 leges are all richly endowed ; and in the lapse of ages their 
 wealth must have accumulated to an enormous amount. Their 
 colleges are found in every part of the world. (') They usual- 
 ly possess costly buildings, and all the marks of prosperous op- 
 ulence. They profess to teach gratuitously ; they expend large 
 sums in charity ; they educate countless scholars in the strict- 
 est observances of the mediaeval faith; and notwithstanding 
 his vow of poverty, it is possible that no other potentate has 
 controlled more extensive revenues than the General of the 
 Jesuits at Kome. Conscious of power, and perhaps elated by 
 success, Loyola, in the close of his life, showed traces of vanity 
 and presumption. He was fond of Ijoasting of his own suffer- 
 ings and his own familiarity with the rulers of the skies. He 
 was ever imperious and visionary, and now the insane thought 
 seems to have entered his mind that he was the brother of 
 Christ.Q At night he was often visited by demons who shook 
 him in his bed, and his loud outcries would awaken the broth- 
 er who slept in an adjoining cell. His health was always fee- 
 ble, and he often suffered agonies of pain. He was at times 
 probably insane. Yet he would soon recover again, and di- 
 rect all his faculties to the government and extension of his 
 mighty army, which was now doing battle for the papacy in 
 every land. 
 
 It formed a vast missionary society, whose gifted members, 
 eager for the crown of martyrdom, plunged boldly into un- 
 known lands, and preached to wondering heathendom the glo- 
 ries of the Queen of Heaven. Loyola's design had always 
 been to convert the world to the Eoman faith. He would 
 make amends for the loss of England and the hardy North 
 by the conquest of India or Japan, and teach the uncultivated 
 
 (') See Const., Pars Sexta; Daurignac, i., p. 35. They began at ouce to 
 found colleges. 
 
 (') Steiumetz, Hist. Jesuits, i., p. 295 ; Cr6tineau-Joly, i., p. 32.
 
 124 LOYOLA AXD THE JESUITS. 
 
 savages of Canada or Brazil to chant the praises of the Bless- 
 ed Marj. Thus the splendid fabric of the Roman Clmrch 
 would be renewed in the rich streets of Delhi, in the teeming 
 cities of China, or the wild woods of the untutored West, and 
 the vows of passive obedience sink deep in the bosom of the 
 gentle races of the Eastern lands. How should the faith of 
 the simple savage put to shame the hardy heretics of Ger- 
 many ! How must schismatic Europe blush when it saw Asia 
 bowing at the shrine of Mary ! He hastened to put his grand 
 design into execution, and the brilliant and impassioned Xa- 
 vier was chosen as the first missionary to the golden East.(') 
 Xa^-ier had been one of those early disciples who had knelt 
 with Loyola in the subterranean shrine at Paris, and who had 
 abandoned wealth, fame, and regal favors for the companion- 
 ship of his outcast master. He was pure and gentle, an indif- 
 ferent scholar, a graceful and persuasive teacher. He wanted 
 the deep reading of the iron Laynez, or the busy impertinence 
 of the active Salmeron ; and Loyola, thoughtless of the friend 
 in the requirements of the order, sent forth the faithful dis- 
 ciple to be the martyr and the apostle of the East. Xavier's 
 career, according to his numerous biographers, was a wonder- 
 ful scene of success. Millions of heathen yielded to his elo- 
 quence.(*) All Hiudostan seemed to receive him with delight. 
 He worked a thousand miracles ; and when language failed to 
 convert a heathen nation, he brought a dead man to life, and 
 they yielded at once. He could even impart his miraculous 
 powers to others, and had formed a band of boys who were 
 miracle-workers when the weary saint had ceased. Against 
 wicked heathen who resisted his appeals he sometimes sent 
 forth armies, wlio gained victory with great slaughter of the 
 foe ; and sometimes he destroyed his enemies by a silent mal- 
 ediction. Europe was filled with the fame of the exploits of 
 the inspired missionary, and it was rumored that the whole 
 East would soon bow to the Romish sway. But his success 
 proved to be exaggerated or transient. Xavier had entered 
 
 (') Bntler, Lives of Saints, xii., p. 32. 
 
 (°) Butler, xii., p. 34 ; Daurignac, i., p. 51 ; Cr^tineau-Joly, i., p. 476.
 
 XAVIER IN THE EAST. 125 
 
 India when the Portuguese were everywhere conquering or 
 desolating that unhappy land ; the subject people yielded to 
 the command of one of the victorious race, and were bap- 
 tized.(') They kissed the crucifix of the missionary, they 
 adored his pictures, and they chanted a " Hail Mary," But 
 the converts were chiefly from the lowest and most corrupt 
 of the Hindoos ; the transient impulse soon passed away, and 
 they once more returned to their native idols, Xavier left 
 India, weeping over the vices and the brutality of its people. 
 The impassioned missionary next planned the spiritual con- 
 quest of Japan, and came to that remarkable country under 
 the protection of the Portuguese arms. Here, too, he seemed 
 at first to obtain a wonderful triumph. The Japanese bowed 
 devoutly in great multitudes before his pictures of Christ and 
 the Holy Virgin. He founded schools, planted churches, and 
 three times a day his intelligent converts repeated their " Hail 
 Mary" in groves once tenanted by Satan. Yet here, too, his 
 miracles and his teaching had only a temporary influence. 
 And at lengthQ the Apostle of the East, worn with toil and 
 disappointment, died (1552) on a rocky isle on the coast of 
 China, still, in his eager ambition, planning a missionary in- 
 vasion into the land of Confucius and Boodh.(') One can not 
 avoid contrasting the imperfect labors of the Jesuit Apostle 
 of the East with those of him who stood on Mars Hill, or in 
 the crowded streets of Rome ; who bore no images nor pict- 
 ures; who insisted upon no idolatrous observances; who told 
 no fanciful legends of the Virgin and the saints; but who 
 pierced the hearts of the gifted Greeks and Romans by the 
 plain words of gentleness, soberness, and truth. The sennons, 
 the prayers, the letters, the example of the Apostle to the 
 Gentiles founded a Church that shall live forever ; the pict- 
 ures, the crucifixes, the legends, and medieval hymns of his 
 spurious successor have faded swiftly from tlie mind of the 
 idolatrous East. 
 
 Meanwhile the Jesuit missionaries, with undoubted hero- 
 
 (>) Daurignac, i., p. 51. (^) Butler, xii., p. 58; Cr^tiueaii-Joly, i., p.474. 
 O Cr(Stiueau-Joly, i., p. 494.
 
 126 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 ism, made their way into the dark places of the earth. They 
 founded a flourishing settlement in Brazil that seemed for a 
 long time full of delightful promise.(') They half converted 
 the Japanese ; they ruled at Pekin, and made the Chinese ac- 
 quainted with Western science ; they penetrated to Ethiopia ; 
 they softened the savages of Canada and Illinois; and they 
 proved their sincerity and heroism by a thousand arduous ex- 
 ploits. Yet a similar ill fortune seemed to attend all their 
 enterprises, and China, Japan, America, Ethiopia once more 
 repelled with bitter hatred the oppressive sway of Rome. A 
 multitude of pious and earnest Jesuits, whose pure and holy 
 lives have been sacrificed in vain, have labored and died in 
 savage wildernesses, in heathen cities, in malarious jungles, 
 and in icy solitudes ; but the intrigues and vices of their Ital- 
 ian masters have uniformly destroyed the fruits of their mar- 
 tyrdom and self-devotion. 
 
 With their home missions the Jesuits were more successful. 
 Here, too, they strove to unite arms with letters, and to plant 
 their free schools in the hei'etical North by diplomacy and the 
 sword. They steeled the heart of Charles V. — if indeed he 
 ever possessed one — against his Protestant subjects; and he 
 was soon induced to commence a bitter war against the heret- 
 ical league. At the Battle of Miihlberg, where the Germans 
 were routed and overthrown, Bobadilla appeared in the front 
 ranks of the Catholic forces, mounted upon a spirited steed, 
 waving his crucifix on high, and promising victory to the im- 
 perial cause.(°) The Protestants fled, and soon in all their ter- 
 rified cities flourishing Jesuit colleges sprung up, as if by mag- 
 ic, and thousands of children were instructed and confimied 
 in the visions of Loyola and the decrees of the Council of 
 Trent. The Jesuits made admirable teachers. Loyola was 
 resolved to make his colleges splendid with erudition and 
 genius. At Rome he gathered around him the most accom- 
 plished professors, the most abundant learning ; and he lav- 
 
 (') Daurignac, i., p. 55. 
 
 C') Stoiiimetz, i., p. 201; Ci<5tiueau-Joly, i., p. 283: "He was wounded 
 (fiapp^ a tete), but recovered."
 
 JESUIT LITERATURE. 127 
 
 ished money in profusion to provide fine buildings, libraries, 
 and all the apparatus of letters. The most intelligent scholars 
 were noted, rewarded, encouraged ; every promising genius 
 was snatched from the world and devoted to the cultivation 
 of inferior minds ; a severe and perfect discipline prevailed in 
 all his schools ; and it is chiefly as teachers that the Jesuits 
 won their lasting triumphs in the German cities. Their free 
 schools educated the rising generation ; and the Protestants, 
 who had heretofore possessed all the literature of the age, soon 
 found themselves met and often overthrown by the keen cas- 
 uistry of the Jesuit scholars. A reaction took place, and Ger- 
 many seemed swiftly returning to the ancient faith. 
 
 Yet the new literature of the Jesuits, confined by the op- 
 pressive restrictions of their discipline, contained within itself 
 a principle of decay. Genius could scarcely flourish under a 
 system of mental serfdom ; learning oppressed grew dwarfed 
 and imbecile. The Jesuit scholars were often laborious, ac- 
 curate, methodical; but they produced no brilliant Scaliger 
 nor daring Wolf. No poet, philosopher, nor original thinker 
 could possibly arise in their schools; there was no Jesuit 
 Goethe, no Schiller, no Shakspeare ; their mental labors were 
 various and valuable, but never great ; they produced chiefly 
 an immense, curious, and often worse than worthless kind of 
 literature called casuistry.(') Of this they were fertile beyond 
 example. Their intellect, pressed out of its natural growth, 
 spread in matted vegetation along the ground, or clung in 
 wild festoons around ancient oaks, like the gray mosses of a 
 Southern forest. The countless works of casuistry produced 
 by Jesuit scholars in the seventeenth century are usually ef- 
 forts to show how far they are restricted in morals by the 
 rules of their faith ; what acts are lawful, what expedient ; 
 and their diligent effort to reconcile virtue with the supreme 
 law of obedience led them to a strange condition of mental 
 corruption. Mariana defended regicide, poisoning, and as- 
 sassination ; Father Garnet confessed that he did not liesitate 
 
 (*) The le.arued Tiraboschi and the ingenious Boscovicli flourished during 
 the suppression of the order.
 
 128 LOYOLA AND TEE JESUITS. 
 
 to tell falsehoods for the good of his Church; and there is 
 scarcely a crime in the hst of human guilt that the diseased 
 intellect of the Jesuit fathers did not palliate or excuse. 
 
 But it was chieflj as politicians that the Jesuits have won, 
 and probably deserved, an infamous renown in history. The 
 order was aggressive and ardent — full of grand schemes for 
 the extirpation of heretics and the subjugation of England 
 and the hardy North. Every member of the mighty league 
 had sworn to give his life, if necessary, for the advancement 
 of the faith ; was ready to fly at a sudden notice to the far- 
 thest lands at the bidding of his superior or the Pope ; and 
 perhaps might merit some frightful punishment at home did 
 he not obey his commander to the uttermost. The irrevocable 
 vow and the long practice in abject submission made the Jes- 
 uits the most admirable instruments of crime.(') In the hands 
 of wicked popes like Gregory XIIL, or cruel tyrants like Phil- 
 ip II,, they were never suffered to rest.(^) Their exploits are 
 among the most wonderful and daring in history. They are 
 more romantic than the boldest pictures of the novelist ; more 
 varied and interesting than the best-laid plots of the most 
 inventive masters. No Arabian narrator nor Scottish wizard 
 could have imagined them ; no Shakspeare could have foreseen 
 the strange mental and political conditions that led the enthu- 
 siasts on in their deeds of heroism and crime. Jesuits pene- 
 trated, disguised, into England when death was their punish- 
 ment if discovered ; hovered in strange forms around the per- 
 son of Elizabeth, whose assassination was the favorite aim of 
 Philip II. and the Pope ; reeled through the streets of Lon- 
 don as pretended drunkards ; hid in dark closets and were fed 
 through quills ; and often, when discovered, died in horrible 
 tortures with silent joy. The very name of the new and act- 
 ive society was a terror to all the Protestant courts. A single 
 Jesuit was believed to be more dangerous than a whole mon- 
 astery of Black-friars. A Campion, Parsons, or Garnet filled 
 all England with alarm. And in all that long struggle M'liich 
 followed between the North and the South, in which the fierce 
 
 (') Steinmetz, i., p. 452. C) Cr^tiueau-Jolj-, ii., p. 296.
 
 JESUIT ASSASSINS. 129 
 
 Spaniards and Italians made a desperate assault upon the re- 
 bellious region, strove to dethrone or destroy its kings, to crush 
 the rising intellect of its people, or to extirpate the hated ele- 
 ments of reform, the historians uniformly point to the Jesuits 
 as the active agents in every rebellion, and the tried and un- 
 flinching instruments of unsparing Eome.(') A Jesuit pene- 
 trated in strange attire to Mary Queen of Scots, and lured her 
 to her ruin. Another sought to convert or dethrone a king 
 of Sweden. One conveyed the intelligence to Catherine and 
 Charles IX. that produced a horrible massacre of the reform- 
 ers. One traveled into distant Muscovy to sow the seeds of 
 endless war. Mariana, an eminent Jesuit, published a work 
 defending regicide which was faintly condemned by the or- 
 der, and soon Henry III. fell by the assassin's blow ; William 
 of Orange, pursued by the endless attempts of assassins, at last 
 received the fatal wound; Elizabeth was hunted down, but 
 escaped ; Henry lY., after many a dangerous assault, died, it 
 was said, by the arts of the Jesuits ; James I. and his family 
 escaped by a miracle from the plot of Fawkes and Garnet ; 
 while many inferior characters of this troubled age disappear- 
 ed suddenly from human sight, or were found stabbed and 
 bleeding in their homes. All these frightful acts the men of 
 that period attributed to the fatal vow of obedience. The 
 Jesuit was the terror of his times. Catholics abhorred and 
 shrunk from him with almost as much real aversion as Prot- 
 estants. The universities and the clergy feared and hated 
 the unscrupulous order. The Jesuit was renowned for his 
 pitiless cruelty.(') The mild Franciscans and Benedictines, 
 and even the Spanish Dominicans, could not be relied upon 
 by the popes and kings, and were cast contemptuously aside ; 
 while their swift and ready rivals sprung forward at the 
 slightest intimation of their superior, and, with a devotion to 
 their chief at Rome not surpassed by that of the assassins of 
 the Old Man of the Mountain, flung themselves in the face of 
 death. 
 
 One of the early victims of the fatal vow of obedience was 
 
 (') Motley, Netherlands, iii., p. 444. C) Id. 
 
 9
 
 130 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 William, Prince of Orange.(') He was the bulwark of Prot- 
 estantism, the founder of a great nation. Philip II. of Spain 
 had long pursued him with secret assassins and open plots : a 
 ban had been pronounced against him, and a large reward was 
 offered to any one who would destroy him ; and no name was 
 so hated by the Catholics of every land as that of the grave 
 and silent prince. Yet William had heretofore baffled all the 
 efforts of his foe. He had made Holland free, had secured the 
 independence of the Protestant faith, and still maintained the 
 good cause against the arts and arms of the treacherous Philip 
 by his singular energy and wisdom. He had escaped a thou- 
 sand dangers, and seemed to glide through the midst of Phil- 
 ip's assassins with a charmed life. Yet every violent Catholic 
 was longing to send a dagger to the heart of the triumphant 
 heretic, and hoped that with the death of William the Neth- 
 erlands would once more fall into the power of the papal In- 
 quisitors. 
 
 Balthazar Gerard was one of the most bigoted of his party. 
 He was the son of respectable parents in Burgundy. He was 
 small in stature, insignificant in appearance ; but his whole 
 nature was moved by a fierce desire to assassinate the Prince 
 of Orange. When he was yet a youth, he had already formed 
 the design of murdering the prince, whom he called a rebel 
 against the Catholic King and a distm-ber of the Apostolic 
 Church. At twenty, Balthazar had struck his dagger with all 
 his strength into a door, exclaiming, " Would it had been the 
 heart of Orange !" For seven years he meditated upon his de- 
 sign ; but when Philip offered his reward for William's death, 
 Gerard became more eager than ever before to execute his pur- 
 pose. Fame, honors, wealth, the favor of his king, awaited the 
 successful assassin, and he no longer hesitated. He first, how- 
 ever, confessed his design to the regent of the Jesuit college at 
 Luxemburg, and received his warm commendation. A second 
 Jesuit, to whom he mentioned his plan, dissuaded him from 
 it, not because he disapproved of it, but from its difficulty. 
 He next presented himseK to Alexander, Prince of Parma, the 
 
 (') Motley, Dutch Rep., iii., p. 596 et seq.
 
 WILLIAM OF ORANGE. 131 
 
 most brilliant soldier of tlie age. Parma had long been look- 
 ing for some one to murder William, but Balthazar's insignifi- 
 cant stature and" feeble appearance seemed to him ill-suited to 
 the task. The young assassin's fierce resolution, however, soon 
 induced the prince to encourage him ; and he promised Bal- 
 thazar that if he fell in the attempt the expected reward should 
 be given to his parents. His plan was to disguise himself as 
 a Calvinist, the son of one who had died for his faith, and, hav- 
 ing claimed aid from William, to gain access to his presence 
 and shoot him down with a pistol. (') 
 
 The prince was now living in a quiet retirement at the lit- 
 tle town of Delft. His house was plain, although large, and 
 stood on Delft Street, a pleasant canal that ran through the 
 city, and which was shaded by rows of lime-trees that in sum- 
 mer filled the air with the perfume of their blossoms. The 
 house was of brick, two stories high, with a roof covered with 
 red tiles. In front a considerable court-yard opened toward 
 the canal. And here, in the quiet little Dutch town, surround- 
 ed by his affectionate family and followed by the love of his 
 countrymen, William lived in a calm tranquillity, careless of 
 the plottings of his foes. Balthazar, meantime, reached Delft 
 in July, 1584, as a special messenger to William of Orange. 
 He appeared as a modest, pious youth, always carrying a Bible 
 under his arm ; and, to his great surprise, he was at once ad- 
 mitted to the prince's chamber. He stood before his victim. 
 Yet he had no arms to carry out his design, and Parma had 
 been so penurious as to leave him without money. William, 
 hearing of his poverty, sent him some small gift, which Bal- 
 thazar laid out in buying a pair of pistols from a soldier. The 
 latter killed himself the next day when he learned to what use 
 his pistols had been applied. 
 
 At half-past twelve o'clock, on the 10th of July, the prince, 
 with his wife, and the ladies and gentlemen of his family, 
 passed into the dining-room of the plain Dutch house, and sat 
 down to dinner. On their way they were accosted by Gerard, 
 who, with pale and agitated countenance, asked for a passport. 
 
 (') Motley, Dutch Rep., iii., p. 59G et seq.
 
 132 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 The princess, wlio noticed liim, said in a low tone that she 
 had never seen so villainous an expression. The cheerful din- 
 ner was over by two o'clock. The company rose from the ta- 
 ble and passed out, the prince leading the way. As he as- 
 cended a staircase to go to the upper floor, Gerard came out 
 from an archway and shot him to the heart. He died ex- 
 claiming, " My God, have mercy on this poor people !" The 
 murderer meantime fled swiftly from the house, and had near- 
 ly escaped over the city walls when he stumbled and was 
 seized by the guards. He was executed with horrible tort- 
 ures, and in his confession related how he had been confirmed 
 in his design by the Jesuit father at Luxemburg. Philip II. 
 and the violent Catholics looked upon his act as highly meri- 
 torious. The king ennobled and enriched his parents, and as 
 the price of blood his family took their place among the no- 
 bility of the land. 
 
 In the Netherlands the Jesuits were the last persecutors. 
 They clung to the use of brutal violence in religious mat- 
 ters when the practice had almost died out. " Send us more 
 Jesuits," was always the demand of the Spanish commanders 
 when they would complete the subjection of some conquered 
 city,(*) and Jesuit colleges were founded at once amidst the 
 ruins of Antwerp and Haarlem, The opinions of Loyola and 
 the decrees of the Council of Trent were enforced in the 
 Netherlands by the massacre of helpless thousands; and it 
 was chiefly upon the poor that the persecutors executed their 
 worst outrages. A poor serving-woman, Anna Yan der Hove, 
 was the last and most remarkable of their ^actims. Two 
 maiden ladies lived on the north rampart of Antwerp, who 
 had formerly professed the Protestant faith, and had been 
 thrown into prison ; but they had prudently renounced their 
 errors, and now went devoutly to mass. Not so, however, did 
 their maid-servant, Anna, who was about forty years of age, 
 and M^as firm in the faith in which she had been born and ed- 
 ucated. The Jesuits, enraged at her obstinate honesty, re- 
 solved to make the poor serving-woman an example to all her 
 
 (') Motley, Netherlands, iii., p. 444^
 
 JESUIT EXECUTIONS. 133 
 
 class. They denounced her to the aiithorities, claiming her 
 execution under an old law so cruel that every one believed it 
 had long been laid aside. Anna was condemned to be buried 
 ahve, the legal punishment of heretics ; but the Jesuits told 
 her she might escape her doom if she would recant and be rec- 
 onciled to the Catholic Church. The honest woman refused. 
 She said she had read her Bible and had found there nothing 
 said of popes, purgatory, or the invocation of saints. How 
 could she ever hope to merit a future bliss if she professed to 
 beheve what she knew to be false ? Far rather would she die 
 than lose that heavenly crown which she saw shining resplen- 
 dently even for her humble head above. She would do noth- 
 ing against her conscience. She desired to interfere with no 
 other person's belief ; but for herself, she said, she preferred 
 death to the unpardonable sin of dishonesty. 
 
 On a fair midsummer morning she was led out of the city 
 of Brussels, where her trial had taken place, to a hay-field near 
 at hand. A Jesuit father walked on either side, followed by 
 several monks called love - brothers, who taunted Anna with 
 her certain doom in another world, calling her harsh and cruel 
 names. But she did not hear them. All her thoughts were 
 now fixed on heaven. There she saw the golden gates wide 
 open, and angels stooping down to snatch her from the power 
 of Satan. They put her in a pit already prepared, and, when 
 she was half covered with earth, once more tempted her to 
 recant and save her life. Again she refused ; the earth was 
 thrown in, and the executioners trod it down upon her sacred 
 head. Such was the last religious murder in the ]^etherlands.(') 
 
 Meantime the Jesuits had long been engaged in a series of 
 vigorous efforts to conquer rebellious England. The whole 
 intellect and energy of the company was dii'ected to this dar- 
 ing but almost hopeless attempt. Popes and priests had ex- 
 ulted in a momentary triumph when Mary gave her hand and 
 heart to Philip II., and when Cranmer, Ridley, Rogers, and a 
 host of martyrs had died to consecrate the fatal nuptials.^) 
 
 (') Motley, Netherlands, iii., p. 446. 
 
 C*) Cr^tineau-Joly defends Mary on various grounds, ii., p. 336.
 
 134 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 But the accession of Elizabeth had once more filled Rome and 
 Spain with inexpressible rage. The heretical queen became 
 the object of an endless number of plots and projects of as- 
 sassination, Jesuits hid themselves in London or wandered 
 from house to house through the Catholic districts, exciting 
 the zeal of the faithful, and vainly striving to arouse all Cath- 
 olic England to revolt in favor of Mary Queen of Scots. 
 Elizabeth was in imminent danger. The Jesuit, Parsons, de- 
 nounced her as a murderess and a bastard. Philip sent his 
 Armada against her loaded with priests. But the great ma- 
 jority of her Catholic subjects remained true to their native 
 queen, and the Jesuits found but little sympathy even among 
 those whom they looked upon as their natural allies. 
 
 Father Garnet is one of the most noted of these imprudent 
 Jesuits. He was the provincial of the English company. The 
 Jesuits, on the death of Elizabeth, had formed a wild scheme 
 to prevent the accession of James, and the king renewed and 
 enforced the severe laws against his Catholic subjects. Ruin 
 hung over them, and the imprudent conduct of the aggressive 
 Jesuits had only brought destruction to their friends and to 
 their cause.(') In this extremity it is charged that they enter- 
 ed upon a still more desperate scheme — the Gunpowder Plot. 
 Father Garnet, as he was called, the Jesuit provincial, was now 
 in England, with several others of his company, and a plan 
 was formed by the zealous Catholics to blow up the Houses of 
 Parliament and King James with gunpowder. The plot was 
 discovered, and Guy Fawkes was seized in the cellars of the 
 Parliament House just as he was about to set fire to the bar- 
 rels of powder. Fawkes is represented by the Jesuits as hav- 
 ing been a man of great piety, amiable, clieerful, of unblem- 
 ished lionor, and strict in all religious observances. All of the 
 conspirators belonged to the Jesuit faction, and it is believed 
 that none of the English Catholics were engaged in the plot. 
 A search was at once made for concealed Jesuits. Several es- 
 caped to the continent ; but Garnet lay hidden at a house in 
 Hendlip, near Worcester. He was concealed, with another 
 
 C) Steinmetz, ii., p. 200.
 
 FATHER GARNET. 135 
 
 Jesuit and two servants, in one of those secret chambers which 
 were common at that period in the houses of wealthy Catho- 
 lics. Here the unhappy fugitives were imprisoned for seven 
 days and nights.Q Their retreat was so small that they were 
 obhged to remain constantly sitting with their knees bent un- 
 der them. They were fed upon marmalade and sweetmeats, 
 or soups and broths, that were conveyed through reeds that 
 passed through a chimney into the next apartment. They 
 were traced by their pursuers to Hendlip, and a magistrate 
 came with his officers to search the house. He was received 
 by the lady of the house, her husband being absent, with an 
 air of cheerfulness, and the pursuers were told that their prey 
 had escaped. For three days they searched the house in vain. 
 Every apartment was carefully examined ; every closet open- 
 ed ; but nothing was found. On the fourth day, however, 
 hunger drove the prisoners to venture imprudently from their 
 retreat ; they were seen by the guards, and the hiding-place 
 discovered. Pale with fasting and confinement. Garnet and 
 his companions were dragged away to trial and death. 
 
 Garnet's trial was a sad and repulsive picture.^) That he 
 was guilty of sharing in the plot can scarcely be doubted. He 
 professed, indeed, that he had sought to dissuade the conspira- 
 tors from their design ; but he was more than once convicted 
 of falsehood during his trial, and defended his want of truth- 
 fulness on the ground that it was necessary to his safety. He 
 was condemned and executed. The Jesuits looked upon him 
 as a martyr, and a famous miracle was held to have attested 
 his innocence. Garnet's straw became renowned throughout 
 Europe, and all the Catholic courts celebrated in ballads and 
 treatises this wonderful exculpation of the saint.(^) The mi- 
 raculous straw was a beard of wheat on which a Jesuit student 
 who stood by at Garnet's execution saw a drop of his blood 
 fall ; as he stooped to look upon it he discovered inscribed 
 upon the straw the glorified coimtenance of the martyr, crown- 
 ed) Steinmetz, ii., p. 207. 
 
 (■) Cr6tineau-Joly, Hi., p. 112, defeuds hmi feebly. 
 (^) Steiumetz, ii., p. 244.
 
 136 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 ed and bearing a cross npon its brow. Thousands came to 
 see the wonderful vision ; nobles, the Spanish embassador, 
 the Catholic laity, saw and believed. The miracle was told 
 throii<!;hout the Christian world. Volumes were written to 
 defend or discredit the prodigy; the beard of wheat was en- 
 graved by skillful artists and celebrated by ardent poets ; and 
 it was never suspected that the rude outlines on the straw had 
 been painted by the skillful touch of a designing priest. 
 
 The later history of the wonderful brotherhood has been a 
 varied series of disasters and success. Always united in a com- 
 pact phalanx, the Jesuits have fought gallantly to conquer the 
 world. Their selfish unity, their political ambition, their ag- 
 gressive vigor, have involved them in endless struggles. Their 
 bitterest enemies have been those of their own faith. The 
 secular priests in every land decried and denounced the Jesu- 
 its. In England they accused them of bringing ruin npon the 
 Church by their imprudent violence ; and, indeed, the Gun- 
 powder Plot seems to have crushed forever the hopes of the 
 English Catholics. In France the seculars charged them with 
 falsehood, license, and every species of crime. Yet the Jesuit 
 Father Cotton ruled in the court of Henry IV. ; and many 
 years later the destructive energy of his Jesuit conf essors(') led 
 Louis XIY. to revoke the Edict of Nantes, and commence a 
 general persecution of the Huguenots. It was the most dis- 
 astrous event in all the history of France ; it drove from her 
 borders her best intellect, her most useful population ; and the 
 horriWe reaction of the French Revolution may be in great 
 part traced to the results of Jesuit bigotry. For if Port Roy- 
 al had been suffered to stand, and the Protestants to refine and 
 purify the French, it is possible that no revolution would ever 
 have been needed. In Austria the Jesuits were equally un- 
 lucky. They gained a complete control of the unhappy land. 
 They taught everywhere passive obedience. They urged Ru- 
 dolph II. to persecute the Protestants of Bohemia, and soon 
 that kingdom was tilled with woe ; the Protestants were roused 
 to madness, and a spirit of vengeance was awakened that led 
 
 (') Cr^tineau-Joly, iv., p. 40, defends tbe confessors.
 
 FALL OF JESUITISM. 137 
 
 finally to the Thirty Years' War. All Germany sprung to 
 arms ; the jjuritanic Swede came down from thoughtful Scan- 
 dinavia and crushed Austria and Catholicism to the earth; 
 Prussia now rose into greatness, and the hardy North slowly 
 created a power that seems destined finally to complete a uni- 
 ted and Protestant Germany. If the Jesuits had not excited 
 the Thirty Years' War, Catholicism, in its mildest form, might 
 still have ruled the Germans. In Poland and in Eussia the 
 political labors of the Jesuits were equally unfortunate for 
 themselves and the Eoman See. Yet through the close of 
 the sixteenth century, and a great part of the seventeenth, the 
 army of Loyola presented a united and vigorous front to its 
 foes, and led the priestly legions of Italy and Spain in their 
 assaults upon the revolted North. From 1550 to the year 
 1700, Jesuitism played its important part in the politics of Eu- 
 rope, Africa, America, and the East. 
 
 But now disaster and destruction fell upon the wonderful 
 brotherhood. Moral corruption had come upon them, their 
 intellects had sunk into feebleness, and the fatal mental bond- 
 age to which they had subjected themselves brought with it 
 a necessary decay. Jesuits became renowned for their luxu- 
 ry and extravagance, their imperfect discipline, their secret or 
 open crimes. They had triumphed over the ruins of Port 
 Koyal and the Jansenists ; but the inspired satire of the most 
 vigorous of modern writers had pierced the diseased frame of 
 the society with deadly wounds. Pascal avenged Arnauld; 
 and literature aimed its bolts from heaven at the destroyers of 
 the most learned of monasteries. The Jesuits were pursued 
 with shouts of derision. Their tomes of casuistry, in which 
 they showed how vice might become virtue and virtue vice, 
 were dragged into the light and commented upon by the 
 Northern press. They were accused of all the consequences 
 of their argument. Jesuits were called regicides, murderers, 
 rebels, the enemies of mankind ; and at length the kings and 
 priests of Europe, aided by the reluctant Pope, united in de- 
 stroying the army of Loyola. Blow after blow fell upon the 
 once omnipotent Jesuits. They were persecuted in every 
 Catholic laud with almost as much rigor as they themselves
 
 138 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 had once exercised against the Calvinists of the Netherlands 
 or the Huguenots of France. In vain they boasted their de- 
 votion to Mary, their passive fidelity to the Pope ; vainly they 
 invoked the sacred names of Xavier and Ignatius. By a 
 strange retribution, Portugal,(') where the power of the Jesuits 
 had iirst been felt as politicians, and which they had aided in 
 delivering into the hands of Philip of Spain, was to set the ex- 
 ample to Em'ope of driving them from its midst. Savoy, in- 
 deed, always progressive, had, in 1728, banished the order from 
 its mountains; but to Portugal the Jesuits owed their first 
 great overthrow, and the vigorous Pombal crushed them with 
 an iron hand. All Jesuits were expelled from Portugal and 
 its dependencies in 1753, upon the pretext that they were as- 
 sassins and conspirators against their king.(^) 
 
 France was the next of the avengers of uprooted Port Poy- 
 al ; but here the honesty of a Jesuit confessor may have has- 
 tened their fall. De Sacy refused to shrive Madame de Pom- 
 padour, or to countenance her alliance with a dissolute king. 
 The enraged woman resolved on the destruction of the Jesuits. 
 Louis XV. reluctantly yielded to her entreaties and the clamor 
 of his courtiers ; and, in 176-1, a Unal decree was issued expel- 
 ling the order of Ignatius from the realm of France. The 
 Jesuits fled from the kingdom, followed by the jeers and 
 mockery of the philosophers, and covered with an infamy 
 which they had well deserved. Spain and Italy alone re- 
 mained to them, for Austria was already planning a reform ; 
 but it was in Spain that the Jesuits were to meet with their 
 bitterest overthrow.(') In their native land they had won 
 their greatest successes ; their colleges in every Spanish city 
 were rich and flourishing beyond example ; their wealth and 
 luxury had made them the envy of the Dominicans and the 
 scourge of the inferior orders. Yet the " pious " Charles III., 
 moved by an inexplicable impulse, had learned to look upon 
 the Jesuits with terror and aversion. "I have learned to 
 
 (') Cr6tineau-Joly, v., p. 193. 
 
 O Id., v., p. 200, relates the sufferings of the Jesnits. 
 
 O Dauriguac, li., pp. 151, 175.
 
 TEE JESUITS DRIVEN FROM SPAIN. 139 
 
 know them too well !" he exclaimed, with a sigh. " I have 
 been already too lenient to so dangerous a body." Silently 
 and with careful preparation their ruin was planned. A se- 
 cret edict was issued to Spain, and to all the Spanish domin- 
 ions in Africa, Asia, America, directing that on the same day 
 and hour, in every part of the realm, the Jesuit colleges should 
 be entered by the officers of justice, their wealth seized and 
 confiscated, and the members of the society hurried upon ship- 
 board and forced to seek some new home. 
 
 One can scarcely read without compassion of the wide suf- 
 fering that now fell upon thousands of the innocent as well as 
 of the guilty. Armed men entered the Jesuit establishments 
 through all Spain, and made their inmates prisoners. They 
 were ordered to leave the country instantly, each priest being 
 allowed to take with him only a purse, a breviary, and some 
 necessary apparel. (') Nearly six thousand were thus seized, 
 crowded together in the holds of ships, and sent adrift upon 
 the sea with no place of refuge and no means of support. 
 Aged priests, often of illustrious birth or famous in letters and 
 position — the young, burning with religious zeal — the sick, 
 the infirm, set sail on their sad pilgrimage from the Spanish 
 coast, and naturally bent their way toward Italy and Eome, 
 the object of their idolatrous devotion. But the Pope, with 
 signal ingratitude and selfish timidity, refused to receive the 
 exiles. Even Ricci, the general of the order, would not suffer 
 them to enter Rome ; and the miserable Jesuits, the victims 
 of their fatal vow of obedience, w^ere scattered as starving 
 wanderers through all the borders of Europe. Q 
 
 In the Spanish colonies the harsh decree was executed with 
 a similar severity. At Lima the wealth and power of the Jes- 
 uits had increased to regal grandeur. Their great college, San 
 Pedro, possessed enormous revenues, owned the finest build- 
 ings in the city, and held immense plantations in its neighbor- 
 hood. It was believed that the vaults of the college were fill- 
 ed with gold and silver, and the Government hoped to win an 
 extraordinary prize in the plunder of the hidden treasure. A 
 
 (') Steinmetz, ii., p. 463. (') Dauriguac, ii., \f. 152.
 
 140 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 perfect secrecy was observed in executing the king's mandate, 
 and no one but the viceroy and his agents were supposed to 
 know any thing of the design. At ten o'clock at night the 
 viceroy summoned his council together; at midnight the offi- 
 cers knocked at the gate of the splendid college of San Pedro, 
 hoping to find the Jesuits unprepared, and with no means of 
 hiding their coveted treasure. But they found every priest 
 awake, dressed, and with his little bundle ready to set out on 
 the mournful journey. A secret message had been sent from 
 Europe warning the order of their coming doom.(') The 
 priests were hurried away to the ships at Callao, and sent out 
 to sea, while the officers of the viceroy searched in vain 
 through every part of the college for the promised hoard of 
 gold. Instead of millions, they found only a few thousand 
 dollars. It was believed that the wily fathers had been able 
 to bury their gold in such a way that none but themselves 
 could find it. An old negro servant related that he and his 
 companions had been employed for several nights, with band- 
 aged eyes, in carrying great bags of money down into the 
 vaults of the college, and that it was buried in the earth, close 
 to a subterranean spring. But the place has never been 
 found. The Jesuit treasure in Lima is still searched for, like 
 that of Captain Kidd ; while some assert that the fathers have 
 contrived to abstract it gradually, and have tlms mocked and 
 bafiled the avarice of their persecutors. 
 
 At last came the final blow that was to shatter into pieces 
 the great army of Loyola. For more than two centuries the 
 Jesuits had been figliting the battles of Home. To exalt the 
 supremacy of the Pope, they had died by thousands in English 
 jails and Indian solitudes ; had pierced land and sea to carry 
 the strange story of the primacy to heathen millions, and to 
 build anew the medieval Church in the heart of Oriental idol- 
 atry. And now it was the Pope and Eome that were to com- 
 plete their destruction. By a cruel ingratitude, the deity on 
 earth whom they had worshiped with a fidelity unequaled 
 among men was to hurl his anathemas against his most faith- 
 
 C) Tschudi, Travels in Peru, p. G7.
 
 TEE ORDER DISSOLVED. \ 141 
 
 ful disciples. France and Spain elected Pope Clement XIV. 
 upon his pledge that he would dissolve the order. He issued 
 his bull, July 21st, 1773, directing that, for tlie welfare of the 
 Church and the good of mankind, the institution of Loyola 
 should be abolished.(') The Jesuits protested in vain. Ricci, 
 the general, threw himself at the feet of the cardinals, wept, 
 entreated, recalled the memories of Trent, the exploits of Loy- 
 ola ; and suggested, in a whisper, that Clement, like Judas, 
 had sold his Lord. The Pope, not long after, died in fearful 
 torments. The Jesuits were allowed to preserve a secret uni- 
 ty ; but it was reported once more that the horrible custom of 
 the Middle Ages had been revived ; that the Pope had been 
 carried off by poison. 
 
 Driven from their almost ancestral homes in Spain, Italy, 
 Austria, France, the Jesuits found a liberal welcome in the 
 heart of Protestantism itself. Persecuted like heretics by the 
 Church of Rome, they now sought a shelter in those free 
 lands against which they had once aimed its spiritual and 
 temporal arm. And it is curious to reflect that had the Jes- 
 uits succeeded in their early design of subjecting the Korth, 
 they would have left for themselves no place of refuge in 
 their hour of need. To their enemies of the sixteenth cent- 
 ury they came in the close of the eighteenth, asking hospital- 
 ity ; and the disciples of Loyola were scattered over every 
 part of Protestant Europe, as teachers, professors, men of let- 
 ters and science, and were everywhere received with friendly 
 consideration. England, charitably overlooking the past, saw 
 Jesuit colleges and schools flourish in her midst without 
 alarm.('') Frederick the Great opened an asylum for the ex- 
 iles in Silesia. Catherine II. welcomed them to St. Peters- 
 burg, and Greek bishops were often seen mingling in friendly 
 intercourse with the members of the once hostile company. 
 Many Jesuits crossed the sea to the free lands of the New 
 "World. Expelled from Lima, and persecuted in Brazil, they 
 founded their schools freely in Louisville and New York, and 
 flourished with vigor under institutions and laws which owed 
 
 C) Cr6tineau-Joly, v., p. 376. C) Id., vi., p. 81.
 
 14:2 LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 
 
 their birtli to the teachings of Luther and Calvin. The doc- 
 trine of imiv^ersal toleration alone saved the Jesuits from a 
 complete destruction ; and we may reasonably trust tliat, as 
 the army of Loyola recruits its shattered strength in the bo- 
 som of Protestantism and freedom, it will show its gratitude 
 by abstaining from all hostile attempts against the institutions 
 by which it is nurtured ; that the Jesuit will never suffer his 
 promise of obedience to an Italian potentate to interfere with 
 his obligation to free thought, free schools, and a free press. 
 
 Thus, fostered by the descendants of Ridley and Cranmer, 
 and sheltered by the arm of schismatic Russia, the fallen soci- 
 ety prolonged its existence. At length, in 1814, the Bourbons 
 were restored to France, and Pope Pius YII. revived the or- 
 der of the Jesuits. Their college at Rome was given back to 
 them in very nearly the same condition in which tliey had 
 left it nearly forty years before ; but their magnificent library 
 was scattered, and their revenues cut off. A scanty band of 
 eighty-six fathers, worn with toil and wandering, made, it is 
 said, a triumphal entry into Rome, amidst the acclamations of 
 its people.(^) Yet it can scarcely be doubted that the fol- 
 lowers of Loyola are as unpopular with the citizens of the 
 Holy City as they seem ever to have been with the people of 
 all Catholic lands. Isolated by their fatal vow of obedience, 
 they are followed everywhere by suspicion and dislike. Rus- 
 sia, which had received them in their hour of need, expelled 
 them again in 1816;^) France drove them out in 1845; the 
 people of Madrid, in 1835, massacred their Jesuits; the Pope 
 again exiled them from Rome ; and it is only England and 
 America that even in the present day afford a secure asylum 
 to the fallen company. 
 
 AVe may return over the long lapse of years to the last days 
 of Loyola, the wounded cavalier of Pampeluna, the hermit of 
 Manreza. In the year 1556, a comet of startling magnitude, 
 half as large as the moon, blazed over Europe and filled the 
 uncultivated intellect of the age with dread and expectation. 
 Loyola lay on his dying bed. His life had been one of singu- 
 
 (') Dauriguac, ii., p. 218. C) -ff?-, "•, P- 228.
 
 LOYOLA'S DEATH. 143 
 
 lar success. His society had already become one of the great 
 powers of tlie earth. His followers were estimated to num- 
 ber many thousands ; and the last injunctions of the soldier- 
 priest were chiefly an inculcation of passive obedience. It is 
 related that he died without receiving the last sacraments of 
 his Church, and that his dying lips uttered only complaints 
 and lamentation.(') Yet his fierce and aggressive spirit sur- 
 vived in his successors, and the generals of the company of 
 Loyola waged incessant war against the rights of conscience 
 and the simplicity of the faith, until they were finally over- 
 thrown by the united voice of Christendom. 
 
 (') Steinmetz, i., p. 292 ; Hasenm., Hist. Jes. Ord., xi., p. 320.
 
 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 At the splendid city of Nieaea, in Bitliynia, in the year 325, 
 assembled the first of those great ecumenical councils whose 
 decrees have so often controlled the destiny of Christianity 
 and of mankind.(') It was an occasion of triumph and fond 
 congratulation, for the Christian Church had just risen up 
 from a period of unexampled humiliation and suffering to 
 rule over the Roman world. For nearly three centuries since 
 the death of their Divine Head his pious disciples had toiled 
 in purity and love, persecuted or scorned by the dominant pa- 
 gans, for the conversion of the human race ; and the humble 
 but persistent missionaries had sealed with innumerable mar- 
 tyrdoms and ceaseless woes the final triumph of their faith.f ) 
 Yet never in all its early history had the Christian Church 
 seemed so near its perfect extinction as in the universal perse- 
 cution of Diocletian and his CjBsars, when the pagan rulers 
 could boast with an appearance of truth that they had extir- 
 pated the hated sect with fire and sword. In the year 304, 
 except in Gaul, every Christian temple lay in ruins, and the 
 terrified worshipers no longer ventured to meet in their sacred 
 assemblies ; the holy books had been burned, the church prop- 
 erty confiscated by the pagan magistrates, the church mem- 
 bers had perished in fearful tortures, or fled for safety to the 
 savage wilderness ; and throughout all the Eoman world no 
 man dared openly to call himself a Christian.(') 
 
 Gradually, with the slow prevalence of Constantine the 
 
 (') Eusebins, De Vita Constantiiii, iii., p. 6 et scq., Quomodo synodnm 
 Nicaeae fieri jussit; Eiifinus, Historia Eeclesiastica, i., p. 11; De coucilio 
 apiid Nicseam, etc. ; Socrates, Hist. Ecc, 1., p. 8. 
 
 O Lactautius, De Mort. Persec, p. 15. 
 
 O Lactautius (Do Mort. Pers., p. 50) and Prudeutius (PeristepLanon, 
 HyiuQ xiii., s.) describe tbe paius of martyrdom.
 
 THE ASSEMBLING AT NICE. 145 
 
 Great, as liis victorious legions passed steadily onward from 
 Gaul to Italy, and from Italy to Syria, the maimed and bleed- 
 ing victims of persecution came out from their hiding-places ; 
 and bishops and people, purified by suffering, celebrated once 
 more their holy rites in renewed simplicity and faith. Yet it 
 was not until the year preceding the first Ecumenical Coun- 
 cil(') that the Eastern Christians had ceased to be roasted over 
 slow fires, lacerated with iron hooks, or mutilated with fatal 
 tortures; and Lactantius, a contemporary, could point to the 
 ruins of a city in Phrygia whose whole population had been 
 burned to ashes because they refused to sacrifice to Jupiter 
 and Juno. And now, by a strange and sudden revolution, 
 the martyr bishops and presbyters had been summoned from 
 their distant retreats in the monasteries of the Thebaid or the 
 sands of Arabia, from Africa or Gaul, to cross the dangerous 
 seas, the inclement mountains, and to meet in a general synod 
 at Nicsea, to legislate for the Christian world. We may well 
 conceive the joy and triumph of these holy fathers as they 
 heard the glad news of the final victory of the faith, and has- 
 tened in long and painful journeys to unite in fond congratu- 
 lations in their solemn assembly ; as they looked for tlie first 
 time upon each other's faces and saw the wounds inflicted by 
 the persecutor's hand ; as they gazed on the blinded eyes, the 
 torn members, the emaciated frames ; as they encountered at 
 every step men whose fame for piety, genius, and learning 
 was renowned from Antioch to Cordova ; or studied with 
 grateful interest the form and features of the imperial cate- 
 chumen, who, although the lowest in rank of all the church 
 dignitaries, had made Christianity the ruling faith from Brit- 
 ain to the Arabian Sea.(°) 
 
 Nice, or Nicsea, a fair and populous Greek city of Asia 
 Minor, had been appointed by Constantine as the place of 
 meeting for the council, probably because the fine roads that 
 centred from various directions in its market-place offered an 
 
 Q) Sozomen, Hist. Ecc, i., p. 7 ; Lactantius, De Mort. Pers., p. 51 : '' Pleui 
 carceres erant. Torraeuta genera inaiulita excogitabantur." 
 
 (°) Eusebius, De Vita Constantini, iii., p. 7 ; Rufiuus, Hist. Ecc, i., p. 2. 
 
 10
 
 146 ECVMEXICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 easy access to the pilgrims of the East. The city stood — its 
 ruins still stand — on the shores of Lake Ascania, not far from 
 the Mediterranean Sea, and on the way to the plains of Troy ; 
 it had been adorned with line buildings by the kings of Bi- 
 thynia, and enriched by the Roman emperors ; in later ages it 
 was shaken by a great earthquake just after the council had 
 dissolved ; it became the prey successively of the Saracen, the 
 Turk, and the Crusaders ; and when a modern traveler visited 
 its site to gaze on the scene where Athanasius had ravished 
 pious ears by his youthful eloquence, and where Constantine 
 had assembled the Christian world, he found only a waste of 
 ruins in the midst of the ancient walls. The lake was still 
 there ; the fragments of aqueducts, theatres, temples. A vil- 
 lage of a few hundred houses, supported chiefly by the culture 
 of the mulberry-tree, sheltered beneath its ruined walls; and 
 an ill-built Greek church, of crumbling brick-work and mod- 
 ern architecture, was pointed out to the traveler as the place 
 where had met, nearly fifteen centuries before, the Council of 
 Nice.(') 
 
 The bishops, in number three hundred and eighteen, to- 
 gether with many priests and other oflicials, assembled prompt- 
 ly at the call of the emperor, and in June, 325, met in a ba- 
 silica or public hall in the centre of the city. Few particulars 
 are preserved of the proceedings of the great council, and we 
 are forced tO' gather from the allusions of the historians a gen- 
 eral conception of its character. Yet we know that it was the 
 purest, the wisest, as well as the first, of all the sacred synods ; 
 that its members, tested in afl^liction and humbled by persecu- 
 tion, preserved much of the grace and gentleness of the apos- 
 tolic age ; that no fierce anathemas, like those that fell from 
 the lips of the papal bishops of Trent or Constance, defiled 
 those of Ilosius or Eusebius ;Q that the pagan doctrine of 
 persecution had not yet been introduced, together with the 
 
 Q) Pococke, Travels, ii., p. 25. 
 
 O The creed has a moderate anathema (Rufiuus, H. E., i., p. 6) ; hut, we 
 may trust, conceived in a different sjiirit from the anathemas which meant 
 death.
 
 THE TOWN-HALL AT NICE. 147 
 
 pagan ritual, into the Christian Church ; that no vain supersti- 
 tions were inculcated, and no cruel deeds enjoined; that no 
 Huss or Jerome of Prague died at the stake to gratify the 
 hate of a dominant sect, and that no Luther or Calvin was 
 shut out by the dread of a similar fate from sharing in the 
 earliest council .of the Christian world. The proceedings went 
 on with dignity and moderation, and men of various shades of 
 opinion, but of equal purity of life, were heard with attention 
 and respect; the rules of the Roman Senate were probably 
 imitated in the Christian assembly; the emperor opened the 
 council in a speech inculcating moderation, and an era of be- 
 nevolence and love seemed about to open upon the triumph- 
 ant Church. 
 
 In the town -hall at Xice, seated probably upon rows of 
 benches that ran around the room, were seen the representa- 
 tive Christians of an age of comparative purity, and the first 
 meeting of these holy men must have formed a scene of touch- 
 ing interest. The martyrs who had scarcely escaped with life 
 from the tortures of the pagans stood in the first rank in the 
 veneration of the assembly ; and when Paplinutius,(') a bishop 
 of the Thebaid, entered the hall, dragging a disabled limb 
 which had been severed while he worked in the mines, and 
 turned upon the by-standers his sightless eye, or when Paul, 
 Bishop of Neo-CaBsarea, raised in blessing his hand maimed 
 by the fire, a thrill of sympathy and love stirred the throng as 
 they gazed on the consecrated wounds. The solitaries, whose 
 strange austerities had filled the Christian world with wonder, 
 attracted an equal attention. From the desert borders of 
 Persia and Mesopotamia, where he had lived for years on 
 vegetables and wild fruits, came James of Nisibis, the modern 
 Baptist, who was known by his raiment of goats' or camels' 
 hair ; and near him was the Bishop of Heraclea, a faithful fol- 
 lower of the ascetic Anthony, the author of the monastic rule. 
 There, too, was the gentle Spiridion,(°) the shepherd-bishoj) of 
 
 (') Kufiiius, i., p. 4, De Paphnutio Confessore. 
 
 (^) Rnfiuus, i., p. 5. Socrates, i., p. 53, varies the story slightly. See 
 Hefole, Conciliengeschichte, i., p. 271.
 
 148 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 Cyprus, Avho still kept his flock after lie had won a diocese, 
 and Avlio, when robbers came to steal his sheep, said, " Why- 
 did you not take the trouble to ask for them, and I would 
 have given them to you V And there was the tender-hearted 
 St. Kicholas, the friend of little children, whose name is still 
 a symbol of joy to those he loved. There, too, were men of 
 rare genius and learning, who had studied in the famous 
 schools of Athens or Alexandria, whose writings and whose 
 eloquence had aroused the bitterest hatred of the j)agans, and 
 who were believed by their contemporaries to have rivaled 
 and outdone the highest efforts of the heathen mind. Chief 
 among these men of intellect was the young presbyter Atha- 
 nasius,(') and it was to him that the Council of Nice was to 
 owe its most important influence on mankind. The enthusi- 
 asm of Athanasius was tempered by the prudence of Hosius, 
 the Trinitarian bishop of Cordova, and by the somewhat latitu- 
 dinarian liberality of Eusebius of Csesarea ; and these two able 
 men, both close friends of the Emperor Constantine, probably 
 guided the council to moderation and peace. Sylvester, Bish- 
 op of Rome, too feeble to bear the fatigues of the journey, 
 sent two priests to represent him in the synod-^*) Eight bish- 
 ops of renown from the West sat with their Eastern brethren, 
 and in the crowded assembly were noticed a Persian and a 
 Goth, the representatives of the barbarians. A strange diver- 
 sity of language and of accent prevailed in the various deputa- 
 tions, and a day of Pentecost seemed once more to have dawn- 
 ed upon the Church. In the upper end of the hall, after all 
 had taken their places, a golden chair was seen below the seats 
 of the bishops, which Avas still vacant. At length a mail of a 
 tall and noble figure entered. His head was modestly bent to 
 the ground ; his countenance must have borne traces of con- 
 trition and woe. He advanced slowly up the hall, between 
 the assembled bishops, and, having obtained their permission. 
 
 (') Socrates, i., p. 8. 
 
 (*) The Romish writers claim that Hosius was a papal legate. See Con- 
 cilionim, ii., p. 222. But he presided, uo doubt, as the friend of the em- 
 peror.
 
 COXSTANTINE'S CRIME. 149 
 
 seated himself in tlie golden cbair.(') It was Constantine, the 
 head of the Cliurch. 
 
 A tragic interest must ever hang over the career of the first 
 Christian emperor, whose private griefs seem to have more 
 than counterbalanced the uninterrupted successes of his pub- 
 lic life. In his vouth Constantine had married Minervina, a 
 maiden of obscure origin and low rank, but who to her de- 
 voted and constant lover seemed no doubt the first and fairest 
 of women. Their only son, Crispus, educated by the learned 
 and pious Lactantius, grew up an amiable, exemplary young 
 man, and fought bravely by his father's side in the battle that 
 made Constantine the master of the world. But Constantine 
 had now married a second time, for ambition rather than love, 
 Fausta, the daughter of the cruel Emperor Maximian ; and his 
 high-born wife, who had three sons, looked with jealousy upon 
 the rising virtues and renown of the amiable Crispus. She 
 taught her husband to believe that his eldest son had conspired 
 against his life and his crown. Already, when Constantine 
 summoned the council at Kice, his mind was tortured by sus- 
 picion of one whom he probably loved with strong affection. 
 He had perhaps resolved upon the death of Crispus ; and he 
 felt with shame, if not contrition, his own unworthiness as he 
 entered the Christian assembly. Soon after the dissolution of 
 the council the tragedy of the palace began (326) by the ex- 
 ecution of Crispus, by the orders of his father, together with 
 his young cousin, Licinius, the son of Constantine's sister, and 
 a large number of their friends. The guilty arts of Fausta, 
 however, according to the Greek historians, were soon dis- 
 covered and revealed to the emperor by his Christian moth- 
 er, Helena. He was filled with a boundless remorse. The 
 wretched empress was put to death ; and the close of Con- 
 stantine's life was passed in a vain effort to obtain the for- 
 giveness of his own conscience and of Heaven.(') 
 
 (*) Eusebins, De Vita Const., clothes him in rich robes, iii., p. 8, but as- 
 serts his modesty. It is uiiceitaiu whether the golden chair was not in 
 the niidst of the assembly. See Theodoret, H. Ecc, i., p. 7. 
 
 (^) Eiisebius covers tlio faults of Constantine with iiancgyric. Gibbon, 
 ii., p. 67-72, condenses Zosimus. He donbts the death of Fausta.
 
 150 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 But when Constantine entered the Council of Nice his life 
 was still comparatively spotless.(') lie was believed to have 
 inherited all the virtues of his excellent father and his pious 
 mother. To the simple and holy men who now for the first 
 time looked upon their preserver as he modestly besought in- 
 stead of commanded their attention, he must have seemed, in 
 liis humility and his grandeur, half divine. But lately his 
 sinffle arm had rescued them from the jaws of a horrible 
 death. He had saved the Church from its sorrows, and pub- 
 lished the Gospel to mankind. He was the most powerful 
 monarch the world had ever known, and his empire spread 
 from the Grampian Hills to the ridge of the Atlas, from the 
 Atlantic to the Caspian Sea. He was the invincible conquer- 
 or, the hero of his age ; yet now monks and solitaries heard 
 him profess himself their inferior, a modest catechumen, and 
 ui-gc upon his Christian brethren harmony and union. A 
 miracle, too — the most direct interference from above since 
 the conversion of St. Paul — had thrown around Constantine 
 a mysterious charm ; and probably few among the assembled 
 bishops but had heard of the cross of light that had outshone 
 the sun at noonday, of the inscription in the skies, and of the 
 perpetual victory promised to their imperial head.(") When, 
 therefore, Constantine addressed the council, he was heard 
 with awe and fond attention. His Christian sentiments con- 
 trolled the assembly, and he decided, perhaps against his own 
 convictions, the opinions of future ages. 
 
 The council had been summoned by the emperor to deter- 
 mine the doctrine of the Church. Heresy was already abun- 
 dant and prolific. The opinions of Christians seemed to vary 
 according to their origin or nationality. But the acute and 
 active intellect of the Greeks, ever busy with the deeper in- 
 quiries of philosophy and eager for novelty, had poured forth 
 a profusion of sti-ange speculations which alarmed or embar- 
 
 (' ) Eutropius, Hist. Rom., x., pp. 6, 7, notices the change — the fall of Con- 
 stantine. He is an impartial witness. 
 
 {'^) Constantine's dream or vision -was affirmed by his oath to Ensebius, 
 and was believed by his contemporaries. See Ensebius, Vita Const.
 
 . VAEIOUS HERESIES. 151 
 
 rassed the duller Latins. Rome, cold and unimaginative, liad 
 been Ion 2: accustomed to receive its abstract doctrines from 
 the East, but it seemed quite time that these principles of 
 faith should be accurately defined. Heresies of the wildest 
 extravagance were widely popular. The Gnostics, or the su- 
 perior minds, had covered the plain outline of the Scriptures 
 with Platonic commentaries ; the theory of eons and of an 
 eternal wisdom seemed about to supplant the teachings of 
 Paul.(') Among the wildest of the early sectaries were the 
 Ophites, or snake-worshipers, who adored the eternal wisdom 
 as incarnate in the form of a snake ; and who, at the celebra- 
 tion of the sacred table, suffered a serpent to crawl over the 
 elements, and to be devoutly kissed by the superstitious Chris- 
 tians.Q The Sethites adored Seth as the Messiah ; the Cain- 
 ites celebrated Judas Iscariot as the prince of the apostles; 
 Manes introduced from the fire-worship of the Persians a the- 
 ory of the conflict of light and darkness, in which Christ con- 
 tended as the Lord of Light against the demons of the night ;(^) 
 and Montanus boldly declared that he was superior in morali- 
 ty to Christ the Messiah and his apostles, and was vigorously 
 sustained by the austere Tertullian. Yet these vain fancies 
 might have been suffered to die in neglect ; it was a still more 
 vital controversy that called forth the assembly at Nice. This 
 w^as no less than the nature of the Deity. Q What did the 
 Scriptures tell us of that Divine Being who was the author of 
 Christianity, and on whom for endless ages the destiny of the 
 Church was to rest? The Christian world was divided into 
 two fiercely contending parties. On the one side stood Rome, 
 Alexandria, and the A¥est ; on the other, Arius, many of the 
 Eastern bishops, and perhaps Constantine himself. It is j)lain, 
 therefore, that the emperor was sincei'e in his profession of 
 humility and submission, since he suffered the council to de- 
 termine the controversy uninfluenced by superior power. 
 A striking simplicity marked the proceedings of the first 
 
 (') See Mosbeim, Ecc. Hist., i., p. 169. 
 
 (^) Mosheim, i., yt. 180 et seq., auil uote. 
 
 C) Id., I, p. 232. C) Hefele, i., p. 2C6.
 
 152 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 council. ITosiiis, Bishop of Cordova, presided, the only repre- 
 sentative of Spain, Ganl, and Britain. A prelate opened the 
 meeting with a short address,(') a hymn was sung, then Con- 
 stantino delivered his well-timed speech on harmony, and the 
 general debate began. It was conducted always with vigor, 
 sometimes with rude asperity ; but when the war of recrimi- 
 nation rose too high, the emperor, who seems to have attend- 
 ed the sittings regularly, would interpose and calm the strife 
 by soothing words. The question of clerical marriages was 
 discussed, and it was determined, by the arguments of Paph- 
 nutius, the Egyptian ascetic, that the lower orders should be 
 allowed to marry. Tlie jurisdiction of the bishops was de- 
 lined ; all were allowed to be equal ; but Rome, Antioch, and 
 Alexandria, the chief cities of the enquire before Constanti- 
 nople was built, held each a certain supremacy. The prima- 
 cy of St. Peter was never mentioned ; the worship of Mary, 
 Queen of Heaven, was yet unknown ; but the earlier form of 
 the Nicene Creed was determined, and Arius was condemned. 
 Twenty canonsQ were passed upon by the council, many of 
 which were soon neglected and forgotten ; and when, after 
 sitting for two months, the assembly separated, every one felt 
 that the genius and eloquence of Athanasius had controlled 
 both emperor and Church. 
 
 Before parting from his Christian brothers — his " beloved," 
 as he was accustomed to call them — Constantine entertained 
 the council at a splendid banquet,(') and spread before them 
 the richest wines and the rarest viands of the East. The un- 
 lettered soldier probably shone better in his costly entertain- 
 ment than in debate, where his indifferent Latin and broken 
 Greek must have awakened a smile on the a'rave faces of his 
 learned brothers. Here he could flatter and caress with easy 
 familiarity ; he was a pleasant companion and a winning host ; 
 but we are not told whether he was able to persuade James of 
 
 (') Ensebins, De Vita Const., iii., p. 11 ; Socrates, i., p. 8. The emperor's 
 speech is excellent, and the catechumen was ^viser than his superiors. 
 
 O The number has been enlarged by numerous additions (see Concilio- 
 rum, ii., p. 233), and one clause introduced to imply the primacy, ii., p. 2'36. 
 
 (') Eusebius, Dc Vita Const., iii., pp. 15, IG.
 
 UXIOX OF THE CHURCH. 153 
 
 Nisibis to taste his rare dainties, or to entice tlie anchorites 
 of Egypt to his costly wine. The bishops and their followers 
 left Nicsea charmed with the conrtesy and liberality of their 
 master. He had paid all their expenses, and maintained them 
 with elecjance at Xicsea, had condescended to call them broth- 
 ers, and had sent them home by the public conveyances to 
 spread everywhere the glad news that an era of peace and 
 union awaited the triumphant Church. (') 
 
 Happy delusion ! But it was rudely dissipated. From 
 Constantino himself came the fatal blow that tilled all Chris- 
 tendom with a perpetual unrest.Q It was the emperor who 
 corrupted the Church he had seemed to save. Soon after the 
 council, that dark shadow fell upon Constantino's life which 
 was noticed by pagan and Christian observers, and he was 
 pointed out by men as a parricide whose sin was inexpiable. 
 The pagan Zosimus represents him as asking the priests of the 
 ancient faith whether his offense could ever be atoned for by 
 their lustrations, and to have been told that for him there was 
 no hope ; but that the Christians allured him to their com- 
 munion by a promise of ample forgiveness. Yet from this 
 period the mind of the great 'emperor grew clouded, and the 
 fearful shock of his lost happiness seems to have deadened his 
 once vigorous faculties.(^) He became a tyrant, made and un- 
 made bishops at will, and persecuted all those who had op- 
 posed the doctrines of Arius.Q The Church became a State 
 establishment, and all the ills that flow from that unnatural 
 miion fell upon the hapless Christians. Pride, luxury, and li- 
 cense distinguished the haughty bishops, who ruled like princes 
 over their vast domains, and who imitated the emperor in per- 
 secuting, with relentless vigor, all who differed from them in 
 
 (') Riifinns, Hist. Ecc, i., p. 2 ; Eusebiiis, De Vita Coust., iii., p. IG ; Tbe- 
 odoret, i., p. 11. 
 
 ('■*) Sozomen, Hist. Ecc, i., p. 20. See Hefele, i., p. 427 et scq. : "Aber das 
 hiii'etische Feuer war damit nocli nicht erstickt." 
 
 (') His letters (see Socrates, i., p. 9) are wise aud not ungentle; his con- 
 duct was different. 
 
 (') Socrates, i., p. 14. He soon recalled Ensebins of Nicomedia from ban- 
 isbment — a measure of wisdom — but persecutes Atlianasins.
 
 154 ECUMEXICAL COUXCILS. 
 
 faitli. Bishop excommunicated bishop, and fatal anathemas, 
 too dreadful to fall from the lips of feeble and dying ipen, 
 were the common weapon of religious controversy. They pre- 
 tended to the right of consigning to eternal woe the souls of 
 the hapless dissidents. They brought bloodshed and murder 
 into the controversies of the Church. Formalism succeeded a 
 living faith, and lieligion fled from her high station among 
 the rulers of Christendom to find shelter in her native scene 
 among the suffering and the poor. There we may trust she 
 survived, during this mournful period, the light of the peas- 
 ant's cottage or the anchorite's cell. 
 
 IS'ever again did the higher orders of Christendom regain the 
 respect of mankind. Constantino himself, clothed in Orient- 
 al splendor, with painted cheeks, false hair, and a feeble show, 
 seems to have sought oblivion for his crime in reckless dissi- 
 pation. He became cruel, morose, suspicious. He was al- 
 ways fond of religious disputation, and his courtly and ef- 
 feminate bishops seem to have yielded to his idle whim. At 
 length he died (337), having been baptized not long before 
 for the expiation of his sins, and was succeeded by his three 
 worthless sons. A period of fierce religious controversy now 
 prevailed for many years, of which the resolute hero Ath- 
 anasius. Bishop of Alexandria, was the author and the victim.(') 
 In 32G, Athaiuisius became the patriarch of that gay, splendid, 
 and powerful city, and ruled at times with vigor, but oftener 
 was a persecuted exile, hidden in Gaul or among the rocks and 
 sands of Egypt. The fire of genius survived in this remark- 
 able man the pains of age and the humiliation of exile. He 
 never ceased to write, to preach, and to argue with unabated 
 power. Constantius became sole emperor, and the chief aim 
 of his corrupt reign seems to have been to destroy the influ- 
 ence and the opinions of the greatest of polemics. The whole 
 Christian world seemed united ao-ainst Athanasius. The Bisli- 
 op of Eome, Liberius,(') and even the pious Hosius, joined 
 
 (') See Socrates, i., p. 29 et seq., wbo defends Constautine. 
 
 (^) Milman (Hist. Christianity, ii., p. 431), Mosheiin, and Guericke assert 
 the apostasy of the Pope. It is feebly explained by the Eomisli writers. 
 So, too, Athanasius himself asserts it. See Hefele, i., p. 658.
 
 THE SECOND COUNCIL. 155 
 
 with the imperial faction in renouncing the doctrine of the 
 Nicene Council; yet Athanasius, sheltered in the wilds of 
 Egypt, maintained the unecjual strife, and may be safely said 
 to have molded by his vigorous resistance the opinions of all 
 succeeding ages. But the period of Anathasius was one upon 
 which neitlier party could look with satisfaction. The princi- 
 ples of Christianity were forgotten in the memorable struggle. 
 Both factions became bitter persecutors, blood-thirsty and ty- 
 rannical. Even Athanasius condescended to duplicity in his 
 argument, and cruelty in his conduct ; the most orthodox of 
 bishops may be convicted of pious frauds or brutal violence ; 
 and the meek and lowly Christians of that unhappy age prob- 
 ably gazed with wonder and shame on the crimes and follies 
 of their superiors.(') 
 
 The second Ecumenical Council met in the year 381, at Con- 
 stantinople, under the reign of Theodosius the Great. The 
 story of this famous synod has lately been told by M. De 
 Broglie, a moderate Romanist, and the grandson of the gifted 
 De Stael.(°) His narrative is trustworthy, although uncritical ; 
 and his honest picture of the stormy sessions of the great 
 Constantinopolitan Council shows how corrupt, even in his 
 guarded opinion, had become the exterior organization of the 
 Church. A similar account is given by all the other authori- 
 ties. Happily, the people were always better and wiser than 
 their rulers. The true Church lived among the humble and 
 the poor. The Catliari, or early Protestants, the Waldenses, 
 and the Albigenses indicate that moral purity was never whol- 
 ly extinct, and that the industry, probity, and progress inculca- 
 ted by St. Paul still shed peace and hope over the homes of 
 the lowly. There was one eminent intellect, too, of that cor- 
 rupt age, educated among the highest ranks of the clergy, who 
 has painted Avith no gentle touch the harsher lineaments of 
 the second council.(^) Gregory Nazianzen repeats in his let- 
 
 (') Mosheim, i., p. 321, notices that most of the noted fathers of this pe- 
 riod, were capable of pious frauds. 
 
 O L'figlise et I'Empire Komaiu au IV""' Siecle, v., p. 403 et seq. 
 
 (^) Gregory, De Vita Sua, and in yarions poems and orations, describes 
 the bishops of his time in no fluttering terms. See his poem Ad Episcopos.
 
 156 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 ters, sermons, and autobiographical poems what was the popu- 
 lar conception of the rulers of the Church. Gregory was the 
 son of the Bishop of Nazianzus. His youth had been spent 
 in study and learned ease. He was himself already the titular 
 Bishop of Sasima, but lie had contented himself with assist- 
 ing his father in his rustic diocese, and shrunk from public life 
 with awkward modesty.(') His wonderful eloquence and vig- 
 orous powers seem, however, to have become widely known, 
 when a new field was suddenly opened to him for their prac- 
 tical employment, which his conscience would not permit him 
 to decline. The magnificent city of Constantinople had, ever 
 since its foundation, been in the hands of Arian prelates, and 
 its crowded churches refused to accept the canons of the Coun- 
 cil of Nice. But an orthodox emperor, the rough and honest 
 Spanish soldier Theodosius, was now on the Koman throne ; 
 and a small band of faithful Athanasians at Constantinople 
 thought this a favorable moment for attempting the conver- 
 sion of the Imperial City. They looked over the Christian 
 world for a suitable pastor. They might have selected Basil 
 the Great, but his age and infirmities prevented him from 
 leaving his Eastern see ; they sent, therefore, to claim the 
 services of Gregory, as the next most eminent of the Oriental 
 divines. 
 
 Little did Gregory foresee the cares and woes, the shame 
 and disappointment, that lay hidden in his future ! Reluctant- 
 ly he accepted the invitation, and left his rustic home to enter 
 the luxurious capital. He was already prematurely old and 
 infirm. His head was bald, except for a few gray hairs ; his 
 figure was bent with age, his appearance insignificant. His 
 manner was modest and timid, and no careless observer would 
 have discovered in the rustic old man the most splendid and 
 successful orator of his age. AVhen Gregory arrived in the 
 city he found not one of all its numerous churches open to 
 him. Its whole population was hostile, and nobles, artisans, 
 monks, and nuns were prepared to argue the rarest questions 
 
 (') He celebrates his excellent father, his pious mother, and himself. 
 Opera, vol. ii., p. 2.
 
 GBEGORY NAZIANZEX. 157 
 
 ill theology with eager Yolubilitj. Constantinople, in 380, 
 rang with religious controversy. The feasts, the baths, the 
 Hippodi'ome, and the most licentious resorts resounded with 
 sacred names and tlioughts.(') If a shop-keeper were asked the 
 cost of a piece of silk, he would reply by a disquisition on un- 
 regenerated being ; if a stranger inquired at a baker's the price 
 of bread, he was told, " the Son is subordinate to the Father." 
 Into this disputatious population Gregory threw himself bold- 
 ly. His orthodox friends had no church to offer him, but they 
 provided a large hall or basilica ; an altar w^as raised at one 
 end ; a gallery for women separated them from the men ; 
 choristers and deacons attended ; and Gregory, full of hope, 
 named his modest chapel Anastasia, the Church of the Resm*- 
 rection.(^) 
 
 His success was indeed unbounded. The building was al- 
 ways crowded, the crush at the entrance often terrific ; the 
 rails of the chancel were sometimes broken down ; and often 
 the crowded congregation broke forth in loud congratulatory 
 cheers as they were touched or startled by the eloquent di- 
 vine.(') Insensibly Gregory's vanity was inflamed and grati- 
 fied by his wide popularity. Standing on his bishop's throne 
 in the eastern end of his Anastasia, the church brilliantly 
 lighted, his presbyters and deacons in white robes around him, 
 a crowded congregation listening with upturned eyes below, 
 now fixed in deepest silence and now breaking into loud ap- 
 plause, Gregory enjoyed a transient triumph, upon which he 
 was fond of dwelling in his later years, when, in the obscurity 
 of Nazianzus, he composed his own poetical memoirs. Yet 
 he was never safe from the malice of his foes. More than 
 once a riotous mob of ferocious monks and nuns, of drunken 
 artisans and hungry beggars, broke into the Anastasia, dis- 
 turbed its worshipers and the preacher, wounded the neo- 
 phytes and priests, and were allowed by the Arian police 
 to escape unharmed ; and it was only when Theodosius hiin- 
 
 (') Gregory Naz., Or., p. 22-27. 
 
 C) De Vita Sua, Oiiera, ii., p. 17 ; De Broglie, v., p. 408. 
 
 (^) De Broglie, v., p. 382; Carm., Do Vita Sua, p. G75-700 et seq.
 
 158 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 self entered the city that the labor of conversion was attended 
 with snccess.(') 
 
 Theodosius was no hesitatini^ missionary. He called before 
 him Demophilus, the Arian bishop, and ordered him to recant 
 his errors or resign. The honest bisliop at once gave np his 
 office. The see was now vacant. A wild Egyptian fanatic or 
 impostor, Maximns, had already briljed the people to elect 
 him their bishop ; but the next day they had repented of their 
 folly, and resolved to force Gregory into the vacant see. 
 They dragged him in their arms to the episcopal chair. He 
 struggled to escape, he refused to sit down, the women wept, 
 the children cried out in their mothers' arms, and at last Greg- 
 ory consented to be their bishop.(°) Maximus, however, still 
 claimed the see. Demophilus had not yet been deposed, w^hen 
 Damasus, the Bishop of Rome, advised Theodosius to summon 
 the second General Council. But the affair of the bishopric 
 tlie soldier-emperor resolved to decide in his own way. He 
 deposed Demophilus, expelled Maximus, and, amidst the gen- 
 eral lamentation of the Arian city, on a clouded day in No- 
 vember, carried the pale and trembling Gregory to the Church 
 of the Apostles, where Constantine and his successors lay en- 
 tombed, and proclaimed him bishop. Just then, it is said, the 
 wintry clouds parted and a bright sunbeam covered Gregory's 
 bare head with glory. The crowded congregation accepted 
 the omen, and cried out, " Long live our bishop Gregory ."Q 
 
 To coniirm or annul Gregory's election, and to correct the 
 creed of the day, were the objects for which the second Gen- 
 eral Council assembled. If we may trust Gregory's account 
 of it, which he wrote in the obscure but not tranquil retire- 
 ment of Nazianzus, we must conclude that it could scarcely 
 compare favorably in moral excellence with that of Nice. A 
 canonized saint, he rails against the bishops of his age.(') All 
 the gluttons, villains, and false-swearers of the empire, he ex- 
 
 (') De Broglie, v., p. 394. See Gregory's dream of the Anastasia. 
 C) De Broglie, v., p. 409. 
 
 (=■) De Vita Sua, p. 1355-1390. See Migue, Pat. Grsec, xxxyii., pp. 1177, 
 1234. 
 
 (*) Ad Epis. (il., p. 824-829), Carmen vii.
 
 A COUNCIL VITUPERATED. ■ 159 
 
 claims, had l3een convoked in the council. The bishops were 
 low-born and illiterate, peasants, blacksmiths, deserters from 
 the army, or reeking from the holds of ships ; and when in 
 the midst of his vituperation the elegant Gregory remember- 
 ed that of the same class of humble and unlearned men were 
 the authors of his faith : " Yes," he cried, " they were true 
 apostles ; but these are time-servers and flatterers of the great, 
 long -bearded hypocrites, and pretended devotees, who have 
 neither intellect nor faith."(') Of ecumenical councils the 
 priestly satirist had but an indifferent opinion. Councils and 
 congresses, he said, were the cause of many evils. " I will not 
 sit in one of those councils of geese and cranes," he exclaimed. 
 " I fly from every meeting of bishops ; for I never saw a good 
 end to any, but rather an increase of evils." It is indeed dif- 
 ficult to see how the canonized Gregory, had he attended the 
 synods of Trent or Constance, could have escaped the fate of 
 Huss or Jerome. Yet in the Second Council were gathered 
 several eminent and excellent men. Anu^ng them were Greg- 
 ory of Nyssa, a high authority in the Church, and the worthy 
 brother of Basil the Great ; Melitius, the gentle Bishop of An- 
 tioch, who presided at the council at the emperor's request ;(*) 
 C^Til, the aged Bishop of Jerusalem ; and many others who 
 scarcely deserved the bitter taunts of Gregory. But Melitius 
 died soon after the opening of the council, and Gregory, who 
 had been confirmed in his bishopric, presided as Patriarch of 
 Constantinople. He was at the summit of his glory ; his fall 
 drew near. His vigorous honesty, his bitter denunciation, had 
 made him many enemies, and it was suddenly discovered that 
 there was a fatal flaw in his election. By an obsolete canon 
 of the Nicene Council, which had been constantly violated 
 ever since its passage, no bishop could be translated from one 
 see to another ; and Gregory was already the Bishop of Sasi- 
 ma. The objection was made ; the jealous council condemned 
 their greatest orator ; and the indignant bishop, deprived of 
 his see, a disgraced and fallen churchman, was sent back to 
 
 (') Ad Epis., Migne, xxxvii., p. 1177, ami see p. 226. 
 
 (^) De Bioglie, v., p. 425, excuses the presideucy of Melitius.
 
 IGO . ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 the repose of Nazianzus.C) Tlieodosius lamented liis loss, but 
 refused to interfere in the clerical dispute. A few friends 
 shared in Gregory's indignation. In his rural retirement he 
 wrote those sharp diatribes on the Eastern bishops which in- 
 troduce us to the clerical life of Constantinople, as those of 
 his friend Jerome depict the vices and follies of Rome. Both 
 capitals seem to have been equally tainted and impure. 
 
 The council now wanted a head, and Tlieodosius at once ap- 
 pointed Xectarius, a magistrate of the city, to the holy office 
 of Patriarch of Constantinople. If Gregory had been ineligi- 
 ble, his successor was still more so. He had never been bap- 
 tized, was not even a Christian, and his morals were not such 
 as to lit him for the apostolic place. But the emperor insist- 
 ed, the bishop was baptized, and his vices were hidden in the 
 splendor of his patriarchal court. He presided at the council, 
 which now hastened to finish its sittings. The real influence 
 of the Council of Constantinojile on the opinions of the Church 
 was not important ; its decisions were rejected at Rome and 
 neglected by its contemporaries. The "• Creed of Constanti- 
 nople," which has been erroneously ascribed to it, was proba- 
 bly the work of Epiphanius or Gregory of Nyssa.f) The 
 council condemned a vast number of heresies; it raised the 
 see of Constantinople to the second rank in Christendom, 
 next to Rome, and suggested the principle that the dignity of 
 the patriarch was to be determined by the importance of the 
 city over which he ruled. Constantinople was now second 
 only to Rome ; and as the latter declined in power, we find the 
 bishop of the Eastern capital first claiming an equality with 
 the ancient see, and then, finally, seeking to subject the bar- 
 barous West to his own authority by declaring himself the 
 Universal Bisliop.(') The emperor, Tlieodosius, whose vigor 
 had controlled most of the proceedings of the council, now, as 
 head of the Church, affirmed its authority by an imperial de- 
 
 (') Do Bioglie, v., p. 442. Gregory delivered a fine address iu parting. 
 See his congratulatory letter to Nectarius, Ep., p. 88. Migue, sxxvii., p. 162. 
 
 C) De Broglie even adds iha fdioque,\^\\\ch. was not beard of until a cent- 
 ury or nioru later, v., p. 450, and note. 
 
 (') Milmau, Hist. Lat. Chri.stiauity, i., p. 211.
 
 POPE DJMASUS. 161 
 
 eree.(') The " one hundred and iifty fatliers," as they have 
 been called, left Constantinople in the hot days of July, 381, 
 for their various homes. The war of controversy had ceased ; 
 but the fierce disputes, the bitter invectives, the unchristian 
 violence, and the infamous morals of many of the mem- 
 bers of the Second Council are preserved to us by the un- 
 sparing satires of the honest but vindictive Gregory of Nazi- 
 anzus. 
 
 It might seem to the Christian or the man of thought a 
 matter of little consequence what the corrupt priests and bish- 
 ops of this distant period said or imagined of their own pre- 
 rogatives and powers; and no subtlety of argument can con- 
 vert into a successor of the apostles the fierce and blood- 
 thirsty Damasus,f ) Bishop of Rome, the dissolute Patriarch of 
 Constantinople, or the ambitious and unprincipled prelates of 
 Antioch and Alexandria ; but it may be safely said that each 
 asserted a perfect independence of the other, and that the 
 Bishop of Rome as yet held no general control in the exterior 
 church. The wars and rivalries of the ambitious prelates, in- 
 deed, might almost convince us that Christian virtue had 
 wholly died out, did not various casual notices of the histori- 
 ans of the time direct us to a different conclusion. The pa- 
 gan, Ammianus Marcellinus, in his scornful picture of the 
 luxury and vice of the clergy of Rome,(') points to a pleasing 
 contrast in the conduct of the rural priests. They, at least, 
 lived in a purity and simplicity worthy of the best days of 
 the Church ; they, perhaps, with their rustic congregations, 
 were the true successors of the apostles.(*) Gregory of Na- 
 zianzus and Jerome confirm and illustrate his narrative. The 
 Church still lived among the people ; and while angry bishops 
 raged in stormy councils, or hurled anathemas against each 
 other in haughty supremacy, the good Samaritan still softened 
 the hearts of humble Christians ; the cup of cold water was 
 
 C) Hefele,ii., pp. 27,28. 
 
 O Rufinns, i., p. 10, describes the bloody scenes at Rome. 
 C) A. Thierry, Saint Jerome, i., p. 21. 
 
 (^) Ammianus, xxvii., pp. 3, 14: "Tenuitas edeudi potandJf[4ie parcis- 
 sime," etc. 
 
 11
 
 162 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 still given to the weary and the sad ; the merciful and the 
 meek of every land were still nnited in a saintly and eternal 
 brotherhood. Christian morality began to assert a wonderful 
 power ; the people everywhere grew purer and better. The 
 barbarous gladiatorial shows were abolished ; licentious spec- 
 tacles no longer j^leased ; the vices of paganism disappeared ; 
 the sacred bond of marriage was observed ; slavery, which had 
 destroyed the Roman republic, was tending to its decay ; and 
 some future historian of the Church, neglecting the strife of 
 bishops and councils, may be able to trace a clear succession 
 of apostolic virtue from the days of Gregory and Jerome to 
 those of Wycliffe, IIuss, and Luther. 
 
 The third and fourth Ecumenical Councils grew out of 
 a tierce struggle for supremacy between the Patriarchs of 
 Alexandria and Constantinople.(') Cyril of Alexandria, vio- 
 lent, ambitious, and unscrupulous, ruled over a wide and pros- 
 perous patriarchate. The city of Alexandria, in the decline 
 of the Roman empire, was still (431) the centre of letters and 
 of trade. Rome had been ravaged and desolated by the Goth 
 and the Yandal, and was fast sinking into a new barbarism ; 
 Constantinople, under its feeble emperors, trembled at each 
 movement of the savage tenants of the European wilderness ; 
 but Alexandria was untouched by the barbarian, and its gifted 
 bishop reigned supreme over the swarming population of the 
 Egyptian diocese. He had resolved to crash Nestorius, Patri- 
 arch of Constantinople. It was the famous Nestorian con- 
 troversy which gave rise to a Christian sect that still exists in 
 its ancient seats. Nestorius refused to apply to the Virgin 
 Mary the name of " Mother of God." Cyril denounced him 
 with bitter malignity,^ and began a holy war which he had 
 resolved should end in the destruction of his powerful rival. 
 Between the two hostile patriarchs, indeed, there seems to 
 have been little difference in character or in Christian mod- 
 eration, and I^J^estoriusQ had persecuted with unsparing hand 
 
 (') ililman, Hist. Latin Christianity, i., p. 160 ; Barouius, v., p. 682. 
 
 C) Conciliorum, v., p. 6. 
 
 (') For the cruelties of Nestorius, see Socrates, vii., p. 29.
 
 CTRIL AXD HYP ATI A. 163 
 
 the hapless dissidents within his see. But he had scarcely 
 equaled the vindictive cruelty of Cyril. Alexandria had al- 
 ready witnessed, under the rule of its intolerant master, a 
 severe persecution of the gentle Xovatians, whose simple pie- 
 ty seems to have attracted the bitter hatred of the ambitious 
 prelates of the age ; and Cyril himself led a throng of fanatics 
 to the plunder and destruction of the harmless and wealthy 
 Jews.(') Forty thousand of the unhappy Israelites were 
 banished from the city they had enriched ; and when Orestes, 
 the Roman prefect, complained of the persecuting bishop to 
 the emperor, a mob of monks assailed him in the street, and 
 one of them, Ammonius, struck him on the head with a 
 stone.Q The people drove off the monks, and Orestes order- 
 ed Ammonius to be put to torture. He died, but Cyril buried 
 him with holy honors, and enrolled his name among the band 
 of martyrs. Sober Christians, says Socrates, condemned Cy- 
 ril's conduct, but a still deeper disgrace soon fell upon the Al- 
 exandrian Church from the rivalry of Cyril and Orestes. The 
 fair Hypatia, the daughter of the philosopher Tlieron, had 
 won the respect as well as the admiration of Alexandria by 
 her beauty, her eloquence, and her modest life. With rare 
 clearness and force she explained before splendid audiences 
 the pure doctrines of Plato, and proved, by her refined and 
 graceful oratory, that the gift of genius might be found in ei- 
 ther sex. She was the rival of Cyril in eloquence, and the 
 friend of his enemy Orestes, and her dreadful doom awoke 
 the sympathy of Christians as well as pagans. The fierce and 
 bigoted followers of Cyril dragged her from her carriage as 
 she was returning to her home, tore her body to pieces, and 
 burned her mangled limbs ; and it was believed, even by 
 Christian historians, that the jealous patriarch was not alto- 
 gether innocent of a share in the doom of his gentle and ac- 
 complished rival.(') 
 
 Q) Socrates, Hist. Ecc.,Yii., p. 13. 
 
 C') Gibbou exaggerates the assault into a voUeij of stones, Decline and 
 Fall, iv., p. 460 ; but Socrates, vii., p. 14, mentions only one. 
 
 O Socrates, vii., p. IG, denounces the murder as an opprobrium to Cy- 
 ril and the Church.
 
 164 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 Cyril denounced and anathematized Nestorius ; Celestine, 
 Bishop of Rome, joined him in his war against the Bishop of 
 Constantinople, degraded Nestorins from his episcopal dignity, 
 and asserted the divine honors of Mary as the mother of God. 
 The feeble emperor, Tlieodosius the Yonnger, alarmed by the 
 furious rage of his powerful prelates, but friendly to Nesto- 
 rius, summoned an assembly of the Christian world to decide 
 the nice distinction. Ephesu>3 was chosen as a convenient 
 place for the meeting of the Third Council, and in June, 431, 
 the rival factions began to gather in the magnificent city of 
 Diana, now destined to become renowned for the triumph of 
 the holier Yirgin.(') Yet to the sincere Christians of this un- 
 happy age the conduct and character of the members of the 
 Third Council could have brought only disappointment and 
 shame. In vain the gentle Tlieodosius implored his patri- 
 archs and bishops to exercise the common virtues of forbear- 
 ance and self-respect ; in vain he placed over them a guard of 
 soldiers to insure an outward peace. The streets of the mag- 
 nificent city were filled with riot and bloodshed ; the rival 
 factions fought for the honor of Mary or the supremacy of 
 the hostile sees. Cyril, violent and resolute to rule, had come 
 from Alexandria, followed by a throng of bishops, priests, and 
 a host of fanatics ; Nestorius relied for his safety on the pro- 
 tection of the imperial guard ; but to neither could the Chris- 
 tian world attribute any one of the virtues enjoined by its 
 holy faith.C') The Patriarch of Alexandria refused to wait 
 for the coming of the Oriental bishops, and at once assembled 
 a synod of his own adherents, and proceeded to try and con- 
 demn his rival. Kestorius protested; the emperor's legate, 
 Candidian, who asked for a delay of four days, was driven 
 with insult from the hostile assembly. The bishops delivered 
 their opinions ; Cyril presided ; and at the close of a single 
 day Nestorius was degraded, a convicted heretic ; and the city 
 
 (*) Concil., v., p. 7. Baronius, v., p. 682, raises the luiinber of bishops to 
 over two hundred. 
 
 C) Milman, Hist. Lat. Chris., i., p. 133-140. For a full accouut of the 
 couucil see Hefele, Zwoiter Band, p. 162 d 8eq.
 
 THE FALLEN CHURCH. 165 
 
 of Ephesus resounded with songs of triumph over the fall of 
 the enemy of Mary.(') 
 
 It is painful, indeed, to contemplate the angry strife that 
 rent the corrupt Church of this early period, yet it is not dif- 
 ficult to discover its cause. The Church, in its exterior form, 
 had long been the instrument of the State ; the bishops and 
 patriarchs were the representatives of the vices and the in- 
 trigues of the imperial court. They had become earthly 
 princes, instead of messengers from heaven. Their pomp and 
 luxury shocked and alienated the true believer, and they had 
 long abandoned every one of tlie principles of charity and be- 
 nevolence inculcated by the faith they professed. The unity 
 of the Church had been lost in the contentions of its chiefs, 
 and even in Constantinople itself three rival bishops ruled 
 over their separate adherents. The Cathari, or Novatians, the 
 Protestants of this corrupt period, departing from the estab- 
 lished church, had retained their organization ever since the 
 age of Constantino ;(^) the pure and spotless lives of their 
 bishops, Agelius, Chrysanthus, and Paul, formed a pleasing 
 contrast to the vices of Xectarius or Xestorius ; and the mod- 
 est virtues of this persecuted sect awakened the envy and the 
 hatred of the orthodox bishops of Rome and Constantinople. 
 The Kovatians rejected the authority of the imperial patri- 
 arch, but they observed the Nicene Creed. They lived holy 
 lives in the midst of persecution or temptation. Chrysan- 
 thus,Q the Kovatian bishop of Constantinople, distributed his 
 private fortune among the poor, and his only salary was two 
 loaves of bread on each Lord's day from the contributions of 
 the faithful. The ISTovatian Ablabius was one of the most 
 elegant and vigorous preachers of the day;(*) the pious Paul 
 was the friend of the prisoners and of the poor.(^) An Arian 
 bishop also presided at Constantinople, and in their sufferings 
 his followers learned virtue and self-restraint. It was against 
 
 (') Hefele, ii., p. 173: "Die Sitzung hatte von Morgans friih bis in die 
 Nacht hinein gedauert." Nestorius was called a new Judas. 
 
 C) Socrates, H. E., v., p. 12-21. See Sozomen, 1., p. 22, for the boldness of 
 a Novatiau. 
 
 C) Socrates, H. E., vii., p. 12. C) Id. C) hi, p. 17.
 
 166 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 these rival sects that Nestorius had first turned his persecuting 
 rage. He envied the spotless fame, the general love that fol- 
 lowed the gentle Novatian hishop, Paul, as he passed through 
 the city to intercede for the prisoner or to relieve the sick ; he 
 destroyed the Arian churches ; and lie deserved, by his cruel 
 intolerance, the fatal doom which Cyril had prepared for him 
 at Ejihesus. 
 
 But Cyril's triumphs at the council seemed about to be 
 turned into a defeat by the arrival of John, Bishop of Antioch, 
 and the Oriental bishops, who at once denied the validity of 
 the condemnation of Nestorius. Two rival councils sat at the 
 same time in the City of the Yirgin,(') and the streets were 
 again filled with riot and bloodshed by the contending fac- 
 tions. Churches were stormed and defended; the imperial 
 guards fled before an angry mob ; and for three months Cyril 
 and Nestorius opposed each other with an almost equal pros- 
 pect of success, and with all the weapons of corruption, vio- 
 lence, and fraud.f ) The Em23eror Theodosius, the gentlest of 
 rulers, was at length enraged at the vindictive fury of the 
 holy council. He sent the disorderly prelates to their homes, 
 and recommended them to amend by their private virtues the 
 injury and scandal they had inflicted on the Church. But the 
 malevolence of Cyril was insatiable. His intrigues and his 
 bribes won over the courtiers of Constantinople ; and Nesto- 
 rius, the haughtiest of patriarchs except his rival, was sent 
 into exile, and died a convicted heretic. His name and his 
 doctrine still survive in a sect of Oriental Christians, who are 
 perhaps the natural fruit of the persecuting spirit of Cyril and 
 the intolerant rule of the famous Council of Ephesus, 
 
 The heresy of Nestorius gave rise to the fourth General 
 Council, at Chalcedon, by exciting a speculation directly op- 
 posed to his own.Q Eutyches, an aged monk, the chief or 
 abbot of the ascetic throng of Constantinople, and a faithful 
 
 (') Baronius, v., p. 687-719, looks upon Nestorius as a ragiug mouster — a 
 dragon or a fiend. 
 
 C) I^vagrius, Hist. Ecc., i., pp. 4, 5. 
 
 (') Milman, Hist. Latin Christianity, i., p. 204 ; Gibbou, iv., p. 476.
 
 DIOSCORUS AND HIS BOB BEES. 167 
 
 follower of Cyril, proposed, in opposition to the two natures 
 of Christ asserted by the Nestorians, a theory of the perfect 
 union of the spiritual nature with the human. He was shock- 
 ed to find himself denounced as a heretic, yet he boldly main- 
 tained his opinion.(') Cyril was dead ; his successor, Diosco- 
 rus, Patriarch of Alexandria, defended the theory of Eutyches. 
 He was even more unscrupulous than his predecessor. His 
 vices, his cruelty, and his ambition filled the Christian world 
 with tumult. A synod met at Ephesus to decide the contro- 
 versy. Dioscorus was present with a horde of monks, robbers, 
 and assassins ; the trembling bishops were forced by the vio- 
 lence of the Egyptians to adopt the opmion of Eutyches, and 
 the " Robber Synod," as it was called, from the savage natures 
 of its members, seemed to have fixed the rule of orthodoxy. 
 But Leo the Great was now Bishop of Kome, and the oppo- 
 nent of Attila did not fear the wild anchorets of Eg}^t. A 
 general council was summoned at his request, to meet in Oc- 
 tober, 451, at Chalcedon. Senators and nobles were mingled 
 with the priestly throng to restrain their tumultuous im- 
 pulses ;(') in the magnificent church of St. Euphemia, on the 
 shores of the Thracian Bosphorus, five hundred bishops at- 
 tended; the haughty Dioscorus was tried by his peers, and 
 convicted of innumerable vices and crimes ; he was deposed 
 from his sacred ofiice, and the aspiring Bishop of Rome re- 
 joiced in the fall of his powerful rival. For the first time, 
 perhaps, the Nicene Creed was chanted as we have it to-day; 
 the Eutychian heresy was condemned in the person of its chief 
 defender ; and various canons were passed that served to de- 
 fine the usages of the Church. Yet Leo's triumph was mar- 
 red by a memorable incident. Among the regulations in- 
 troduced by the council was one that raised the see of Con- 
 stantinople to an equality, in some particulars at least, with 
 that of Rome ; it asserted that the dignity of the city deter- 
 
 (') Concil. Chaleedonse, Labbei, viii., p. 4: " Incredibile est, quanta 
 auimi acerbitate ac rabio exarsit Eutyches." Hefele, ii., p. 361. 
 
 (-) ConciL, Labbei, iv., p. 766: "Turbas comprioiereut." See Evagrius, 
 ii., p. 3.
 
 168 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 mined that of its patriarch, and openly expressed what had 
 been implied at the Second Council.(*) Leo rejected the can- 
 ons with disdain ; he asserted with rage and violence the 
 primacy of Peter ; but the incident is important as showing 
 what was the opinion of this superstitious age as to the ori- 
 gin of the papal claims.(') Another result of the Council of 
 Chalcedon was the creation of a sect, the Monophjsites, who 
 still retain the dogma condemned by the synod, and whose 
 faith still lingers among the Copts and the Abyssinians. So 
 powerless are councils to produce a general unity of belief ! 
 
 A Bishop of Rome, Vigilius, lent his sanction to the fifth 
 Ecumenical Council, and its general character may be inferred 
 from the life and conduct of its head. Vigilius was the creat- 
 ure and the victim of the corrupt women who ruled over the 
 court of the feeble Justinian. He was accused of having 
 caused the death of his predecessor, the gentle Silverius; of 
 having killed his own nephew by incessant scourging ; of be- 
 ing a notorious murderer, stained by countless crimes. He 
 fled from Rome, pursued by the maledictions of its people. 
 They threw volleys of stones after him as he left the city, and 
 cried, " Evil thou hast done to us — evil attend thee wherever 
 thou goest !"(') At Constantinople he met with still worse 
 treatment. His vacillation or his insincerity displeased his 
 corrupt patrons; he was dragged through the streets with a 
 rope around his neck ; was shut up in the common jail, and 
 fed on bread and water ; and, at length, the unlucky pontiff, 
 having in vain sacrificed his conscience to the tyranny of 
 Justinian, died a miserable outcast at Syracuse.(*) The papal 
 dignity had evidently sunk low in this degenerate age ; and 
 one can not avoid contrasting the humble slave, Vigilius, with 
 
 (') Coucil., Labbei, iv., p. 7(57. The Jesuit editors say "second" to 
 Kome ; but why, then, Leo's indignatiou ? 
 
 (^) It is said that this cauon was passed by a few bishops, and not by 
 the whole council (Milnian, Hist. Lat. Christ., i., p. 211); but it still in- 
 dicates that the papal theory was not yet established. 
 
 (') Milman, i., p. 340 et seq. 
 
 C) Hefele, ii., p. 824 et 8cq., gives a full account of the council. Vigilius 
 was forced to confirm the acts of the council.
 
 POPE HONORIUS THE HERETIC. 169 
 
 the haughty Gregories and Innocents who ruled over nion- 
 archs and nations, and who so barbarously avenged his fate. 
 Justinian ruled alone at the Fifth Council (553), and Pope and 
 bishops were the servile instruments of the vicious court. The 
 last, the sixth General Council, assembled in 680, at Constan- 
 tinople. The emperor or Pope Agatho presided ; a throng of 
 bishops attended ; a band of soldiers enforced good order ; 
 and a fierce anchorite of the Monothelite faith attempted to 
 perform a miracle as a proof of the sanctity of his creed. But 
 the dead refused to come to life under his illusive spells ; the 
 Monothelite doctrine was condemned by the united council ; 
 and the faith in the infallibility of the papacy was forever 
 shattered by the conviction of Pope Ilonorius as a heretic.(^) 
 If a Pope can be a heretic, how can he be infallible ? If his 
 inspiration can once fail, when can we be ever sure of his per- 
 fect truth ? Or if Pope Ilonorius erred in becoming the pa- 
 tron of the Monothelite creed, may we not conclude that Pope 
 Pius IX. is wrong in opposing free schools and a free press? 
 The sixth General Council offers a happy precedent for a 
 general synod of the nineteenth century.(^) 
 
 There now occurs in the course of history that solemn and 
 instructive spectacle, the decline and death of the European 
 intellect. Knowledge ceased to be powerful ; the ignorant 
 races subdued the intellectual ; a brutal reign of violence fol- 
 lowed ; and truth, honor, probity, industry, genius, seemed to 
 have fled forever from the nations of Europe, to find their 
 home with the Saracen or the Turk, From the seventh to the 
 twelfth century the Arabs were the only progressive race. In 
 Europe, by a strange perversion of common reason, to labor 
 was held dishonorable ; to rob the laborer was held the priv- 
 ilege of noble birth.(') The feudal system was a not unskill- 
 ful device to maintain a warrior caste at the cost of the labor- 
 
 (') Mosheim, i., p. 536, aud note ; Milman, Lat. Christianity, ii., p. 137. 
 
 (') For the authorities on the coudemuatiou of Honoriiis see Hefele, 
 Con., iii., p. 264-284. The support of heresy, Honorius was vigorously 
 anathematized. 
 
 (^) The Middle-age chroniclers seem to have hated the working-class in- 
 tensely. See Commines, v., j). 5 j Monstrelet.
 
 ITO ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 ing class ; and the merchant, the scholar, the mechanic, and the 
 inventor became serfs or villeins, whose scanty earnings were 
 freely snatched from them to sustain the indolent license of 
 their warrior lords.(') Industry died out, and with it fell its 
 natural offspring — the intellect. The warrior caste could nei- 
 ther read nor w^ite ; the miserable serfs had no leisure for 
 mental improvement ; while priests, monks, and bishops aban- 
 doned the study of classic literature, and, when they could 
 read, employed their idle hours in conning their breviaries or 
 in spelling out miraculous legends of the saints. In this dark 
 period grew up the monastic system, the worship of images 
 and relics, the adoration of Mary, the supremacy of Eome. 
 
 Heresies, indeed, had ceased to exist, except the greatest of 
 them all, the papal assumption ; and general councils were no 
 lono-er held. A chain of circumstances had tended to make 
 Eome the master of the intellect and the conscience of Eu- 
 rope. Its ancient rivals, the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Anti- 
 och, and Jerusalem, had sunk into feeble subjects of the fol- 
 lowers of Mohammed. No Cyril any longer thundered his 
 anathemas from amidst his swarming hosts of Egyptian monks 
 and bishops ; no vigorous opponents of the papal assumptions 
 arose among the persecuted Christians of Syria and the East. 
 A feeble patriarch reigned at Constantinople, who faintly de- 
 fied his Italian brother, and chanted an uninterpolated creed ;Q 
 but the whole Western world obeyed implicitly the spiritual 
 tyrant at Eome, and the pure faith and morality of the age 
 were lost to sight, and were hidden, perhaps, in the cottages of 
 the Vaudois and amidst the glens and defiles of the Pyrenees. 
 
 The monastic system had now assumed a strange and over- 
 whelming importance. Eome ruled by its monasteries, and 
 over every part of Europe a countless throng of these clerical 
 fortresses had arisen, engrossing the richest lands, drawing in 
 the young and ardent, cultivating the grossest superstition, and 
 
 (') The Normau knigbts gave away carpenters and blacksmiths as pres- 
 ents. See Ingulphns, p. 174. The Norman kings sometimes presented 
 their courtiers with a wealthy merchant. 
 
 (^) The Latins now added the /Ziojite.
 
 THE MONASTIC RULE. 171 
 
 forming, from Monte Casino to Croyland or Melrose, the iirm- 
 est defense of the papal rule. In the third centmy a Paul and 
 an Anthony, the famous solitaries of Egypt, had begun the 
 system by their example of a perfect seclusion from the world, 
 and often the gentle hermits were the purest, if not the most 
 useful, of their race.(') A pale, slight, sickly, but impassioned 
 and gifted missionary of the new practice, the austere, the bit- 
 ter Jerome, had defended and propagated monasticism by his 
 vigorous pen and his holy life.(°) But Jerome at least taught 
 his followers to labor with their hands, to dress plainly but 
 neatly, to read, perhaps to think.Q A Benedict and Pope 
 Gregory the Great helped to spread the system over the West. 
 Its rules of austerity, seclusion, celibacy, and ignorance grew 
 rigid and immovable, and the monastery became the model 
 of the Roman Church. Celibacy, which had been condemned 
 by the gentle ascetic Paphnutius at the Council of Nice, who 
 proclaimed marriage honorable, was now enforced upon every 
 priest.Q The iron Hildebrand tore wives from their hus- 
 bands, destroyed the happiness of countless families, and de- 
 nounced the married clergy in every land : the priest was con- 
 verted into a monk. The Roman Church denianded a perfect 
 submission from its servants. But the monastic system, which 
 had seemed so harmless or so meritorious in its earlier adher- 
 ents, began now to show its more dangerous aspect. Monas- 
 teries and nunneries filled the cities and the open country of 
 Europe. They possessed half the arable land of England, and 
 drew in the wealth of Germany and France. They grew rich 
 by bequests and charities, lawsuits, forgeries, and fraud.Q 
 The monks were noted for their avarice, indolence, license, 
 
 O The monks cultivated at first the useful arts. Sozomeu, Hist. Ecc, 
 i.,p.l2. 
 
 (°) See A. Thierry's Saint Jerome, i., p. 145. Au excellent portrait. 
 
 (') See Jerome, Regula Monachorum, cap. xiv. : " Si mouachus esse vis, 
 non videri," etc. They were to dress plainly, cai). xvii., to plant, to sow, to 
 labor. 
 
 {*) Sozomen, i., p. 23. 
 
 (^) The forged charters and perpetual lawsnits of Croyland show how 
 the acute abbots enlarged their wealth. Ingulphus, Chrou., lutroduct.
 
 172 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 and encroacliing pride. They crushed literature, discouraged 
 industry, despised the claims of labor ; and no burden pressed 
 more heavily upon the working-men of the Middle Ages than 
 the general prevalence of the monastic system. A sellish and 
 useless isolation made tlie monks the prey of idle fancies and 
 superstitious dreams. They sustained the worship of images 
 against the common-sense of Leo and Charlemagne, asserted 
 the claims of the Virgin, and defended the tyranny of the 
 Pope. A monk invented the Spanish Inquisition ; another 
 founded that of Rome ; one produced the massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew ; a Jesuit drove the Huguenots from France ; and 
 scarcely one of those horrible persecutions and bloody wars 
 that have made the name of Rome odious among nations but 
 may be traced to the bitter and blind superstition engendered 
 by the monkish rule. 
 
 A still darker infamy surrounded the convent and the nun- 
 ner3\(') Within their gloomy walls the abbot or superior 
 reigned supreme ; no person was permitted to hold intercourse 
 with the monks and nuns; their nearest relatives were ex- 
 cluded forever from their sight ; a severe discipline made 
 them the slaves of the abbot or the confessor, and deeds of 
 violence and crime, faintly whispered in the public ear, in- 
 creased the unpopularity of the monastic system. At length, 
 in the sixteenth century, the mighty voice of Luther awak- 
 ened attention to the growing enormity ; nation after nation 
 threw oil the terrible superstition, broke up its monasteries, 
 and drove their swarming population to useful labor. Italy 
 has just expelled its monks, to turn the monasteries into alms- 
 houses and public schools ; Spain follows in its path ; and it 
 is possible that these dangerous prisons of the young and the 
 fair may be permitted to exist in all their mediaeval enormity 
 only on the free soil of America or on the streets of Cracow. 
 It seems, indeed, unsafe that they should be suffered to multi- 
 ply anywhere, unless placed under the constant supervision of 
 the State. 
 
 (') For the gay license of Port Eoyal see Sainte-Beuve, Port Eoyal, i. 
 For a darker i)icture of an early period, Harduiu, Con., i., p. 1398.
 
 MONKISH RULE. 173 
 
 From the seventli to the sixteenth century the monks ruled 
 the world. The haughtiest and most hated of the Popes, a 
 Hildebrand or an Innocent III., were monks, and every as- 
 sembly of the papal bishops was controlled in its deliberations 
 by the monkish rule. In a Seventh Council (746), whose 
 ecumenicity might well be admitted, image - worship was con- 
 demned, and images declared the instruments of Satan.(') The 
 monks rebelled ; the Pope led them against the emperor and 
 the Church ; a new council was assembled at Nice ; and the 
 indispensable idols were restored and defended in language 
 that was adopted in the Council of Trent. Charlemagne dic- 
 tated, he could not write, four books against the popular su- 
 perstition, and the bishops of the East and the West seem to 
 have sustained the imperial faith ; yet the monks and the 
 Popes were successful, after a conflict of a century. (^) AYe 
 have no space to notice the various papal councils of this dark 
 period; the warrior caste of the Middle Ages submitted de- 
 voutly to the monkish rule ; and a war of extermination was 
 incessantly waged against that large body of enlightened and 
 humble Christians who, under the name of Yaudois, Lollards, 
 or Cathari, seem in every age to have preserved the pure traits 
 of the Gospel faith. At length, however, a council was held 
 whose important results deserve a momentary attention. 
 Pope Urban II., in 1095, assembled at Clermont and Placen- 
 tia an immense host of priests, knights, nobles, and princes, 
 and preached in glowing eloquence the duty of snatching the 
 Holy Places from the control of the iconoclastic Saracens. 
 Europe caught his superstitious ardor, and for more than two 
 centuries continued to pour forth its wealth of manly and 
 martial vigor in a wasteful frenzy on the plains of Syria. 
 The Curtian gulf was never tilled. The energy of nations, 
 which, if directed to honest labor and practical improvement, 
 might have civilized and cultivated the world, was squander- 
 ed in obedience to the cruel suggestions of a monkish dream- 
 er. The Cathari or dissenters wi'ote, spoke, or preached 
 against the wild delusion ; they asserted that the Christian 
 
 (') Milman, Hist. Lat. Christ., ii., p. 171. C) Id., ii., p. 184.
 
 174: ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 had no right to kill even a Saracen, and that the true way of 
 spreading the Gospel in the East was by the gentle persuasion 
 of a holy life. Their remonstrances were answered by the 
 rude denunciations of the papal preachers, by the whip, the 
 torture, and the stake. War and bloodshed became the chief 
 employment of the Papal Church and its martial adherents, 
 and for two centuries the Popes maintained their place at the 
 head of Christendom by exciting general massacres of the 
 Protestants of Provence or Piedmont, and by driving the 
 young generations of Europe to the charnel-house of the East. 
 One of the most startling effects of this monkish delusion 
 was the Crusade of the little children. A band of fifty thou- 
 sand children from Germany and France set out in 1212 to 
 redeem the Holy Sepulchre. A peasant child of Yendorae 
 first assumed the cross in France, and soon an increasing 
 throng of boys and girls gathered around him as he passed 
 from Paris to the South, and with a touching simplicity de- 
 clared that they meant to go to Jerusalem to deliver the sep- 
 ulchre of the Saviour.(') Their parents and relations in vain 
 endeavored to dissuade them ; they escaped from their homes ; 
 they wandered away without money or means of subsistence ; 
 and they believed that a mii'acle would dry up the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea and enable them to pass safely to the shores of 
 Syria. At length a body of seven thousand of the French 
 children reached Marseilles, and here they met with a strange 
 and unlooked-for doom. At Marseilles were slave-traders who 
 were accustomed to purchase or steal children in order to sell 
 them to the Saracens. Two of these monsters, Ferrers and 
 Porcus, engaged to take the young Crusaders to the Holy Land 
 without charge, and they set sail in seven sliips for the East.(°) 
 Two of the vessels were sunk on the passage with all their 
 passengers ; tlie others arrived safely, and the unhappy chil- 
 dren were sold by their betrayers in the slave-markets of Al- 
 
 (') This strange event is well attested. See Gescliichte der Krenzziige, 
 Wilkeii, vi., p. 7: "So wunderljar diese Erscbeinung war, so ist sie docb 
 durch die Zeugnisse glaubwiirdiger Gescbicbtscbreiber so fest begriindet," 
 etc. And Micbaud, ii., p. 202. 
 
 (=) Wilken,vi.,pp.81,82.
 
 COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 175 
 
 exandria or Cairo. Other large bodies of children came from 
 Germany across the Alps. Many perished from hunger, heat, 
 disease ; a few were enabled to die on the sacred soil of Syria ; 
 and it is estimated that fifty thousand of the flower of Eu- 
 ropean youth were lost in this most remarkable of the Cru- 
 sades.Q 
 
 Constance, the scene of the next important council, stands 
 on the shore of that lovely lake that feeds the romantic Ehine. 
 It has long sunk into decay. In the last century the grass was 
 growing in its principal street.(^) Its air of desolation and de- 
 cline formed a striking contrast to the busy Swiss towns on 
 the neighboring lakes, and. it still slumbers under the fatal in- 
 fluence of a Catholic rule. The only noted spots in Constance 
 are a dark dungeon, a few feet square, in which John IIuss 
 was confined, the rude Gothic hall where he was tried, the min- 
 ster where he was condemned, the place where he was burned, 
 the swift -flowing river into which his ashes were cast, and 
 which his persecutors hoped would bear away all that remain- 
 ed of their illustrious victim into endless oblivion. Yain 
 hope ! Warriors and princes, priests, abbots, monks, cons]3ired 
 to blot from existence a single faint and feeble being, a child 
 of poverty and toil. They burned his books ; they cast his 
 ashes into the Rhine. And to-day all Bohemia assembles to 
 do honor to the names of IIuss and his disciple Jerome, and 
 to carry into execution the principles of freedom and progress 
 they advocated four centuries ago. 
 
 The Council of Constance met in 1414. Three rival Popes 
 were then contesting each other's claim to the papacy.(^) Each 
 Pope had his adherents, and for nearly forty years priests, 
 rulers, and laity had lived in doubt as to the true successor of 
 St. Peter. It was plain that there could not be three infalli- 
 ble potentates on the same throne ; yet each pretender assert- 
 ed his claim with equal vigor, Gregory, Benedict, and John 
 
 C) Micbaud, iii., p. 441. 
 
 (') Coxe, Travels in Switzerland, Letter iii. The dungeon is eight feet 
 
 long, six broad. 
 
 (^) Concilium Constantiensis, Labbe, xvi., p. 4 et seq. The Council of 
 Pisa had attempted iu vain to remove the schisui, 1410. See Leufaut, Pise.
 
 176 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 launched aiiatlieraas against each other; and a generation 
 lived and died uncertain whether it had not adored and obey- 
 ed an heretical Pope.(') John XXIIL, in the opinion of his 
 age one of the most abandoned of men, was persuaded or en- 
 trapped by the cardinals and the emperor into summoning a 
 general council ; and Constance, on the borders of Switzerland 
 and Germany, was selected as the place of meeting. The 
 council met at a period of singular interest in history,(") Not 
 only was the papacy divided between three Popes, but that 
 strong and wide opposition to the papal and the monkish rule 
 which seems to have existed in every age was now showing 
 itself in unusual strength. England was half converted to the 
 doctrines of AVycliffe ; Bohemia and its king shared the free 
 opinions of Huss ; the new literature of Italy was skeptical 
 or indifferent ; France and Germany were already shocked at 
 the vices of the monks ; while industry and commerce were 
 rapidly introducing ideas of human equality that must finally 
 destroy the supremacy of the feudal lords. The warrior caste 
 as well as the priestly was threatened by the religious reform- 
 ers, and both united vigorously at the Council of Constance 
 to crush the progress of revolution. (') They strove to rebuild 
 and reanimate the established Churcli, to intimidate the re- 
 formers, and to destroy forever the rising hopes of the people. 
 For the moment they succeeded. The Council of Con- 
 stance was the most splendid gathering of priests and princes 
 Europe had ever seen. The Emperor Sigismund attended its 
 sittings, with all the German chiefs and prelates. The Pope, 
 John XXIIL, came, followed by a throng of Italian cardinals 
 and bishops, hoping to control its proceedings. Almost every 
 European sovereign was represented by an embassador.^ 
 The little city of Constance shone with the pomp of royal and 
 noble retinues, with the red robes of cardinals, and the ermine 
 and jewels of ecclesiastical princes ; riot and license filled its 
 
 (') Labbe, Con., xvi., p. 4. 
 
 (°) Lenfaut, Histoirc tin Coiicilc do Coustauce, Preface. 
 (') Lenfant notices the influence of the laity on the council. 
 (^) Lenfaut, Preface, p. 21. There were 150 bishops, 100 abbots, 30 car- 
 dinals, 3 patriarchs.
 
 DEPOSITION OF A POPE. 177 
 
 streets ; and the Council of Constance was noted for the cor- 
 rupt morals of its members, and the shameless conduct of the 
 prelates of the established Church. Its sittings began No- 
 vember, 1414, and continued until April, 1418. Its proceed- 
 ings were marked by a singular boldness. It deposed John 
 XXIII. for his notorious vices and his alleged contumacy ; re- 
 moved Gregory and Benedict ; and elected a new Pope, Mar- 
 tin Y., who was finally acknowledged by all Europe as the 
 successor of St. Peter. It declared that the council was supe- 
 rior to the Pope,(') and heard with attention the eloquent ser- 
 mon of Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, in which 
 he defended the privileges of a united Christendom against 
 the claims of the Bishop of Rome. It provided that a general 
 council should be summoned every five or seven years ; and it 
 strove to limit the rapacity of Rome by relieving the clergy 
 from its exactions. In order to prevent the undue influence 
 of the Italians, the council divided all its members into four 
 nations or classes ; each nation had a single vote, and a major- 
 ity determined the result. These revolutionaiy movements 
 have made the Council of Constance odious to the succeedino; 
 Popes. Its canons have been disregarded, its authority de- 
 nied ; and no devout Roman Catholic would now venture to 
 assert what was plainly the opinion of the Roman Church in 
 the dawn of the fifteenth century, that the Pope is inferior to 
 the council. 
 
 Having ended the schism in the Papal Church, the Council 
 of Constance next proceeded to crush heresy and reform. To 
 the corrupt monks and priests of that barbarous age the chief 
 of heretics was the pure and gentle Huss. A child of pover- 
 ty, educated among the people, John Huss had come, a poor 
 scholar, to the famous University of Prague.(^) His mother 
 brought him from his native village to be matriculated, and 
 on the road fell on her knees and recommended him to Heav- 
 en. Maintained by charity, he studied with ardor ; his mind 
 
 (*) Leiiftxnt,!., p. 22, Preface; Labbe, Con., xvi., p. 8. Gregory aud Ben- 
 edict do not admit itiS claims. 
 (^) Leiifaiit, i., p. 24. 
 
 12
 
 178 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 was fed with scholastic learning ; he became a preacher, vig- 
 orous and original ; and in the Chapel of Jjethlehem crowded 
 congregations listened to the inspired lessons of the ardent 
 priest. IIuss had early formed a clear conception of a living 
 Antichrist, a creature made up of blasphemy and hypocrisy, 
 of corruption and crime ; and of a pure and lovely form, the 
 Church of the early age.(') To the one he gave all his love 
 and conhdence, to the other an undying hate. The Antichrist 
 was Rome. The vices and stupid ignorance of the monks, the 
 shameless license of the clergy, the insolent pride of the bish- 
 ops, the rivalry of the contending Popes, convinced the ardent 
 reformer that the established Church had long ceased to be 
 Christian. He inveighed in vigorous sermons and treatises 
 against every form of corruption. He denounced the monks 
 and the Popes, indulgences. Crusades, and a thousand enormi- 
 ties. Jerome of Prague, who had lived at Oxford, brought 
 him over the writings of Wycliffe, and the two friends studied 
 and profited by the clear sense of the English reformer. 
 
 At length the poor charity scholar became the most emi- 
 nent man of his time. His native land acknowledged his 
 merit, and all Bohemia adopted the opinions of its gifted son. 
 The king and queen were his warm friends, and the nobility 
 and the commons caught the ardor of reform.Q Huss was 
 made rector of that great university, at that time the rival of 
 those of Paris and Oxford, where he had won his education ; 
 and Prague became the centre of a strong impulse toward 
 progress that was felt in every part of Europe. The doctrines 
 and the Bible of "Wycliffe M'ere expounded at the only great 
 seat of learnino; in Germanv ; England and Bohemia, united 
 by friendly ties, seemed about to throw off the papal rule ; 
 the vigor of IIuss, the genius of Jerome, had nearly antici- 
 pated the era of Luther. But it was too soon. The priestly 
 caste and its ignorant instrument, the warrior caste, united to 
 destroy the first elements of reformation, and the monks and 
 
 (^) See Hnss, Opuscula, p. 14-23, where be paiuts the face and form of 
 Antichrist, its month, neck, arms, tail. 
 (^) Leufaiit, i., p. 34.
 
 JOHN MUSS. 179 
 
 bishops pursued Hiiss and his followers with their bitterest 
 malignity. The Archbishop of Prague denounced him as a 
 heretic, the Pope excommunicated him ; but Huss might still 
 have escaped, supported by his sovereign, Wenceslaus, and the 
 admiration of his countrymen, had he not been betrayed into 
 the power of his foes. The Council of Constance met and 
 summoned the reformer before its hostile tribunal. The chief 
 vice of this infamous assembly was its shameless duplicity. 
 The sentiment of honor, which we are sometimes told was the 
 distinguishing mark of this age of chivalry, was plainly un- 
 known to every one of the princes, knights, or priests who 
 made up the splendid council. They deceived the Popes; 
 they corrupted the feeble honesty of the Emperor Sigismund ; 
 they openly adopted the rule that no faith was to be kept with 
 heretics ;(') they pledged the Roman Church to a system of 
 perpetual falsehood and deceit. 
 
 Huss was now in the full splendor of his renown. His 
 name was illustrious throughout Europe, and his eminent tal- 
 ents and spotless life had made him the pride and oracle of 
 Bohemia.^) He was nearly forty years of age. His appear- 
 ance was fine, his countenance mild and engaging. His prom- 
 inent features, his clear and well-cut profile, have in them an 
 Oriental air. He wore his hair and beard carefully trimmed, 
 and dressed in neat scholastic attire. In the society of fair 
 women, kings, and princes his manners had become polished, 
 his carriage singularly attractive ; and his natural gentleness 
 and piety threw around him an irresistible charm. As Rector 
 of the University of Prague he held a position in the eyes of 
 the world not inferior to that of many princes and nobles; 
 but in all his prosperity he had ever been noted for his humil- 
 ity and his kindly grace. He lived above the world, and knew 
 none of its inferior impulses. Yet had he not been able to 
 avoid making many enemies. He had offended bitterly the 
 
 (*) "Nee aliqna sibi fides aut promissio fie jure uaturali, divino, et bu- 
 raano fuerit in prejudicium Catholicse fidei observauda." See Hallani, 
 Mid. Ages, p. 398. 
 
 O Tbe Jesuit editors, Labbe, Cou., xvi., p. 4, insinuate simulatione sancti- 
 iatis, etc.
 
 180 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 German students and professors at Prague, and tliey had with- 
 drawn, in number about five thousand, to found the rival col- 
 lege at Leipsie. lie was the chief of the metaphysical faction 
 of the Realists; the Germans and the French were chiefly 
 Nominalists ; and in the tierce quarrels that raged between the 
 two scholastic parties a hatred even to death often grew up be- 
 tween the opposing chiefs. The rectors of the University of 
 Paris (Gerson) and of Leipsie (John Hoffman) looked on their 
 opponent at Pi-ague as abominable and accursed ; and the 
 Nominalists afterward boasted that the death of Huss was due 
 to them alone. So brutal was the age that men killed each 
 other for some shadowy difference in metaphysics ! 
 
 Gerson was the chief theologian of the time, the new found- 
 er of the liberties of the Galilean Church. Yet he took part 
 in all the frauds of the Council of Constance, saw his illustri- 
 ous fellow-rector pine in a horrible dungeon and die at the 
 stake, and aided in his destruction. The Rector of the Uni- 
 versity of Leipsie also shared in the worst acts of the council. 
 The crimes of nobles and priests were instigated by the most 
 eminent Catholic scholars, and the principles of elevated 
 churchmen were no more humane than had been those of 
 their Gothic ancestors, or the barbarians of a Feejee island. 
 To such men the mild purity of Huss and Jerome was a per« 
 petual reproach. They could not endure their existence upon 
 the same earth. They strove to extirpate them forever, and 
 cast their ashes into the rapid Rhine. 
 
 Fearless of their enmity, and strong in his consciousness of 
 innocence, sustained by the friendship of his king and his 
 country, and, above all, provided with a safe-conduct from the 
 Emperor Sigismund, IIuss set out from Prague in October to 
 obey the summons of the council. (') As he passed through 
 Germany he was met and welcomed by immense throngs of 
 the people. He was received everywhere as the champion of 
 human rights. Men came to gaze on him as on a benefactor. 
 Even the German ecclesiastics, it is said, saluted respectfully 
 the arch -heretic. He passed safely through Nuremberg, at- 
 
 (') Lcufant, Constance, i., p. 39.
 
 EUSS AT COXSTAXCE. 181 
 
 tended by a guard of lioiior, and entered Constance almost in 
 triumph,(') He evidently feared no danger. He even im- 
 prudently defended the doctrines of Wycliffe in the midst of 
 angry monks and priests, and courted their malignity. The 
 Pope, however, John XXHI., had sworn to protect him, the 
 Emperor Sigismund was bound for his safety, and all Bohe- 
 mia watched over the life of Huss. But the rule had been 
 adopted that no faith was to be kept with heretics. Within a 
 few days after his arrival Huss was seized, cast into the hor- 
 rible dungeon of the Dominican convent, and fastened by a 
 chain to the floor. (') 
 
 He was now in the toils of Antichrist, and was to feel all 
 the extreme malice of the fearful being he had so often im- 
 agined or described. Its falsehood, its baseness, its savage 
 and unsparing cruelty, he was now to realize, if never be- 
 fore. The Emperor Sigismund came to Constance soon after 
 Huss's imprisonment, and remonstrated feebly against the vio- 
 lation of his safe-conduct ; but the chiefs of the council soon 
 convinced him that the Church would spare no heretic, and 
 Huss was left to languish in his dungeon.(^) Articles of ac- 
 cusation were drawn up against him ; false witnesses were 
 brought to convict him of crimes he had never committed ; 
 he w^as persecuted with incessant questions; and for more 
 than six months the great orator and scholar pined in a dread- 
 ful confinement. At length, on the 6th of July, 1415, he was 
 dragged from his dungeon and led out to condemnation and 
 death. 
 
 The council assembled in that sombre and massive minster 
 whose gloomy pile still frowns over the silent streets of Con- 
 stance.(') The Emperor Sigismund presided, surrounded by 
 his temporal and spiritual peers. A throng of cardinals, bish- 
 ops, and priests assembled to take part in the proceedings, and 
 to exult over the doom of one whose holy life seemed a per- 
 petual reproach to their notorious profligacy and corruption. 
 
 C) Lenfant, i., pp. 39, 40. 
 
 C) Id., i., p. 60 ; Coxe, Travels iu S\Yitzerlancl, Let. 
 
 C) Lenfant, i., p. 76. (') Id., i., p. 401.
 
 182 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 The clmrcli was filled in every part with eager spectators. It 
 had been carefully arranged for that singular ceremonial with 
 which the holy fathers intended to degrade their victim from 
 his priesthood before they delivered him over to the secular 
 power. In the midst rose a platform, on which were placed 
 the robes and ornaments of a priest, and where IIuss was to 
 be robed and disrobed in presence of all the people. A sol- 
 emn mass was performed, and while emperor and priest bowed 
 in adoration, their victim was kept waiting at the door under 
 a guard of soldiers, lest his presence might desecrate the sacred 
 rite.(') He was then led in, pale, faint, and worn with a terri- 
 ble imprisonment, and ascended the platform. Here he knelt 
 in audible prayer, while tl^e Bishop of Lodi delivered a ser- 
 mon on the enormity of heresy ; and as the prelate finished 
 his vmdictive denunciation, he pointed to the feeble victim ; 
 he turned to the powerful emperor and cried out, " Destroy 
 this obstinate heretic !" . 
 
 A perfect silence reigned throughout the immense assem- 
 bly. . Various proceedings followed. The chai-ges against 
 Huss were read, but he was scarcely permitted to reply to 
 them. He listened on hie knees, his hairdo raised to hca\ ■ n. 
 Once he mentioned aloud his safe-conduct that had been so 
 shamefully violated, and turned his sad eyes upon the em- 
 peror. A deep blush spread over Sigismund's face ; he was 
 strongly moved. It is said that long after, when, at the Diet 
 of AVorms, Charles Y. was urged to violate Luther's safe-con- 
 duct, he replied, " I do not wish to blush like my predecessor 
 Sigismund." Yet the anecdote can hardly be authentic, for 
 Charles was never known to blush for any one of his dishon- 
 orable deeds. Sentence of degradation was next pronounced 
 against IIuss. The priests appointed for that duty at once ap- 
 proached him, put on him the priestly robes, and then took 
 them otf. They then placed on his head a paper crown, on 
 which were painted three demons of frightful aspect, and on 
 it was inscribed, " Chief of the Heretics." Huss said to them, 
 " It is less painful than a crown of thorns." They mocked 
 
 (')Leufuut, i., p. 401.
 
 EXECUTIOX OF HUSS. 183 
 
 liim with bitter raillery, and then led him away to execu- 
 tion.(') 
 
 He went from the church to the place of execution guard- 
 ed by the officers of justice. Behind him came, in a long 
 procession, the emperor, the prince palatine, their courtiers, 
 and eight hundred soldiers. A vast throng of people follow- 
 ed, who would not be turned back. As Huss passed the epis- 
 copal palace he saw that they were already burning his books, 
 and smiled at the malice of his enemies. He was bound to 
 the stake, and the wood piled up around him. Before the 
 pile was lighted the elector palatine advanced and asked him 
 to recant and save his life. He refused. He prayed, and all 
 the multitude praj^ed with him. The lire was lighted ; he 
 raised his arms and eyes toward heaven, and as the flames 
 ascended he was heard joyfully singing a hymn of praise. 
 Higher, higher rose his dying chant, until his voice mingled 
 with the songs of angels above.('^) 
 
 The ashes of John Huss, his clothes, and even his simple 
 furniture, were cast into the Rhine, lest his followers, might 
 preserve them as relics of the martyr. But the Bohemians 
 afterward gathered the earth on which he suffered, Lnd carried 
 it away. His friend, Jerome of Prague, was burned the next 
 year, by order of the Council of Constance. A scholar, a man 
 of classic refinement and feeling, the learned Poggio, heard 
 his eloquent defense before the council, witnessed his happy 
 martyrdom, and declared that Jerome had revived in his gen- 
 ius and his philosophy the highest excellence of Greece and 
 Pome : the modern pagan did not perceive how he had sur- 
 passed it. Bohemia has never ceased to lament and honor 
 her gifted sons, and the world is just becoming deeply con- 
 scious of what it owes to Huss and Jerome of Prague, the 
 forerunners of Luther. 
 
 In July, 1431, a council assembled at Basle still more revo- 
 lutionary in its character than that of Constance.(') The Pope, 
 
 (') Leufaut, i., p. 408. 
 
 (') 7<Z., i., p. 415 : "His voice sounded cheerfully above the flames." 
 
 (') Id., Council of Basle ; Mosheim, ii., p. 502.
 
 18-i ECUAIEXICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 Eugenius IV., attempted to dissolve the council ; tlie council 
 deposed the Pope, and elected another in his place. A long 
 controversy followed, and a new schism in the lioman Church. 
 Eugenius summoned a council of his own adherents, and thus 
 two popes and two councils contended for the supremacy of 
 the Christian world. But the quarrel was terminated by the 
 triumph of the papal faction. At the Council of Basle was 
 planned a temporary union between the Latin and the Greek 
 churches, which soon ended in their complete separation. The 
 bold effort of this great council to control the papacy wholly 
 failed, and from its dissolution Home gained new strength. 
 Each succeeding Pope enlarged his authority, defied public 
 opinion, opposed every effort to reform the Church, and threw 
 the shield of his infallibility over the vices and disorders of 
 the clergy. The monks again ruled mankind. The Domini- 
 cans invented the Spanish Inquisition, and persecuted heretics 
 with subtle malice. Convents and nunneries became centres 
 of corruption, and the favorite subject of the satires of Chau- 
 cer, of Rabelais, of Erasmus, or of Luther is the degraded and 
 dissolute monk. 
 
 At length the Peformation came. The conscience of man- 
 kind, which had been apparently forever suppressed with the 
 martyrdom of Huss and Jerome, found a new expression in 
 the commanding genius of Luther, and the intellect of Eu- 
 rope awoke at his powerful summons.(') He dissolved the 
 spell of monkish delusion and tyranny. He consolidated into 
 a powerful party that wide but disunited opposition which 
 almost from the age of Constantine had looked with horror 
 and shame upon the pride and corruption of the established 
 Church. The pure and the good of every land — the spiritual 
 descendants of the Catliari. the Albigenses, the Yaudois, or 
 the Wycliffites ; the Inimble and gentle Christians of Bohe- 
 mia, France, and even of Italy and Spain — now ventured to 
 unite in a generous hope that the reign of Antichrist was 
 
 (') Pallavicino (Bibliotheca Classica Sacra, Roma, 1847, Istoria, etc.) 
 thinks the Hussites aud the Wakleiises blots on the fair face of the Church 
 that should long ago have been extirpated, i., p. 79.
 
 EEFORMATION. 185 
 
 over.(') Tradition and false miracles, tlie indidgences, the 
 worship of images and saints, the idolatry of the mass, the 
 horrors of the monastic system, seemed about to pass swiftly 
 away before the voice of reason and of conscience ; the pure 
 faith and practice of the GosjDel seemed ready to descend again 
 on man. In the year 1 540 a general and peaceable reformation 
 of the whole Christian world was possible. Already Spain 
 itself was filled with Protestants, Italy was sighing for a 
 purer faith, the Scriptures were studied, and reform demand- 
 ed in Rome and ]Sraples.(°) France was eager for religious 
 progress ; the vigorous Xorth was already purified and set 
 free ; and had some wise and gentle spirit controlled the pa- 
 pal councils, some pure Erasmus or a generous Pole, and from 
 the Roman throne breathed peace and good-will to man, an 
 age of unprecedented progress might have opened upon the 
 world. The warrior caste which had so long preyed upon the 
 people would have sunk into decay. The priestly caste would 
 have lost its vices and its pride. The industrial classes, which 
 in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, formed the chief part of the 
 reformers, might have risen to control the State, and Europe 
 would have been free. 
 
 The next, the last great papal council — the most mischiev- 
 ous of them all — came to destroy the rising hopes of man- 
 kind. It breathed war, not peace. It spread irreconcilable 
 enmity among nations. It leagued the warriors and the 
 priests in a deadly assault upon the working-man. It declared 
 war against the factory and the workshop, the printing-press 
 and the school. It crushed the industry of Italy and Spain ; 
 it banished the frugal and thoughtful Huguenots from France ; 
 it strove in vain to make Holland a desolate waste, and to 
 blight in its serpent folds the rising intellect of England ; it 
 aimed vain blows at the genius of Germany and the North ; 
 it held in bondage for three miserable centuries the mind of 
 
 Q) Pallavicino, i., p. 99 : " Sequaci di Giovanni Huss condannato," etc. 
 
 (^) Among the noted Italian reformers were Peter Martyr, Bishop Vcr- 
 gerio and his brother, his friend Spira. See Middleton, Evan. Biog., i., 
 p. 510 ; Sarpi, i., ]i. Ull ct seq. ; Kauke, Hist. Poises, i., p. 70 et scq.
 
 186 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 the decaying Soutli. To the Council of Trent,(') by an easy 
 deduction, may be traced the great war which Charles Y. 
 waged against his German subjects, and the disastrous cru- 
 sades of his sou Philip against the Netherlands and Queen 
 Elizabeth ; the wild rancor of the League and the Guises ; the 
 persecutions, worse thau those of Diocletian, of Louis XIV. ; 
 the Thirty Years' "War, in which Wallenstein and Tilly made 
 half Germany a blood-stained wilderness ; the fatal bigotry of 
 Austria ; the tyranny of Sj^ain. It was a flame of discord, a 
 harbinger of strife; and to the student of history no specta- 
 cle is more startling than that torrent of woe which descended 
 upon mankind from the deliberations and the anathemas of a 
 scanty gathering of bishops and Jesuits in the rocky heights 
 of the Tyrol. 
 
 In 1542 the moment Of hope had passed. The Pope, Paul 
 III., decreed death to the heretic and the reformei". Loyola 
 and the Jesuits ruled at Rome, and the doctrine of passive 
 obedience became tlie single principle of the papal faith. 
 The Inquisition was rapidly exterminating every trace of op- 
 position to the hierarchy in Italy ; a dead and dull submission 
 reigr-3d in Yenice or in Iiomc; and the papal missionaries, 
 exulting in their success at home, trusted soon to carry the 
 effective teaching of the Holy Office into the rebellious cities 
 of Germany and the Korth. With what joy w^ould they see 
 Luther and Melanchthon chained to the stake, like IIuss and 
 Jerome ! How proudly should the papal legions sweep over 
 the land of Zvvingli and the home of Calvin ! With such 
 fond anticipations, a league for the extirpation of heresy was 
 fonned between the Pope, Paul III., and the Emperor, Charles 
 Y. The decrees of the Council of Trent were to be enforced 
 by the arms of the two contracting parties ; the Protestants 
 of Germany were to be the earliest victims of the alliance; 
 and all who had apostatized from the ancient faith were to be 
 compelled to return to the bosom of the Holy See.Q The 
 
 (') Concils von Trieut Canones iind Bescliliisse, vou D. Wilhelm Smets, 
 an authorized editiou, gives all the proceediugs ; Sarpi aud Pallaviciuo 
 the history. 
 
 C) Robertson, Charles V., book viii.
 
 COUNCIL OF in EXT. 187 
 
 meaning of this famous compact between the Bishoj) of Rome 
 and the emperor can not be misunderstood. It was a project 
 to crush freedom of tliought and religious progress by wars 
 and massacre, the rack and the stake ; an effort to make the 
 papal Inquisition universal. 
 
 If, as has been done by some modern historians and most 
 of the Romish writers who have described the Council of Trent 
 to the present age, we could separate it wholly from the his- 
 tory of its period, and look upon it merely as the gathering of 
 a few bishops of more or less learning and piety anxious only 
 to fix tlie faith of their Church and to define the form of their 
 belief,(') we might excuse its rash judgments, its imprudent 
 conservatism, and the intolerance of its countless anathemas; 
 we might submit with a smile to hear the doctrines of Luther 
 and the Bible pronounced forever accursed, and to be com- 
 manded to pay a deep reverence to images under the penalty 
 of excommunication ;(") we might pardon the critical blind- 
 ness, if not the w^ant of taste, that placed the Book of Tobit 
 on a level with the Gospel of St. John ;(^) we might remem- 
 ber only as examples of monkish superstition in the sixteenth 
 centui-y the attempt to chain the press,(*) to promote the sale 
 of indulgences,^ the strange theory of tlie mass, the feeble 
 reasoning on the sacraments ; and we could admit that, under 
 the irresistible influence of that impulse toward reform begun 
 by the anathematized heretics, the council strove honestly to 
 correct some of the errors of the Eomish Church. But, unhap- 
 pily for mankind, the Council of Trent had a far less innocent 
 purpose. Its chief promoters were men who had already re- 
 solved on the destruction of its opponents. Every member 
 of the synod knew that the principles it laid down, the prac- 
 tices it enjoined, were rejected and condemned by a large part 
 
 (') Hallam, Lit. Europe, ii. p. 301, n., treats it merely as an iutellectual 
 ageut. He does not alhule to its results. 
 
 C) " Et nunc etiam damnat ecclesia," Sessio xxv., De Veueratione Suuc- 
 toruui, etc. 
 
 (^) Sessio iv., De Canonicis Scripturis. 
 
 (*) De Libris Proliibitis, Reg. ii., p. 3 et seq. 
 
 C) Sessio XXV., Decretuni de Indulgentibus.
 
 188 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 of the Cliristian world ; that they could only be enforced by 
 tire and the sword ; that they were abont to be the occasion 
 of a bitter war between the reformers and the papal faction ; 
 that every anathema nttered by the council would be written 
 in letters of blood upon every Protestant land. Yet its mem- 
 bers proceeded calmly with their labors. They rejected every 
 plan of compromise, every sentiment of mercy. They refused 
 to listen to the tolerant suggestions of the Galilean Church. 
 They obeyed every intimation of the Pope and the Jesuits ; 
 and they were plainly prepared to bind to the stake not some 
 eloquent Jerome or spotless Huss alone, but whole nations 
 and o^enerations of reformers. 
 
 At Trent among the snow -clad hills of the Tyrol, on the 
 banks of the rapid Athesis, the papal legates and a few bish- 
 ops assembled in December, 15J:5, and Cardinal Del Monte, 
 afterward Pope Julius III., presided at its first session. A 
 second was held in January, when only forty-three members 
 attended. At the third, February 4th, 1546, the Nicene Creed 
 was recited with its modern additions. But with the fourth 
 session, April 18th, 1546, the business of the council began by 
 an authoritative determination of the foundations of the Eo- 
 man faith ; and it was decided, in a scanty assembly of forty- 
 eight Italian, German, and Spanish bishops, a few cardinals, 
 and the papal legates, that the Scriptures and tradition, the 
 Old Testament with the apocryphal books, the New Testa- 
 ment, and the opinions of the fathers, were the equal and the 
 only sources of religious knowledge.(') But it was carefully 
 enjoined, at the same time, under severe penalties, that none 
 but the Church should define the meaning of the sacred writ- 
 ings. All private judgment was forbidden ; and whoever 
 ventured to think for himself was to be punished by the legal 
 authorities.(*) Upon this broad but unstable foundation the 
 council now proceeded to erect that religious system which 
 for three centuries has ruled at Rome. The Pope was su- 
 
 (') Sessio iv., Decretum de Canouicis Scripturis. 
 
 C) "Qui contraveuerint— poenis a jure statutis puuiautur." See Palla- 
 viciuo, iii., p. 261-272.
 
 THE JESUITS AT TEEXT. ISO 
 
 preme at Trent through his acute agents ; and however vigor- 
 ous the opposition might appear, every decision of the assem- 
 bly was prepared at Kome, and was carried through the coun- 
 cil by the controlling influence of the legates, the Jesuits, and 
 the Italian bishops. It was Paul III., Loyola, and Caraffa who 
 spoke in the name of the Church. 
 
 The sessions continued until xVpril, 154T, when, on the pre- 
 text that an epidemic disease was prevailing in Trent, the Pope 
 issued a bull transferring the council to Bologna, within his 
 own territories, where it would be more perfectly under his 
 control. The legates and the papal party obeyed the man- 
 date, but Charles Y. ordered his German bishops to remain 
 at Trent. The schism continued until Paul died, when his 
 successor, Julius III., once more convened the assembly at 
 Trent.(') It remained in session until April, 1552, when the 
 success of Protestant arms in Germany and the brilliant ex- 
 ploits of the Elector Maurice drove the bishops in alarm from 
 their dangerous locality. Q The council was prorogued or diss 
 solved ; and for ten years the doctrines of the Papal Church 
 remained hidden undefined in the bosom of Pome. They 
 were years filled with remarkable events. The order of the 
 Jesuits became a great power in Europe, and its acute and un- 
 scrupulous members had instilled into the minds of princes 
 and priests the doctrine of passive obedience to Rome, and of 
 relentless war against heresy. Loyola guided the policy of 
 the Papal Church. In France a war broke out between the 
 Huguenots and their oppressors, of which the result was not 
 to be determined for many years, but which finally united the 
 French bishops in hostility to reform. A great triumph was 
 achieved by the papal party in England, that was followed by 
 a signal overthrow. Mary succeeded to the English throne, and 
 as the wife of Philip II. gave back her realm, filled with the 
 blood of the martyrs, to the Papal See. But, in 1558, Mary 
 died childless ; and Elizabeth, the representative of a Protestant 
 nation, defied the anathemas of the Pope. Philip 11. was now 
 
 (') See Bulla Resumptionis — Julio III., Sniets. 
 (') Sessio xvi., Decretum Suspeiisiouis, etc.
 
 190 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 enforcing the decrees of the earlier Council of Trent upon the 
 unhappy Netherlands, and the Prince of Orange was about to 
 found a new nation. Of the early reformers few survived. 
 Luther and ]\Ielanchthon slept side by side in the castle church 
 at Wittenberg. Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, apparently less 
 fortunate, had died like Huss and Jerome. The aged Calvin 
 and his faithful Beza still ruled and studied at Geneva — the 
 last of that brilliant company who had formed the day-stars 
 of the Reformation. 
 
 Pius TV., in January, 1562, enforced the re-assembling of 
 the council at Trent. Loyola was dead, and the fierce Lainez 
 ruled over the Jesuits. A new race of bishops filled the coun- 
 cil. Its numbers enlarged ; its intellectual character was re- 
 spectable ; but no brilliant Athanasius, no eloquent Gregory, 
 appeared in the ranks of the papal prelates. It sat for near- 
 ly two years, and often its fierce debates and angry tumults 
 revived the memories of Ej)hesus and Nice.(') The French 
 faction, the Spanish, and the papal contended with a violence 
 that seemed at times to threaten the dissolution of the coun- 
 cil and an irreparable schism in the disordered Church. The 
 Spaniards defended with vigor the divine origin of the bish- 
 ops against the claims of the papacy ; the French suggested 
 the superiority of the council to the Pope, demanded the cup 
 for the laity, and even advocated the marriage of the clergy. 
 A French embassador, Du Ferier, the Gregory of Trent, de- 
 nounced with sharp satire the feeble superstition of the coun- 
 cil, and declared it to be the author of the miseries of France ;f ) 
 the corrupt and politic Cardinal Lorraine, at the head of the 
 French delegation, in tumid ^speeches defended the Gallican 
 policy. Yet the papal party, led by the Jesuits, the haughty 
 Lainez and the busy Salmeron, and sustained by the superior 
 numbers of the Italian bishops, succeeded in nearly all their 
 objects.(') They threw aside with contempt the whole Galli- 
 
 (') Torellns, in Le Plat, vii., p. 205, gives an account of a fray between 
 the Spaniards and Italians ; they were then forbidden to carry arms. 
 
 C) Pallavicino notices with asperity the vigor of Ferier, xi., p. 17; xii., 
 p. 20-23. Sarpi, viii., pp. 54, 55. 
 
 (') See Bungcner, Council of Trent, trans. A useful narrative, p. 455.
 
 LAINEZ AT TRENT. 191 
 
 can policy ; tliey taught perfect submission to the papal rule. 
 Lainez, in the midst of an excited assembly, declared that all 
 who opposed the supremacy of the Pope in all things were 
 Protestants in principle, and, with haughty looks, almost de- 
 nounced his adversaries as heretics. The contest raged for a 
 time with tierce bitterness, and often the streets of Trent were 
 tilled with riot and bloodshed from the encounters of the re- 
 tainers of the different factions. But at length the corrupt 
 Cardinal Lorraine, a true Guise, went over to the papal side ; 
 the Spanish faction sank into silence ; and, one by one, the 
 most extravagant dogmas of the mediaeval Church were incor- 
 porated into the creed of the Romish clergy.(') From the 
 heights of Tyrol the tierce Jesuits and monks threw down 
 their gage of defiance and of hate to the whole Protestant 
 world, and to every project of reform. They offered to the 
 heretic submission to the Pope or death. 
 
 Nothing was thought of but traditional observances ; the 
 usages of Rome were preferred to the plain teachings of the 
 Scriptures. Images were declared sacred, when the whole 
 Jewish and Christian theology had denounced their use — had 
 commanded the soul to seek a direct and spiritual union with 
 its God. The gentle lessons of the Sermon on the Mount 
 were transformed into an endless series of anathemas that 
 were full of bitter malevolence. The sacred feast of the dis- 
 ciples was converted into a pompous idolatry.^ For the apos- 
 tles the council showed still less respect than for the lessons 
 of their Master. Instead of the industry, temperance, and 
 frugality inculcated by St. Paul, it advocated monkish indo- 
 lence and priestly intolerance. It condemned the marriages 
 of the clergy, when St. Peter himself, tlie fancied founder of 
 the Roman Church, had been a faithful husband, and in liis 
 missionary toils had been accompanied by his martyr wife ;(') 
 when St. Paul had instructed his pastors or presbyters to be 
 prudent husbands and fathers, and strict in the education of 
 
 (') Bnngener, p. 627. {'') Sessio xxii., De Sacrificio Missa-. 
 
 (^) 1 Corintb., ix., 5. We might infer tliat all the apostles had mar- 
 ried ; Peter's wife was martyred. Clemeus Alex., De Moiiog., p. 8.
 
 192 ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 tlieir children ; when even at the Council of Nice the monk- 
 ish observance had been rejected at the request of an ascetic. 
 The invocation of Mary and the saints, the ■tvorship of relics, 
 transubstantiation and interf usion,(') the use of pompous robes 
 and a pagan ritual, confession, indulgences, and endless mod- 
 ern observances, were enforced by dreadful anathemas, and he 
 who ventured even to hesitate as to their propriety was aban- 
 doned to the care of the Holy Office. The use of the Script- 
 ures by the laity was in effect forbidden ; the prohibition was 
 made total by succeeding popes ; and the instruction of the 
 apostle to the believer to search and try the grounds of his 
 faith was treated with contempt by his pretended successors. 
 Conscience and freedom of thought were to be wholly sup- 
 pressed. On the question of the superiority of the Pope to 
 the council, after long and violent debates, no open decision 
 was made ; but the matter was, in fact, determined by the refer- 
 ence of all the proceedings of the assembly to the revisal of the 
 Pope. As the infallible head of the Church, he was empowered 
 to reject or confirm every canon of the Council of Trent.Q 
 
 Winters and summers had passed over the Roman bishops 
 for nearly eight years('') in their mountain fastness, as they 
 groped amidst the endless controversies of the fathers and 
 studied the acts of Chalcedon and Nice. We admit at least 
 their perseverance and tlieir weary toil. Trent and its en- 
 virons do not seem to have been always an agreeable resi- 
 dence. In autumn the hot sun beat upon the narrow valley. 
 In winter a deluge of snow or rain often poured down upon 
 the little city, overflowed the rapid Athesis, and swept through 
 the watery streets.(^) Disease was often prevalent,(^) and sev- 
 eral eminent delegates died, and were buried with pompous 
 funerals. The people of the mountains were rude, and not 
 
 (') Sessio xvii., cap. xi. For anathemas see Sessio xxi., Can. i., ii. ; Ses- 
 sio xiii., Can. iii. C) Sessio xxv., De Fine, etc. 
 
 (^) The conncil sat nearly eighteen years, but of these ten are included 
 in a prorogation, besides the schism at Bologna. 
 
 (*) Torellus,in Le Plat. 
 
 (^) An influenza sometimes detorTui-iod tlio fate of a proposition for re- 
 form. Sec Sarpi, lib. vii.
 
 THE COUXCIL CLOSES. 193 
 
 always respectful ; the women were not attractive, and suf- 
 fered from the goitre ;(') while the wits of the Holy City, as 
 of the Protestant countries, followed the council with sharp 
 satires, and declared that its inspiration was brought in a car- 
 pet-bag from Rome. Elizabeth called it a popish conventicle. 
 The keen and ready Protestant controversialists denounced it 
 as a band of persecutors. The Pope was enraged at its tur- 
 bulent discord; and all Europe longed for its dissolution. 
 Meantime, far below, surged on the wave of Reformation, 
 and Germany, France, and the Netherlands resounded with 
 the psalms of Marot and Beza ; and the menacing voice of the 
 enraged people often reached the ears of the drowsy prelates 
 at Trent. The hardy North threw off the monkish rule, de- 
 faced its images, broke up the monasteries, and breathed only 
 defiance to the cruel bigotry of the council. Mary of Scot- 
 land, in a piteous letter to the legates, lamented that her Cal- 
 vinistic subjects would not suffer her to send bishops to the 
 assembly of Antichrist.^) Germany had secured freedom of 
 thought by the valor of Maurice and the treaty of Passau. 
 Geneva, with its twenty-five thousand impoverished citizens, 
 shone a beacon of light among its Swiss mountains, and de- 
 fied alike the hatred and the covetousness of France, Savoy, 
 and the Pope. The Huguenots were fighting in France for 
 toleration, and the council sung a joyous Te Deum over the 
 ineffectual defeat of the Prince of Conde. It was time for 
 the bishops to separate. 
 
 The proceedings were hurried to an end. Important mat- 
 ters of faith, affecting the destiny of immortal souls, were de- 
 termined with imprudent haste. What could not be decided 
 was referred to the Pope. A bishop of Nazianzum, whose 
 dullness formed a bold contrast to the wit and pathos of the 
 sainted Gregory, preached a farewell discourse in which he 
 called upon mankind to adore the wisdom, the clemency, the 
 Christian tolerance, of the Council of Trent.(') A parting 
 
 (') Toiellns, Le Plat, vii., p. 159-161. (') Le Plat, vii., p. 217. 
 
 (') "Aiulite hfec, omues geiites, auribus percipite, omucs qui habitatis 
 orbera." Smots, Coiicils von Tiient, p. 201. 
 
 13
 
 104 ECUMEXICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 antiphoiial was sung ; the Cardinal of Lorraine, the corrupt 
 and ambitious Guise, intoned the praises of the cruel Charles 
 Y., the immoral Julius, the bigoted Pius, and all the holy 
 council, and pronounced them ever blessed. The bishops 
 and cardinals responded with a loud concurrence. Once more 
 the voice of Guise rang over the assembly. Anathema cunc- 
 tf's hcereticis ! And all the bishops and cardinals poured 
 forth an eager and malevolent response. Anathema^ anaihe- 
 ma!(^) Meanwhile, in many a humble cottage in the neigh- 
 boring valleys of Piedmont, the gentle Yaudois, the children 
 of the early church, were singing Christian hymns to the good 
 Saviour, and, accustomed to persecution, prayed for freedom 
 to worship God. Scarcely did they hear the curse invoked 
 upon them from the heights of Trent. Yet it was to ripen 
 into long years of untold suffering. The poor and humble 
 were to be torn in pieces, tossed from their native crags into 
 dark ravines, cut with sharp knives, burned in raging tires by 
 the mighty and the proud ; and Milton, in a fierce poetic 
 frenzy, was to cry aloud to Heaven : 
 
 "Avenge, O Lord! thy slaugliter'd saiuts, whose bones 
 Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold." 
 
 Such was the Council of Trent ; and history would be un- 
 faithful to its sacred trust — the cause of truth and of human 
 progress — did it not point with unerring accuracy to the 
 countless woes that have fallen upon man from the dull big- 
 otry of the papal bishops. They met at a moment when the 
 European intellect was strongly excited by a new impulse to- 
 ward the good and the true ; when men longed for a holier 
 life, a purer faith than had been the possession of their fathers. 
 They gave them, instead, war and bitter strife, the doctrine of 
 persecution, the visions of the Middle Ages. It is sometimes 
 said that a reaction in favor of the Roman Church followed 
 upon the Council of Trent, and that the reformers were driven 
 back from their Southern conquests to their strongholds in 
 the North. They lost, indeed, Bohemia and the South of Ger- 
 
 (') Smets, p. 200.
 
 THE DECREES OF TRENT. 195 
 
 many, the Netherlands and France. But neither of these 
 triumphs of the council was an intellectual one ; its doctrines 
 were nowhere accepted unless enforced by powerful armies 
 and the slow prevalence of the Holy Office. The followers 
 of Huss were extirpated in Bohemia; the Yaudois were 
 slaughtered on their mountains ; Philip II. revived the medise- 
 val Church on the ruins of Antwerp and Ghent ; the decrees 
 of the Council of Trent were only triumpliant in France 
 when Louis XIV. destroyed Port Poyal, and banished, with 
 terrible persecutions, the gifted Huguenots. 
 
 For a brief period England was ruled by the earlier decis- 
 ions of the famous council, and Mary enforced the faith in 
 tradition by the fires of Smithfield. But not even the specta- 
 cle of Latimer, Ridley, or Hooper perishing at the stake could 
 convert a nation that preferred the teachings of the Scriptures 
 to those of the fathers of Trent. England shook off the yoke 
 of the schismatic council with fierce abhorrence. Her vigor- 
 ous intellect refused to submit to a monkish rule ; and soon a 
 Shakspeare, a Bacon, a Milton, and a Johnson proved that no 
 mediaeval foe to genius enslaved the fortunate land. Through- 
 out all Northern Germany the free scliool met and baffled the 
 theory of persecution. Colleges and universities succeeded 
 to the monastery and the cathedral, and the land of Luther 
 repelled the dogmas of the Council of Trent. The Latin 
 races were less fortunate. For three centuries Italy and 
 Spain have slumbered under the monkish rule. Every anath- 
 ema of the unsparing council has been enforced upon their 
 unhappy people ; the Press has been silenced, the intellect de- 
 praved ; industry has nearly died out. The Inquisition linger- 
 ed long after it had been partially suppressed in other lands ;(') 
 and swarms of monks and fiiars encouraged indolence and 
 sapped the purity of nations. But within a few years even 
 Italy and Spain have revolted against the decrees of the 
 Tridentine Council. The people of the two most Catholic 
 
 (') The Spanish luquisition burned a poor woman for sorcery as late as 
 1780. See Bourgoauue, Travels in Spaui^ i., ch. iii. In IGdO, an anto-da- 
 i€ was looked upon as a glorious spectacle — a festal scene for the faithful.
 
 196 ECVMENICAL COUNCILS. 
 
 lands have destroyed the monastic system, established freedom 
 of thought, of religion, and of the Press, and have plainly 
 made themselves liable to the severest anathemas chanted in 
 the Cathedral of Trent. 
 
 But while the people in every land have thus rebelled 
 against monkish tyranny, the priests and the Pope, the only 
 legal representatives of the Romish Church, have proclaimed 
 their unchangeable adhesion to the decrees of their last great 
 council. To them the free school and the free press are as 
 odious as they were to Lainez and Del Monte. To them the 
 monastery is as dear as it was to Gregory and Jerome. They 
 still heap anathemas ujDon the married clergy ; they refuse the 
 cup to the laity ; they bow to the graven image. Of the duty 
 of persecution for opinion's sake, they speak as openly as in 
 the days of Loyola ; and they modestly suggest, with theii* his- 
 torian, Pallavicino, that had the doctrine been more vigorously 
 applied to Luther and Calvin, as well as to Jerome and Huss, 
 the mediaeval Church would yet have reigned triumphant in 
 every land.(*) They still assert the supreme authority of the 
 Holy See, the boundless infallibility of the Pope. But, in re- 
 ply to their extravagant assumptions, the surging waves of 
 Reformation have swept over Europe, and at length the de- 
 crees of the Council of Trent are only received, in their full 
 enormity, within the walls of the city of Rome. There imtil 
 1870 a shadow of the Inquisition was still maintained ; there 
 the press and the school were jealously watched ; there no he- 
 retical assembly was permitted ; there monks and monasteries 
 abounded ; there the true Roman and patriot was shot down 
 with the Chassepot rifle ; and the Supreme Pontiff, enthroned 
 over an enraged and rebellious people, there summoned his 
 priestly legions to a final council of the Papal Church. 
 
 We have thus imperfectly reviewed the story of the various 
 councils. We might scarcely admit, with the saintly Gregory 
 
 Q) Pallavicino, i., p. 79, describes the opponents of the Roman Chnrch as 
 " picciol gregge (I'uoniini rustic! e idiotici die eran reliquie o degli antichi 
 Waklesi," etc. He could not conceive of a Christian unless great and pow- 
 erful.
 
 THE FIRST COUNCIL. 197 
 
 Nazianzeu, tliat no good result can ever flow from an assem- 
 bly of bishops. Xiesea taught a lesson of comparative moder- 
 ation. The genius and the honesty of the two Gregories re- 
 lieved the dullness of the synod of Constantinople. Ephesus 
 has become notorious for the vigorous orthodoxy of Cyril. 
 Chalcedon was moderate and independent. Yet it is worthy 
 of notice that the purest as well as the wisest of the sacred 
 synods was- the first ; that its members, chastened in poverty 
 and persecution, still retained something of the apostolic dig- 
 nity and grace ; and that the Christian world, still free and 
 self-respecting, had not yet been forced to look with disap- 
 pointment and shame upon the ambition and the vain preten- 
 sions of its spiritual chiefs.
 
 THE YATJDOIS. 
 
 Three valleys of singular interest open from the higher 
 Alps into the rich plains of Piedmont below. Through each 
 a rapid stream or mountain torrent, fed by perj3etual snows 
 and glaciers, rushes with a varying current, and mingles at 
 length with the stately Po.(') Two of the vales, Lucerna and 
 Perouse, widen as they descend from the crags above, and 
 melt into the general softness of the Italian scene. Lucerna, 
 the most fertile, tlie most beautiful, possesses imrivaled charms. 
 Its thick and almost perpetual foliage, its groves of mulberry- 
 trees, its woods of chestnut, the waving fields of wheat, its 
 vineyards climbing up the mountain-side, its temperate air, its 
 countless hamlets, its innocent and happy people, seem to rest 
 in perfect peace beneath the shelter of the encircling Alps. 
 It would indeed be a paradise, exclaimed the historian Leger, 
 if it were not so near the Jesuits at Turin. (') San Martino, 
 the third valley, is happily less beautifiil.Q It is a wild ra- 
 vine pierced by a fierce mountain torrent — the Germanasca. 
 On each side of the stream the huge Alps shoot upward, and 
 ranges of inaccessible cliffs and crags frown over the naiTow 
 vale beneath. Its climate is severe, its people hardy. In the 
 upper part of the valley winter is almost perpetual. The 
 snow lies for eight or nine months on the ground. The crops 
 are scanty, the herbage faint and rare. The shrill cry of the 
 marmot, the shriek of the eagle, alone disturb the silence of 
 the Vaudois Sabbath ; and in the clear, bright air the graceful 
 
 (') Leger, L'Histoire Gdn^rale des figlises Vaudoises, p. 2. Vandois and 
 Waldenses are "tvords of the same nieaniug. They are defiued, " the peo- 
 ple of the valleys." 
 
 (^) Leger, p. 3. See Muston, Histoire des Vaudois ; or Israel of the Alps, 
 i., p. 7. 
 
 (') Leger, p. 7 ; Muston, p. 19, Israel of the Alps.
 
 SAN MARTINO. 199 
 
 cliamois is seen leaping from peak to peak of his mountain 
 pastures. 
 
 San Martino has formed for ages the citadel of the Vaudois, 
 the last refuge of religious freedom. Often, when the papal 
 troops had swept over its sister valleys, filling their fairer 
 scenery with bloodshed and desolation, the brave people of the 
 interior vale defied the invaders. The persecutors turned in 
 alarm from the narrow pass where every crag concealed a 
 marksman ; where huge stones were rolled upon their heads 
 from the heights above ; where every cave and rock upon the 
 mountain - side was tenanted by a fearless garrison. Here, 
 within the borders of Italy itself, the popes have never been 
 able, except for one unhappy interval, to enforce their author- 
 ity. Here no mass has been said, no images adored, no papal 
 rites administered by the native Vaudois. It was here that 
 Henry Arnaud, the hero of the valleys, redeemed his country 
 from the tyranny of the Jesuits and Rome ; and liere a Chris- 
 tain Church, founded perhaps in the apostolic age, has sur- 
 vived the persecutions of a thousand years.(') 
 
 The territory of the Vaudois embraces scarcely sixteen 
 square miles. The three valleys can never have contained a 
 population of more than twenty thousand. In every age the 
 manners of the people have been the same. They are tall, 
 graceful, vigorous ; a mountain race accustomed to labor or to 
 hunt the chamois in his native crags. The women are fair 
 and spotless ; their rude but plaintive hymns are often heard 
 resounding from the chestnut groves ; their native refinement 
 softens the apparent harshness of their frugal lives.(') Over 
 the whole population of the Vaudois valleys has ever rested 
 the charm of a spotless purity. Their fair and tranquil coun- 
 tenances speak only frankness and simplicity ; their lives are 
 passed in deeds of charity, in honest labors, and in unvarying 
 self-respeet.(') The vices and the follies, the luxury and the 
 
 (') Muston, i., p. 107. The Israel of the Alps is the most complete ac- 
 count of the Vaudois, A work of great learuiug, research, and enthusiasm. 
 
 C') Muston, i.,p. 7. 
 
 (') The moral vigor of the Vaudois is well attested for four or five cent- 
 uries. See J. Bresse, Hist. Vaudois, p. 85, an unfinished history. So Au-
 
 200 THE FAUDOIS. 
 
 crime, that have swept over Europe never invaded tlie liappy 
 valleys, unless carried tliither by the papal troops. No pride, 
 no avarice, no fierce resentment, disturbs the peaceful Vaudois ; 
 no profanity, no crime, is heard of in this singular community. 
 To wait upon the sick, to aid the stranger, are eagerly con- 
 tended for as a privilege ; compassion, even for their enemies, 
 is the crowning excellence of the generous race. When their 
 persecutor, Victor Amadeus II., was driven from Turin by the 
 French, he took refuge in the valleys he had desolated, in the 
 cottage of a Vaudois peasant. Here he lived in perfect secu- 
 rity. The peasant might have filled his house with gold by 
 betraying his guest ; he refused ; the duke escaped, and re- 
 warded his preserver with characteristic parsimony. In the 
 French wars of the last centurv, when Suwarrow was victorious 
 among the Alps, three hundred wounded Frenchmen took 
 shelter in the ^^llao;e of Bobbio. The Vaudois cared for their 
 former persecutors as long as their scanty means allowed, and 
 then, taking the wounded soldiers on their shoulders, carried 
 them over the steep Alpine passes and brought them safely 
 to their native France. 
 
 "We may accept, for we can not refute, the narrative of their 
 early history given by the Vaudois themselves.(') Soon after 
 the dawn of Christianity, they assert, their ancestors embraced 
 the faith of St. Paul, and practiced the simple rites and usages 
 described by Justin or Tertullian. The Scriptures became 
 their only guide ; the same belief, the same sacraments they 
 maintain to-day they held in the age of Constantine and Syl- 
 vester. They relate that, as the Romish Church grew in pow- 
 er and pride, their ancestors repelled its assumptions and re- 
 fused to submit to its authority ; that when, in the ninth cent- 
 ury, the use of images was enforced by superstitious popes, 
 they, at least, never consented to become idolaters ; that they 
 never worshiped the Virgin, nor bowed at an idolatrous mass. 
 
 thentic Details of tlie Waldenses, p. 48. Mustou, Hist. Vaud., i. ; aud see 
 Israel of the Alps. 
 
 (') The Vaudois veriters concur in placing their own origin at a period 
 before Constantine. Leger, i,, p. 25 ct seq.
 
 THE BABBES. 201 
 
 When, in the eleventh century, Rome asserted its suprema- 
 cy over kings and princes, the Vaudois were its bitterest foes. 
 The three valleys formed the theological school of Europe. 
 The Yaudois missionaries traveled into Hungary and Bohe- 
 mia, France, England, even Scotland, and aroused the people 
 to a sense of the fearful corruption of the Church.(') They 
 pointed to Rome as the Antichrist, the centre of every abomi- 
 nation. They taught, in the place of the Romish innovations, 
 the pure faith of the apostolic age. Lollard, who led the way 
 to the reforms of Wycliffe, was a preacher from the valleys ; 
 the Albigenses of Provence, in the twelfth century, were the 
 fruits of the Vaudois missions ; Germany and Bohemia were 
 reformed by the teachers of Piedmont ; Huss and Jerome did 
 little more than proclaim the Yaudois faith ; and Luther and 
 Calvin were only the necessary offspring of the apostolic 
 churches of the Alps. 
 
 The early pastors of the Yaudois were called harbes ;(^) 
 and in a deep recess among the mountains, hidden from the 
 persecutor's ej^e, a cave is shown where in the Middle Ages a 
 throng of scholars came from different parts of Europe to 
 study the literature of the valleys.(') The barbes were well 
 qualified to teach a purer faith than that of Rome : a Yaudois 
 poem, writen about 1100, called the " Noble Lesson," still ex- 
 ists, and inculcates a pure morality and an apostolic creed ;(^) a 
 catechism of the twelfth century has also been preserved ; its 
 doctrines are those of modern Protestantism. The Yaudois 
 Church had no bishop ;(^) its head was an elder, majorales^ who 
 was only a presiding officer over the younger barbes. But 
 in that idyllic church no ambition and no strife arose, and 
 
 (') Peyran, Nouvelles Lettres surles Vaudois, Lett, ii., p. 26 : " La religion 
 des Vaudois s'est etendue presque dans tous les endioits de I'Europe ; uou 
 eeulemeut parmi les Italiens." 
 
 (^) Barbe means uncle. Leger, p. 205 : "C'estoit I'appeller onclc" — a 
 name always honorable in the South of J^'rance. 
 
 O Bresse, Hist. Vaudois. 
 
 {*) Raynouard, Mon. Langue Eomane, ii., p. 37. 
 
 (*) Authentic Details, etc. : " Four of the best-informed pastors agreed 
 that they never had any bishops at any time."
 
 202 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 each pastor strove only to excel his fellows in hnmility and in 
 cliaritable deeds. 
 
 From Constantine to Ilildebrand, from the third to the 
 eleventh century, the Vaudois, we may trust, cultivated their 
 valleys in peace. (') The Koman Church, engaged in its strife 
 witli emperors and kmgs, overlooked or despised the teachers 
 of the mountains. In the contest of giants, the modest shep- 
 herds were forgotten. Yet they aimed with almost fatal ef- 
 fect the rustic sling of truth against the Roman Philistine. 
 Nothing is more plain than that from the twelfth to the fif- 
 teenth century the people of Europe were nearly united in 
 opposition to the Roman See. The Popes liad never yet been 
 able to reduce to subjection the larger portion of the Chris- 
 tian Church; it was only over kings and princes that their 
 victories had been achieved. Every country in Europe swarm- 
 ed with dissidents, who repelled as Antichrist the Bishop of 
 Rome ; who pointed with horror and disgust to the vices and 
 the crimes of the Italian prelates and the encroaching monks. 
 In Languedoc and Provence, the home of the troubadour and 
 of mediaeval civilization, the Roman priests were pursued to 
 the altars with shouts of derision.(') Bohemia, Hungary, and 
 Germany wxre filled with various sects of primitive Chris^ 
 tians, who had never learned to worship graven images, or to 
 bow before glittering Madonnas. Spain, England, Scotland, 
 are said by the Vaudois traditions to have retained an early 
 Christianity. In the fourteenth century it is certain that 
 nearly half England accepted the faith of Lollard and Wyc- 
 Me. The Romish writers of tlie thirteenth century abound 
 in treatises against heretics ;(') the fable of a united Christen- 
 dom, obeying with devoted faith a Pope at Rome, had no cre- 
 dence in the period to which it is commonly assigned ; and 
 from the reiurn of Innocent III. to the Council of Constance 
 (1200-1414) the Roman Church was engaged in a constant 
 
 (') The feeble condition of the papacy from 800 to 1000 left it with but 
 little influence in the West. Spain and France were quite independent. 
 
 Q) Milman, Latin Christianity, iv., p. 260. 
 
 (') Reinerius, Moneta, Mapes (1150), and others. So many papal bulls, 
 sermons, etc.
 
 THE POPES AND TEE VAUDOIS. 203 
 
 and often doubtful contest with the widely diffused fragments 
 of apostolic Christianity.C) 
 
 The Popes had succeeded in subjecting kings and emperors ; 
 they now employed them in crushing the people. Innocent 
 III. excited Philip of France to a fierce Crusade against the 
 Albigenses of the South ; amidst a general massacre of men, 
 women, and children, the gentle sect sunk, never to appear 
 again. Dominic invented, or enlarged, the Inquisition ; and 
 soon in every land the spectacle of blazing heretics and tort- 
 ured saints delighted the eyes of the Komish clergy.Q Over 
 the rebellious kings the popes had held the menace of inter- 
 dict, excommunication, deposition ; to the people they offered 
 only submission or death. The Inquisition was their remedy 
 for the apostolic heresies of Germany, England, Spain — a sim- 
 ple cure for dissent or reform. It seemed effectual. Q The 
 Albigenses were perfectly extirpated. In the cities of Italy 
 the Waldenses ceased to l)e known. Lollardism concealed it- 
 self in England ; the Scriptural Christians of every land who 
 refused to worship images or adore the Virgin disappeared 
 from sight ; the supremacy of Pome was assured over all 
 Western Europe. 
 
 Yet one blot remained on the fair fame of the seemingly 
 united Christendom. Within the limits of Italy itself a peo- 
 ple existed to whom the mass was still a vain idolatry, the real 
 presence a papal fable ; who had resisted with vigor every in- 
 novation, and whose simple rites and ancient faith were older 
 than the papacy itself. What waves of persecution may have 
 surged over the Vaudois valleys in earlier ages we do not 
 know ; they seem soon to have become familiar with the cru- 
 elty of Pome ; but in the fifteenth century the Popes and the 
 Inquisitors turned their malignant eyes upon the simple Pied- 
 montese, and prepared to exterminate with fire and sword the 
 Alpine Church. 
 
 (*) Mosheim, ii., enumerates some of the various sects. 
 
 C) Milman, Lat. Christ., iv., p. 266. 
 
 (') Janus, Pope and Council, cap. xvi., has a brief and careful review of 
 the rigor of the Inquisition from 1200 to 1500; the popes named all the In- 
 quisitors. See p. 194-196.
 
 204 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 And now began a war of four centuries, the most remarka- 
 ble in the annals of Europe. On the one side stood the peo- 
 ple of the valleys — poor, humble, few. Driven to resistance 
 by their pitiless foes, they took up arms with reluctance ; they 
 fought only for safety ; they wept over the fallen.Q Yet it 
 soon appeared that every one of the simple mountaineers was 
 a hero ; that he could meet toil, famine, danger, death, with a 
 serene breast in defense of his loved ones and his faith ; that 
 his vigorous arm, his well-ordered frame, were more than a 
 match for the mercenary Catholic, the dissolute Savoyard; 
 that he joined to the courage of the soldier the Christian ardor 
 of the martyr ; that he was, in fact, invincible. For four cent- 
 uries a Crusade almost incessant went on against the secluded 
 valle_ys. Often the papal legions, led by the Inquisitors, swept 
 over the gentle landscape of Lucerna, and drove the people 
 from the blazing villages to hide in caves on the mountains, 
 and almost browse with the chamois on the wild herbage of 
 the wintry rocks. Often the dukes of Savoy sent well-train- 
 ed armies of Spanish foot to blast and wither the last trace of 
 Christian civilization in San Martin or Perouse. More than 
 once the best soldiers and the best generals of Mazarin and 
 Louis XIY. hunted the Vaudois in their wildest retreats, mas- 
 sacred them in caves, starved them in the regions of the gla- 
 ciers, and desolated the valleys from San Jean to the slopes of 
 Guinevert. Yet the unflinching people still refused to give 
 up their faith. Still they repelled the idolatry of the mass; 
 still they mocked at the Antichrist of Rome. In the deepest 
 hour of distress, the venerable barbes gathered around them 
 their famine-stricken congregations in some cave or cranny of 
 the Alps, administered their apostolic rites, and preached anew 
 the Sermon on the Mount. The Psalms of David, chanted in 
 the plaintive melodies of the Yaudois, echoed far above the 
 scenes of rapine and carnage of the desolate valleys ; the apos- 
 tolic Church lived indestructible, the coronal of some heaven- 
 piercing Alp. 
 
 (') Gilly, Excursion, has various legends of tbe early ^^•ars. Pcrrin and 
 Leger are the authorities.
 
 THE ALPINE CHURCH. 205 
 
 The Popes, the leaders of the Inquisition, the dukes of 
 Savoy, bigoted and cruel, often condescended to flatteries and 
 caresses to win those they could not conquer. They ofi:ered 
 large bribes to the poorest mountaineer who would consent 
 to abandon the Church of his fathers and betray the haunts 
 of the heretic. Wealth, honors, the favor of his king and of 
 the Romish priests, awaited him who would recant ; an easy 
 path of preferment lay open to the young men of the valleys, 
 accustomed only to toil and want ; they were tempted as few 
 other men have ever been. Yet the papal bribes were even 
 less successful than the papal arms. A few imbeciles who 
 had lost their moral purity alone yielded to the allurements 
 of gain and pleasure ; the great body of the Yaudois youth 
 rejected the offers with disdain. The stately magnanimity of 
 the " Noble Lesson," the simple principles of their ancient cat- 
 echism,(') taught them in their plain churches by some learned 
 yet gentle barbe, raised them above those inferior impulses 
 by which the corrupt world beneath them was controlled. 
 Kg hereditary vices tarnished their fair organizations ; no 
 coarse disease impaired their mental and moral vigor. With 
 a wisdom above philosophy, they saw that it was better to live 
 with a calm conscience a frugal life than to revel in ill-gotten 
 gold. They clung to their mountains, their moral purity, and 
 their faith. Generation after generation, fiercely tried, hard- 
 ly tempted, never wavered in their resolve. The war of four 
 centuries for liberty of conscience, for freedom to worship 
 God, was accepted by the youthful Yaudois as their noblest 
 inheritance. The contest went on with varying success but 
 equal vigor, and ceased only in its final consequences when the 
 triumphant voice of Garibaldi proclaimed Italy forever free. 
 
 Pope Innocent YIII., a man of rare benevolence, according 
 to the Romisli writers, and a devoted lover of Christian union, 
 resolved (1487) to adorn his reign by a complete extinction of 
 the Yaudois heresy. He issued a bull summoning all faithful 
 kings, princes, rulers, to a crusade against the children of the 
 
 Q) Faber, Hist., etc., of tbe Ancient Waldeuses, London, 1838, may be 
 consulted, witb some caution. It gives a clear review of the authorities 
 for their auti fruity.
 
 206 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 vallejs.(*) No heretic was to be spared ; his goods, his life, 
 were declared forfeited xmless he would consent to attend 
 mass. The Pope, or his Inquisitor, enumerated in a pastoral 
 letter the crinies of the Vaudois. He chai-ged them with call- 
 ing the Eoman Church a church of the evil one;Q of de- 
 nouncing the worship of the Virgin, the invocation of saints ; 
 of asserting, with unblushing boldness, that they alone pos- 
 sessed the pure doctrine of the apostles. To Albertus Capi- 
 taneus was committed the sacred trust of leading an army 
 into the guilty region, and executing upon its people the sen- 
 tence of Eome. The Catholics gathered together in great 
 numbers at the appeal of the Chief Inquisitor ; a tumultuous 
 throng of soldiers, brigands, priests, entered the valleys and 
 commenced a general pihage. But they were soon disturbed 
 in their labors by the swift attacks of the Yaudois. The res- 
 olute and fearless mountaineers sallied from their caves and 
 ravines and drove the robbers before them. One Christian, 
 armed only with the vigor of innocence, seemed equal to a 
 hundred papists. The crusaders fled, beaten and affrighted, 
 from the valleys; the malevolent design of Innocent was never 
 f ullilled ; and the Romanists asserted and believed that every 
 Yaudois was a magician, and was guarded by an invisible spell. 
 Yet still the perpetual persecution went on. The j^apal 
 agents made their way into the lower portions of the valleys, 
 seized the eminent barbes and faithful teachers, and burned 
 them with cruel joy. The Yaudois never knew any respite 
 from real and imminent danger. Ever they must be ready 
 to fly to their mountains and caves; ever their trembling 
 Avives and children were exposed to the cruelty and cunning 
 of the envious priests.Q The sixteenth century opened. 
 
 (') See the bull issued by Innocent (Leger, part ii., p. 8). He calls upon 
 "(luces, principes, comites, et temporales dominos civitatuni, ut clypeum 
 defensiouis orthodoxie fidei assumant." 
 
 (•) The charges made hy the Inquisitors were, " Qu'ils appelloient 
 I'^glise Komaiue I'egliso des lualius," etc. 
 
 (^) Leger, ii. 29. The monks crowded into the valleys. In 1536, there 
 was a severe persecution. In 1537, a baibe of great eminence was burned. 
 The valleys were frequently plundered.
 
 THE JESUITS IN THE VALLEYS. 207 
 
 The Reformation came, and the chief reformers of France 
 and Germany entered into a friendly correspondence with the 
 barbes and churches of Piedmont. They admitted the pu- 
 rity of their faith, the antiquity of their rites. But the rise 
 of the Reformation served only to deepen the rage of the 
 papists against the children of the valleys. The darkest days 
 of the Vaudois drew near, when their enemies could for a mo- 
 ment boast that the last refuge of Italian heresy had fallen 
 before their arms. 
 
 In 1540, the society of Loyola began its universal war 
 against advancing civilization. The Inquisition was renewed 
 with unparalleled severity ; the cities of Italy were hushed 
 into a dreadful repose ; the Protestants of Yenice were thrown 
 into the Adriatic ; the reformers of Rome died before the 
 Church of Santa Maria.(') Italy was reduced to a perfect 
 obedience to the papal rule, and for the first time in the his- 
 tory of its career of innovations the Roman Church was pow- 
 erful and united at home. The iron energy of the Jesuits 
 had crushed dissent. They next proceeded to declare and de- 
 cide the doctrine of the usurping Church. The Council of 
 Trent assembled (1545), and Loyola and Lainez slowly en- 
 forced upon the hesitating fathers a rigid rule of priestly 
 despotism.f) Liberty of conscience was denounced as the 
 chief of heresies ; the opinions and the manners of mankind 
 were to be decided at Rome ; the Pope was to be obeyed be- 
 fore all earthly sovereigns, and his divine powers were ev- 
 erywhere to be established by a universal persecution. The 
 Council of Trent at once threw all Europe into a fearful com- 
 motion. At the command of the Pope, the Jesuits, and the 
 fathers of Trent, Charles Y. began the first great religious 
 war in Germany, and carried desolation and death to its fair- 
 est borders. In France the French court drove the Husnenots 
 to revolt by an insane tyranny. In Holland the rage of the 
 Inquisitors had been stimulated by the lessons of Loyola. 
 
 (') Kanke, Hist. Popes, Inquisition. 
 
 O See Janus, Pope and Council. The Jesnits silenced even the Ro- 
 manists, p. 290.
 
 208 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 Of all its opponents Rome most hated the Vandois. To 
 bind one of the primitive Christians to the stake seemed to 
 give strange satisfaction to their modern persecutors. In 
 September, 1560, Pope Pius IV. and his holj college gather- 
 ed at Rome to witness one of their favorite spectacles.(') A 
 pile had been raised in the Square of St. Angelo, near the 
 bridge over the Tiber. The people assembled in a great 
 throng. The condemned, a pale and feeble young man, was 
 led forth ; when suddenly he began to speak with such rare 
 eloquence and force that the people listened ; the Pope grew 
 angry and troubled, and the Inquisitors ordered the Vaudois 
 to be strangled lest his voice might be heard above the flames. 
 Pius lY. then saw the martyrdom in peace, and directed the 
 ashes of his foe to be thrown into the Tiber. 
 
 The martyr was John Louis Paschal, a young pastor of 
 great eloquence, who had been called from Geneva to a con- 
 gregation of Vaudois in Calabria. The post of danger had a 
 singular charm for the brilliant preacher. He was betrothed 
 to a young girl of Geneva. When he told her of his call to 
 Calabria, "Alas !" she cried, with tears, " so near to Rome, and 
 so far from me !" Yet she did not oppose his generous re- 
 solve, and he went to his dangerous station. Here his elo- 
 quence soon drew a wide attention. He courted by his bold- 
 ness the crown of martyrdom. He was shut up in a deep 
 dungeon, was chained with a gang of galley-slaves, was brought 
 to Rome, where Paul had siiffered, and was imprisoned in a 
 long conflnement.(°) His persecutors strove to induce him to 
 recant ; but no bribes nor terrors could move him. He wrote 
 a last fond exhortation to Camilla Guarina, his betrothed ; his 
 eloquence was heard for the last time as he was strangled be- 
 fore the stake.(^) 
 
 Innumerable martyrdoms now filled the valleys with per- 
 petual horror. It is impossible to describe, it is almost in- 
 
 (') The story of Paschal may bo foniul at length in Mnston, i., p. 85 ; Gil- 
 lies, p. 178, etc. 
 
 (-) Miiston, i., p. 82. He eutered Rome by the Ostiau gate, by the path 
 of the ancieut martyrs. 
 
 C) The Vaiulois in Calabria were extirpated by a horrible persecution.
 
 PAPAL PEPiSECUTOES. 209 
 
 human to remember, the atrocities of the papal persecutors. 
 Neitlier sex nor age, innocence, beauty, youth, softened their 
 impassive hearts. Mary Komaine was burned ahve at Koche- 
 Plate ; Madeleine Fontane at St. John. Michel Gonet, a man 
 nearly a hundred years old, was burned to death at Sarcena. 
 One martyr was hacked to pieces with sabres, and his wounds 
 filled with quicklime ; anotlier died covered with brimstone 
 matches, that had been fastened to his lips, nostrils, and every 
 other part of his body ; the mouth of another was filled with 
 gunpowder, the explosion tearing his head to pieces. Tho 
 story of a poor Bible-seller from Geneva is less revolting than 
 most of these dreadful scenes.(') Bartholomew Hector wan- 
 dered among the peaks of the highest Alps selling the printed 
 Scriptures to the poor shepherds, who in the brief summer, 
 when the mountains break forth into a rich growth of leaves, 
 grass, and flowers, lead their flocks to the higher cliffs. They 
 bought the Bibles readily, and the colporteur climbed cheer- 
 fully from peak to peak. The police seized him and carried 
 him to Pignerol. He was charged with having sold heretical 
 books ; he insisted that the Bible could not be called heretical ; 
 but the Holy Ofiice condemned him, June 19th, 1556, and he 
 was sentenced to be burned alive ; some alleviation of the pen- 
 alty was afterward made, and the judges permitted the exe- 
 cutioner to strangle him before the burning. He was offered 
 his life and liberty if he would recant ; he replied by preach- 
 ing in his prison, with wonderful eloquence, the pure doctrines 
 of the book he had loved to distribute. Amidst tlie brilliant 
 palaces of Turin, in the public square, the happy martyr died, 
 surrounded by a throng of people who wept over his fate. 
 The priests were unable to suppress that proof of a lingering 
 humanity. Five Protestants from Geneva were traveling to- 
 ward the Yaudois valleys. They were warned that the police 
 were watching for them, j-et they still pressed on, and Mere 
 arrested in an unfrequented road where they had hoped to es- 
 cape pursuit. Two of them, Vernoux and Laborie, were pas- 
 tors of the vallej's. They were all taken before the Inquisi- 
 
 (') Miistoiiji., p. 108. 
 
 14
 
 210 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 tors at Chambeiy, and convicted as heretics. They wei'e next 
 brought before the civil court to be condemned. The judges, 
 touched by their innocence, strove to prevail upon them to re- 
 cant. " You need only give us a simple confession of your 
 errors," said the court ; " and this will not prevent you from 
 resuming your faith in the future." They refused to consent 
 to the deceit, and were sentenced to die. "Anne, my beloved 
 sister and spouse,"(') wrote Laborie to his young wife, " you 
 know how well we have loved one another. I pray you, 
 therefore, that you be always found such as you have been, 
 and better, if possible, when I am no more." Calvin, hearing 
 of their danger, wrote them an austere exhortation. In the 
 stern spirit of that age of trial, he urged them to bear a testi- 
 mony to the faith that should resound afar, where human 
 voices had never reached. The five died full of hope. They 
 were strangled, and their bodies burned.(^) In this fatal pe- 
 riod the public square of Turin was constantly made the scene 
 of touching martj'rdoms and holy trials ; the Jesuits and the 
 Franciscans everywhere urged on the zeal of the Inquisitors ; 
 no village of the Vaudois valleys but had its martyrs, no 
 rock nor crag but witnessed and was hallowed by some joy- 
 ous death ; the rage of persecution grew in strength until it 
 could no longer be satisfied with less than a perfect extermi- 
 nation ol the Yaudois. 
 
 Thus around the simple Christians of the valleys seemed to 
 hang everywhere the omens of a dreadful doom. In the gen- 
 eral tide of persecution, they could scarcely hope to escape a 
 final destruction. From the towei's and cathedrals of Turin 
 the Jesuits(^) looked with envious eyes upon the gentle race 
 who neither plotted nor schemed ; to whom cunning was un- 
 known, and deceit the ruin of the soul ; who never planned a 
 persecution, fomented religious wars, or guided the assassin's 
 hand ; who read the Scriptures daily, despite the anathemas 
 of Rome, and who found there no trace of the papal suprem- 
 acy or the legend of St. Peter.(*) The Yaudois, indeed, had 
 
 (•) Maston, i., p. 115. (") Id., i., p. 117. (') Leger, p. 2. 
 
 {*) Peyrau, Nouv. Lett., p. 61. The Waldeuses always deuied that Peter 
 was ever at Rome.
 
 THE VAUDOIS DOOMED. 211 
 
 never concealed their opinions. For centuries they had said 
 openly that the Pope was Antichrist ;(') they had condemned 
 each one of the papal innovations as they arose ; they de- 
 nounced the Crusades as cruel and unchristian ; they gave 
 shelter in their valleys to the persecuted Albigenses ; they 
 smiled with gentle ridicule at the worship of saints and relics ; 
 they scoffed at the vicious monks and priests who strove to 
 convert them to the faith of Rome. Yet now they consent- 
 ed to claim the clemency of their sovereign, the Duke of Sa- 
 voy, and humbly begged for freedom of worship and belief.r) 
 They were so innocent that they could not understand why 
 one Christian should wish to rob or murder another. 
 
 But their prayers, their humility, and their innocence 
 brouo;ht them no relief. The Council of Trent Avas about 
 to re-assemble, and the Jesuits had resolved that its last sit- 
 tings should be graced by a total destruction of the ancient 
 churches of the valleys.^ ) A new crusade was begun (150(1) 
 against the Vaudois. The Pope, the Duke of Savoy, the 
 kings of France and Spain, promoted the sacred expedition ; 
 a large army, led by the Count of Trinity, moved up the val- 
 leys; again the Jesuits offered to the people submission to 
 the mass or death ; again the brave mountaineers left their 
 blazing homes, and fled to the caves and crannies of the up- 
 per Alps. The Count of Trinity was everywhere victorious. 
 The barbes of St. Germain were burned in their own village, 
 and the poor women of the parish were forced to bring fagots 
 on their backs to build the funeral pile. The open country 
 was desolated ; the mass was celebrated with unusual fervor 
 amidst the dreadful waste ; and the Jesuits exulted with fierce 
 joy over the ruin of the apostolic Church. But once more, 
 as the winter deepened, the cliffs grew icy, and huge ava- 
 lanches of snow hung over the path of the invaders, the Vau- 
 dois fortified every ravine,(*) barricaded the narrow passes, 
 
 (') They said " pape 6toit I'anticbrist, I'bostie une idole, et le purgatoire 
 line fable." — Leger, p. 6. 
 
 (=") Leger, p. 31 : If tbe Turk and the Jew are tolerated, they said, why 
 may not we have peace ? 
 
 (=) Leger, p. 33. (^) /</., p. 34.
 
 212 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 and from their fastnesses and caves made vigorous attacks 
 upon the foe. The Count of Trinity found himself threat- 
 ened on every side. In the valley of Angrogna a few peas- 
 ants held a whole army in check. Fifty Vaudois, in one 
 engagement, nearly destroyed a detachment of twelve hun- 
 dred persecutors. The Vaudois leaped like chamois from 
 crag to crag, and with swift sallies cut off the wandering 
 brigands ; they threw them over the cliffs, drowned them in 
 the deep mountain torrents, or rolled huge stones upon their 
 heads. The winter passed on full of disaster to the crusaders. 
 Yet the condition of the Vaudois was even less tolerable. 
 The snow and ice of the Alps blocked up the entrance to 
 their hiding - places ; men, women, and children shivered in 
 rude huts of stone on the bleak mountain - side ; food was 
 scanty ; their harvest had been gathered by the enemy ; while 
 far beneath them they saw their comfortable homes wasted 
 by the Romish brigands, and their plain churches defiled by 
 the pagan ceremonies of the mass. 
 
 In the spring, as the flowers bloomed once more in the 
 declivities of the mountains, and the banks of the torrents 
 glowed with a new vegetation, the final trial of their faith and 
 their valor drew near. At the upper extremity of the valley 
 of Angrogna is a circle of level ground, called Pra del Tor, 
 surrounded on all sides by tall hills and mountain peaks, and 
 entered only by a narrow pass.(') Behind it is altogether safe 
 from attack ; in front, in the ravines leading from below, the 
 Vaudois had raised their simple barricades, and stationed their 
 sentinels to watch the approach of the foe. Hei'e, in this nat- 
 ural fortress, they liad placed their wives and children, their 
 old and infirm, had gathered their small store of food and 
 arms, and celebrated their ancient worship in a temple not 
 made with hands.(') The Count of Trinity meantime had re- 
 solved upon their complete destruction. With a large and 
 well-trained army he marched swiftly up the valley. His 
 
 « 
 
 (') Mustoii, i., p. 235, ilescribes Pra del Ti>r as a deep recess among the 
 mountains. 
 
 (^) Lcger, p. 35-37.
 
 THE BATTLE OF PEA DEL TOR. 213 
 
 forces consisted of nearly ten thousand men, and among 
 them was a large body of Spanish infantry, the best soldiers 
 of the age. The crusaders were inspired by the prospect of 
 an easy success, by the superiority of their numbers, by the 
 blessing of the Pope, and by his promise of a boundless indul- 
 gence, A fierce fanaticism, a wild excitement, stirred by the 
 exhortations of the Jesuits and the priests, ruled in the ranks 
 of the invaders ; the Vaudois, behind their rocks, prayed with 
 their gentle barbes, and with firm hearts prepared to die for 
 their country and their faith. 
 
 The battle of the Pra del Tor is the Marathon of Italian 
 Christianity : it was invested with all the romantic traits of 
 patriotic warfare. The army of the Count of Trinity, clad 
 in rich armor and glittering M'itli military pomp, marched 
 in well-trained squadrons up the beautiful valley ; the clamor 
 of the trumpets startled the chamois on his crags, and drove 
 the eagle from her nest ; the waving plumes, the burnished 
 arms, the consecrated banners, shone in the sunlight as they 
 drew near the defenses of the mountaineers.(*) Behind the 
 Italian troops came the Spaniards, the bravest, the most big- 
 oted of the crusaders. They, too, wore heavy armor, and were 
 irresistible in the open field. In the rear of the invaders 
 followed a band of plunderers, brigands, priests, prepared to 
 profit by a victory that seemed perfectly assured. To this 
 well-trained army were opposed only a few hundred Vaudois. 
 They were stalwart and agile, but meagre with toil and fam- 
 ine. Their dress was ragged, their arms broken and imperfect. 
 To their brilliant assailants they seemed only an undisciplined 
 throng ; a single charge must drive them routed up the val- 
 ley. The Count of Ti-inity gave orders to attack, and the 
 Savoyard infantry marched against the heretics. They were 
 hurled back like waves from a sea-girt rock. The Yaudois 
 filled the pass with a rampart of their bodies, and whenever 
 the Pomish squadrons approached they were met by a rain of 
 bullets, every one of which seemed directed with unerring aim. 
 
 (') If I have drawn somewhat from fancy, yet the details may be in- 
 ferred. See Leger, p. 39.
 
 214: THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 The ground was soon covered witli tlie dead, and the chant of 
 thanksgiving resounded within the amphitheatre of the Alps. 
 
 For four days the papal forces kept up their vain assault. 
 The Yaudois still maintained their invincible array. Within 
 the fastness the wives and daughters, the aged and inUrm, 
 were employed in bringing food to their heroes, in supply- 
 ing them with ammunition, and cheering them with words of 
 faith. The Count of Trinity, enraged at his misfortune, at 
 length ordered the Spanish infantry to charge. They came 
 on in swift step to the clamor of martial music. But their 
 ranks were soon decimated by the bullets of the patriots ; the 
 oflScers fell on all sides ; and the well-trained troops refused 
 any longer to approach the fatal pass. Four hundred dead 
 lay upon the held. A wild panic seized upon the papal army, 
 and it lied, disordered and routed, through the valley. (') 
 
 Then the Yaudois came out from their hiding-places, and 
 chased the crusaders along the open country far down to the 
 borders of Angrogna. Xo mercy was shown to the ruthless 
 papists, Tliey were flung over the rocks into the fathomless 
 abyss, shot down by skillful marksmen as they strove to hide 
 in the forest, and followed with pitiless vigor in their desid- 
 tory flight. Xo trace remained of that powerful army that a 
 few days before had moved with military pomp to the captm-e 
 of Pra del Tor ; its fine battalions had been broken by the val- 
 or of a few mountaineers ; a rich booty of arms and provisions 
 supplied the wants of the heroes of the valley. 
 
 From this time (1561) for nearly a century no new crusade 
 was preached against the Yaudois. Their native sovereigns 
 were satisfied with lesser persecutions. The barbes, as usual, 
 were often burned ; the valleys were oppressed with a cruel 
 taxation ; the earnings of the honest people were torn from 
 them to maintain dissolute princes and indolent priests. In 
 1596, Charles Emanuel ordered all the Yaudois, under pain of 
 death or exile, to attend the preaching of the Jesuits,Q and 
 
 (') See narrative of Scipio Lentulus in Leger, part ii., p. 35. 
 (-) " D'Andare alle prediclio delli revereudi padri Jesuiti," etc. Leger, 
 part ii., p. 61. The Jesuits united esliortatiou with severity.
 
 VAUDOIS PATIENCE. 215 
 
 the valleys were filled with the disciples of Loyola, who strove 
 to corrupt or terrify the youth of the early Church, To every 
 convert was offered an exemption from taxation, and various 
 favors and emoluments were heaped upon him who would 
 attend mass. Yet the restless Jesuits were altogether unsuc- 
 cessful. Their preaching and their bribes were equally con- 
 temned by the haj)py mountaineers ; the Church still lived un- 
 spotted from the world.(') During this period of tolerable 
 suffering the valleys once more glowed with the products of 
 a careful industry ; they were the homes of purity and thrift. 
 Singular among their race, the inheritors of a long succession 
 of elevated thought, the Yaudois have ever practiced an ideal 
 virtue loftier than that of Plato. When feudalism taught 
 that labor was dishonorable, the people of the valleys held ev- 
 ery family disgraced that did not maintain itself by its own 
 useful toil. When the learned Jesuits had proved that deceit 
 was often lawful, the Yaudois declared that falsehood was the' 
 corruption of the soul. In the happy valleys no one desired 
 to be rich, no one strove to rise in rank above his fellows. 
 While in the gifted circles of the European capitals the puri- 
 ty of woman was scoffed at by philosophers and courtiers, in 
 Luzerna and Perouse every maiden was a Lucretia, Crime 
 had seldom been known in the peaceful valleys ; it was only 
 in barbarous lands where the Jesuits ruled that the assassin 
 aimed his dagger or the robber plied his trade.f) To harm 
 no one, to be at peace with all men, to forgive, to pity, were 
 the natural impulses of every A^audois ; to heal the sick, to 
 raise the low, to relieve the suffering stranger, formed the 
 modest joys of the children of the valleys. In every age they 
 remained the same ; in every age they were Christians. The 
 seventeenth century of their faith, perhaps of their existence, 
 found them still an uncorrupted church, teaching to the world 
 unlimited freedom of conscience. For this they were willing 
 to peril their lives and fortunes ; for this they had contended 
 
 (') Peyran, Nouv. Lett., i. We may well accept the traditions of so 
 truthful a race. 
 
 (") MustoD, i., livre viii., Etat moral ct religieux ties vallees.
 
 216 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 with popes and kings ; and on every cliff and mountain peak 
 of their native land was inscribed in immortal deeds the inde- 
 pendence of the soul.(') 
 
 Meantime, while no change had taken place in the Alpine 
 Church, its doctrines and rites had been accepted by all North- 
 ern Enroj)e. In the seventeenth century the papacy had lost 
 its most powerful and warlike adherents. England in 1650, 
 ruled by Cromwell, instructed by Milton, stood in the front 
 rank of the progressive nations. Holland and Northern Ger- 
 many maintained their free schools and their liberal press 
 in defiance of the Jesuits and the Pope. France had been 
 forced to tolerate the Huguenots. It was only over Italy and 
 Spain that the Inquisition of Loyola, founded in 1541, held 
 its terrible sway. There the papal power had been erected 
 upon a relentless despotism, and the unhappy people were 
 rapidly sinking to a low rank among civilized nations. The 
 rule of the Jesuits was followed by a total decay of morals, 
 a general decline of the intellect. Once Italy had been the 
 centre of classic elegance, of the reviving arts, of the splen- 
 dors of a new civilization. It was now the home of gross su- 
 perstitions, a degraded priesthood, a hopeless people. Spain 
 and Portugal, once the leaders in discovery, the rulers of the 
 seas, had fallen into a new barbarism. The Jesuits, the In- 
 quisition, alone flourished in their fallen capitals and deserted 
 ports ; the manly vigor of the countrymen of the Cid had been 
 corrupted by centuries of papal tyranny. 
 
 In the seventeenth century the Yaudois were the only pro- 
 gressive portion of the Italian race.f) Every inhabitant of 
 the valleys was educated ; the barbes were excellent teach- 
 ers, their people eager to learn ; the laborers instructed each 
 other as they toiled side by side on their mountains ; their in- 
 dustry was the parent of active minds. If they produced no 
 eminent poet to sing of dreadful war, no astute philosopher, 
 no vigorous critic, they could at least point to several native 
 
 C) .T. Bresse, Hist. Vau«l., p. 39. 
 
 C) Mnston, Hist. Vaud., i., p. 394; "Nos temples ue sont d^cor<Ss ni do 
 croix ui d'i mages," etc.
 
 THE ''NOBLE LESSON » 217 
 
 historians of considerable merit ; to their " Noble Lesson," 
 the finest of niediseval poems ; to their stiri'ing hymns and 
 versions of the Psalms ;(') to a long succession of intelligent 
 barbes ; to their missionaries of the Middle Ages ; to their col- 
 leges and schools in Alpine caves. Thej might claim that 
 the ideas of the valleys had promoted the civilization of Eu- 
 ro^^e, and that their perpetual protest in favor of liberty of 
 thought had been of more value to the world than Tasso's 
 epic or Raphael's Madonnas. 
 
 A pestilence swept over the valleys in 1630 ; nearly all the 
 pastors died, and the Yaudois were forced to send to Geneva 
 for a new band of teachers. The Calvinistic system of gov- 
 ernment, in a milder form, was now adopted ; tlie name of 
 barbe was no longer used ; the ruling elder was called a mod- 
 erator ; the pastors were usually educated at Geneva ; and the 
 ancient catechism of the twelfth century was exchanged for a 
 modern compilation. (^) Yet the Yaudois have never consent- 
 ed to be called Calvinists, Protestants, or Peformers ; they in- 
 sist that they are primitive Christians, who have never changed 
 their doctrine or their ritual since the days of St. Paul ;(^) wlio 
 liave beheld untainted all the corruption of the Eastern or the 
 Western Church ; whose succession from the apostles is proved 
 by no vain tradition, no episcopal ordination, but by an unin- 
 terrupted descent of Christian virtues and an apostolic creed. 
 They modestly assert that they have ever used the simple rit- 
 ual employed by James, the brother of the Lord, at Jerusalem, 
 
 (*) Raynouard, ii., p. 71 et seq., gives extracts from the early Vandois 
 poems. The fiue hymn, Lo Payre Eternal, contrasts boldly with the feeble 
 Eomish hymns to Mary or the saints. 
 
 (^) Muston, Israel of Alps, i., p. 310. 
 
 (^) The Middle -age Protestant hymn, Lo Payre Eternal (The Eternal 
 Father), expresses the noble feeling of the mountain church. I add a few 
 lines. The poet calls on God to pity and forgive, and then asks to reign 
 with him in a celestial kingdom. 
 
 "Rey glorios, regnant sobrc tuit li rcgne, 
 
 Fay me regner cum tu al tie celestial rcgne 
 Que yo cbantc cum tuit li saut e sempre laudar te degnc." 
 
 See Raynouard, ii., p. 117. With this contrast a feeble chant to llie Virgin : 
 
 "O Marie! de Dicu mere, Dieu t'cst et fils et perc !"
 
 218 THE TAVDOIS. 
 
 or Paul at Antiocli ; and that they prefer to retain unchanged 
 the name they bore before the Popes wore the tiara of Anti- 
 christ, and before Christians were oppressed by the corruptions 
 and the crimes of a visible Church. 
 
 So much liberality of doctrine, such purity of life and faith, 
 could not fail to deserve the constant hostility of the Jesuits. 
 That famous company was now in the maturity of its early 
 vigor. Its flourishing colleges filled the Catholic capitals of 
 Europe ; its countless members, bound by their terrible oath 
 of obedience, moved like a united army upon the defenses of 
 the reformed faith. They had subjected Italy, had desolated 
 Spain ; they once more turned the whole energy of the united 
 order to the extirpation of the children of the valleys. In 
 1650, the Jesuits founded a propaganda at Turin in imitation 
 of that at Rome.(') Its design was to spread the Roman faith, 
 to extirpate heresy by all the most powerful instruments of 
 force or fraud. A council was formed, composed of the most 
 eminent citizens, who were to act as general Incpiisitors. 
 Among them were the Marquis of Pianessa, the Grand Chan- 
 cellor, the President of the Senate ; its chief officer was the 
 Archbishop of Turin. ConuctL^d with the propaganda was a 
 council of distinguished and wealtny women, who proved even 
 more zealous than the men. The noblest ladies of Turin join- 
 ed in the new crusade ; large sums of money were collected to 
 aid the movement ; the emissaries of the two councils united 
 in visiting families suspected of heretical practices, and in striv- 
 ing to win over converts by intimidation or bribes. The poor 
 serving-woman from the valleys was often assailed by a no- 
 ble tempter ; the heretics of a higher rank were won by flatter- 
 ies and attentions. The languid atmosphere of the capital of 
 Savoy was stirred by the new effort to propagate the creed of 
 Home. 
 
 From the higher peaks of their native Alps the Yaudois 
 look down upon the palaces and cathedrals of Turin. Before 
 them lies that magnificent scene with which Hannibal stimu- 
 
 (') Leger, part ii., p. 73, describes tlie Jesuit propaganda at Tiiiin, aud 
 imputes to it all the misfortuues of bis couutry.
 
 OMUXS OF DANGER. 219 
 
 lated the avarice of liis toil-worn army as he pointed out tlie 
 path to Koine. But in the seventeenth century the rude vil- 
 lage of the Taurini had grown into a powerful and splendid 
 city ; the landscape was rich with the product of centuries of 
 toil; the plains of Piedmont were the gardens of the age. 
 The Yaudois, ever loyal and forgiving, had' never failed in 
 their duty to their sovereigns. The dukes of Savoy, always 
 their worst persecutors, seem yet to have obtained their last- 
 ing regard. They appealed to their clemency in moments of 
 danger. They had usually been sternly told to choose be- 
 tween the mass and ruin. Yet, in 1650, they had enjoyed a 
 period of comparative rest ; and little did they foresee, as they 
 looked down upon the city of their sovereign and the rich 
 plains around, that the great and the noble were plotting their 
 destruction, that the last crowning trial of their ancient Church 
 was near at hand. 
 
 The first omen of danger was a new influx of Jesuits. The 
 valleys were thronged with haggard and fanatical missionaries. 
 They pressed into remote districts, and celebrated mass in 
 scenes where it had never been lieard before. A ceaseless 
 plotting went on againsL the I'aithful Yaudois; every art was 
 employed to bribe the young ; to arouse the pastors to a dan- 
 gerous resistance ; to disturb the harmony of families and fill 
 the valleys with domestic strife. In Turin the Inquisition 
 sat constantly, and before its hated tribunal were summoned 
 the most noted of the Yaudois. If they failed to appear, their 
 goods were forfeited, their lives in peril ; if they came, they 
 probably disappeared forever from human sight. The dun- 
 geon, the rack, and the auto-da-fe awaited those who denied 
 the infallibility of the Pope. 
 
 P)Ut the Jesuits refused to be satisfied with these isolated 
 persecutions ;(') they pressed the Duke of Savoy to complete 
 the ruin of the Alpine Church. The world has witnessed no 
 sadder spectacle than that long reign of terrors that was now 
 spread over the peaceful valleys. In January, 1655, was issued 
 
 (') All the authorities unite iu fixing the claief guilt of tlio massacres 
 upon the Jesuits. See Leger, part ii., p. 72 d seq.
 
 220 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 the famous order of Gastaldo, the opening of the dreadful 
 struggle. By this degree, sanctioned by the court of Turin,, 
 every Vaudois in the towns at the lower extremity of the val- 
 leys was commanded either to attend mass or to abandon his 
 home and fly to the upper villages. The whole heretic pop- 
 ulation were to be shut up within a narrow region around 
 Bobbio and Angrogna. It was a winter of singular sever- 
 ity; the snow lay deep in the upper valleys; the torrents 
 rolled down clad in ice ; the fields were covered with inunda- 
 tions; the ravines were almost impassable. Yet the sad and 
 long procession of faithful Christians were forced to leave 
 their comfortable homes in Lucerna or St. Jean and bear the 
 horrors of the wintry march. The aged, the sick, the once- 
 smiling children, the feeble and the young, the gentle ma- 
 tron, the accomplished maid, set out in a pitiful throng on 
 their dreadful ]ourney.(') They waded hand-in-hand through 
 the icy waters, broke the deep, untrodden snows, climbed the 
 wintry hills, and sought refuge with their impoverished breth- 
 ren of the Alpine villages. Yet no one recanted ; no native 
 Vaudois would consent to escape the pains of exile by attend- 
 ing an idolatrous mass. "Whole cities and villages in the lower 
 valleys were nearly depopulated ; families were reduced from 
 ease and comfort to extreme and painful want ; a fruitful 
 region was desolated ; but the Jesuits were disappointed, for 
 the indestructible Church survived among the mountains. 
 
 Their next project was a war of extermination, A pretext 
 was easily discovered: a priest had been found murdered in 
 a Yaudois village ; a convent of Capuchins, planted in one of 
 the ruined towns, had been broken up by an impetuous pas- 
 tor; the mass had been ridiculed; the exiled people sometimes 
 stole back to their desecrated homes. Turin was filled with 
 ra^e; the duke decreed the destruction of the Yaudois. 
 Again a crusade began against the people of the valleys. 
 The historian Leger, who was a Yaudois pastor, and saw the 
 sufferino-s and the heroism of his countrymen, has described 
 
 (') Leger, part ii., p. 94 et seq. : " Se trouvaut dans le cceur du pins rnde 
 liyver qti'ils ftsseut jamais senti."
 
 THE FLIGHT OF THE VAUBOIS. 221 
 
 witli startling minuteness the details of the persecution. Tlie 
 papal troops entered the valleys, roused by the priests and 
 Jesuits to an unparalleled madness. Such cruelties, such 
 crimes, have never before or since been perpetrated upon the 
 earth ; the French Kevolution offers but a faint comparison ; 
 the tortures of Diocletian or Decius may approach their real- 
 ity. The gentle, intelligent, and cultivated Vaudois fell into 
 the power of a band of demons. Their chief rage was direct- 
 ed against women and children. The babe was torn from the 
 mother's breast and cast into the blazing fire ;(') the mother 
 w^as impaled, and left to die in unpitied agony. Often hus- 
 band and wife w^ere bound together and burned in the same 
 pyre; often accomplished matrons, educated in refinement 
 and ease, were hacked to pieces by papal soldiers, and their 
 headless trunks left unburied in the snow. A general search 
 was made for Yaudois. Every cave was entered, every crag 
 visited, where there was no danger of resistance ; every for- 
 est was carefully explored. When any were found, whether 
 young or old, they were chased from their hiding-places over 
 the snowy hills, and thrown from steep crags into the deep 
 ravines below. No cliff but had its martyr ; no hill on which 
 had not blazed the persecutor's fire. In Leger's history, print- 
 ed in 1669, are preserved rude but vigorous engravings of the 
 malignant tortures inflicted by the papal soldiers upon his 
 countrymen. There, in the Alpine solitudes, amidst the snow- 
 clad summits of the wintry hills, are seen the dying matron ; 
 the tortured child ; the persecutor chasing his victims over 
 the icy fields; the virgin snows covered wdtli the blood of 
 fated innocence ; the terrified people climbing higher and 
 higher up the tallest Alps, glad to dwell with the eagle and 
 the chamois, above the rage of persecuting man.(^) 
 
 The Pope applauded, the Duke of Savoy rejoiced in the 
 
 (') Leger, part ii., p. 110 et seq. : " Les petits enfans, impitoyablement ar- 
 rach^s des maiuelles cle leurs tendres mferes, estoient emiioigiK^s par les 
 pieds," etc. The narrative is that of eye-witnesses, and from depositions 
 made soon after. Men of eighty and ninety years were bnrned. 
 
 (^) The narrative of the x)crsecution is too dreadful to be repeated, too 
 horrible to be remembered.
 
 222 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 massacres of the valleys. The Jesuits chanted their thanks- 
 giving in the mined villages. The Capuchins restored their 
 convent. The Chui'ch of Rome ruled over the blood-stained 
 waste. Bnt when the news of the unexampled atrocities of 
 the Alps came to the great Protestant powers of the North, 
 when it was told in London or The Hague that the harmless 
 people of the valleys, the successors of the apostles, had been 
 slain in their villages and cut to pieces on their native cliffs, 
 horror and amazement tilled all men. The reformers of ev- 
 ery land had long looked with interest and affection upon the 
 Alpine Church ; had admired its heroism, had imitated its 
 simplicity ; that it should perish amidst the savage cruelties 
 of the Jesuits and the Pope they could scarcely bear, A loud 
 cry of disgust and indignation arose from all the Northern 
 courts.(') But one mind, the greatest and the purest that had 
 descended upon the earth since the apostolic age, gave utter- 
 ance to the common indignation. Milton was now Cromwell's 
 secretary, and, although blind, watched over the affairs of Eu- 
 rope. His quick perception, his liberal opinions, his ready 
 learning, his easy Latin style, have given to the foreign corre- 
 spondence of the Protector an excellence never to be equaled 
 in the annals of diplomacy. To the learned, the liberal, the 
 progressive Milton the Alpine Church must ever have been 
 singularly dear. It reflected all his own cherished opinions; 
 his own simplicity, naturalness, and love of truth; it was 
 clothed with a halo of historic association that, to his poetic 
 thouglit, covered it with immortal lustre. 
 
 In one great sonnet Milton has condensed the indignation 
 of the age.(") He cried to Heaven to avenge its slaughtered 
 saints ; he paints with a mighty touch the cold Alps, the dy- 
 ing martyrs, the papal monsters, the persecuted Church. No 
 grander strain, no more powerful explication, has fallen from 
 the pen of the lord of modern poetry. The stern enthusi- 
 ast Cromwell shared Milton's indignation, and the poet and 
 the soldier strove to preserve tlie Alpine Church. Milton 
 
 (') See Gilly, Excnr. ; Legcr, ii.,240. 
 
 (^) " Aveuge, O Lord, thy slaugbtereil siiiuts," etc.
 
 MILTON WOULD SAVE THE VAUDOIS. 223 
 
 wrote, in the name of the Protector, a courtly but vigorous ap- 
 peal to the murderous Duke of Savoy. Cromwell said that 
 he was bound to the Vaudois by a common faith ; that he had 
 heard of their butchery, their exposure on the frozen Alj)s: 
 he besought the duke to withdraw the edict of extermination. 
 The letter was composed in Latin by Milton, and was copied, 
 it is said, by one of his daughters. It is dated May 25th, 
 1655, soon after the news arrived. All England mourned for 
 the slaughtered saints, and Cromwell appointed a day of fast- 
 ing and prayer for their deliverance. Large sums of money 
 were collected in London for their support, and the Holland- 
 ers were equally liberal. Milton's j^en now knew no rest; he 
 wrote to the various Protestant powers to intercede for the 
 Yaudois ; he appealed to Louis XIV. of France to give shelter 
 to the exiles and to aid in their preservation. " The groans 
 of those wretched men, the Protestants of Lucerna, Angrogna, 
 and the other Alpine valleys," Cromwell said, " have reached 
 our ears." When the persecutions still continued he wrote in 
 stronger terms ;(') and the bold and stern Sir Samuel Mor- 
 landf ) was sent as envoy to the court of Turin to remonstrate 
 against its enormities. The embassador did not spare the 
 papists, at least in words. He told the duke that angels were 
 horrified, that men were amazed, and the earth blushed at the 
 fearful spectacle. The Swiss cantons and the German princes 
 united in a strong remonstrance. Said the Landgrave of 
 Hesse : " Persecutions and butcheries are not the means to 
 suppress a religion, but rather to preserve it." But no sense 
 of shame reached the hearts of the monster duke and his Jes- 
 uit advisers ; they pretended, with keen subtlety, to listen to 
 the appeals of the Protestant powers, yet they still permitted 
 the work of extermination to go on. 
 
 Safe in the shelter of the Italian court and certain of the 
 sympathy of that of France, the Jesuits and the Pope heard 
 with secret joy the grief and rage of the arch-heretic Cromwell 
 and his allies of the North. They resolved to persist in their 
 
 (') Gilly, Narrative, gives the letters of Cromwell or Milton, p. 217-229. 
 C) Gilly, Narrative, p. 229.
 
 224: THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 dreadful labors until no trace of heresy should be left upon Ital- 
 ian soil. It is probable that, had the Protector lived, the fleets 
 of England might have avenged the Christians of the valleys ; 
 that the artillery of the Puritans might have startled the Ital- 
 ian potentates from their fancied security. But the great chief- 
 tain died ; the greater poet sunk into a happy obscurity, from 
 whence was to shine forth the highest fruit of his genius ; and 
 all Eno-land was dissolved, in fatal license nnder the dissolute 
 reign of Charles. At his death the Jesuits rejoiced in the 
 rule of James II., and confidently hoped to bring once more 
 under the papal sway the land of Milton and Cromwell. It 
 was a disastrous period for Protestantism. England no longer 
 stretched forth its powerful arm to shield its weaker brethren. 
 Holland seemed, about to sink before the Catholic zeal of 
 Louis XIV. Geneva trembled among its mountains. And 
 at length the Jesuits prevailed upon the King of France to 
 revoke the Edict of Nantes and commence a bitter persecution 
 of the Huguenots. The best, the wisest, the most progressive 
 of the French died in crowded prisons or by the arms of the 
 papal butchers, or were glad to escape, impoverished, to for- 
 eign lands. A perfect religious despotism prevailed in France, 
 from which it was only rescued by the convulsive horrors of 
 its Revolution. 
 
 There was now no more hope for the Vaudois.(') Friend- 
 less, except in the arm of Him who guided the avalanche and 
 checked the raging torrent in its course, the poor and humble 
 people, cheered by their gallant pastors, bore with patient joy 
 the burden of a fearful existence. From 1655 to 1685 they 
 suffered all the ignominies and all the cruelties that could be 
 inflicted by the malevolent ])riests. The valleys were filled 
 with monks and Jesuits, and bands of papal soldiers, who rav- 
 ished the last loaf from the humble homes of the industrious 
 Christians. Often the Vaudois, roused to resistance by some 
 dreadful atrocity, would fly to arms and perform miracles of 
 
 (') Muston began his valuable labors, eil. 1834, by asserting, "La gloire 
 des Vandois est dans leur malbeur." He bad not yet looked forward to 
 their present triuuiidi.
 
 THE CAVE OF CASTELLUZO. 225 
 
 valor amidst their native crags; war would rage again along 
 the valleys ; and great armies of papists would march from 
 Turin or Pignerol and chase the people to the mountains. 
 Then the old, the sick, women and children, would be carried 
 by the strong arms of their sons and their brothers to some 
 secluded cavern, known only to themselves, and there hide 
 for months until the danger seemed past ; in fact, the Vaudois 
 learned, like the marmot, to make their homes in the living 
 rock. 
 
 One of these singular natural retreats of safety has perhaps 
 been discovered by a modern traveler. He had searched for 
 many days for the famous cavern of Castelluzo. The memo- 
 ry of the place had been forgotten ; it was only known that 
 down some dizzy precipice, overhanging a dreadful abyss, a 
 cave existed, opening into the solid rock, where three or four 
 hundred Vaudois had once lived safe from the Pope and the 
 Jesuits. At length his guides assured the traveler that they had 
 found the forgotten retreat. On a fair day of the Alpine au- 
 tumn, when the golden fields were smiling with the gathered 
 harvests, the stranger ventured to enter, with extreme hazard, 
 the dangerous scene. He could scarcely conceive how old 
 men, women, and children, amidst the snows of winter, could 
 have descended into their only home. The entrance lay over 
 a projecting crag. Far below opened a deep ravine, from 
 which shot up a wall of rock. The cave was cut by Nature's 
 hand in the side of the precipice. A rope-ladder was pro- 
 vided and swung over the projecting cliff. It was made to 
 rest on a slight ledge about fifty feet below. The guides de- 
 scended, the traveler followed, and with great risk reached the 
 grotto. It proved to be an irregular sloping gallery, formed 
 by the overhanging cliffs. On one side a projecting crag shel- 
 tered it from the weather ; before it opened the unfathomed 
 abyss. A spring of water seemed to exist in one corner, and 
 a few shrubs and plants grew in the interstices of the rock.(') 
 The cave was shallow, light, and almost safe from attack. 
 Only a single person could enter it at a time, and a single 
 
 (') Waldeusiau Researches, Gilly, p. 513. 
 
 15
 
 226 THE FAUDOIS. 
 
 stalwart Yandois might here defy an army. Yet there were 
 no traces of its having been inhabited ; no smoke of Yaudois 
 fires, nor remnants of arms or furniture ; and the traveler left 
 tlie place still in doubt whether he had really found the fa- 
 mous cave described by Leger, where nature had provided em- 
 brasures, windows for sentinels, an oven, and a secure retreat 
 for three hundred of his countrymen. (*) 
 
 At last, in 1685, came that fatal period so long anticipated 
 with triumph by the Jesuits of Turin, when the voice of 
 Christian prayer and praise was no longer heard in the val- 
 leys. The wonderful people had survived for six centuries 
 the enmity of the papacy ; but now the Alpine Church seem- 
 ed forever blotted from existence. Louis XIY., the destroyer 
 of the Huguenots and of France, pressed the Duke of Savoy 
 to drive the heretics from his dominions. General Catinat, 
 one of the best commanders of tlie time, led a well-appointed 
 army into the valleys ; the people took up arms, and, with 
 their usual heroism, at first baffled and defeated the efforts of 
 the French ; then a lethargy seemed to pass over them, and 
 they yielded to the foe. A dreadful punishment now fell 
 upon them. The papal soldiers swept through the valleys, 
 made prisoners of nearly the whole population, and carried 
 them away to the dungeons of Turin. Fourteen thousand 
 persons were shut up in a close confinement. The conse- 
 quences were such as might have touched the hearts of Dio- 
 cletian and Decius, but to the Jesuits and to Kome they were 
 only a source of insane joy. The stalwart mountaineers, and 
 their wives and children, shut out from their free Alpine air, 
 starved and persecuted, pined in a horrible imprisonment. 
 Diseases raged among them ; a pestilence came ; and of the 
 fourteen thousand saints, the followers of Christ, only three 
 thousand came, emaciated and pale, from their noisome dun- 
 geons. Eleven thousand had died to satisfy the malice of 
 Rome. 
 
 There was now peace in the silent valleys ; villages without 
 inhabitants, homes without a family, churches no longer filled 
 
 (^) Leger, i., p. 9.
 
 MASS CELEBRATED IN THE VALLEYS. 227 
 
 with the eloquence of supplication. A few Romanists alone 
 occupied the silent scene. At length a colony of papists, gath- 
 ered from the neigliboring country, was sent in to take pos- 
 session of the fields and dwellings of the Vaudois ; the church- 
 es of the ancient faith were torn down or converted into Rom- 
 ish chapels ; the Jesuits wandered freely from St. Jean to Pra 
 del Tor. For the first time since the dawn of Christianity, 
 the Virgin was worshiped beneath the crags of San Martino, 
 and the idolatry of the mass desecrated the scene so long con- 
 secrated by an apostolic faith. For three years the rule of the 
 papists remained undisturbed. The sad remnant of the Vau- 
 dois meantime had wandered to foreign lands. Several thou- 
 sand climbed the Alps, and came, emaciated and wayworn, to 
 the Swiss. Here they were received with sincere kindness, 
 and found a momentary rest. Several of the pastors found a 
 home in Holland ; at Leyden, Leger composed his history of 
 his country. A colony of exiled Vaudois came afterward to 
 America, and settled near Philadelphia ; others went to Ger- 
 many or England. Some, perhaps, remained in the valleys, 
 concealing their faith under a conformity with the Romish 
 rule. And thus, in 1689, seemed forever dissipated that hal- 
 lowed race, that assembly of the faithful, over whose career in 
 history had ever hung a spotless halo of ideal purity. 
 
 In the fearful winter of 1686-87, when the Rhone was 
 frozen to its bed and the Alps were incrusted with ice, the 
 papists drove the surviving remnant of the prisoners over the 
 precipitous passes of Mont Cenis. The aged, the sick, women, 
 children, the wounded, and the faint, climbed with unsteady 
 steps the chill waste of snows, and toiled onward toward 
 Protestant Geneva. Many had scarcely clothes to cover tliem ; 
 all were feeble with starvation. The road was marked by the 
 bodies of those that died by the way. The survivors stagger- 
 ed down the Swiss side of the mountains, pallid with hunger 
 and cold ; some perished as they approached the borders of the 
 friendly territory ; others Hngered a while, and expired in tlie 
 homes of the Swiss. But the people of Geneva, as they be- 
 held the melancholy procession approaching their city, rushed 
 out in generous enthusiasm to receive the exiles to their arms.
 
 228 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 One-half the population went forth on the charitable journey. 
 They contended with each other which should iirst give shel- 
 ter to the poorest of the martyrs, and sometimes bore them in 
 their arms from the frontiers to their comfortable dwellings. 
 Geneva, the wonderful city of Calvin and Beza, revived in 
 this period of woe the unbounded benevolence that had mark- 
 ed the early Christians in their conduct toward each other un- 
 der the persecutions of Maximin and Galerius. As the exiles 
 entered the town they sung the psalm of persecuted Israel, 
 " O God, why hast thou cast us off V in a grave, sad voice, and 
 breathed out a melancholy wail over the ruin of their apostol- 
 ic Church.C) 
 
 An aged man appeared among the throng who came out 
 to meet them ; it was Joshua Janavel, the exiled hero of the 
 Vaudois. For many years Janavel had lived a fugitive at 
 Geneva. Yet the fame of his wonderful exploits had once 
 filled all Europe, and he still kept watch over the destiny of 
 his native land. Had Janavel's advice been followed, the 
 Yaudois believed that their country might yet have been free ; 
 had his strong arm not been palsied by age, there would yet 
 remain a hope of its deliverance. In the wild wars that fol- 
 lowed the massacre of 1655, when the Marquis of Pianessa 
 was ravaging the valleys, Janavel became the leader of a band 
 of heroes. Born on the mountains, he crept through their 
 passes and sprung from cliff to cliff at the head of his pious 
 company, and waged a holy but relentless warfare with the 
 murderous assailants.(^) With only six soldiers he surprised 
 in a narrow pass a squadron of five hundred, and drove them 
 from the hills. The next day, with seventeen men, he hid 
 among rocks ; the enemy approached in force, and pressed into 
 the ambuscade ; the crags were rolled upon them ; musket- 
 balls rained from every cliff ; and as they fled, astonished, to 
 the valley, the mountaineers, leaping from rock to rock and 
 
 (') The music of the Vandois is said to be sad, plaintive, aud in a minor 
 tone, as if the reflection of their life aud persecution. Gilly, Researches, 
 p. 221. 
 
 (^) For anecdotes of Janavel see Gilly, Narrative, p. 194 et seq.
 
 JANAVEL. 229 
 
 hiding behind the woodlands, pursued them with fatal aim. 
 The Marquis of Pianessa, tlie chief of the propaganda at Tu- 
 rin, sent a still larger army against Janavel ; he was shut up 
 against the front of a tall cliff ; and the Vaudois, with their 
 backs to the rock, met the advancing foe. The popish army 
 melted away like snow before them ; the Christians charged 
 upon them with a cry of faith ; and again the enemy were 
 broken, with dreadful loss. 
 
 Ten thousand men were next marched against the patriots. 
 Meantime their commander, the Marquis of Pianessa, an ex- 
 cellent example of chivalry and feudalism, a bright ornament 
 of his church and court, wrote as follows to the Christian 
 leader : "To Captain Janavel, — Your wife and daughter are 
 in my power. If you do not submit, they shall be burned 
 alive." Janavel replied, " You can destroy their bodies ; you 
 can not harm their beloved souls."(') The wild war raged 
 all along the mountains. Janavel, and his famous associate, 
 Jahier, beat back the great army of Pianessa, and avenged its 
 terrible atrocities. Anions; those of the invaders most o^uiltv 
 of indescribable enormities was a band of eight hundred Ii-ish 
 Catholics. They had rejoiced to crush the heads of Protest- 
 ant infants against the rocks, to hack in pieces gentle matrons 
 and aged men, to fill blazing ovens with unresisting saints. 
 Janavel now came upon them with a dreadful retribution. 
 He sui^prised them in their barracks, and put them all to death. 
 But Janavel was at last shot through the body. He recovered, 
 and went, in 1680, an exile to Geneva ; and here he lived to 
 aid in that remarkable expedition by which the Vaudois were 
 once more restored to their vallevs and their homes. 
 
 While all Protestant Europe w^as lamenting the ruin of its 
 oldest Church, suddenly there passed before the eyes of men a 
 wonderful achievement — a spectacle of heroism and daring 
 scarcely rivaled at Marathon or Leuctra.(^) It was named by 
 
 C) Muston, part ii., ch. viii., p. .363, vol. i. 
 
 (°) Glorious Recovery, trans, from Henry Arnand's account of his expe- 
 dition ; Gilly, Excur., p. 174-183 ; Muston, ii., p. 33. The journals of the 
 jjeriod also notice the returu.
 
 230 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 the exulting Yaiidois " The Glorious Return." The exiles at 
 Geneva, tempted by various friendly invitations to emigrate 
 to Protestant lands, still fondly lingered in the neighborhood 
 of their native mountains. No promises of ease and opulence, 
 no prospect of a foreign home, could allure them from the dis- 
 tant view of Mont Cenis and the snow-clad Alps. At length 
 the enthusiastic people, inspired by the brave spirit of the aged 
 Janavel, and their priest and warrior, Heniy Arnaud, began to 
 entertain the design of invading once more their ancient val- 
 leys — of reviving their apostolic Church. Yet never was a 
 project apparently more hopeless. The Duke of Savoy, sus- 
 pecting their design, had extended a chain of garrisons around 
 all the mountain passes. The valleys were held by large ar- 
 mies of French and Savoyards, and a hostile population filled 
 all the towns and hamlets in Perouse, Lucerna, and San Mar- 
 tino. If the exiles attempted to cross the Alps, they must cut 
 their way through a succession of foes. When they reached 
 the Germanasca and the Pelice, they would encounter the uni- 
 ted forces of Italy and France. 
 
 But Janavel inspired them with his own boundless resolu- 
 tion. An expedition was prepared of nearly one thousand 
 men ; and on the night of the 16th of August, 1689, a fleet of 
 boats bore the adventurers over the peaceful waters of Lake 
 Leman to the borders of Savoy. As they assembled in the 
 forest of Nyon the aged warrior directed them all to kneel in 
 fervent prayer. He could not go with them; he bid them 
 choose, under the guidance of Heaven, a j'ounger leader. It 
 seems that a Captain Turrel was elected their commander.(') 
 The whole army was divided into nineteen companies ; and 
 the Yaudois began their swift march for the passes of the 
 Alps. They ev^ided or dissipated the hostile garrisons, and 
 swept rapidly up that memorable road by which Hannibal had 
 crossed the unknown mountains. But the Yaudois were no 
 strangers to the icy scene. They chose the most difficult paths 
 to avoid the hostile soldiers, clambered from glacier to glacier, 
 crept along the brink of the fearful precipice, dispersed the 
 
 (') Muston, ii., p. 38 et seq.
 
 ''THE GLOEIOUS EETUBK" 231 
 
 enemy by sudden attacks, and reached at length the pass of 
 Mont Cenis. Here they captured the baggage of a Roman 
 cardinal who was on his way to Rome.(') Slowly and with 
 unexampled endurance they climbed Mont Cenis, and, as they 
 reached the top, sunk, incapable of motion, on the frozen snow. 
 Their path now lay among the wildest and most inaccessi- 
 ble portions of the Alps. With scanty food, but frequent 
 prayers, they pressed over the snows toward their native val- 
 leys. Soon their clarions sounded clearly from the summit 
 of Tourliers, as they prepared to descend into the well-known 
 scene and encounter the first shock of battle. 
 
 Eight hundred now remained — vigorous, agile, fearless — 
 many of them natives of Lucerna, San Martino, or Angrogna. 
 They descended the snowy hills in a narrow line, wading 
 through deep ravines. Their food was only a few chestnuts 
 and half -frozen water ; their dress was torn and comfortless. 
 They slept on wintry crags, but they held fast to their arms 
 and their scanty powder ; and their pastor and chief, Henry 
 Arnaud, led them in fervent prayer, every morning and even- 
 ing, as they clambered down tlie Alps. At length they ap- 
 proached their beloved valleys ; but between lay the ravine of 
 the Dora, crossed by a single bridge. Around was stationed a 
 force of two thousand French, guarding the pass of Salber- 
 trans. The eight hundred saw that they must fight their way 
 across.^ ) It was a dim and misty night, and as they pressed 
 on the Catholic settlers mocked them with evil tidings. When 
 they asked them for provisions, they replied, " Go on, you 
 will soon have no need of food." They knelt for a few mo- 
 ments, and then began the attack. Some one cried out, " The 
 bridge is won !" The Yaudois rushed upon their enemy ; the 
 French, terrified by their energy, abandoned their station in 
 sudden panic ; and the eight hundred pressed over the bridge 
 and cut down the enemy as they fled. I^^I'one were spared ; 
 and in the dark, bewildering night the French soldiers wan- 
 
 (') Glorious Recovery ; Muston, ii., 45. 
 
 C) Muston, i., p. 47, is fuller than Aruaud, and has used various unpub- 
 lished letters, etc.
 
 232 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 dered among the Yaudois, and were shot or sabred without re- 
 sistance. The moon now rose over the Alps, and disclosed 
 seven hundred dead lying around the dark ravine; of the 
 Vaudois only twenty-two had fallen. Once more they knelt, 
 but it was now in thanksgiving ; they heaped together the 
 ammunition thev could not use, with all the remains of the 
 French camp, and applied a torch to the pile; the explosion 
 shook the mountains with an unaccustomed tremor, and as 
 the sound died away a wild shout of Joy arose from the Yau- 
 dois — a cry of " Glory to the God of armies !" 
 
 Worn with battle and victory, the exiles still pressed on 
 the same night, often falling down in sleep, and then rousing 
 themselves to climb over rocks and mountains, until, as tlie 
 sun rose on the Sabbath morning, and the white peaks of the 
 Alps were tinted with a bright rose-color, and the wide, wavy 
 landscape gleamed before them, they saw the fair pinnacles of 
 their own hills and the well-known valley of Pragela. They 
 chanted a poetic prayer of thanksgiving on the mountain-tops, 
 and descended to their home. The priests fled hastily from 
 the valley ; the patriots tore the images and the shrines from 
 their ancient churches, and celebrated their simple worship 
 in its accustomed seats. For a time all was victory. They 
 drove the enemy from the Balsille and its impregnable rocks, 
 expelled the new inhabitants of Bobi, burned hostile Le Per- 
 rier, and supplied themselves with arms at the cost of the foe. 
 For food they found a resource in the plunder of French con- 
 voys, and in secret stores of corn and nuts which they had 
 hidden in the earth before their expulsion. But the enemy 
 was now chiefly engaged in an attempt to starve them on the 
 mountains. Tlie Duke of Savoy ordered the country to be 
 desolated ; the flocks and cattle were driven away from the 
 open valleys, the fruit-trees cut down, the harvests burned 
 upon the fields, and the magnificent groves of chestnut and 
 walnuts despoiled of tlieir autumnal product. The poor Yau- 
 dois, clinging to tlie cliffs and wandering upon the mountain- 
 tops, still baffled the arms of the enemy ; but often they had 
 only a few roots to eat, and their manly vigor must slowly 
 melt away in famine and fatigue. Prayer was still their chief
 
 THE BALSILLE. 233 
 
 support, and among their native crags tliey constantly lifted 
 tlieir voices to Heaven. For two months they had resisted 
 the attack of twenty thousand men led by the skillful Catinat ; 
 but by October 16th it seemed that the entei'prise must whol- 
 ly fail. Their numbers were diminished by desertions and 
 death ; many French refugees left them ; even Turrel, the 
 commander, despairing of success, tied from them secretly. 
 Clothed in rags, feeding upon roots and herbs, the feeble Vau- 
 dois saw before them the approaching winter and the swiftly 
 increasing foe. Their prayerful hearts were oppressed with 
 an unaccustomed dread. Liberty of conscience seemed about 
 to depart forever from the valleys ; the Alpine Church was 
 never again to rise from its desolation. But Henry Arnaud, 
 pastor and chief, rose, in this moment of danger, to heroic 
 greatness. He, at least, would never abandon his suffering 
 country and the falling cause of freedom. He prayed, ex- 
 horted, celebrated the sacred feast in groves of chestnut, 
 fought in the front of his followers, and was ready to die for 
 their preservation. (') In the midst of his calamities he re- 
 membered the counsels of the aged Janavel, who had advised 
 the adventurers, in a moment of extreme need, to take refuge 
 upon the rock of Balsille, and there prolong the contest until 
 help should come from above. 
 
 In a wild portion of the valley of San Martino a pile of 
 rock projects over an Alpine torrent, surrounded by huge 
 mountains, accessible only from the bed of the stream below, 
 and rising on three terraces against the sides of its lofty peak 
 behind. It is called the Balsille. Swelled by the winter 
 snows, a branch of the Germanasca sweeps around the singu- 
 lar promontory. A few shrubs cover its top; a little earth 
 produces a scanty vegetation. The Balsille stands like an 
 isolated column, yet on either hand it is commanded by the 
 tall and almost inaccessible peaks of Le Pis and Guinevert. 
 But in that wild and lofty region the climate is severe, the 
 ravines and mountains almost perpetually covered with snow, 
 the paths impassable except to the agile and daring Vaudois. 
 
 (') Glorious Recovery, p. 133 et seq., describes the Balsille.
 
 234 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 Secluded amidst the wildest scenery of the valleys, the Bal- 
 sille forms an almost impregnable fortress: the history of its 
 siege and its defense is the crowning wonder of " The Glori- 
 ous Return." 
 
 The exiles were now, October 22d, 1689, at Rodoret, sur- 
 rounded by the enemy ; to reach the Balsille they must pass 
 through the midst of their foes, over a path that led along the 
 brink of frightful precipices, but which they could only trav- 
 erse by night. They prayed long and fervently, and then set 
 out in utter darkness. No moon nor stars guided them as 
 they crept on their hands and knees along the edge of the 
 deep abyss. To distinguish their guides, they marked them 
 with strips of white cloth or pieces of phosphoric wood.(') 
 Yet they passed safely, and in the morning trembled with 
 affright as they saw over what a fearful path they had come. 
 When they reached the Balsille they found only a bare and 
 comfortless rock ; they were forced to build at once a fortress 
 and a dwelling ; feeble and faint, they labored with incredible 
 toil. They cut down trees, gathered huge stones, and formed 
 seventeen intrenchments, rising one above the other, on the 
 precipitous rock. They dug deep ditches, covered ways, and 
 casemates to secure their lines. On the top of the Balsille 
 they built a strong fort or castle, the centre of their defenses, 
 surrounded by three high walls ; and, to provide their liomes 
 in that wintry climate, they dug in the earth and rock of the 
 terraces eighty caves or chambers, where they slept in inno- 
 cence more cahnly, perhaps, than pope or priest. 
 
 When they reached the rock they had no food for the next 
 day, and lived upon a few vegetables they gathered in the 
 neighborhood. At length they repaired a dismantled mill, 
 and were enabled to bake bread. With joy and thankful 
 hearts they discovered that the harvests of the last year lay 
 buried beneath the snow in the valley of Pi*al, and reaped 
 them through the winter by digging in the icy covering. But 
 they were not suffered to remain undisturbed. On the 29th 
 
 (') Glorious Recovery, p. 139. Muston lias the narrative of a Vaudoia 
 officer — it adds somethini;.
 
 WINTER ON THE BALSILLE. 235 
 
 of October they saw the French troops approaching them on 
 all sides; some climbed the precipitous peaks of Guinevert 
 and Col du Pis ; others approached the base of the fortified 
 rock ; a vigorous attack was made on the intrenchments ; the 
 shai-p fire of the Yaudois marksmen scattered the enemy with 
 great loss. The Alpine winter now came on. The French 
 troops were driven from the mountains, with frozen limbs 
 and fearful suffering, by the rigorous season ; the deep snows 
 of the valleys prevented all military operations ; and the ene- 
 my withdrew, promising to return in the spring. (') 
 
 Winter passed on in peace with the garrison of Balsille. 
 Alone in the midst of a thousand dangers, shielded only by 
 the icy snows, the Alpine Church lived on its lonely rock. In 
 his singular castle and temple Henry Arnaud still maintained 
 the ancient ritual of the valleys ; twice on each Sabbath he 
 preached to an attentive assembly ; morning and evening the 
 voice of prayer and praise ascended to the peaks of Guinevert, 
 The garrison was reduced to about four hundred, all native 
 Yaudois, and their chief solace in their painful life was to join 
 in the hymns and prayers they had learned from their moth- 
 ers in their childhood. C) Yet they would not consent to re- 
 main unemployed. Frequent expeditions were sent out to 
 levy contributions on the popish villagers, to climb from crag 
 to crag along the secure mountains and descend in sudden 
 forays into the well-known valleys. They penetrated far 
 down the banks of the Germanasca, and disturbed the repose 
 of Lucerna and Angrogna. Meantime no help came from 
 abroad ; the expeditions formed in Switzerland for their re- 
 lief were intercepted by the enemy ; and, as the spring drew 
 on, Arnaud and his pious company prepared to engage once 
 more the united armies of France and Savoy. 
 
 In April the Marquis De Pareilles sent them offers of lib- 
 eral terms if they would surrender. A council was held on 
 the rocks, and a unanimous refusal was decided npon. Ar- 
 naud wrote to the marquis a defense of his countrymen ; he 
 said they had been seated from time immemorial in their val- 
 
 (') Glorious Recovery, p. 143. (") Id., p. 146.
 
 236 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 leys; that tliey had paid every impost, performed all the 
 duties of good subjects ; that they had led lives of singular 
 purity ; that they fought oxAy for self-preservation.(') On 
 the last day of the month, a Sabbath morning, as Arnaud was 
 preaching to his garrison, the troops of Catinat were seen clos- 
 ing around the solitary fortress. With a rare endurance, 
 scarcely sui^passed by the native Yaudois, the French and 
 Savoyards had cut their way through the deep snows of the 
 ravines and climbed the frightful precipices. A whole regi- 
 ment, amidst blinding sleet and icy winds, had fixed them- 
 selves on the pinnacle of Guinevert, overlooking the Balsille. 
 Another appeared on the top of Le Pis, and opened a distant 
 fire on the fort. In the vallev in front Catinat ordered a 
 chosen band of five hundred men to climb the steep ascent 
 of the Balsille, and charge the rude intrenchments of the Yau- 
 dois.Q The French attacked with singular gallantry ; they 
 strove to tear away the felled trees behind which their enemy 
 was sheltered, and climbed the rude wall of stone ; but a rain 
 of balls came from the Yaudois, a shower of rocks rolled upon 
 the assailants ; their ranks were soon broken, and they fled 
 down the hill. Great numbers were slain ; the Yaudois leap- 
 ed from their works, and destroyed nearly all the detachment. 
 Its commander. Colonel De Parat, was wounded and taken 
 prisoner. The next day the Yaudois cut off the heads of their 
 fallen. foes and planted them along the line of their first pali- 
 sade. It was a symbol of unchanging defiance. 
 
 Arnaud defends with vigor the severe policy he had adopt- 
 ed. He killed the prisoners, he says, because it was impossi- 
 ble to hold them ; he spared every non-combatant, and never 
 retaliated the cruelties endured by his countrymen. Once 
 more, May 10th, the French army, under De Feuqui^res, gath- 
 ered around the Balsille. They numbered about thirteen 
 thousand men. A battery of cannon had been placed, with 
 great labor, on the side of Guinevert ; the hills around were 
 filled with troops, and the rock itself was surrounded on ev- 
 
 (') Glorious Recovery, p. 159, gives the number of the enemy as 22,000. 
 C) Id., p. 167.
 
 THE VAUDOIS FLY. 237 
 
 eiy side by the hostile forces. The French commander made 
 a last effort to persuade the Yaudois to submit. (') He offered 
 each man live hundred louis and a free passage from the coun- 
 try ; but his great bribes were rejected, and the garrison de- 
 termined to persist in a vain resistance. With prayers and 
 holy songs they prepared for the final contest. In a first 
 attack the French were repulsed with signal loss. But at 
 length the batteries began to play on the works of the Vau- 
 dois, and their feeble fortifications crumbled to the earth. 
 The enemy slowly made their way up the height ; the Yau- 
 dois were even driven from the castle, and fled to a higher 
 part of the rock. Night fell, and the French commander 
 ceased his assault, resolved to capture the whole garrison in 
 the morning. 
 
 Clustered like hunted chamois on the pinnacles of the rock, 
 the Yaudois now sought eagerly for some method of escape.^ ) 
 But as yet there seemed no prospect of deliverance. The en- 
 emy lay encamped on every side of the Balsille ; his watch-fires 
 dispelled the darkness of the night, and sentinels, posted thick- 
 ly around, closed up every avenue of flight. Arnaud and his 
 brave companions were guarded by a circle of foes who had 
 resolved that no Yaudois should be left alive upon the mount- 
 ains. But, as the night advanced, a friendly mist, sent in an- 
 swer to their prayers, slowly rose from the deep glens and 
 covered the whole valley with a humid veil. The agile 
 mountaineers, led by a skillful guide, crept down the slippery 
 rocks, climbed in single file over the deep chasms of the Ger- 
 manasca, and reached the base of Guinevert. Here they cut 
 steps in the hardened snow, and, with terrible suffering, drag- 
 ged themselves on their hands and knees up the steep declivi- 
 ties, until at length they stood on a wide glacier, far above the 
 reach of the enemy. A clamor of thanksgiving arose from 
 the little company as they felt once more that they were free. 
 The morning broke. The French spnmg up the hill to seize 
 their certain prey ; they found only the bare rock, the empty 
 
 (^) Glorious Recovery, p. 175. The French re-appear May 10th. 
 O Id., p. 179.
 
 238 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 castle, and hastened, in tlieir rage, to follow the Yaudois along 
 their mountain-path.(') 
 
 Here, however, they were easily eluded by their active foe. 
 The Vaudois kept upon the loftiest of the mountains, feeding 
 on the foliage of the lir- trees and drinking the half -melted 
 snow. Sometimes they leaped down in fierce forays upon the 
 fertile valleys ; often they shot down the invaders from some 
 lofty crag, or swept away the flocks of the Savoyard settlers. 
 Still they hovered fondly over their native scenes, and linger- 
 ed, with scarcely a hope in the future, above the torrents and 
 the crags they had loved in youth. To their simple and ten- 
 der hearts these last arduous days must have seemed the sad- 
 dest and most cheerless of all. From their post on the mount- 
 ains of Angrogna they might look down into the fairest of 
 the Italian vales. They saw the softly swelling hills encircle 
 the fertile fields ; the laughing tori-ent ; the budding groves 
 of mulberry and chestnut ; the grateful gardens around their 
 early homes ; the silent churches ; and the blossom - covered 
 lawns. But all these they were to enjoy no more. An act- 
 ive foe pursued them from peak to peak, and they must soon 
 fly to their most secret caves. (") 
 
 But in a moment all was changed, and the Glorious Return 
 was accomplished by a sudden revolution. On the 21st of 
 May, 1690, as Arnaud and his heroes lingered around Angro- 
 gna, they learned that the Duke of Savoy had joined the alli- 
 ance of England and Holland against France. The duke now 
 needed the aid of all his subjects, and the heroic valor of the 
 Vaudois showed that he had none so worthy as they. He 
 sent a messenger to Arnaud, inviting him to join his service, 
 wath his followers, and granting permission to the Yaudois to 
 return to their native valleys.(') Arnaud obeyed his sover- 
 eign ; and his soldiers were as active and courageous in the 
 war against the French as they had ever been in defense of 
 
 (') Glorious Recovery, p. 180. 
 
 (^) Muston abounds iu details of the incidents of the expedition, bnt 
 adds little to the account of Arnaud, ii., p. 74. 
 C) Id, ii., p. 76.
 
 A GLORIOUS BETUEX. 239 
 
 their native vales. Soon the exiled Yaudois heard of the hap- 
 py change, and came in glad troops over the Alps to occupy 
 the homes of their fathers. No hope of gain or prospect of 
 advantage could detain the gentle race in foreign lands. They 
 left their thriving plantations in Brandenburg, their farms in 
 Germany, or their factories in England, and with psahns of 
 triumph hastened to revive their apostolic Church in its ancient 
 seat. Lncerna, San Martino, and Perouse were again tilled 
 with a rejoicing people ; and the lovely landscapes of the sa- 
 cred vales shone in new beauty, the temples of an untarnished 
 faith. 
 
 Such was the Glorious Return. But for the valor of the 
 eight hundred, the wisdom and piety of Henry Arnaud, and 
 the counsels of the aged Janavel, the Yaudois might still have 
 wandered in foreign lands, and their lovely vales have remain- 
 ed in the possession of strangers. But they were now firmly 
 seated in their ancient home, never to be driven from it again. 
 The Jesuits and the Popes still plotted their ruin ; and when 
 the war was over Yictor Amadeus, with his usual bad faith, 
 revived the persecution in the valleys. In 1698, a Jesuit and 
 a number of monks visited all the vales, and made their report 
 to the Pope.(') In consequence, the duke issued a decree ex- 
 pelling all the French Protestants from the country, and for- 
 bidding the Yaudois from having any intercourse, on matters 
 of religion, with the subjects of Louis XIY. Three thousand 
 persons were driven from the valleys by this cruel edict. The 
 various disabilities now imposed upon the Yaudois served to 
 render their lives painful, and expose them to the penalties of 
 the hostile courts. They were forbidden to exercise certain 
 professions, to purchase property beyond certain limits, to set- 
 tle out of their valleys even for trade, to oppose the conversion 
 of their children to Romanism, or to make proselytes them- 
 selves. They were held in a kind of bondage, and treated as 
 an inferior race. It was a common practice with the priests 
 of Turin to carry off the children of the Yaudois and educate 
 them in the Romish faith. In 1730, severe instructions were 
 
 C) Muston, ii., p. 109.
 
 2t1:0 the vaudois. 
 
 issued against the people of the valleys; and throughout the 
 eighteenth century the Church of Rome labored by every art 
 to extirpate its rival church upon the Alps. The Jesuits re- 
 newed their activity ; the Yaudois were often imprisoned, and 
 their pastors ill-treated. The jealous Popes looked with su- 
 perstitious dread upon the gentle moderators of the blooming 
 valleys. 
 
 Nor was this without reason ; for as the age advanced in 
 liberality the Alpine Church became to Italy an example and 
 a teacher. From Pra del Tor had descended, in the Mid- 
 dle Ages, a band of Vaudois missionaries ; in the eighteenth 
 century it was still the centre of advancing thought. With- 
 in the circle of the Alps the Church flourished with singular 
 vigor. Persecution failed to check its growth ; the churches 
 multiplied ; the schools increased ; the people of the valleys 
 were better educated than those of Turin or Rome. Poor, 
 feeble, an isolated and hated race, shut out from the common 
 privileges of their fellow-subjects, from colleges, schools, hos- 
 pitals, and the liberal professions, the Yaudois were still a 
 power whose influence was often felt where it was not seen. 
 The people of Turin saw constantly before them the spectacle 
 of a Church that never persecuted nor reV' iled ; of a race that 
 steadily advanced in moral and intellectual vigor ; of a nation 
 of heroes who had ever defended libertv of conscience when 
 all Italy besides had bowed in servitude to Rome. The Yau- 
 dois grew popular with the scholars of Sardinia, with the peo- 
 ple, and even with the court. They were still oppressed by 
 unjust laws ; yet toward the close of the century a Yaudois 
 Church had sprung up at Turin, and the liberal ideas of the 
 valleys were penetrating the North of Italy. The moderators 
 of the Alps became the leaders of an intellectual movement 
 that was destined to spread from Balsille to Tarento. 
 
 Yet the only period of real freedom the Yaudois had ever 
 known since the papal usurpations sprung from the conquests 
 of the first Napoleon.C) The impulsive hero was touched by 
 their history, listened to their complaints, and granted them 
 
 (') Mustou, ii., p. 303 et seq.
 
 NEW PEESECUTIOXS. 241 
 
 all they required. For the first time, perhaps, since the days 
 of Hildebrand, a perfect religious freedom prevailed in the 
 valleys, and the iron tyranny of Kome and the Jesuits was 
 crushed by the offspring of revolutionary France. A centu- 
 ry before, Louis XIV. had nearly secured the destruction of 
 the Alpine Church ; in 1800 it sprung up into new vigor un- 
 der the shelter of the French arms. The pastors of the val- 
 leys returned ^Napoleon's favors with sincere gratitude, and 
 lamented his final defeat as that of a friend. It is probable 
 that the unsparing conqueror had no more truthful admirers 
 than the pure and lofty spirits whom he had set free upon 
 their mountains. 
 
 With the restoration of 1814-'15, Victor Emanuel IV. 
 came to the throne of Sardinia, and the Vaudois once more 
 sunk to the condition of a subjugated race, alien and oppress- 
 ed. They were known to be advocates of freedom and ad- 
 vance; the Pope and the Jesuits again ruled at Turin; the 
 Church and State again united to destroy the Church of the 
 mountains.(') From 1814 to 1848 the Vaudois suffered indig- 
 nities and deprivations scarcely sui-passed in the earlier perse- 
 cutions. All the ancient oppressive laws were revived. They 
 were forbidden to hold any civil oflice, to pursue their labors 
 on Catholic festivals, to hold land beyond a certain limit, to 
 make proselytes, or build new churches except in the least 
 favorable locations, to marry into papist families, or to give, 
 sell, or lend their Bibles to Catholics. Komish missions were 
 established in their midst, and a convent and a church were 
 built at La Tour to complete the conversion of the people. 
 Wlien Dr. Gilly visited the valleys in 1822 he was struck by 
 the beauty of their landscape, the simplicity and purity of the 
 people : he was touched and grieved to find that they still la- 
 bored under a rule of persecution ; and that liberty of con- 
 science, for which they had ever sighed, was still denied them 
 by unforgiving Rome. 
 
 But the Church of the Alps was now to rise from its deso- 
 lation, and to shine out with new lustre in tiie eyes of all Eu- 
 
 (') Muston, ii., p. 349. 
 
 16
 
 242 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 rope. The free principles it had always inculcated, the liber- 
 ty of conscience it had c\cr defended, were become the ruling 
 ideas of every cultivated Italian, Turin and Sardinia had 
 learned to look with wonder, admiration, and remorse upon 
 the lovely valleys they had so often desolated, and the inno- 
 cent people they had so constantly tortured and oppressed. 
 The Sardinian king, Charles Albert, stood at the head of the 
 Italian reformers. He was resolved to give freedom to the 
 Yaudois ; to atone, if possible, for the crimes of his ancestors ; 
 to make some faint return to the people of the valleys for 
 their long lesson of patience, resignation, and truth. Amidst 
 the acclamations of his subjects, he prepared (1847) to extend 
 freedom of conscience to the churches of the Alps. A patri- 
 otic excitement arose in their favor, A petition was drawn 
 up at Turin urging the king to enfranchise the Vaudois and 
 the Jews. Its lirst signer was the poet, artist, and statesman, 
 the Marquis D'Azeglio ; and his name was followed by a long 
 list of professors, lawyers, physicians, and even liberal ecclesi- 
 astics and priests. Cheers were given for the Yaudois at pub- 
 lic dinners in Pignerol and Turin, and all Piedmont wept over 
 their history and rejoiced in their approaching triumph. On 
 the 17th of February, 1848, the royal decree was issued giving 
 freedom to the valleys.(') 
 
 It was received by the simple and generous Yaudois with 
 a limitless gratitude. A thrill of joy ran over the beautiful 
 vales, and Lucerna, San Martino, and Perouse resounded with 
 hymns of thanksgiving upon the return of that stable freedom 
 wdiich had been ravished from them eight centuries ago. In 
 every village there were processions of the young, with ban- 
 ners and patriotic songs ; the blue colors of renewed Italy 
 shone on every breast ; the gentle race forgot aU their inju- 
 ries aifd their woes, to mingle freely with their Romish breth- 
 ren, and to celebrate their victory in unbounded love. At 
 night the wonderful scenery of the valleys was set off by a 
 general illumination, Pignerol glittered with light ; St, John 
 and La Tour shone at the opening of the defiles ; far up, as- 
 
 (') Muston, ii., j). 391 et seq.
 
 TURIN DOES HONOR TO TEE VAUDOIS. 243 
 
 cending toward the Alps, every crag and cliff had its bonfire, 
 and the gleam of a thousand lights startled the wild mount- 
 ains, and flashed in caves and ravines where Janavel and Hen- 
 ry Arnaud had once hid in perpetual gloom. The snow-clad 
 peaks and the icy torrents glowed in the illumination of free- 
 dom. But a still more remarkable spectacle was witnessed at 
 Turin. There for three centuries the Jesuits had labored and 
 waited for the extermination of the Yaudois. In the public 
 square, amidst its splendid palaces, had died a long succession 
 of martyrs, the victims of its priests and kings. In its dread- 
 ful dungeons, noisome with disease, thousands of the people 
 of the valleys had pined and wasted away. What unuttered 
 woes had been Ijorne in its prisons for freedom's sake no 
 tongue could tell, no fancy picture. Its convents had been 
 filled with the stolen children of the Yaudois ; its stony walls 
 had heard the vain complaints of parents and brothers with- 
 out relenting. From its gates had issued forth those dread- 
 ful crusades, whose hosts of brigands, soldiers, priests. Inquisi- 
 tors were so often let loose upon the valleys to do the work 
 of fiends. Fi'om Turin had come the impalers of women, the 
 murderers of children ; the Spaniards, who flung old men over 
 beetling crags ; the Irish, who surpassed even the enormities 
 of the Italians ; the Jesuits and Franciscans, who urged for- 
 ward the labor of destruction ; the nobles and princes, the 
 pillars of chivalry, who looked on and applauded crimes for 
 which Dante could have found no fitting punishment amidst 
 the deepest horrors of his pit. 
 
 And now all Turin, repentant and humble, resolved to do 
 honor to the Alpine Church. A day of rejoicing had been 
 appointed for liberated Piedmont, and a deputation from the 
 Yaudois was sent to the capital. As they issued from the val- 
 leys they were saluted everywhere with loud vi/vas for " our 
 Yaudois brothers," for " liberty of conscience."(") The citi- 
 zens of Turin received them with unbounded hospitality, and 
 the gentle Yaudois took part in the grand procession : they 
 were preceded by a group of young girls, clothed in white, 
 
 (') Muston, ii., p. 392.
 
 2-i4 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 adorned with blue girdles, and each bearing a little banner. 
 Six hundred persons composed tlie Yaudois deputation, the 
 most noted in the stately pageant. To them, as a mark of 
 especial honor, was assigned the Urst place at the head of 
 the procession as it moved through the streets of Turin. 
 The persecuted of a thousand years walked the leaders of 
 Italian freemen. The city rang with cheers for the Vau- 
 dois ; flowers were showered upon them from the balconies ; 
 men rushed from the crowd to salute, to embrace the patient 
 mountaineers ; even liberal priests cheered them as they went 
 by ; the women of Turin smiled upon the daughters of the 
 valleys. Yet, as the Yaudois moved through the squares hal- 
 lowed by the torments of their early martyrs, beside the pris- 
 ons where their ancestors had died by thousands, the palaces 
 where Jesuits and princes had often planned their total extir- 
 pation, they were amazed at the startling contrast, and listen- 
 ed with grateful hearts to the glad congratulations of the peo- 
 ple of Turin. (') They breathed out a silent thanksgiving, and 
 prayed that the blessing of Heaven might ever rest uj)on tlieir 
 pleasant native land. 
 
 Their modest prayers have been fulfilled. The festival of 
 their liberation was followed by a wave of revolution that 
 swept over all Europe. The Jesuits and the propaganda were 
 banished from Turin ; France became suddenly a republic ; 
 the Pope was exiled from Rome, to be i-estored only by the 
 French armies to his ancient tyranny ; and Italy was for a mo- 
 ment free. If for a time the cloud of war rested over the val- 
 leys, yet the victories of Napoleon and the swift triumph of 
 Garibaldi have given freedom to the peninsula, and safety to 
 the Alpine Church. To-day Lucerna, Perouse, and San Mar- 
 tino shine forth in perpetual beauty. The torrents gleam 
 through the sweet vales of Angrogna,(°) and roar against the 
 cliffs of Balsille. In Pra del Tor, the citadel of the Yaudois 
 
 (^) Mnston,ii., p. 393. Who would have said, wrote a Vaudeis, that we 
 would have seen all this ? 
 
 (") Gilly, Narrative, p. 138, describes the scenery of Augrogna as un- 
 matched in Italy or Switzerland.
 
 THE MODERATOR TRIUMPHS OVER THE PORE. 24:5 
 
 has become a cultured field, and the chestnut groves where 
 Henry Arnaud and his pious soldiers celebrated their holy 
 rites are still rich with abundant fruit ; the landscapes of Lu- 
 cerna glow with the soft products of the Italian clime ; in the 
 wilder valleys the avalanche leaps from the snow-clad mount- 
 ains, the chamois feeds on his icy pastures, the eagle screams 
 around the peaks of Guinevert. To-day the primitive Chris- 
 tians assemble in peace in churches that were founded when 
 Nero began his persecutions, or when Constantine gave rest to 
 the tormented world. The Yaudois moderator gathers around 
 him his humble pastors in their sacred synods, as the elders of 
 the Middle Ages assembled at Pra del Tor. The schools of 
 the Yaudois, from which the Bible has never been excluded 
 since the dawn of Christianity, flourish with new vigor ; their 
 colleges no longer hide in the caverns of Angrogna. The 
 long struggle of centuries has ended, and the gentle people of 
 the valleys have found freedom to worship God. 
 
 Thus the moderator of the Alps has triumphed over the 
 persecuting Pope of Pome, and liberty of conscience reigns 
 from the valleys to the Sicilian Straits. Yet one dark scene 
 of tyranny still remains — one blot on the fair renown of Italy. 
 In the City of Rome the Jesuits and the Pope still rule. Still 
 they point with menacing gestures to the people of the val- 
 leys ; still they would snatch the Bible from their schools, and 
 crush their consciences with mediaeval tyranny. In Pome 
 alone persecution for religion's sake still continues ; Pome 
 alone, of all European cities, cherishes a shadow of the Inqui- 
 sition,(') and still asserts its right to govern the minds of men 
 by brutal force. Enthroned by foreign bayonets over a mur- 
 muring people,^ ) the vindictive Pope proclaims his undying 
 hostility against the wise and the good of every land. But 
 should the Holy Father and the society of Loyola turn their 
 eyes to the Yaudois Alps, they may read their doom graven 
 
 (■) See a decree of the Inquisition (1841) directed against heresy in the 
 Papal States with all its ancient severity. Italy in Transition, j). 460, Ap- 
 pendix, with other documents. The Syllabus and the Canons still defend 
 the use of force in producing religious unity. 
 
 C) Until 1870.
 
 246 THE YAVDOIS. 
 
 on each heaven-piercing peak. There may be seen a spectral 
 company of the hallowed dead writing with sliadowy lingers 
 a legend on the rocks ; the tiny babe crushed beneath the sol- 
 dier's heel ; the fair mother hewed to pieces on the snow ; the 
 okl man of ninety burned to ashes on tlie fatal pyre. They 
 write, " Whoever shall harm one of these little ones, it were 
 better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, 
 and he were drowned in the depth of the sea !"
 
 TEE EUGUEEOTS. 
 
 The barbaric dream of cliivalry proved singularly attractive 
 to the imaginative people of France. The strength and glory 
 of the nation were wasted in endless wars. The same impulse 
 that leads the Comanche to butcher the Sioux, or the King of 
 the Guinea Coast to burn the villages of his neighbors, drove 
 the French kings and nobles to fierce inroads upon Germa- 
 ny and a constant rivalry with Spain. Glory was only to be 
 won upon the battle-field ; he who fought was a noble ; the 
 honest laborer was his inferior and his slave. To murder, to 
 waste, and to destroy were the proper employments of kings 
 and princes ; while the Church of Rome aroused anew the 
 worst elements of human nature by preaching a series of ruth- 
 less crusades, and by its example of a general persecution. (') 
 
 Chivalry, the offspring of barbarism and superstition, cul- 
 minated in the person of Francis I. By historians Francis is 
 usually called gallant, but his gallantry consisted only in an in- 
 tense selfishness and an utter moral corruption. Q He was 
 the scourge of France, the destroyer of his people ; and if, in 
 this respect, he was no worse than his contemporaries, Charles 
 y., Henry VHL, and the Popes of Eome, he was more guilty, 
 because more highly endowed. Nature had been singularly 
 bountiful to the chief of the house of Yalois. His form was 
 tall and graceful ; his mind had been fed upon romance and 
 song. He was a poet, the author of sweet and plaintive 
 
 (') De Felice, Hist. Protestants in France; D'Aiibign6, Eeformation in 
 Europe, book ii., c. x. ; Martin, Hist. Fran., ix. See Gassier, Histoire de la 
 Chevalerie Frangaise, i., p. 277, for the cruel traits of chivalry ; so, too, i., p. 
 360, for the origin of constables and. marshals. 
 
 {'^) For this period Smiles, The Huguenots, and White, Massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew, may be consulted with advantage. Capefigue, Frauyois 1", 
 enlarges on " cet esprit chevaleresque," etc., i., p. 209.
 
 2Jr8 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 verses ; a hero, longing to renew the exploits of Amadis and 
 Charlemagne ; the friend of Leonardo da Vinci, the patron 
 of Clement Marot.(') Yet, with all these softening impulses 
 and tastes, Francis lived the life of a savage. At home in 
 his splendid palace, the Louvre, he was plunged in the coarse 
 pleasures of a profligate court ; abroad he rushed like a mad- 
 man from battle-field to battle-field, never happy unless sur- 
 rounded by carnage. Under the rule of its chivalric king 
 France knew every woe of which nations are capable. Whole 
 disti-icts were desolated by the tax-gatherer, the conscription, 
 the invasion of the enemy, the hand of persecution. Famine, 
 disease, poverty, bloodshed, were the gifts of Francis to his 
 people ; and while the king and his mistresses were borne in 
 pomp from banquet to banquet beneath canopies of velvet 
 seamed with gold, the mothers of Languedoc saw their chil- 
 dren die of hunger in once prosperous towns, and the holy men 
 and women of Merindol were butchered by thousands to soothe 
 the venal bigotry of their master.(') It is sometimes said that 
 the crimes of kings and popes, like Leo X,, Henry VIIL, and 
 Francis, are to be palliated by the general barbarism of their 
 age ; it might be easily shown that they were nsually the most 
 vicious and corrupt of their contemporaries. In France were 
 thousands of wise, pure, honorable, and gifted men, well fitted 
 to rule a nation, who saw with shame and horror the cruelties 
 and the vices of the unhappy Francis and his persecuting 
 court. 
 
 In the dawn of this disastrous reign the Huguenots first ap- 
 pear. They were the direct offspring of the Bible.(') As the 
 sacred volume, multiplied by the printing-presses of Germany, 
 first made its way into France, it was received as a new reve- 
 lation. Before Luther had published his theses it is said that 
 there were Protestants at Paris, and wherever the Bible came 
 it was certain to found a church. But it was chiefly among 
 the men of labor and of thought that its teachings were ever 
 
 (') Schmidt, Geschichte vou Frunkreicli, ii., p. 293, aud ii., p. 693, uote : 
 " Lo i)rotecteur de Marot cii est soiivent riiciireux rival." 
 
 (■) De Felice, p. 32 ; White, Massacre of St. Bartholomew, p. 13. 
 C) Smiles, Huguenots, p. 23.
 
 EMINENT HUGUENOTS. 249 
 
 welcome. Labor, flying from tlie decaying cities of Italy and 
 the disturbed dominions of Charles V., had found a new home 
 in many of the towns of France ; accomplished workmen in 
 silk and linen, iron or clay, had stimulated the prosperity of 
 Lyons and Tours, Saintes and Meaux ; painters, sculptors, ar- 
 chitects, and poets had sprung up amidst the barbarism of 
 chivalry. Paris was as renowned for its painters as for its 
 goldsmiths ; and the College of France spread liberal learning 
 among the ambitious students of the day. To the cultivated 
 artisan and the classical scholar the gross corruptions of the 
 Church, and the open vices of monks and priests, were singu- 
 larly odious ; for the one had learned the charm of virtue by 
 practicing a regular life, the other by a study of Socrates and 
 Cicero. When, therefore, the Bible, in its modern translation, 
 was laid before the jDeople, a wonderful religious revolution 
 swept over France. Nearly the whole working-class became 
 Protestants.(') The great manufacturing towns were convert- 
 ed at once from Eomanism to the faith of St. Paul. Almost 
 every eminent artisan or inventor was a Huguenot. Stephen, 
 the famous printer ; Palissy, the chief of potters ; the first 
 French sculptor, Goujon ; the great surgeon Pare, and a throng 
 of their renowned companions, shrunk from the mass as idola- 
 trous, and lived by the pi-ecepts of the Bible.Q The profess- 
 ors of the College of France and the ablest of living scholars 
 adopted the principles of reform. The impulse spread to no- 
 bles and princes. The house of Bourbon and of Navarre were 
 nearly all Huguenots. Marguerite, the sister of Francis, be- 
 came the chief support of the Reformers, and the king himself 
 seemed for a moment touched and softened by the sacred lan- 
 guage of inspiration. The Bible ruled over the rejoicing 
 
 (') Archives Curieuses, 1" s6r., vol. ii., p. 459, La Eebaine cle Lyon, a con- 
 temporary tract, deuouuces the new faith as the cause of the independent 
 spirit of the workmen of Lyons. Until now tliey had obeyed their masters 
 (1529). " Mais, depiiis la veuiie de ceste faulce secte nouvellement uou trou- 
 v6e mais renouvell^e de ces mauhlictz Vauldoys et Chaignartz veuans de 
 septeutrion, unde omnc malum ct hiiquitds, le peuple a prinse une elevation et 
 malice," etc. The peox^Ie began to doubt the divine riglit of their princes 
 to rule. (^) Smiles, Huguenots, p. 37.
 
 250 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 French. Of the -wonderful power of tliis -wide reform it is 
 impossible to speak witliout enthusiasm. Swiftly there spread 
 over the manufacturing towns of France a reign of saintly pu- 
 rity. Men once more shrunk from vice and clung to virtue. 
 The gross habits of the Middle Ages were thrown aside ; the 
 taverns and theatres were deserted, the morris - dancers and 
 jongleurs no longer amused ; the rude dissipation of the peas- 
 antry, the licentious y^fe^ of priests and nobles, awakened only 
 disgust; but in every village prayer-meetings were held, and 
 the Bible Avas studied by throngs of eager students, who, for the 
 first time, were now enabled to listen to the voice of inspiration. 
 The Reformation began, it is said, at Meaux, a small manu- 
 facturing town on the borders of Flanders, which had learned 
 from its Flemish neighbor industry and independence.(') Its 
 people had been coarse and rude, its priests vicious, indolent, 
 and dull, and the little town had found its chief recreation 
 in drunkenness and barbarous license. Its inhabitants were 
 wool - carders, fullers, cloth - makers, and mechanics, living by 
 the product of their daily labor, and grasping eagerly at ev- 
 ery uncultivated pleasure. Jacques Lefevre, the translator of 
 the Bible into French, a man of nearly seventy, and the young 
 and brilliant Farel,(°) his faithful associate, preached to the 
 working-men of Meaux and distributed among them copies 
 of the Gospels. At once the mass was deserted, the priest 
 contemned, and eager throngs listened to the daring mission- 
 aries who ventured to unfold the long-forgotten truth.Q A 
 swift and graceful transformation passed over the busy town. 
 ]^o profane word was any longer uttered, no ribaldry nor 
 coarse jests were heard. Drunkenness and disorder disap- 
 peared ; vice hid in the monastery or the cloister. In every 
 factory the Gospels were read as a message from above, and 
 the voice of prayer and thanksgiving mingled with the clam- 
 or of the shuttle and the clash of the anvil. The rude and 
 boisterous artisans were converted into refined and gentle be- 
 
 (>) De Felice, p. 19. 
 
 (") Said Farel : " Je viens prouver la v^rit6 cle mes doctrines, et je le ferai 
 an peril de ma vie." See Histoire Geutive, par A. Shoarel, ii., p. 89. 
 (') See De Felice, p. 19.
 
 PALISSY THE POTTER. 251 
 
 Hevers, ever seeking for the pure and the true ; and the sud- 
 den impulse toward a higher life awakened at Meaux by the 
 teachings of Farel and Lefev^re stirred, like an electric shock, 
 every portion of diseased and decaying France. A moment 
 of regeneration seemed near, a season of wonderful advance. 
 
 At a later period Palissy, the potter, has left a pleasing 
 account of a similar transformation. In the busy town of 
 Saintes, where he was pursuing with incredible toil and self- 
 denial one of the chief secrets of his art, Palissy became the 
 founder of a church. Too poor to purchase a copy of the Bi- 
 ble, he learned its contents by heart, and every Sunday morn- 
 ing exhorted or instructed nine or ten of his fellow - towns- 
 men who assembled in secret to hear the Word of God. The 
 little congregation soon grew in numbers.(') For some time 
 they met at midnight, and hid from persecution. At length 
 the purity of their lives and the earnestness of their faith won 
 the respect of the people of Saintes ; a pastor was procured ; 
 the people crowded to the Protestant assembly ; a revival 
 spread over the town, and a sudden reform in morals made 
 Saintes a haven of rest and peace. Coarse plays and dances, 
 extravagance in dress and license in living, scandal, quarrels, 
 and lawsuits, says Palissy, had almost wholly passed away. In- 
 stead of profane language and idle jesting were heard only 
 psalms, prayers, and spiritual songs.(^) The religion ruled 
 over the happy town, and even the priests and monks, stirred 
 by the general impulse, began to pray and preach with honest 
 fervor, and to enmlate the purity of the zealous reformers. 
 A gentle harmony prevailed between the rival churches ; for 
 the moment the evil passions of men were charmed into re- 
 pose. Then, adds Palissy, might be seen, on Sundays, bands 
 of work-people walking cheerfully in the meadows, groves, 
 and fields, singing spiritual songs together, or reading to one 
 another from the sacred volumes ; }■ oung girls and maidens 
 chanting hymns beneath the pleasant shade ; boys, with their 
 teachers, full of a steadfast purpose to live a noble life. The 
 
 (') Palissy, ffinvres Completes, Eecepto Veritable, p. 108. 
 C) Smiles, Huguenots, p. 39-42.
 
 252 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 very countenances of the people, he asserts, were changed ; 
 the coarse lines of sensuality had been swept away, and from 
 every face shone only benevolence and truth. 
 
 The i)icture of tlie reformed village, drawn by the honest 
 pen of the gentle artisan, reads like an idyllic dream amidst 
 the dreadful story of the reign of the chivalric Francis. It 
 seems scarcely more probable than Livy's narrative of the 
 Golden Age of N'uma, or Homer's legend of the gentle Phsea- 
 cians. Yet it was no doubt true. In many towns and cities 
 of martial France similar scenes were witnessed. More than 
 two thousand churches sprung up in the apparently ungenial 
 soil. The early Huguenots were noted for their austere virt- 
 ues, their truthfulness, their love of peace. They lived to- 
 gether, a happy brotherliood, joined in a common faith, a sim- 
 ilar purity of life. Men trusted the word of a Huguenot 
 when the oath of the Catholic noble awakened only distrust. 
 They brought honesty into commerce, and the domestic virt- 
 ues into every home. They softened their enemies by a tol- 
 erant patience ; they strove to convert rather than to destroy ; 
 their brilliant leaders, adorned by rare talents and eminent 
 virtues, attracted the admira'"' !i o^^ the age; aid it seemed 
 possible that tlie tide of reform might sweep unchecked over 
 France, subdue by its gentleness the hostility of the Galilean 
 Church, and restrain, with a mighty force, the barbarous in- 
 stincts of the feudal princes and the impulsive king. 
 
 But France was not permitted to reform itself. It was the 
 slave of an Italian master and of a throng of Italian priests. 
 From their distant thrones a series of cruel and vicious Popes 
 awoke the fires of discord in the progressive nation, denounced 
 the gentle Huguenots as the enemies of Heaven, and demand- 
 ed their extirpation. (^) The French priests, roused to mad- 
 ness by the intrigues of Rome, began the fatal labor of perse- 
 cution ; the uncultivated nobles and the immoral court yielded 
 to the tierce anathemas of the Italian potentate ; robbers and 
 
 (') The Romish Church has always advocated the extirpation of heresy, 
 ■where it can be accomplished with safety to itself. Do Castro, De Justa 
 Hseret. Puuitione, 1547, p. 119: "Jure divino <>hli<;antur eos extirpare, si 
 absque majori incommodo possiut." So " fides illis data servanda nou sit."
 
 REFORMERS OUTLAWED. 253 
 
 assassins were let loose upon the peaceful congregations of re- 
 formers ; the horrors inflicted bj the popish Inquisitors awoke 
 retaliation, and the dawning hope of France was forever lost 
 in the unexampled terrors of its religious wars. 
 
 The Pope gave the signal for a perpetual St. Bartholo- 
 mew's. Francis obeyed, perhaps reluctantly, the Italian priest. 
 A general crusade began against all those flourishing Protest- 
 ant communities where sanctifled labor had lately borne Hes- 
 perian fruit. In 1525, Clement VII. sanctioned or created the 
 French Inquisition, endowing it with " apostolical authority" 
 to try and condemn heretics. A series of royal edicts follow- 
 ed, enjoining the public oflicials to extirpate the reformers ; 
 and in every part of France it became the favorite pastime 
 for the idle and the dissolute to plunder the houses of the 
 Huguenots, burn their factories, desolate their homes by 
 dreadful atrocities, and bind tliem with malevolent exulta- 
 tion to the stake.(') At the command, by the instigation of 
 Clement, Paul, Julius, Pius, the successors of St. Peter, every 
 Romanist in France was made an assassin, every faithful ad- 
 herent of the Pope was enjoined to rob or murder an unof- 
 fending neiglibor.(°) The era of reform, which had lately 
 seemed so near, vanished before the malevolent interference 
 of the Italians ; the commands of Pome checked the advan- 
 cing tide of civilization. Bands of plunderers, blasphemers, 
 ravishers, murderers, obeyed the Holy Father, and sprung upon 
 the Protestant communities. No more was heard the chant of 
 holy songs on Sundays in the pleasant groves ; no longer fair 
 young girls made sacred music in the forest ; no more the 
 manly youth planned lives of generous purpose. The austere, 
 benevolent Iluffuenot was cut down at his force or his shut- 
 tie ; his wife and children became the victims of the papal 
 soldiers ; every village rang with blasphemy and the jests of 
 
 (') D'Aubignd, Eef. in Europe, i., p. 552-557. Francis was hired by the 
 clergy to extirpate the Hngueiiots. See J. Simon, La Libertd de Cou- 
 science, p. 128 et seq., for the cruelties of the king. 
 
 (^) Relations des Auibassadeurs Yenitiens, Doc. Ine'd., Hist. France, 1., p. 
 520: "Fu iutrodotta (piesta peste in Francia," etc. It was a horrible jioi- 
 son the Catholics wished to expel.
 
 254: THE HUGUEXOTS. 
 
 demons ; every enormity was pei'petrated in obedience to the 
 orders of the Pope. 
 
 Palissy has described, with simple truthfulness, the effects 
 of the papal interference upon his once prosperous church at 
 Saintes. The town had been invaded by a band of papal per- 
 secutors. " The very thought of those evil days," he exclaims, 
 " tills my mind with horror." 
 
 To avoid the spectacle of the robberies, murders, and vari- 
 ous crimes perpetrated in the town, he concealed himself for 
 two months in his own house. During all this long period 
 the work of persecution went on, until all the reformed had 
 fled from the hapless neighborhood. It seemed to Palissy as 
 if Satan had broken loose, and raging demons had suddenly 
 taken possession of Saintes. Where lately had been heard 
 only psalms and spiritual songs and exhortations to a holy 
 life, now echoed on every side abominable language, dissolute 
 ballads, profanity, and execrations. Led by their priests, " a 
 band of imps," he says, issued from a neighboring castle, en- 
 tered the town with drawn swords, and shouted, " Where are 
 the heretics ? We will cut their throats at once." They rush- 
 ed from house to house, robbing and murdering ; they utter- 
 ed blasphemies against both God and man.(') Palissy himself 
 soon after escaped to Paris. Here he was employed for many 
 years by Catherine de' Medici and her children ; was at last 
 sent to the Bastile for heresy, and by dying in prison escaped 
 the stake. His narrative of the events of Saintes, of the hor- 
 rors of the papal persecution, may be accepted as an accurate 
 picture of what happened in every Protestant village or town 
 in France by the direct command of the PojDe at Rome. 
 
 There now began a remarkable contest between the Rom- 
 ish Church and the Bible — between the printers and the 
 Popes.(^) For many centuries the Scriptures had been hid- 
 den in a dead language, guarded by the anathemas of the 
 
 (') Smiles, Huguenots, pp. 44, 45. 
 
 C) Relat., Amb. V6i)., Doc. Indd., ii., p. 139. Correro thinks the heresies 
 might have been repressed if Francis had been more active. Yet it was 
 during this period that Montaigne was writing his essay njion " Cruelty," 
 and teaching wisdom from history.
 
 THE BIBLE. 255 
 
 priests from the public eye, and so costly in manuscript form 
 as to be accessible only to the wealthy. A Bible cost as 
 much as a landed estate ; the greatest universities, the richest 
 monasteries, could scarcely purchase a single copy. Its lan- 
 guage and its doctrines had long been forgotten by the peo- 
 ple, and in their place the intellect of the Middle Ages had 
 been fed upon extravagant legends and monkish visions, the 
 fancies of idle priests, the fables of the unscrupulous. The 
 wonders worked by a favorite image, the virtues of a relic, 
 the dreams of a dull abbot or a fanatical monk, had supplant- 
 ed the modest teachings of Peter and the narrative of Luke. 
 Men saw before them only the imposing fabric of the Church 
 of Kome, claiming supremacy over the conscience and the 
 reason, pardoning sins, determining doctrines, and had long 
 ceased to remember that there was a Kedeemer, a Bible, even 
 a God. A practical atheism followed. The Pope was often 
 a skeptic, except as to his own right to rule. The Church and 
 the monasteries teemed with the vices depicted by Eabelais 
 and Erasmus. Then, in the close of the fifteenth century, a 
 flood of light was poured upon mankind. The new art of 
 printing sprung into sudden maturity, and great numbers of 
 Bibles were scattered among the people. They were sought 
 for with an avidity, studied with an eagerness, received with 
 an undoubting faith, such as no later age has witnessed. Ar- 
 rayed in the charm of entrancing novelty, the simple story of 
 the Gospels and the noble morals of the epistles, translated for 
 the first time into the common dialects, descended as if newly 
 written by the pen of angels upon the minds of men. 
 
 Every honest intellect was at once struck with the strange 
 discrepancy between the teaching of the sacred volume and 
 that of the Church of Rome.(') No religion, indeed, seemed 
 less consistent with itself than that of mediaeval Romanism. 
 
 (*) To the sellers of iudulgences the New Testament was particularly 
 odious. It stopped their trade. So Lyndesay's pardoner or indulgence- 
 seller exclaims : 
 
 " I give to the devil! with gude intent 
 This unsell, wicliit New Tcstiunent, 
 With tliame that it trauslaitit." 
 
 Haiyre of the Three Estates.
 
 256 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 The Mohammedan of the fifteenth centnry still clung with 
 tenacity to the minute requirements of the Koran ; the Jew 
 obeyed in every particular the injunctions of the Decalogue; 
 the Greeks and Romans had suffered few alterations in the 
 rituals of Jupiter and Diana. But it was found, upon the 
 slightest inspection, that there was no authority for the Rom- 
 ish innovations in any portion of the Scriptures. There was 
 no purgatory, no mass, no papal supremacy, no monasteries, 
 no relics working miracles, no images, no indulgences to be 
 found in the book that contained the teachings of Christ and 
 his apostles. The inference w^as at once everywhere drawn 
 that the theories of the Roman Church were founded upon 
 imposture ; and when, at the same time, the shameless lives of 
 its priests and Popes were brought before the public eye by 
 satirists and preachers, its gross corruption was believed to be 
 the necessary result of its want of truthfulness; its cruelty 
 and violence seemed the offspring of its unhallowed sensuality 
 and pride. The Bible alone could now satisfy the active in- 
 tellect of France ; the Bible awoke anew the simple Church of 
 the apostolic age. 
 
 To the Bible the Popes at once declared a deathless hostil- 
 ity. To read the Scriptures was in their eyes the grossest of 
 crimes; for they confessed by their acts that he who read 
 must cease to be a Romanist.(') Not murder, robbery, nor 
 any other offense was punished with such dreadful severity.(^) 
 The tongues of the gentle criminals were usually cut out; 
 they were racked until their limbs parted ; they were then 
 forced to mount a cart, and were jolted over rough streets, in 
 agony, to the stake. Here they were burned amidst the jeers 
 of the priests and the populace. Yet the Bible sustained 
 them in their hour of trial, and they died ever with hymns of 
 exultation. Great wars were undertaken to drive the sacred 
 volume from schools and colleges. The Incpiisition was in- 
 
 (■) Said Paul IV. : "A heretic never repeuts ; it is an evil for which there 
 is no remedy but fire." 
 
 (-) Said Montaigne, Essay on Cruelty: "I live in a time abounding in 
 examples of this vice; we sec nothing in ancient histories more extreme 
 than what we meet with every day."
 
 BIBLES BURNED. 257 
 
 vested witli new terrors, and was forced upon France and 
 Holland by papal armies. The Jesuits were everywhere dis- 
 tinguished by their hatred for the Bible. In the Netherlands 
 they led the persecutions of Alva and Philip II. ; they re- 
 joiced with a dreadful joy when Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent, 
 the fairest cities of the working-men, were reduced to pauper- 
 ism and ruin by the Spanish arms ; for the Bible had perished 
 with its defenders. " There are above forty thousand Prot- 
 estants in this town," wrote Sir Thomas Gresham from Ant- 
 werp in 1666, " which will die rather than that the Word of 
 God shall be put to silence." A few years later their heroic 
 resolution had been fulfilled : they had nearly all jDerished by 
 famine, disease, and the sword of Alva. 
 
 To burn Bibles was the favorite employment of zealous 
 Catholics. Wherever they were found the heretical volumes 
 were destroyed by active Inquisitors, and thousands of Bibles 
 and Testaments perished in every part of France. Yet tlie 
 fertile press soon renewed the abundant fruit, and the skillful 
 printers of Germany and Switzerland poured forth an inces- 
 sant stream of French, Dutch, and English Bibles, besides an 
 infinite number of tracts and treatises by eminent reformers. 
 The demand for these books could never be sufficiently sup- 
 plied. At Nuremberg, Mentz, and Strasburg there was an 
 eager struggle for Luther's smallest pamphlets. Of his cate- 
 chism one hundred thousand were sold. The sheets of his 
 tracts, often wet from the press, were hidden under the pur- 
 chasers' cloaks and passed from shop to shop. The most 
 hated and the most feared of all the agents of reform, in this 
 remarkable period, by priest and Pope, was the humble col- 
 porteur or Bible-seller. Laden with his little pack of Bibles, 
 Testaments, and Protestant treatises, the godly merchant made 
 his way from Antwerp or Geneva into the heart of France, 
 and, beneath the hot summer sun or in the snows of winter, 
 pursued with patient toil his dangerous traffic.(') He knew 
 
 (') De Felice, p. 73. Eeadiug the Bible to a congregation unauthorized 
 by law is still a criminal ofteuso iu France, or was so in 1857. See M. Jules 
 Simon's La Liberte de Conscience, p. 27. His treatise may bo read with 
 instruction. 
 
 17
 
 258 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 that if detected he must die ; he felt that the keen eyes of In- 
 quisitors and priests were everywhere watching for his com- 
 ing. Yet, often disguised as a peddler of ribbons and trinkets, 
 he made his way into the castles of the nobles or the homes 
 of the working-men, and cautiously exposed his forbidden 
 wares. They were bought with eagerness, and read by noble 
 and peasant. But not seldom the daring missionary was dis- 
 covered and punished ; his little stock of Bibles was dragged 
 forth and burned by rejoicing priests, and the humble Bible- 
 seller was himself sacriliced, in fearful tortures, to the dread- 
 ful deity at Rome. 
 
 Between the printers and the Popes the war now began that 
 has never ceased. The clank of the printing-press had to the 
 ears of the Italian priesthood an ominous sound, " We must 
 destroy printing," said an English vicar, " or it will destroy 
 us." The Sorbonne of Paris denounced the printers in 1534, 
 and burned twenty of them within six months, and one wom- 
 an. A printer of the Eue Saint Jacques was condemned for 
 publishing Luther's works ; a book-seller was burned for hav- 
 ing sold them. At last the Sorbonne, the council of the papal 
 faction, in 1535, obtained a decree from the king for the total 
 suppression of printing. (') 
 
 Robert Stephens was one of the most eminent printers and 
 scholars of the age. From his accurate press at Paris had is- 
 sued Latin Bibles and Testaments of singular excellence and 
 beauty. But he was a Huguenot, and even the favor and pro- 
 tection of the kino; and the court could not shield him from 
 the rage of the Sorbonne, It was discovered that in the notes 
 to his Latin Bible of 1545 he had introduced heretical doc- 
 trines. Lie was prosecuted by the Paculty of Theology, and 
 fled from France to escape the stake. His contemporary, the 
 poet, printer, and scholar, Dolet, was burned for atheism in 
 1546. Yet the bold printers in Protestant Geneva, Germany, 
 
 (') A. F. Didot, Paris Guide. " C'est ainsi," says Didot, a good authority, 
 " que traitait I'imprinierie celui qu'ou a voulu suruommcr le Fere, oil le Re- 
 staurateur (les Lettres," p. 296. The French are slowly discovering the ab- 
 surdity of their received histories.
 
 THE PRINTERS AND TEE POPES. 259 
 
 and the Low Countries defied the rage of Popes and Inquis- 
 itors, and still poured forth an increasing tide of Protestant 
 tracts and Bibles. The press waged a ruthless war upon the 
 Antichrist at Pome. It founded the republic of Holland, the 
 central fount of modern freedom ; it reformed England and 
 the North. It filled the common schools with Bibles, and in- 
 structed nations in the humanizing lessons of history. From 
 age to age it has never ceased to inflict deadly wounds upon 
 the papacy ; until at length even Italy and Sj^ain have been 
 rescued from the grasp of the Inquisition and the Jesuits, and 
 have proclaimed the freedom of the press. In the city of 
 Pome alone, under the tyranny of an infallible pope, the print- 
 er lay chained at the mercy of his ancient adversary until a 
 recent period : from the dominions of Pius IX. the Protestant 
 Bible, the source of modern civilization, was excluded by pen- 
 alties scarcely less severe than those imposed by Pius V. And 
 as once more the Italian priests prepare to renew their war- 
 fare against the printing-press and the Bible in the cities of 
 free America, they will encounter, though with new arts and 
 new arms, their successful adversary of the Old World. The 
 printer once more defies the Pope. He points to the ashes of 
 his martyrs, scattered in the waters of the Seine or the Scheldt 
 in the sixteenth century ; to the prisons of Bologna or of 
 Rome, so lately filled with the dying advocates of a free press 
 in the nineteenth ; to the crimes of Pius IX., no less than 
 those of Pius Y., as his gage of battle.(') 
 
 More than thirty years of ceaseless persecution, filled with 
 scenes of horror, of flourishing seats of industry sacked and 
 blighted, of holy men and women martyred with incredible 
 sufferings, of dreadful atrocities perpetrated in every town 
 and village by the emissaries of the Popes, had passed over 
 the patient Huguenots before they resolved to take up arms 
 in self-defense. Their gentle pastors, with persistent magna- 
 
 (') The present Pope began his reign by promising a free press and lib- 
 eral reforms to his peojile. He violated all his promises; and there is no 
 existing government that has shown such excessive severity to its polit- 
 ical opponents as that of Pius IX. See Facts and Figures from Italy, and 
 Italy iu Transition.
 
 260 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 nimity, inculcated theories of non-resistance. Calvin himself, 
 rigid and severe, still urged upon them obedience to their 
 merciless kings. He was content to meet the savage barba- 
 rism of the Inquisition with spiritual arms. From his strong- 
 hold at Geneva he organized his Bible societies, and poured 
 an incessant stream of reformed literature over every part of 
 France. He cheered the martyrs with austere exhortations ; 
 his Bible-sellers were seen in every secluded path and by-way, 
 stealing with fearless faith from congregation to congrega- 
 tion ; his presses at Geneva were never idle ; his " Institutes " 
 were scattered widely over his native land. During this pe- 
 riod of suffering, the Huguenots continued to increase in num- 
 bers. Yet their congregations were often forced to meet in 
 caves and forests, and to chant in subdued tones their sacred 
 songs, lest their persecutors might break in upon them with 
 tire and sword. Often the pious assembly was discovered in 
 its most secret retreat, and men, women, and children were 
 massacred by hordes of priests and brigands. 
 
 At Metiux, the birthplace of reform, fourteen persons were 
 burned alive in the market-place. In the South of France two 
 Protestant towns, Cabrieres and Merindol, were razed to the 
 ground : every house was destroyed, and the unoffending peo- 
 ple were murdered in the streets. Four or five hundred 
 women and children, who had taken refuge in a church, were 
 butchered at once ; twenty-five women, who had hidden in a 
 cave, were smothered by a fire kindled at its entrance by the 
 papal legate. At Paris, on the night of September 4th, 1537, 
 a congregation of Protestants were gathered in secret at a 
 private house in the suburbs.(') Many of them were refined 
 and pious men and women from the cultivated classes of so- 
 ciety; some were noble and connected with the court. But, 
 united by a common piety, they celebrated the communion 
 and listened to the exhortations of a faithful pastor.(") They 
 
 (') White, Massacre of St. Bartholomew, p. 40-43. 
 
 (*) The Huguenots fled from Paris in great numhers. The streets re- 
 sounded with the cry of the ban proclaimed against theia. J. Siiuou, La 
 Liberty de Conscience, p. 131.
 
 PHILIPPA DE LUNZ. 261 
 
 were startled by the erj, outside the door, of " Death to the 
 Lutherans'." A wild mob of papists surrounded the house 
 and besieged all night the terrified women, who were guarded 
 alone by the swords of the gentlemen who attended them. 
 In the morning the police arrested the whole Huguenot con- 
 gregation and dragged them through the streets to the filthy 
 dungeons of the Chatelet, where they had room neither to lie 
 nor sit down. By the strict law their lives were forfeited. 
 They were offered pardon if they would go to mass. But 
 not one consented. A long and terrible imprisonment passed 
 away before they were brought to trial. Among the captives, 
 the fate of Philippa de Lunz — a refined and high-bred wom- 
 an, only twenty-two years old, a widow, possessed of wealth 
 and influence — is singularly illustrative of the papal theories. 
 She was examined, and refused to recant. She was next led 
 out for execution. In the gay city of Paris, in September, 
 1558, a throng of papists assembled around a pile of fagots in 
 the Place Maubert, dancing, singing, and calling for the vic- 
 tims. The king, it is said, looked on from a distance ; the 
 courtiers were not far off ; the pnests were, no doubt, all pres- 
 ent. At length a cart drove into the square, on which were 
 seen Philippa and two Huguenot companions. Their tongues 
 had already been cut out. But Philippa had laid aside her 
 widow's weeds, and was dressed in her best attire. For she 
 said, on leaving prison, "Why should not I rejoice? I am 
 going to meet my husband." 
 
 She witnessed the horrible convulsions of her two friends 
 as they expired amidst the flames. She was lost in fervent 
 prayer. The executioners roughly seized her, tore off her 
 outer dress, and held her, with her head downward, in the flre. 
 Her feet had already been burned off. She was then stran- 
 gled, and her great soul escaped to heaven.(') 
 
 . Several others of the prisoners were executed. But their 
 fate DOW awakened the attention of Europe. Calvin wrote to 
 the survivors a letter of encouragement ; at his entreaty the 
 princes of Germany interceded for them. The younger prison- 
 ed) White, Massacre of St. Bartholomew, i>, 43.
 
 262 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 ers were carried to monasteries, from whence they were after- 
 ward allowed to escape ; others were pardoned upon making 
 an apparent recantation; and it is possible that even the 
 French king and court were satisfied with the woes already 
 inflicted upon the pious congregation of Paris. But the Pope 
 was enraged at the lenity shown to the Huguenots, and de- 
 nounced the faint trace of toleration on the part of the king. 
 He complained, he remonstrated. He was discontented be- 
 cause every prisoner had not been hung with his head down- 
 ward in the flames, and strangled, like Philippa de Lunz.(') 
 
 I have sketched the fate of the Protestants of Paris as an 
 illustration of the Poman doctrine of employing force in pre- 
 serving religious unity. The Popes and the Italian priests 
 still defend that theory of persecution by which Philippa de 
 Lunz was strangled ; by which every country of Europe has 
 been filled with woe ; by which, if honestly accepted, every 
 devout Roman Catholic might be converted into an assassin.(') 
 
 Silenced and overpowered, their congregations broken up, 
 their pastors driven from France, the Huguenots still express- 
 ed their religious impulses by a singular expedient. Music 
 came to their aid. Clement Marot translated the Psalms of 
 David into French verse, and soon the inspired songs of the 
 Jewish king were chanted in every city of the realm. They 
 resounded in plaintive melodies from the caves and forests 
 where the Huguenots still ventured to assemble ; they made 
 their way into the palace and the castle ; and Francis, Henry 
 IL, Catherine de' Medici, and Henry of Navarre, had each a 
 favorite psalm. Catherine, with some propriety, selected " O 
 Lord, rebuke me not ;" Diana of Poitiers, the mistress of Hen- 
 ry IL, delighted in the De Profundis. The Huguenots sung 
 the Psalms as a substitute for divine worship ; and often, as 
 throngs of Parisians were walking on summer evenings in the 
 pleasure-grounds of Vy6 aux Clercs, some daring reformer 
 
 (') Laurent, Le Catholicismo et la Eeligion de l'Avenir,Pari8, 1869, p. 577 
 et seq., shows that the Holy Office is still defended by the Romish bishops. 
 
 C) The Syllabus still asserts that heresy must be repressed by force. 
 The infallible Pope still wields the sword of persecution.
 
 CATHERINE DE' MEDICI. , 263 
 
 would strike the kej-note of a psalm of Marot, and the strain, 
 caught up by innumerable voices, would swell over the gay as- 
 semblage. The King and Queen of Navarre often went to the 
 fashionable walk to hear the singing. But the priests at length 
 procured an edict forbidding the practice, and the voice of sacred 
 melody was finally hushed in the horrors of St. Bartholomew. 
 
 King Francis, the chivalric, died of his own excesses ; his 
 son, Henry II., succeeded, the husband of Catherine de' Medici. 
 He was even more vicious and cruel than his father ; he per- 
 secuted with Italian severity ; he died amidst the thanksgiv- 
 ings of the Huguenots, pierced by the lance of a rival knight, 
 at a magnificent tourney. His death made way for the rule 
 of his widow, Catherine de' Medici, and their three miserable 
 sons, l^or can one reflect without a shudder of disgust upon 
 that wretched group of depraved men and more monstrous 
 women into whose hands now fell the destiny of the Hugue- 
 nots and of fair and progressive France. Touched by the 
 genial impulse of reform, filled with a brilliant genei'ation of 
 poets, scholars, accomplished artisans, and gifted statesmen, 
 such as the world has seldom known, the unhappy realm was 
 checked in the moment of its advance by the follies and the 
 crimes of Catherine, the Popes, and the Guises. Eome ruled 
 at Paris, and in the peaceful and holy communities described 
 by Palissy and Beza was soon aroused a dreadful discord that 
 ended in their destruction. The workman fled from his forjje 
 or his loom to die upon the battle-field ; the scholar, the mu- 
 sician, and the poet carried the fruits of their genius to foreign 
 lands ; the Italian prelate, with malevolent touch, blighted the 
 dawning civilization of France.(') 
 
 Catherine de' Medici led the revelries, the fashions, and 
 the politics of the age. Her youth had been singularly un- 
 fortunate-C') No friendly voice, no fond or tender counsels, 
 
 (*) A Romish view of the persecution of the Huguenots is given by De 
 Saucli^res, Coup d'ffiil sur I'Histoire du Calvinismo en France (1844). This 
 author palliates the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and exults over the Rev- 
 ocation. 
 
 O Vita di Caterina de' Medici, Alberi, softens the portrait of Catherine : 
 "La gran figura de Caterina domiuaintera uu'epoca importantissima," etc.
 
 264 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 had awakened in lier cold heart a trace of filial or maternal 
 love. Her father, Lorenzo de' Medici, had deserved by his 
 vices tlie miseries he endured ; her mother was no less unhap- 
 py ; and Catherine, the descendant of the wealthiest mercan- 
 tile house in Europe, was born penniless and a child of evil 
 omen. It was foretold of her at her birth that she would 
 bring destruction to the city where she was born ; the towns- 
 people of Florence would have exposed the infant in a basket 
 to the balls of their enemies. But she was preserved alive, 
 w^as shut up in a convent, and in the school of Macchiavelli 
 and of Rome learned dissimulation and self-control. Her un- 
 cle became Pope ; and Francis L, anxious to win the support 
 of Clement, married his son Henry to the portionless orphan, 
 then a girl of fourteen. But misfortune still followed the 
 child of evil omen. The Pope, her uncle, soon died ; Francis 
 reaped no benefit from the hasty marriage; and Catherine 
 came into the family of Valois only to be neglected by her 
 husband for Diana of Poitiers, and to be contemned by her 
 regal relatives as the impoverished descendant of a race of 
 merchants. 
 
 For many years she lived powerless and obscure, the nom- 
 inal wife of a depraved king.(') Yet she was singularly beau- 
 tiful. Her brilliant complexion, her large and lustrous eyes, 
 the inheritance of the Medicean family, her graceful form, her 
 hand and arm that no painter or sculptor could imitate, were 
 set off by manners so soft and engaging as to win the esteem 
 even of her foes. Few left her presence without being charm- 
 ed by that graceful courtesy which had descended to her from 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent ; few could believe that her placid 
 countenance concealed the passions, the resentments, the un- 
 sparing malice of the most ambitious of women. From Lo- 
 renzo Catherine had inherited, too, a love for exterior beau- 
 ty in dress or form, a taste for lavish elegance. She shone 
 at tourneys, and glittered in stately processions. From him, 
 perhaps, came that passion for political intrigue that seemed 
 the only vigorous impulse of her placid nature, and for which 
 
 (') Alberi, p. 45.
 
 CATHERINE'S SUPEESTITIOK 265 
 
 at times slie became a mm-deress, reveling in the spectacle of 
 her bleeding victims, or meditated and prepared the corrup- 
 tion, the degradation, or the death of her own sous. 
 
 Bj some ardent Roman Catholic writers Catherine is adorn- 
 ed with all saintly virtues as the guardian and defender of 
 the Church ; by most historians she is looked upon as an in- 
 comprehensible mystery.(') Kot even her contemporaries 
 could penetrate that chill and icy heart, where no maternal 
 or friendly affections ever dwelt, where pity and compassion 
 never came, which was dead to the sufferings of others, and 
 even to her own, and discover the secret springs that guided 
 her erratic policy of vacillation and crime. Yet it is possil)le 
 that the true mystery lay in her boundless superstition. For 
 the common modes of belief she had nothing but skepticism. 
 She toyed with the Huguenots ; she was not afraid to cajole 
 or defy the Catholics and the Pope. But before the sorcerer 
 or the fortune-teller all her narrow intellect was bowed in ab- 
 ject submission. (°) Her credulity w^as, perhaps, the cause of 
 her impassive cruelty. She obeyed implicitly the decrees of 
 the stars ; she consulted with awe the famous seer of Salon, 
 Nostradamus, whose name and writings are still cherished by 
 the lovers of curious mysteries, and whose rude oracles were 
 freely purchased by the noble and the great of his supersti- 
 tious age. She wore a mystic amulet or chain that still ex- 
 ists ; she kept around her astrologers and alchemists, and pos- 
 sibly believed that in all her cruelties and crimes she was gov- 
 erned by an overruling fate. It is probable that a secret in- 
 sanity clouded the active mind of the French Medea. Yet at 
 the age of thirty -nine Catherine held in her unsteady hand the 
 destiny of France. 
 
 By her side had grown up into rare beauty and equal dis- 
 simulation and pride a woman scarcely less mysterious than 
 herself. The character of Mary Queen of Scots is still the 
 subject of animated debate. She was the wife of Francis II., 
 
 (') The Venetian embassador, Suriano, 1569, describes her as "femme sage, 
 mais timide, irrdsohie, et tonjours femme." — Relations, etc., vol. i., p. 559. 
 {^) Capefigue, Frang ois 1", ii., p. 8.
 
 266 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 Catherine's eldest son, now King of France.(') He was a fee- 
 ble, mindless boy of sixteen ; but the acute and brilliant Mary- 
 was a year or two older, full of graces and accomplishments, 
 of ambition and pride. In the splendid dawn of her mourn- 
 ful career Mary was rightful Queen of France and Scotland, 
 and the popish claimant of the crown of England. She seem- 
 ed the most powerful and prosperous of living women, and, 
 in the petulance of youthful pride, was accustomed to taunt 
 her mother-in-law, Catherine, whom she hated, with being the 
 daughter of a race of Florentine shop-keepers. The two acute 
 and heartless women struggled for power ; but the contest was 
 soon ended by the death of Francis and the reluctant retreat 
 of Mary from the palaces and revels of Catholic France to the 
 barren wilds of her Northern kingdom. 
 
 At the head of the violent faction of the Catholics stood 
 the ambitious family of the Guises. The feeble kings, and 
 even the aspiring Catherine, were forced to submit to the im- 
 petuous and overbearing policy of these devoted adherents of 
 the papacy. It was the favorite aim of the Guises to extermi- 
 nate the Huguenots, and to lay at the feet of the Eoman pon- 
 tiff France, purified by a general massacre of his foes. Yet the 
 power of the Guises was only of recent origin. Their father, 
 Duke Claude, liad come up to the French court an impover- 
 ished adventurer, and had died leaving enormous wealth, the 
 fruit of a corrupt but successful career. His family of six 
 sons were the inheritors of his fortune and power. His 
 daughter was the mother of Mary of Scotland. His eldest 
 son Duke Francis, ruled over the family, the court, and the 
 king ; the second, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, had engross- 
 ed innumerable benefices, and was almost the Pope of France ; 
 his rare eloquence and vigorous intellect were employed with 
 fatal effect in the cause of persecution ; his sonorous voice 
 had chanted at the Council of Trent a perpetual anathema 
 against heresy. The two Guises, Duke Francis and the car- 
 dinal, were called by their contemporaries " the butcliers."(') 
 
 (') Alberi, p. 59. 
 
 C) White, Massacre of St. Bartholomew, p. 85. The Duchess of Guise 
 nearly fainted at one of these eshibitious.
 
 JEANNE D'ALBBET. 267 
 
 ISTothing stirred their savage breasts witli such real joy as tlie 
 spectacle of Huguenots dying by torture. It was the custom 
 of the cardinal, after a stately dinner at his regal palace, to 
 show his guests a fair array of martyrs executed for their en- 
 tertainment, or sometimes to hang up a tall and stalwart re- 
 former in the banqueting chamber itself. Such monsters as 
 the Guises, Catherine, or her children, have never been pro- 
 duced in any form of Christianity except the Roman Cath- 
 olic, and are the necessary result of the Romish doctrine of 
 force. 
 
 As if in happy contrast to Catherine and Mary, two women 
 of singular piety and decorum ruled over the chiefs of the 
 Huguenots. Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre and mother 
 of Henry IV., governed her little kingdom with masculine 
 vigor, expelled the priests and the mass, corresponded with 
 Calvin, and scoffed at the malice of the Pope.(') To Jeanne 
 the Huguenots owed their best counsels and their final suc- 
 cess ; for she educated her son in the valleys of the Pyrenees 
 to bear toil and hunger, to feed on the coarsest food, to play 
 barefoot and bareheaded with the children of the villages, and 
 to prepare himself by early deprivations for the duties of 
 camp and court. Henry descended from his native mount- 
 ains robust, tall, strong in mind and will, tender-hearted, and 
 benevolent, the direct opposite of the three malicious and de- 
 graded kings, his predecessors, who had been molded by the 
 corrupting hand of their mother, Catherine de' Medici. An- 
 other pure and courageous woman, Charlotte de Laval, wife 
 of the great Coligny, inspired the most eminent of the Hu- 
 guenots with her own heroic zeal. She urged, she implored 
 her husband to take up arms in defense of reform ; and when 
 Coligny pointed out to her, with wise and tender words, the 
 dangers and sufferings that must fall upon them both if he 
 yielded to her advice, she nobly promised to bear all without 
 a murmur. The Huguenot mothers, in fact, in this hour of 
 danger, seemed to emulate the heroism of Jeanne d'Albret 
 
 (') De Felice, p. 14: "Jeanne introduced into Beam a puritanic austeri- 
 ty. She was learned, bold, severe, the most emiueut ■woman of her age."
 
 2G8 THE HUGUEXOTS. 
 
 and the wife of Coligny, and bid tlieir husbands and their 
 sons go forth to battle, followed by their blessings and their 
 prayers. 
 
 Yet the Huguenots were fearfully outnumbered. They 
 formed scarcely a twentieth part of the population of France. 
 Paris, the chief city of the realm, was intensely Catholic. 
 The court and the Guises held in their power the capital and 
 the government of the nation. Calvin and the Protestant 
 pastors urged submission upon the persecuted Huguenots, and 
 it was with sincere reluctance that Coligny and the chiefs of 
 his party raised at last the standard of a religious warfare. 
 A terrible atrocity suddenly aroused them to action. (') On 
 Sunday, March 1st, 15G2, the bells rang for service in the lit- 
 tle town of Yassy, in Champagne, and a congregation of 
 twelve hundred Huguenots had gathered in a large barn to 
 celebrate their simple worship. Duke Francis of Guise rode 
 into the village at the head of a party of soldiers on his way 
 to Paris.('') The peal of the Huguenot bells enraged the 
 fanatical chief, and after dinner he led out his soldiers to dis- 
 turb or destroy the peaceful worshijiers. They broke into 
 the barn ; the Huguenots, unarmed, threw stones at the in- 
 truders, and one struck the duke on the cheek. He gave or- 
 ders for a general massacre of the Protestants ; men, women, 
 and children were cut down or shot by the merciless assassins ; 
 few escaped unharmed from the dreadful scene; the duke, 
 covered with the blood of innocence, rode on in triumph to 
 Paris. He was received in the most Catholic city as the 
 avenger of the Church. Surrounded by a body-guard of 
 twelve hundred gentlemen (^) on horseback, he entered the 
 city by the St. Denis gate amidst the applause of a vast throng 
 of citizens ; the streets rang with songs and ballads composed 
 in his honor. He was from this time the consecrated leader 
 of the papal party ; and the priests and bishops from every 
 
 (') Even De Sancliferes admits the long patience of the Huguenots : " Se 
 souniit, quoique avec beaucoup do peine, a se laisser punir,"etc. Yet sees 
 in them only " cette secte turbulente." — Coup d'CEil, p. 4. 
 
 (-) For the massacre at Vassy, see Martin, Hist. France, x., p. 110 : "Lea 
 geus du due commenc^rent h iusulter les Hngnenots."
 
 THE HUGUENOTS FdSE. 269 
 
 pulpit celebrated that '•'noble lord" who had instigated and 
 guided the massacre of the heretics at Vassy. A year later 
 the duke lay on his dying bed, his ambition stilled forever, 
 his furious rage quenched in the last agonies; and in the 
 varying accounts of his dying hours it is at least certain that 
 there rose up before him the picture of the pious congrega- 
 tion he had so ruthlessly destroyed — a memory of the wicked- 
 est of all his evil deeds. 
 
 At the news from Vassy the Huguenots rose in arms, and 
 for ten years all France was filled with civil discord ; the fac- 
 tories were closed, the seats of industry sunk into decay, and 
 the vigor of the nation was wasted in a useless warfare ; the 
 Duke of Guise, fierce, ambitious, full of physical and mental 
 power, fell, in the opening of the contest which he had begun, 
 by the hand of an assassin. His death was charged upon 
 Coligny, who denied the accusation, but scarcely condemned 
 the act. The war raged with new violence, and the Hugue- 
 nots repaid, with dreadful retaliations, the savage deeds of 
 their foes. Frequent truces were made ; the nation sighed for 
 peace ; and even Catherine herself would have consented to 
 grant toleration to reform, would have aided in giving harmo- 
 ny and prosperity to France. But the Pope and the Italian 
 faction still ruled in the divided nation, and saw without a 
 sentiment of pity or regret the horrors they had occasioned, 
 the tierce passions they had aroused, the holy impulses they 
 had stifled forever. They called incessantly for the total ex- 
 termination of the Huguenots ;(') they lamented every truce 
 as impious, denounced every effort toward conciliation ; they 
 inculcated a merciless cruelty, an undying hatred. Paul TV., 
 maddened with strong wine and the insanity of a corrupt old 
 age, had instigated the latest persecutions that led to the civil 
 w^ars of France. (^) His successors, Pius IV. and V., fanned 
 the fires of strife, and called incessantly for blood ; they aim- 
 
 (') Pius V. to Catherine, April 13th, 1569, urged the comi)lete extirpation 
 of the Huguenots. He pressed Charles IX., March 28th, 1569, to destroy 
 them. Yet to the papal historians this barharian is a model of decorum, 
 feee Platina, Vitse Pont., p. 390, etc. 
 
 (") Raiike notices Paul's excessive iudulgeuce in wine.
 
 270 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 ed the assassin's dagger, or roused the evil passions of devout 
 Catholics, by insisting upon the duty of repressing heresy by 
 force ; nor can there be found in liistory, except, perhaps, 
 among their own predecessors, three sovereigns who have so 
 increased the sum of human misery — three potentates, in any 
 age, who have less deserved the name of Christians. 
 
 The teachings of the Popes and the violence of the Catholic 
 faction led to the massacre of St. Bartholomew.(') Catherine 
 de' Medici, weary of incessant civil war, guided, perhaps, by 
 her malignant star, had resolved to gratify the court of Rome, 
 the Guises, and the Parisians by a total extermination of all 
 those eminent and generous chiefs who had so long defied 
 the armies of their Catholic foes. Within her dark, inscru- 
 table breast had been matured a plot of singular efficacy for 
 drawing into her toils the leaders of the Huguenots ; and the 
 lessons she had learned in the school of Macchiavelh were 
 exemplified with matchless power. It is impossible, indeed, 
 to believe that St. Bartholomew was not premeditated ;f ) it 
 seems certain that a rumor of the approaching horror had 
 filled the extreme faction of the Catholics with secret joy. A 
 hollow pacification had been arranged. Catherine proposed 
 to Jeanne d'Albret and the Huguenot chiefs to complete the 
 union of the two parties by marrying her daughter Marguerite 
 with young Henry of Navarre. Catherine's son, Charles IX., 
 consented to the match, and pressed it in spite of the opposi- 
 tion of the Pope; and in the summer of 1572 the ominous 
 wedding was celebrated at Paris with rare pomp and bound- 
 less ostentation. 
 
 Young Henry of Navarre, at nineteen, frank, generous, a 
 Huguenot in faith if not in practice, was brought up by his 
 mother, Jeanne, Queen of Navarre, to be married to the daugh- 
 ter of her bitterest foe, and to mingle with a society and a 
 court whose profligacy and corruption she had ever shrunk 
 
 (')De Felice, p. 167. 
 
 {'') Most nioderu writers have abandoned the theory of premeditation ; 
 but the proof is strong on the other side. See an able and learned article 
 in the North British Bevietv, St. Bartholomew, October, 1869 ; and Martin, 
 , Hist, de France, x., p. 553.
 
 DEATH OF JEANNE D'ALBBET. 271 
 
 from with disdain. It would have been well for the austere 
 queen had she still repelled the advances of her rival. But 
 Jeanne seems to have yielded to the arts of Catherine, and to 
 have believed that some trace of womanly tenderness lingered 
 in the breast of the new Medea. She consented, for the sake 
 of the oppressed Huguenots, to suffer her son to marry the 
 child of the house of Yalois, and ventured to come up to Paris, 
 the citadel of her foes. Her death soon followed. Whether 
 premature age filled with sorrows and doubts had weighed her 
 down, sudden disease, or secret poison, the annalists of the pe- 
 riod could not determine ; but among the Huguenots, shocked 
 at the suddenness of their loss, arose a dark suspicion that their 
 favorite queen had died by the Italian arts of Catherine. It 
 was said that the mother of the expected bride had poisoned 
 the mother of the bridegroom by presenting her with a pair 
 of perfumed gloves, prepared with a deadly powder ; it was 
 believed that the austere and sjDotless Queen of Navarre had 
 been lured into the Circean circle of the French court to be 
 made away with the more securely. Yet Jeanne d'Albret 
 died, as she had lived, a stern reformer, an example and a 
 warning. The corrupt ladies of Catherine's court, who visit- 
 ed her in her last hours, saw with wonder that the courageous 
 queen needed none of the customary ceremonies of the Papal 
 Church. She asked only the prayers of the Huguenot pastors 
 and the simple rites of the apostolic faith.(') 
 
 Meantime Paris was filled with a throng of the bravest and 
 noblest of the reformers, who had been lured into the centre 
 of their foes.Q Coligny, loyal, and trusting the word of his 
 king, rode boldly into the fatal snare. Wise and faithful 
 friends had warned him of his imprudence ; a devoted peasant 
 woman clung to his horse's rein and begged him not to trust 
 to the deceivers; but no entreaties or warnings could shake 
 his resolution. He was followed by his companions in arms, 
 the heroes of many a brilliant contest. But it was noticed 
 that as the Huguenots entered the city no cheer of reconcilia- 
 tion arose from the bigoted citizens; that the streets were 
 
 (') Mdm. Marguerite, p. 24. (=) Snlly, Mem. i., p. 21-30.
 
 272 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 tilled with menacing faces ; that every eye was averted in 
 hatred and gloom. (') Henry of Navarre and his cousin, the 
 Prince of Conde, came to Paris in the first days of August, 
 and were lodged in the palace of the Louvre. Coligny and 
 his followers occupied an inn or hotel on the street of Bresse. 
 The king, Charles IX., Catherine, and the young Duke of 
 Guise received their victims with eager civility, and Charles 
 welcomed Coligny almost as a father. The city rang with 
 revelry ; the young princes, Henry, Conde, the Dukes of Anjou 
 and AleuQon, and Charles IX., joined with ardor in the revels 
 and sports ; and Catherine, surrounded by a corrupt train of 
 beautiful women, inspired the dreadful hilarity. 
 
 Paris, in the sixteenth century, possessed few of those at- 
 tractions that have made it, in the nineteenth, the most mag- 
 nificent of cities.Q It was renowned chiefly for its narrow 
 and filthy streets, not paved or lighted, the perpetual haunt of 
 fever or plague ; for its sordid and often starving population ; 
 and for the fierce superstition of its monks and jjriests. Sev- 
 eral grand hotels of the nobility, each a well-garrisoned for- 
 tress, arose amidst its meaner dwellings. The new palace of 
 the Louvre, lately built by Francis I., was the residence of the 
 court ;(') but the Tuileries was unfinished, and the Palais Roy- 
 al did not yet exist ; and high walls, pierced by lofty gates, 
 shut in the mediaeval city from the free air of the surround- 
 ing plains.(^) Yet in the hot summer of 1572 its streets were 
 filled with a brilliant multitude come up to witness the marriage 
 of Henry and Marguerite, of the Protestant and the Catholic, 
 and every eye was fixed with curiosity and expectation upon 
 the preparations for the splendid ceremony. Henry, the gen- 
 erous son of the mountains, was already renowned for his cour- 
 age and his manly grace ; Marguerite was known only as the 
 
 (') The Catholic writers deny premeditation, on the testimony of Anjon, 
 Marguerite, and Tavanues. See De Sancliercs, p. 236. But Sorbon, the 
 king's confessor, proclaims it ; so Cai)ilupi, Salviati, and Michiel. 
 
 (^) Paris Guide, p. 557, Le Palais du Louvre. 
 
 (') Yet we could scarcely call the Louvre a sanctuary, with De Lastey- 
 rie : " C'est nn sanctuaire," p. 557. 
 
 C) Paris Guide, p. 560,
 
 MARGUERITE'S WEDDING. 273 
 
 child of the corrupt Catherine. Her life had been passed in 
 ceaseless terror under the iron sway of her mother, the enmity 
 of her brother of Anjou, and the doubtful favor of Charles. 
 Yet she had wit and talent, a pleasing manner, a graceful per- 
 son, a natural duplicity encouraged by her early training ; and 
 few of the virtues of her namesake, the elder and purer Mar- 
 guerite, had descended to her luckless grandniece. But the 
 young pair were still in the bloom of youth when all Paris at- 
 tended their nuptials. 
 
 The wedding was celebrated on the 18th of August, beneath 
 a pavilion richly adorned, in front of the Church of !Notre 
 Dame. It was performed with neither Protestant nor Cath- 
 olic rites.(') Henry, attended by the king, Charles IX., and the 
 two royal dukes, all dressed alike in yellow satin, covered with 
 precious stones, and followed by a long array of princes and 
 nobles, attired in various colors, ascended the platform ; the 
 king led in his sister, who was robed in violet velvet, em- 
 broidered with the lilies of France and glittering with pearls 
 and diamonds. Catherine de' Medici followed, surrounded by 
 a fair, frail circle of maids of honor. A bright summer sun 
 shone on the gay pageant and gleamed over the towers of 
 ISTotre Dame. The ceremony was performed by the Cardinal 
 Bourbon ; but no sooner was it ended than the bride left her 
 husband to witness mass in the cathedral, wliile Henry turn- 
 ed sternly away from the unscriptural rite. In the evening a 
 grand entertainment w^as given in the Louvre; maskers and 
 royal and noble revelers filled its wide saloons, and for sev- 
 eral days afterward Paris was a scene of strange merriment, 
 and of feasts and tourneys, upon which the wiser Huguenots 
 looked with grave disdain.Q 
 
 But the dreadful day was near when the secret purpose of 
 the wild revels was to be perfectly fulfilled. The week which 
 had opened with the wedding -feast and the carousal was to 
 close in more than funereal gloom. Charles and Catherine 
 
 (') Sully, i., p. 21. 
 
 (-) Marguerite, M(5moires, Guessai'(l,Miteur, p. 25-27, has described with 
 miuuteucss the splendor of her dress and of the pageant. 
 
 18
 
 274 THE RUGVE2sOTS. 
 
 had constantly assnred the Pope that the marriage was only 
 designed to insure the destruction of the Ilngnenots. Orders 
 were sent to the Governor of Lyons to allow no couriers to 
 pass on to Rome until the 2-itli of August. It was intended 
 that the news of the wedding and the massacre should reach 
 the Holy Father at the same moment.(') The Huguenots, un- 
 conscious of danger, still remained in Paris. On Friday, the 
 22d, they were startled from their security by the first deed 
 of crime. Coligny was shot at by order of the young Duke 
 of Guise, and was borne back to his inn wounded, though 
 not mortally, amidst the rage of his companions and the secret 
 joy of his foes. In the hot days of August, amidst the noi- 
 some streets of Paris, the admiral lay on his couch, surround- 
 ed by his bravest followers in arms. He was surprised by a 
 visit from the king, who came to express his sympathy for his 
 suffering friend — his rage at his treacherous foe. But with 
 him came also Catherine, who wept over the wounded Coligny, 
 and the Duke of Anjou, apparently equally grieved, but who 
 were only spies upon the impulsive king. They feared that 
 the wise and good Coligny might succeed in awakening the 
 better element in the nature of the unhappy Charles. 
 
 From this moment a gloom settled upon the crowded city, 
 and its Catholic people, no doubt, felt that the hour of venge- 
 ance drew near.C') On Saturday, the 23d, the Huguenots 
 could scarcely go into the streets without danger. They 
 gathered around the bedside of Coligny, or in the chamber of 
 Henry of Navarre, but seem never to have thought of escape. 
 They breathed out threats against the assassin. Guise ; yet 
 they still trusted to the professions of Catherine and the word 
 of the kinc;. Nor does Charles seem to have been altoo-ether 
 resolute in his horrible design. He wavered, he trembled, he 
 was weary of bloodshed. His feeble, imperfect intellect seems 
 still to have turned to his friend Coligny for support, and 
 
 (') Martin, Hist. Fran., x. This letter seems of itself to prove premedi- 
 tation. 
 
 (*) Le Tocsiu contre les Autheurs, etc., Arcliives Curieuses, 1" s^r., toI. 
 vii., p. 42-50.
 
 I 
 
 CHARLES IX. lEBESOLUTE. 275 
 
 Catherine saw -witli secret rage that some traits of humanity 
 and softness still lino-ered in the breast she had striven to 
 make as cold and malevolent as her own.(') 
 
 The August night of the 23d sunk down over Paris, and 
 upon its narrow streets and gloomy lanes a strange stillness 
 rested. The citizens awaited in silence the signal for the mas- 
 sacre of the Huguenots and the perfect fulfillment of the con- 
 stant injunctions from Rome. Every Catholic, every Parisian, 
 knew that the Popes had never ceased to inculcate a general 
 destruction of the heretics. The king's body-guard had been 
 stationed under arms in the city ; the citizens were provided 
 with weapons at the public cost ; the houses of the Huguenots 
 were marked to guide the murderers to their doors ; the Cath- 
 olic assassins were enjoined to wear a white cross to distin- 
 guish them from their victims. But while all was still with- 
 out, in a retired chamber of the Louvre a scene of human 
 passion and wickedness was exhibited such as can scarcely be 
 paralleled in history. A mother was urging her half-insane 
 son to an unequaled deed of crime. Charles hesitated to give 
 the final order. Soon after midnight Catherine had risen, 
 perhaps from sleep, and gone to the king's chamber. She 
 found Charles irresolute, and excited by a terrible mental 
 struggle. He was probably insane. At one moment he cried 
 out that he would call upon the Huguenots to protect his life ; 
 at another he overwhelmed with reproaches his brother An- 
 jou, whom he hated and feared, and who had now entered the 
 room. The other members of the guilty council — Guise, Se- 
 vers, and their associates — followed and gathered around the 
 king. He still paced the room with rapid steps, incapable of 
 decision. But Catherine, roused to a fierce rage, her voice fill- 
 ed with sinister meaning, told Charles that it was too late to 
 recede, and that the order must be given. The king,(^) still 
 scarcely twenty -two years old, accustomed from infancy to 
 
 (') White, Mass., p. 396. 
 
 O Marguerite, M^moires, p. 29, describes Charles as " tr^s-prndent, et qui 
 avoit est6 toujours tr&s-obeissaut h la roj-ne ma m^re, et iiriuce tres-Ca- 
 tholique," p. 31.
 
 276 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 tremble before his mothers glance, his mind enfeebled by dis- 
 sipation and crime, conscious that if he disobeyed that men- 
 acing tone his own life was not safe, and that Catherine might 
 remove liim by her secret arts to place her favorite Anjou on 
 his throne,(') in a sudden access of terror or of frenzy, gave 
 the fatal command. From this moment all that was gentle 
 in his nature died forever, and he became the chief promoter 
 of the general massacre, the active instrument in the hands of 
 unsparing Home. 
 
 Guise at once went swiftly from the room to begin the la- 
 bor of death by the murder of Coligny,(^) The clash of his 
 horse's hoofs resounded in the still Sabbath morning as he 
 led a party of soldiers to the admiral's quarters. Catherine, 
 Charles, and the other conspirators, terrified at what they had 
 done, kept closely together, and gathered at a window over- 
 looking the tennis court. " We were smitten," says Anjou, 
 " with teiTor and foreboding," Catherine, it is said, even sent 
 to recall Guise ; but he replied, " It is too late." Coligny had 
 been stabbed in his bed-chamber, and his body thrown out of 
 the window into the court below. Many Huguenots perished 
 wath him. The death of the chief of the reformers roused the 
 conspirators to new energy, and Catherine gave orders that the 
 signal for the general massacre should be given before the ap- 
 pointed hour. The clock of the Cliurch of St. Germain 1' Aux- 
 errois sounded over silent Paris.Q Its ominous peal awoke 
 an awful clamor, such as the earth had never witnessed before. 
 A clang of bells responded from every tower and belfry ; the 
 adherents of the Pope seized their arms, rushed to the houses 
 of the Huguenots, and murdered every inmate, from the sleep- 
 ing infant to the gray-haired grandsire and the helpless maid. 
 The city had been suddenly illuminated, and from every 
 Catholic house the blaze of torches lighted up the labor of 
 
 (') Henri de Valois, par De Noailles, pp. 1, 2, describes the endless schemes 
 of Catherine to make Anjou king. 
 
 (^) Jlartin, Hist. Fran., x., p. 567 ; De Felice, p. 164-167 ; Sully, Mem., i., 
 p. 25. They cut off Coligny's head and brought it to Catherine. 
 
 (') Le Tocsin, Archives Curieuses, l"" s^r., vol. vil., p. 54 : " Toute la ville 
 fut en un instant toute remplie de corps mort.s de tout sexe et age."
 
 THE LOrVEE. 277 
 
 death. Beneatli their rays were seen women unsexed, and 
 children endowed with an unnatural malice, torturing and 
 treating with strange malignity the dying and the dead. It 
 is impossible, indeed, to narrate the details of this awful event, 
 over which Catholic kings and priests rejoiced, and for which 
 the infallible Pope at Home gave public thanks to God. 
 
 Within the palace of the Louvre itself, where a few days 
 before every saloon had rung with festivity, and where mask 
 and dance and throngs of gallant knights and maidens had 
 greeted the nuptials of Henry and Marguerite, now echoed 
 the groans of the dying Huguenots, and the shrieks of the 
 terrilied queen.(') In the evening Marguerite had been driven 
 by her enraged mother from her presence and from the arms 
 of her sister Claude, who would have detained her, and was 
 forced to go, trembling, to the apartment of her husband, lest 
 her absence might excite suspicion. She lay awake all night, 
 filled with a sense of impending danger. She pretended that 
 she knew nothing of the approaching event. Henry's rooms 
 were filled with his companions in arms, who passed the night 
 in uttering vain threats against the Guises, and planning proj- 
 ects of revenge. Toward morning they all went out in com- 
 pan}^ with the king; and Marguerite, weary with watching, 
 sunk into a brief slumber. She was aroused by a loud cry 
 without of " Navarre ! ]S"avarre !" and a knocking at the 
 door.f) It was thrown open ; a man, wounded and bleeding, 
 pursued by four soldiers, rushed into the room, and threw 
 his arms around the cpieen. He clung to her, begging for 
 life. She screamed in her terror. The captain of the guai'd 
 came in and drove off the soldiers, and the wounded Hugue- 
 not was allowed to hide himself in her closet. Marguerite 
 fled hastily across the halls of the Louvre to her sister's room, 
 and, as she passed amidst the scene that had so lately rung 
 with the masks and revels of her wedding night, she saw an- 
 other Huguenot pierced by the spear of his pursuer, and heard 
 
 Q) Mdmoires, etc., fie Marguerite de Valois, par. M. Y. Guessard, ^diteiir, 
 p. 32. Marguerite's narrative may be relied ou for persoual details. 
 (■') MtJm. Marguerite, p. 34. '
 
 278 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 the clamor of the general massacre. Faint and trembling, she 
 went to her mother and the king, threw herself at their feet, 
 and beo-u-ed the lives of two of her husband's retainers. 
 
 Meantime, when Henry of Navarre had left his room in the 
 morning, he had been arrested, and carried to the king's cham- 
 ber ; but of the band of Huguenots who had attended him 
 in the night only a few escaped. Each man, as he passed out 
 into the court, between two lines of Swiss guards, was stabbed 
 without mercy. Two hundred of the noblest and purest re- 
 formers of France lay piled in a huge heap before the win- 
 dows of the Louvre ; Charles IX., Catherine, and her infa- 
 mous train of maids of honor inspected and derided them as 
 they lay dead. All through that fearful Sabbath day, the 
 feast of St. Bartholomew, and for two succeeding days, the 
 murders went on; the whole city w^as in arms; every hat or 
 cap was marked with a w^hite cross, and every Catholic was 
 converted into an assassin. (') Charles, a raging lunatic, rode 
 through the streets, laughing and jesting over the fallen. 
 The streets were filled with corpses ; the Seine was turned to 
 blood ; many Catholics grew rich by the plunder of the Hu- 
 guenots ; and it was believed that the king and his brother, 
 Anjou, shared the spoils of opulent merchants and skillful 
 goldsmiths. The papal nuncio, Salviati, overjoyed at the 
 spectacle, wrote to the Pope that nothing was to be seen in 
 the streets but white crosses, producing a fine effect ; he did 
 not see the heaps of dead, nor the scenes of inexpiable crime. 
 Charles IX. shot at the flying Huguenots from his bedroom 
 window. The rage of the murderers was chiefly turned 
 against women and infants.f) One man threw two little 
 children into the Seine from a basket ; another infant was 
 dragged through the streets with a cord tied around its neck 
 by a crowd of Catholic children ; a babe smiled in the face 
 of the man who had seized it, and played with his beard, but 
 
 (') Le Tocsiu, a contemporary accouut, describes how poor shoe-makers 
 and tailors died for their faith ; how women and children were thrown into 
 the Seine, p. 57. The particulars can not be repeated. 
 
 (•) Le Tocsin, p. 54-57.
 
 THE MASSACRE COMMEMORATED. 279 
 
 the monster stabbed the child, and, with an oath, threw it into 
 the Seine. 
 
 Tor three days the massacre continued with excessive atroc- 
 ities. A month later, Huguenots were still being murdered in 
 Paris, It is computed that several thousand persons perished 
 in that city alone. In every part of the kingdom, by orders 
 of the king, an effort was made to exterminate the Hugue- 
 nots ; and Lyons, Orleans, Bordeaux, and all the provincial 
 towns ran with blood. Four thousand reformers are said to 
 have been killed in Lyons. At Bordeaux, Auger, the most 
 eloquent of the Jesuit preachers, employed all his powers in 
 urging on the work of slaughter, " Who," he cried, " exe- 
 cuted the divine judgments at Paris ? The angel of the Lord. 
 And who will execute them in Bordeaux ? The angel of the 
 Lord, however man may try to resist him !" The number of 
 the slain throughout France has been variously estimated at 
 from ten to one hundred thousand. History has no parallel 
 to offer to this religious massacre, even in its most barbarous 
 periods. 
 
 The Pope, Gregory XIIL, received the news of the fate of 
 the Huguenots with unbounded joy.(') The wish of his heart 
 had been gratified, and Charles IX. was now his favorite son. 
 Home rang with rejoicings. The guns of the Castle of St, An- 
 gelo gave forth a joyous salute ; the bells sounded from every 
 tower; bonfires blazed throughout the night; and Gregory, 
 attended by his cardinals and priests, led the magnificent pro- 
 cession to the Church of St. Louis, where the Cardinal of Lor- 
 raine, the brother of the Duke of Guise, chanted a Te Deum. 
 The cry of the dying host in France was gentle harmony to 
 the Court of Rome, A medal was struck to commemorate 
 the glorious massacre ; a picture, which still exists in the Vat- 
 ican, was painted by Vasari, representing the chief events of 
 St, Bartholomew. The Pope, eager to show his gratitude to 
 Charles for his dutiful conduct, sent him the Golden Rose ; 
 and from the pulpits of Rome eloquent preachers celebrated 
 
 (') Lo Tocsin, p. 76: "Louaut Dieu qn'a sou a(lveii6ment a la i>apaut6 
 uue si bonue et lieiireiise uouvelles s'6tait pi'^seutde."
 
 280 THE HUGVENOTS. 
 
 Charles, Catherine, and the Gnises as the new founders of the 
 Papal Church.(') 
 
 But from every Protestant land one cry of reproach and 
 detestation arose against those royal murderers and assassins 
 who had covered with infamy their country, and even their 
 age. The intelligent were affrighted at a barbarity that seem- 
 ed worthy only of an Attila or an Alaric ; the humane and 
 the good looked upon the massacre in France as something 
 portentous and almost incredible. Clothed in mourning, with 
 every eye turned away in gloom and aversion, the English court 
 and its Protestant queen received the French embassador, La 
 Mothe Fcnelon, after the intelligence of the fatal event ; and 
 the envoy himself, touched with shame, confessed that he 
 blushed for his country. The mild Emperor of Germany, 
 Maximilian II., lamented that his son-in-law, Charles IX., had 
 incurred such an overwhelming load of guilt. The Protest- 
 ant powers of the North joined in the general condemnation. 
 Philip II. of Spain alone laughed aloud — for the only time, 
 it is said — when he heard how well Catherine had performed 
 her task. Yet Catherine herself soon found that her bloody 
 deed was only injurious to herself. She hated the Guises, 
 she feared Philip II., she despised the Pope; but to them 
 alone could she now look for suj^port and countenance. New 
 dangers thickened around her. The Huguenots, enraged at 
 the massacre, rose once more in arms ; the sympathy of En- 
 gland encouraged the revolt ; Catherine endeavored to excuse 
 or explain her share in the massacre, and discovered that she 
 had committed a great crime in vain.Q 
 
 But upon the feeble intellect of her unhappy son the effect 
 of the dreadful deed he had witnessed and directed was fatal. 
 The fierce excitement had scarcely passed away when his 
 health began to decline. His mind was torn by remorse and 
 
 (') It was the working-men who had chiefly snffered by the massacre. 
 At Meaux "iiue grand uonibie d'artisans" sufibicd. The murders were 
 joined with general robbery. See Alberi, Vita Cat. Med., p. 147. 
 
 C) Alberi, p. 382. She makes Charles IX. declare that it was a political 
 conspiracy that produced the massacre; to Philip II. she wrote on the 29th 
 of August, thanking God for his mercy.
 
 THE EDICT OF NAXTES. 281 
 
 terror ; his conscience never slept. Around him in the air he 
 lieard strange noises hke the voices of the dying Huguenots. 
 The ghosts of the murdered stood by his bedside ; his room 
 seemed suffused with blood. His nurse who had reared him 
 when an infant was a Huguenot, and now watched over him 
 as he was dying. " Oh, nurse !" he cried to her, amidst sobs 
 and tears, " what shall I do ? I am lost ! I am lost !" She 
 tried to soothe him with the liope that repentance and a Sav- 
 iour's righteousness might save his guilty soul. Catherine 
 came to him soon after with the good news of the capture of 
 one of her enemies. " Madame," he said, " such things con- 
 cern me no longer. I am dying." He received the last rites 
 of the Eoman Church, and died soon after, Catherine's fa- 
 vorite son, the Duke of Anjou, for whom she had plotted and 
 schemed with incessant labors, now became king, and it Avas 
 believed that the miserable Charles had been carried off by 
 poison administered by his mother. 
 
 Catherine died, her son was assassinated, her guilty race 
 faded from the earth, and Henry of ISTavarre became King 
 of France. In 1598 the Edict of Xantes gave peace to the 
 Huguenots, and once more a period of progress and reform 
 opened upon the prosperous realm. In the dawn of the seven- 
 teenth century tl\ere was still hope for France. Vigorous, 
 energetic, industrious, intellectual, the Huguenot element in 
 the nation began rapidly to sweep away the barbarism of the 
 age. The reformers were everywhere active. They incul- 
 cated industry, and soon in every part of France grew up 
 flourishing manufactures and a valuable trade.(') The moral 
 vigor of the people was renewed ; honesty, purity, and mental 
 culture supplanted the barren dreams of chivalry and the cor- 
 ruption and indolence of the Catholic rule. Great Protestant 
 churches were erected, in which immense congregations list- 
 ened to their accomplished preachers and heard lessons of 
 virtue and self-restraint. To be as " honest as a Huguenot " 
 
 (') Smiles, Hugneuots, p. 130. " The Huguenots were exoollent form- 
 ers; manufactured silk, velvet, paper, and a great number of other arti- 
 cles. See Weiss, Hist, of the Freuch Protestaut Refugees, p. 27.
 
 2S2 TEE HUGUEXOTS. 
 
 was a common proverb. To be industrious, frugal, generous, 
 sincere, was discovered to be far better than to be a Conde or 
 a Montmorency. The period of progress continued long aft- 
 er the death of Henry IV. ; and even Richelieu, who crushed 
 the Huguenots forever as a political party, never sought to 
 extirpate them wholly. In the dawn of the reign of Louis 
 XIV. the nation still advanced under the inlluence of Hugue- 
 not principles, and the most eminent men of the age belonged 
 to the party of reform. The wise Colbert was a Huguenot ;(') 
 the poets, orators, and authors of the day reflected the vigor of 
 the new movement; the Protestant schools and colleges in- 
 spired with new life the fading intellect of France.(°) 
 
 Then once more the tyrannical hand of Rome was stretched 
 forth to crush the rising impulse of reform. But it was now 
 the disciples of Loyola and Lainez that aroused the last great 
 persecution of the Huguenots. Louis XIY., in the latter pe- 
 riod of his reign, guided by the counsels of the Chancellor 
 Le Tellier and the Jesuit Pere La Chaise, resolved to win the 
 favor of Heaven by a complete destruction of the heretics. 
 Madame De Maintenon, herself once a Huguenot, confirmed 
 the malevolence of the king, and grew rich by the plunder of 
 tlie reformers. Slowly the cloud of ruin gathered around all 
 those fair and prosperous communities that had sprung up 
 under the influence of the new faith. The Huguenots foresaw 
 with hopeless alarm their own final destruction. They held 
 in their hands the commerce, manufactures, and the wealth of 
 tlie nation ; but they were comparatively few in numbers, and 
 had no longer any hope of resistance. Their churches were 
 torn down ; their printing - presses were silenced ; they were 
 forbidden to sing psalms on land or water ; were only allowed 
 to bury their dead at night or at day-break ; and were oppress- 
 ed by all the malicious devices of the Jesuit fathers. Yet 
 they submitted patiently, and still hoped to soften the rage of 
 their enemies by holy lives and Christian charity. Stricken by 
 a mortal disease. Chancellor Le Tellier, from his bed of death, 
 
 (') Smiles, Huguenots, p. 135. Colbert "was honest, and died poor. 
 (-) Martin, Hist. Fran., xiv., p. 667 d scq. ; Stephens.
 
 IXEUMAN OEATOES. 283 
 
 prayed the king to revoke the Edict of Nantes, and extirpate 
 the Huguenots. (') He died rejoicing that he had once more 
 awakened the iires of persecution. Louis XIY. obeyed tlie 
 commands of the Jesuits, and repealed (1685) the edict of 
 toleration that had alone given hope to France. A wide 
 scene of horror spread over the flourishing realm. Every 
 Huguenot dwelling was invaded by fierce dragoons, (') the 
 wealth of the industrious reformers was snatched from them 
 by the indolent and envious Catholics ; the manufactories 
 were deserted, flourishing cities sunk into ruin ; and such 
 crimes were perpetrated by the savage soldiers of Louis as can 
 only be paralleled in the various persecutions instigated by 
 the Popes of Kome. Yet the king and his courtiers found 
 only a cruel joy in the sufferings of the people. Even litera- 
 ture, the faded product of the corrupt age, celebrated Louis 
 as the destroyer of heresy ; and the infamous band of gifted 
 preachers who adorn and disgrace this period of human woe 
 united in adoring the wisdom of their master and the piety 
 of the Jesuits. Bossuet, with rare eloquence and singular in- 
 humanity, triumphed in the horrors of persecution ; Massillon 
 repeated the praises of the pitiless Louis; Flechier, the pride 
 of the Komish pulpit, exulted in the dreadful massacres; 
 Bourdaloue was sent to preach in the bleeding and desolate 
 provinces, and obeyed without remonstrance ; and the whole 
 Catholic priesthood were implicated in the fearful crimes of 
 that fatal period.(') The wise, the good, the gentle Huguenots 
 became the prey of the vile, the cruel, and the proud. 
 
 C) Sismondi, xxv., p. 514. 
 
 C) " Les dragous out 6t6 de tres-bous missionuaires," wrote Madame Do 
 Maiutenou, Sismondi, XXV., p. 521; aud she bought up at a low price the 
 estates of the exiled Hugueuots. 
 
 C) Hist. Fanat., 1G92, par M. De Brueys; Archives Curieuses, vol. ii., P- 
 318. Bossuet, Oraison funebre de Michel Le Tellier, p. 333. Flcchiir 
 boasted that Le Tellier had given the last blow to the dying sect. Orai- 
 son funebre de M. Le Tellier, 1686, p. 354. The inhumanity of Massillon, 
 Bourdaloue, Bossuet, and F16chier makes them responsible for the horrors 
 of the dragounades. Eminent in eloquence, in cruelty they were still bar- 
 barians. F6n61on alone protested against the persecution. Kaciue vent- 
 ured to assail covertly the persecutor.
 
 284 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable in history than the constant 
 liostility the Church of Rome has always shown toward the 
 working-classes — the fatal result of Catholic influence upon 
 industry and thrift. Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp, under the 
 rule of Alva and the Jesuits,(') saw their commerce and manu- 
 factures sink forever, and their laboring-classes fly to Amster- 
 dam and Leyden. Spain and Italy, under the destructive activ- 
 ity of the Popes and the Inquisition, were soon reduced from 
 the highest prosperity to a low rank in commerce and trade. 
 Swarms of monks and nuns took the place of honest laborers, 
 and industry was extirpated to maintain the corrupted Church. 
 It was only when England ceased to be Catholic that it began 
 to lead the world in letters and in energy. It was when Ger- 
 many had thrown oft" the papal rule that it produced a Goethe 
 and a Schiller, and in the present day the traveler is everywhere 
 struck by a remarkable dissimilarity. In Catholic Ireland all 
 is sloth and decay, empty pride and idle superstition. In Prot- 
 estant Ireland all is life, energy, and progress. A Catholic 
 canton of Switzerland is always noted for its degraded labor- 
 ing-class, their indolence and vice. The Protestant cantons 
 abound in all the traits of advance. The Roraao^na and the 
 Papal States, so long as they remained under the rule of the 
 Popes, were the centres of sloth, improvidence, and crime, and 
 brigands ruled over desolate fields that might have glowed 
 with abundant harvests. In France, under Louis XIV., the 
 whole energy of the Jesuits and the king was directed to the 
 ruin of the laboring - classes, and their vigorous efforts were 
 followed by a signal success. Seldom has so dreadful a revul- 
 sion fallen upon the industrial population of any nation. It 
 was as if the factories of Lowell or JNIanchester were suddenly 
 closed, and half their population murdered or sent into exile ; 
 as if every Protestant were driven from New York, and every 
 warehouse plundered in Boston. Hundreds of factories were 
 desti'oyed, many villages were deserted, many large towns half 
 depopulated, and great districts of the richest land in Fi-ance 
 
 (') Soe Relation d'Antoine Tiepolo, p. 143. They had revolted to save 
 their commerce aud industry.
 
 PEIESTS PERSECUTE INDUSTRY. 285 
 
 became once more a wilderness.(') At Tours, of forty thou- 
 sand persons employed in the silk manufacture, scarcely four 
 thousand remained; the population of jS^antes was reduced 
 one-half ; it is estimated(°) that one hundred thousand persons 
 perished in Languedoc alone, one-tenth of them by fire, stran- 
 gulation, or the rack ! Such was the victory of the faith over 
 which Massillon, Bossuet, and Bourdaloue broke forth into loud 
 applause ; for which they celebrated the miserable king, with 
 whose vices they were perfectly familiar, as the restorer of the 
 Church. " Let our acclamations ascend to heaven," said Bos- 
 suet, " let us greet this new Coustantine, this exterminator of 
 the heretics, and say, ' King of heaven, preserve the king of 
 earth.' " "At the first blow dealt by the great Louis," cried 
 Massillon over the general massacre, " heresy falls, disappears, 
 and bears its malice and its bitterness to foreign lands."(^) 
 
 Rome and the Pope, too, were eloquent in congratulation 
 over the ruin of the working -classes of France. Te Deums 
 were sung; processions moved from shrine to shrine; the 
 Pope addressed a letter to Louis filled with his praises.(^) The 
 whole Romish Church rejoiced in the slaughter of the heretics. 
 Public thanksgivings were offered at Paris; medals were 
 struck to commemorate the fortunate event ; a brazen statue 
 was erected to Louis on the Hotel de Ville, with a brief Latin 
 inscription, " To the asserter of the dignity of kings and of the 
 Church." During the Revolution it was converted into can- 
 non, to be aimed against the throne and the priesthood. 
 
 There now occurred in the course of their annals that won- 
 derful spectacle of heroism and devotion, the flight of the Hu- 
 guenots from France.(') The pure, the wise, the good, the no- 
 
 Q) Smiles, Huguenots, p. 169. Weiss, i., p. 116. 
 
 (^) By Boulainvers, De Felice, p. 340. 
 
 (') I have abridged the eloquence of the two inhuman preachers. La 
 Libert^ de la Conscieuce, J. Simon, j). 186, ventures to mention their dis- 
 grace. 
 
 (0 Weiss, i., p. 125. 
 
 (^) Weiss, Hist, des Rdfiigi^s Protestants de France, describes the period 
 from Henry IV., the revocation, the emigration. He has been freely used 
 bv later writers.
 
 2S6 TEE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 ble, the "wealthy or the poor, animated by a common resolution 
 to preserve their faith at the cost of all they held dear, re- 
 solved to abandon their native land and throw themselves 
 npon the charity of strangers. From every part of France, in 
 mournful processions, in secret, by night, in strange disguises, 
 and in fearful sufferings and dangers, great companies of men, 
 women, children, made their way to the frontiers. No sever- 
 ity could restrain them; no oifers of emolument or favors 
 could induce them to accept the Romish creed. Louis and his 
 priestly advisers dispatched the tierce dragoons in pursuit of 
 the fugitives, and filled the galleys and the prisons with their 
 helpless captives. The unparalleled enormities inflicted upon 
 the flying Huguenots can scarcely be described in liistor3\(') 
 Yet still the wonderful flight went on. Powerful nobles, the 
 owners of great estates, left their ancestral homes, and, through 
 a thousand dangers, escaped impoverished to Germany and 
 Switzerland. Fair and gentle women, accustomed to the ease 
 and luxury of the chateau and the city, stole forth disguised, 
 often in the midst of winter, and thought themselves happy if, 
 clambering over the snow -clad hills, and wandering through 
 the wild forest of Ardennes, they could at last reach, with 
 broken health and exhausted resources, a shelter in the free 
 cities of Holland. Two young ladies of Bergerac, disguised as 
 boys, set out on the perilous journey. It was winter; yet 
 they plunged bravely into the forest of Ardennes, on foot, and 
 with Avonderful constancy pressed on beneath the dripping 
 trees, along the woodland roads, oj^pressed by hunger, cold, 
 privation ; and for thirty leagues joyfully pursued their dan- 
 gerous way. Their constancy never wavered ; they were sus- 
 tained by the hope of approaching freedom. But the guards 
 seized them as they approached the frontier, and threw them 
 into prison. Their sex was discovered ; they were tried, con- 
 demned, and shut up for the remainder of their lives in the 
 Convent of the Repentants at Paris. 
 
 The Lord of Castelfranc, near Rochelle, with his wife and 
 family, set out in an open boat to escape to England. He was 
 
 (') See Mduioires d'un Protestant condamnd aux Galores.
 
 GENEROUS GENEVA. 287 
 
 overtaken. Three of his sons and three of his daughters were 
 sent as slav^es to the Caribbean Islands ; three other daughters 
 were held some time in confinement, and were then allowed to 
 escape to Geneva. The slaves were finally liberated, and the 
 family were afterward reunited in England. The two Misses 
 Rabotean, who lived near Rochelle, refused to become con- 
 verts to Komanism, and were then offered the alternative of 
 marrying two Roman Catholics or being shut up for life in a 
 convent.(') They resolved to fly. Their uncle, who was a 
 wine-merchant, inclosed each young lady in a large cask, and 
 thus conveyed them on board one of his ships. They reach- 
 ed Dublin in safety, married, and several eminent and gifted 
 Englishmen trace their origin to the brave fugitives. 
 
 Geneva, the city of Calvin, showed unbounded generosity to 
 the distressed Huguenots, and from its narrow resources con- 
 tributed large sums to maintain the hapless strangers. The 
 Catholics looked upon it with singular aversion. The inhu- 
 man saint, Francis de Sales, had in vain called out for its de- 
 struction. "All the enterprises," he exclaimed, " undertaken 
 against the Holy See and the Catholic prince have their be- 
 ginning at Geneva."(*) To destroy Geneva, he thought, would 
 dissipate heresy. But Holland, Prussia, and at length England, 
 were scarcely less active, and in every part of Protestant Eu- 
 rope the industrious Huguenots planted the germs of prosper- 
 ity and reform. Huguenots filled the army with which Wil- 
 liam of Orange invaded England ; they fought in the campaigns 
 of Marlborough, and aided in bringing to shame the last days of 
 their persecutor, Louis. They wandered to America, and found- 
 ed prosperous settlements in New York and South Carolina. 
 
 A Protestant seigneur, Dumont de Bostaquet, has described 
 the sufferings of a noble Huguenot family in the reign of Lou- 
 is XIY. His ancestral chateau stood amidst the richest fields 
 of Normandy.(') Around it on all sides spread out the wide 
 
 (') Smiles, Huguenots. 
 
 (*) Vie de St. Francois de Sales, Lyons, 1633, pp. 120, 121. 
 
 (') Mdmoires in^dites de Dumont de Bostaquet, Paris, 1864. These 
 memoirs were preserved by the author's descendants, and have but lately 
 been published.
 
 288 THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 and splendid domain of his ancient race. The chateau was 
 adorned with costly hangings and the rarest furniture ; its 
 pleasure-grounds and gardens sloped gradually away and were 
 lost in a girdle of woodlands. His plate was of great value ; 
 his stable tilled with horses of unrivaled speed; his gilded 
 coach, attended by outriders and musketeers, was conspicuous 
 at the gatherings of the provincial nobility of Normandy. 
 
 For thirty years the life of the Protestant lord had glided 
 on in opulence and ease ; a family of sons and daughters had 
 grown up around him, gifted, intelligent, refined ; and his 
 stately chateau was often the scene of masks and gay carous- 
 als. It does not seem that the Ilnguenot chiefs were marked 
 by any puritanic austerity. The family at Bostaquet were 
 fond of merry entertainments and Christmas revels; the hunt- 
 ing-horn often sounded through their broad donuiins; and 
 young ladies, queens of the chase, gave the last blow to the 
 panting stag. The chateau resounded with mirth and gallant- 
 ry, with music, dance, and song ; and the Protestants mingled 
 without distinction with their Roman Catholic neighbors. 
 
 At length, in 1687, the storm of persecution broke over the 
 quiet scenes of JSTormandy ; a line of dragoons surrounded the 
 Protestant district ; each avenue of escape was closed ; and 
 tlie alternative was offered to every heretic of recantation or 
 imprisonment, and perhaps deatli. The dragoons committed 
 the most horrible atrocities ; the Huguenot chateaux were 
 sacked and burned ; the noblest families were often treated 
 with barbarous indignities until they accepted the Romish 
 faith. Bostaquet at first yielded to the powerful temptation. 
 He looked, perliaps, on his wife and happy children ; on his 
 fair estate he had so loved to enlarge ; on his pleasure-grounds 
 and gardens, planted under his care ; on the scenes of his 
 youth and liis ancestral home ; and obeyed the commands of 
 the persecutors. For the iirst time in the cliateau of Bosta- 
 quet the priest and the Jesuit ruled unrestrained, and the 
 unhappy family were even compelled to attend mass.(') But 
 
 (') The Jesuits were always the leaders in all the worst persecutions. 
 M^moires d'un Protestant coudauind aux Galferes, p. 3 : " Les J^suites et les 
 pr^tres — ces impitoyables et j^chai'nds persdcuteurs."
 
 THE SEIGNEUR BOSTAQUET. 289 
 
 conscience awoke ; the saddened countenances of the seigneur 
 and his sons and daughters showed their abhorrence of the 
 feigned conversion ; and parents and children watched for the 
 happy moment when, abandoning their home and ancestral 
 lands, they might escape, impoverished exiles, to England. 
 
 One fair summer day, from the ancient chateau set out a 
 band of pilgrims, on whom rested the radiance of a perfect 
 faith. At the head went the Seigneur Bostaquet ; his moth- 
 er,- eighty years old, rode by his side, and was the most ardent 
 of all the pious company ; his sous and daughters, of various 
 ages, followed ; many friends and fugitives joined the caval- 
 cade as they made their way to the sea-coast. The evening 
 was charming ; the moon shone bright and full ; the emi- 
 grants moved on cheerfully in the cool night air, and rejoiced 
 at the prospect of the sea. The old lady of eighty, with her 
 daughters and her grandchildren, sat on the shingle of the 
 beach watching beneath the moonlight for the ship that was 
 to carry her away forever from her native land. 
 
 A loud outcry arose, and a band of robbers, or coast-guards, 
 attacked the unprotected Huguenots. Bostaquet and his 
 friends seized their pistols, and drove off their assailants. 
 But they soon came back ; Bostaquet was wounded, and was 
 forced to abandon his family and ride for life toward the 
 frontier. Accompanied by a friend, he made his way over 
 the hostile country, often aided, however, by generous Cath- 
 olics; crossed mountains, woods, and rivers, and reached at 
 length the shelter of friendly Holland. The ladies on the 
 beach were seized by the coast-guard and shut up in convents, 
 from whence they afterward escaped to England. Bostaquet's 
 large estates were ■ confiscated, his servants sent to the gal- 
 leys, his family ruined ; but he distinguished himself as an 
 officer in the army of William HI., and lived prosperously for 
 many years in Ireland. 
 
 A yet more dreadful fate than loss of home and country 
 awaited those unlucky Huguenots who were arrested in their 
 efforts to escape.(') They were condemned at once to the gal- 
 
 (') De Felice, p. 337. 
 19
 
 290 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 leys. The French galleys were vessels usually a hundred and 
 fifty feet long and forty wide. They were employed to guard 
 the coasts, and sometimes to attack English cruisers that ap- 
 proached the shore. Along each side of the galley ran a 
 bench or seat, to which the slaves were fastened by an iron 
 chain around one leg, and of sufficient length to allow them 
 to sleep on the deck beneath. Here they remained night and 
 day, exposed to the torrid heat or the winter's cold, half fed, 
 and urged on by blows and imprecations in the painful task 
 of pulling the heavy oars. In these floating dungeons, sur- 
 rounded by convicts and criminals of the deepest guilt, the 
 pure and gentle Huguenots sometimes continued for ten or 
 twenty years, chained to the bench, or often died of exposure 
 or the enemy's shot, and were flung ignominiously into the 
 sea. Old men of seventy years or boys of fifteen or sixteen 
 soon yielded to the fearful toil ; but others, more vigorous 
 and mature, endured long years of torture, and were at last 
 released at the instance of the Protestant powers. The caj)- 
 tains of the galleys usually treated their galley-slaves with 
 barbarous severity. They scourged their bare backs to make 
 them row with speed ; they threw them on the deck, and had 
 them beaten for trivial faults. Emaciated, faint, and feeble, 
 the poor slave often sunk beneath the blows and died, happy 
 to escape from the intolerable torments inflicted by the state- 
 ly and gracious Louis. 
 
 But the most unsparing of their tormentors was usually the 
 chaplain or priest of tlie galley.(') He was almost always a 
 Jesuit. The disciples of Loyola were thought peculiarly fitted 
 for this unattractive task. It seems to have been the duty of 
 the chaplain to see that the Huguenots were not spared in 
 any one of their suflierings, and to strive to induce them to 
 recant by incessant cruelty and blows.f ) Yet such was the 
 wonderful constancy of these faithful martyrs that they chose 
 
 (^) Les Forgats pour la Foi, par A. Coquerel Fils, Paris, 1866. 
 
 (^)M6moires d'un Protestant couclanin6 aux Galores, p. 362. The mis- 
 sionaries or disciples of St.Vinceut de Paul seem to have been equally cru- 
 el with the Jesuits.
 
 THE GALLEY-SLAVES. 291 
 
 rather all the pains of their sad condition than to accept an 
 idolatrous mass. "With one word of recantation, they were 
 offered a release from all their sufferings ; with one feigned 
 submission, they might have been free. No promises moved 
 them from their resolution ; no artful insinuations could de- 
 ceive them into insincerity. " You must know," said Father 
 Garcin, a priest, to the maimed and bleeding Marteilhe, who 
 has left an account of his imprisonment — " you must perceive 
 that the Church has no share in this matter. You are jDun- 
 ished for disobedience to the king." " But suppose," he re- 
 plied, " we wish for time to reflect, could we not be set free ?" 
 "By no means," said tlie priest; "you shall never leave the 
 galleys until you recant." And he ordered tlieir torments to 
 be redoubled. It was the Church that instigated the barbar- 
 ity of the king.(') 
 
 In the galleys might be seen for many years a sacred com- 
 pany of the purest, the most refined, and the most intelligent 
 of the French. The men who might have saved and reform- 
 ed the nation were chained, in horrible torture, amidst robbers 
 and assassins. Marolles, once counselor to the king, by the 
 express order of Louis, was secured by a heavy chain around 
 his neck, and compiled his " Discourse on Providence " while 
 fastened to the oar.Q Huber, father of three illustrious sons, 
 was also a galley-slave. The Baron De Caumont, at the age 
 of seventy, labored with the rest. But few ministers of the 
 reformed faith were found among the number, since, if capt- 
 ured, they were usually put to death. More than a thousand 
 Huguenots appear on the list of galley-slaves, and it is be- 
 lieved that the real number has never been told. At length, 
 in 1713, at the solicitation of Queen Anne, the sad remnant of 
 the saintly band were set free from their tortures, and came, 
 maimed and feeble, to Geneva. That noble and ever-honored 
 city received the miserable exiles with fond congratulations 
 
 (') M6moires tVun Protestant condamn^ aux Galores, Paris, 1864, p. 362. 
 " Ou pent voir," says Marteilhe, " parla le caract^re diabolique de ces mis- 
 sionnaires fourbes et cruels." 
 
 C) Weiss, i., p. 100.
 
 292 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 and overflowing bounty. The magistrates, the clergy, and a 
 large part of the population came out from the gates and wel- 
 comed the galley-slaves as they approached the walls ; they 
 were covered with honors and glad felicitations ; and every 
 citizen took to his arms some one of the band of martyrs, and 
 bore him proudly and fondly to the comfort and luxury of his 
 Protestant home. With the flight of the Huguenots a gen- 
 eral decay settled upon France, and in the last days of the per- 
 secuting Louis his vain, aspiring nature was borne down by a 
 thousand humiliations, l^o Protestant Turenne any more led 
 on the French armies to victory ; no Huguenot Colbert saved, 
 by careful economy, the resources of the nation. The best 
 soldiers of France were fighting in the ranks of Marlborough 
 and Eugene ; its rarest scholars — a Descartes, a Bayle, a Jurieu 
 — spoke through the printing-presses of Ley den or Amster- 
 dam ; its artisans had fled to England, Holland, and America ; 
 its people were chiefly beggars.(') All over France, under the 
 Catholic rule, men, women, children, fed on roots and grasses, 
 and browsed with the beasts of the field. Paris became one 
 vast alms-house, and it is estimated that, at the breaking-out of 
 the Pevolution, two hundred thousand paupers claimed char- 
 ity from the hands of the king. The Jesuits alone flourished 
 in the decaying nation, and ruled with dreadful tyranny over 
 churches and schools, the prisons and the galleys. Literature 
 declined ; the mental despotism of the Church gave rise at last 
 to Voltaire, Pousseau, and the Encyclopedists ; the Jesuits were 
 overthrown by the indignation of the age ; but their fall came 
 too late to save from an unexampled convulsion that society 
 which they had subjected only to corrupt.(°) 
 
 Under the rule of the Jesuits (1700-1764) the Huguenots 
 who remained in France are still supposed to have numbered 
 nearly a million. But they were no longer that bold and vig- 
 orous race who, in the sixteenth century, had nearly purified 
 the nation. The Jesuits watched them with restless vigl- 
 
 (') Le Ddtail de la France, 1695, Archives Curieuses, has a clear account 
 of the embarrassments of trade, p. 311. 
 
 (*) Weiss, i., p. 100, describes the depopulation of France.
 
 TEE " CHURCH IN THE DESERT:' 293 
 
 lance.(') They were forced to hide their opinions in cautious 
 silence, to study the Scriptures at the peril of death. Yet 
 they still maintained their church organization in secret, and 
 elders, deacons, and evangelists still held their yearly meetings 
 in lonely places, sheltered by the forest or the cave. The re- 
 ligious services of the Huguenots were held with equal diffi- 
 culty and danger. Driven from the cities and public places, 
 the devoted people would wander to the utter solitude of some 
 unfrequented woods, or gather in great throngs beneath a fis- 
 sure in the rock. Sometimes at night they assembled on the 
 sea-shore, or climbed among inaccessible hills, where no hostile 
 eye could follow.(') The Huguenots were noted among the 
 Catholics for their love of solitary places, and their sect was 
 called the "Church in the Desert." Here, in the heart of 
 rocks and wilds, they ventured once more to chant the Psalms 
 of Marot, and heard the plaintive eloquence of their persecu- 
 ted preachers with fond and eager attention. Yet often the 
 Jesuits pursued them to their retreats with malignant eyes, 
 and broke in upon them in the midst of their supplications.^ 
 It was the favorite occupation of the active disciples of Loy- 
 ola to follow the Church to its home in the desert, and bring 
 to justice the bold criminals who still refused to worship at 
 the shrine of Mary ; they were still resolved to extirpate ev- 
 ery trace of heresy in France. Eighteen Huguenot pastors 
 were executed or burned in the reign of Louis XV. ; their dy- 
 ing voices were often hushed in a loud beating of drums. The 
 galleys and the prisons were still filled with reformers ; some 
 perished, forgotten, in lonely dungeons ; some died in chains 
 or torture. The Jesuits, who knew the power of books and of 
 the press, strove to destroy every trace of Protestant literature 
 or libraries ; they would have read throughout all France only 
 history as sanctioned by the Popes, or morals as treated by the 
 casuists ; a decree was issued (1727) ordering all " new con- 
 
 (') Martin, Hist. France, xviii., p. 19. 
 C) Hist, des figlises du D6sert, C. Coquerel. 
 
 (') Martin, Hist. Fran., xviii., p. 21. Sometimes the Huguenots turned 
 upon their persecutors and killed a Jesuit.
 
 294: THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 verts " to give up their Protestant books ; in every town and 
 village of Fi'ance bonfires were fed with Bibles and Testa- 
 ments, or other " pernicious " treatises ;(') the reformed libra- 
 ries were wholly destroyed ; and the Huguenots, once the most 
 learned of their contemporaries, sunk low in mental culture. 
 The French intellect was fed on the brilliant sophisms of 
 Rousseau, the sharp diatribes of Voltaire, the historical fables 
 of Bossuet and the Jesuit fathers. 
 
 One of the latest and most remarkable of the scenes of 
 Romish tyranny in France was the tragedy of Jean Galas. 
 In the Holy City of Toulouse, in the year 1761, still lingered 
 a few heretics, distinguished for their peaceful lives and spot- 
 less morals. Yet to their Catholic neighbors they were ever 
 objects of suspicion and dislike. Toulouse, indeed, had long 
 been renowned for its rancorous bigotry. It was called the 
 Holy City because in one of its crypts might be seen the skel- 
 etons of seven of the apostles, and in its bosom the cruel Saint 
 Dominic had first conceived or applied the machinery of his 
 Holy Inquisition. The spirit of Dominic ruled over the peo- 
 ple, and Toulouse had been hallowed, in the eyes of Popes 
 and Jesuits, by several massacres of the Huguenots seldom 
 equaled in savage cruelty. In 1562, a Protestant funeral pro- 
 cession was passing timidly through its streets ; it was as- 
 sailed by an angry band of Catholics ; a general slaughter 
 of the heretics followed, and three thousand men, women, and 
 children were torn to pieces by their Romish neighbors. The 
 Pope, Pius IV., applauded the holy act ; an annual fete was 
 instituted in honor of the signal victory ; and every year, un- 
 til 1762, a magnificent spectacle, attended by the blessings 
 and the indulgences of successive Popes, kept alive the rage 
 of bigotry and inspired the thirst for blood. C") 
 
 Jean Galas, a quiet Protestant merchant, lived (1761) among 
 this dangerous population.(') He was sixty -three years old, 
 
 (') Smiles, Huguenots, p. 342, and note. 
 
 (-) Histoire de Toulouse, Aldeguier, iv., p. 315. 
 
 (') Jean Galas, et sa Famillo, Paris, 1858, par Athaiiase Coquerel Fils. 
 M. Coquerel has done valuable service to the cause of historical truth by 
 his various researches among the Huguenot annals.
 
 ji:an calas. 295 
 
 respected for his honesty and his modest character ; with his 
 wife, six children, and one maid-servant, a Catholic, he lived 
 over his shop, which stood on one of the best streets of the 
 city. He had four sons and two daughters, and the eldest of 
 his sons, Marc-Antoine, the cause of the ruin of his family, 
 was now about twenty-six. He was a moody, indolent, and 
 unhappy young man, who had sought admission to the bar, 
 and been rejected because he was a heretic. He had sunk 
 into melancholy in consequence, and had apparently medi- 
 tated suicide. Yet in October, 1761, no shadow of gloom 
 rested on the innocent family. It was evening. The shop 
 was closed and barred ; a visitor came in, and the Huguenot 
 family gathered round their modest supper-table and passed 
 the evening in cheerful conversation. Meantime, Marc-An- 
 toine left the table to go below. " Are you cold, monsieur ?" 
 said the servant to him. " No," he answered ; " I am burn- 
 ing with heat." He passed on and went down-stairs. About 
 ten o'clock the younger son, Pierre, went to conduct their vis- 
 itor to the door, and found his brother suspended by a cord, 
 and quite dead. He had hanged himself. 
 
 The father, stricken with grief, took the body of his son 
 in his arras ; a physician was called, who could do nothing ; 
 an irreparable woe had fallen on the gentle household ; the 
 mother wept over her first - born.(') But common sorrows 
 were not to suffice for the fated family, and a dreadful big- 
 otry was to make their names renowned over Europe and in 
 history. A curious crowd gathered around the barred door 
 of the shop, and a suspicion arose among the Catholics that 
 the Calas family had put their son to death to prevent him 
 from abjuring his faith. The wild fancy grew into a certain- 
 ty ; the papists broke into the shop ; the father, mother, the 
 son, and the servant were arrested and hurried to a close 
 confinement ; the Church, the Government, and the people of 
 Toulouse assumed their guilt; and the dead Marc-Antoine, 
 a Protestant and a suicide, was buried in solemn pomp as a 
 martyr, attended by all the clergy of the city, followed by a 
 
 Q) Histoire de Toulouse, Ald^guier, iv., p. 897-303.
 
 296 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 vast and splendid procession, and covered with all the honors 
 and blessings of the Roman Chnrch. 
 
 All Toulouse, now mad with religious hatred, called for the 
 punishment of the Calas family.(') It was asserted that all 
 Protestants were assassins; that they made away invariably 
 with their children, if necessary, to prevent their conversion 
 to the Homish faith. It was believed that the whole Calas 
 family had been engaged in the murder of Marc-Antoine ; 
 that father, mother, his brothers, and even the sisters, had 
 united in the secret immolation. Jean Calas, after a long 
 process, was tried and convicted. But no evidence of any val- 
 ue had been produced against him, and his own clear proofs 
 of his innocence were excluded by a fanatical court. The 
 maid-servant, a Catholic, who could have shown that he was 
 absent from the room where the fatal event occurred, was 
 never suffered to be examined. Calas appealed to the Parlia- 
 ment of Toulouse ; the Church ruled over the highest tribu- 
 nal, and Calas was sentenced to a horrible death. He died on 
 the rack, still declaring his innocence. " Wretch," cried one of 
 his persecutors to him as he lay in torture, " you have but a 
 moment to live. Confess the truth." Calas, unable to speak, 
 made a sign of refusal, and the executioner drew the cord 
 around his neck. 
 
 But all Europe soon rang with the barbarous deed.Q Yol- 
 taire took up the cause of the Calas family ; friends at court 
 aided in reversing the judgment of the fanatics of Toulouse. 
 In vain the whole Roman Church assumed the defense of the 
 murderers of Calas, or Dillon, the Irish Archbishop of Tou- 
 louse, showered indulgences and honors on the guilty counsel- 
 ors : public opinion for the first time in France condemned 
 persecution, and the corrupt Church trembled before it. Rose 
 Calas, the w^idow, the bereaved mother, the most unfortunate 
 of women, went up to Paris, and was received with sympa- 
 
 (') Hist, de Toulouse, iv., p. 307: "Tout ce cxue pouvait etre dit h la 
 charge de la faraiUe Protestante," etc. 
 
 C) De Felice, p. 428. Rochette and three companions were executed at 
 Toulouse the same year.
 
 TEE BE VOLUTION. 297 
 
 thetic attention by the court and the king ; a new trial was 
 ordered ; the innocence of the Galas family was shown by 
 conclusive proof ; the judgment was reversed, and a late jus- 
 tice was done to the unhappy Huguenots. Yet the Catholic 
 Church, confident in its infallibility, never abandoned its belief 
 in the guilt of its victims, and its falsified manuals of history 
 will continue to assert that Marc-Antoine Calas was a martyr 
 for the faith as long as the papacy endures. 
 
 The Revolution soon followed, and the example of persecu- 
 tion which the clergy of France had exhibited for so many 
 ages was now retorted upon them with signal vigor. The 
 scaffolds ran red with the blood of the priests. The galleys 
 and the prisons, once crowded with Huguenots, were now filled 
 with their persecutors. Cliained to the bench and toiling at 
 the oar, the Roman Catholic clergy experienced all those woes 
 their Church had so freely inflicted on the gentle heretics. A 
 general emigration of priests and nobles took place. France 
 lost, for a time, a large proportion of its people ; yet it is im- 
 possible not to be struck with the unimportant effect of this 
 later emigration compared with that wide scene of disaster 
 and national decay that followed the flight of the Huguenots. 
 When the gay nobles and the corrupt clergy crossed the front- 
 iers no flourishing manufacturing cities fell into decay; no 
 fertile districts returned to their native wildness ; no intellect- 
 ual dullness or moral decline succeeded a period of unwonted 
 progress. It is probable, it is certain, that the destruction of a 
 single centre of industry and trade by the intrigues of the Jes- 
 uits under Louis XIY. — the exile of its pious artisans and 
 their well-trained families — was more injurious to France than 
 the expulsion of all its nobility and the fall of its monarchy and 
 its Church. In the one case, it lost a centre of moral advance; 
 in the other, only the sources of religious and political decay. 
 
 Under Napoleon the Huguenots experienced the toleration 
 of a despot ; at the Restoration they became nominally free. 
 They were no longer forced to worship in caves and deserts. 
 The last massacre and persecution occurred at Nimes in 1815.(') 
 
 (') De Felice, p. 478.
 
 298 TBE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 But the Catliolic powers of France and the Popes of Koine 
 have never ceased to oppress by ingenious devices the rising 
 intellect of the reformers. The Bourbons strove to suppress 
 the dissidents ;(') even Louis Philippe was forced, in obedience 
 to the Romish supremacy, to deny equal rights to his Protest- 
 ant subjects. And in our own dayf) a cloud of danger still 
 hangs over the future of the Huguenots. France once more, 
 as in the days of Louis XIV., has fallen under the control of 
 the Jesuits.(^) Slowly the society of Loyola has spread like 
 a miasma over the land it so often desolated. The schools 
 and colleges have been transferred to Jesuit teachers; the 
 Protestant teachers are persecuted and trampled down. The 
 Galilean Church has abandoned its feeble show of independ- 
 ence, and is the strong defender of the persecuting faction at 
 Pome ; the politics of France are, perhaps, controlled by the 
 chief of the order of the Jesuits. A strange mental darkness 
 is settling upon the nation, and in most of the French schools 
 and colleges it is openly taught that Louis XIV. was a mag- 
 nanimous king ; that the persecution of the Huguenots was a 
 righteous act ; that, as the Jesuit Auger declared, or Bossuet 
 and Massillon implied, it was " the angel of the Lord " that 
 presided at the massacre of St. Bartholomew and directed the 
 horrors of the dragon nades.(^) 
 
 (') De Felice. 
 
 (") J. Simou, La Libert6 de la Conscience, p. 217, shows that as late as 
 1850 Pi-otestant meetings were suppressed, Protestant schools broken up, 
 by unjust laws. It is doubtful if things have improved since then. 
 
 C) M. Athanase Coquerel thinks a new persecution impossible in France 
 (Les Forfats, p. 142) ; yet he snggests a doubt (p. 143). If, as M. Jules Si- 
 mon tells us, it is a criminal act to read the Bible to an assembly without 
 permission from the Government (see La Libert^ de la Conscience, p. 217), 
 or to establish and maintain a Protestant school in a Catholic neighbor- 
 hood, the Iliigucnots can scarcely be thought secure (see p. 218, note). 
 
 (^) The history authorized by the French Government and the Romish 
 Church misrepresents all the leading facts in the religious wars. The mas- 
 sacre of Vassy appears as a quarrel between the two religions ; the Diike 
 of Guise is full of benevolence and honor! See Simple R^cits d'Histoire 
 de France (1870), the State history for secondary schools, p. 141. The mas- 
 sacre of St. Bartholomew is made to seem " un coup tl I'ltalienne ;" the 
 horrors of the reign of Louis XIV. are extenuated.
 
 FIUS IX. AND THE HUGUENOTS. 299 
 
 The Huguenots, therefore, are still in peril in their native 
 land ; their ancient foes, the Jesuits, rule over the Church, and 
 are plotting their destruction. An infallible Pope sits on the 
 throne of St. Peter, who proclaims, as the direct revelation 
 from heaven, the persecuting doctrines of Pius IV. and Pius 
 V. ;(*) who has himself filled the dungeons of Pome and Bolo- 
 gna with the advocates of the Bible and of a free press. It is 
 possible that France may prove the last battle-ground between 
 the Jesuit and the reformer, the Bible and the Pope. It is 
 certain that in such a struggle the printing-press will not be 
 silent ; that the printer will still defy his natural foes ; that 
 the public sentiment of the age will rise in defense of truth 
 and honesty ; and that the lessons of history will dissipate 
 forever the lingering delusions of chivalry and of the Middle 
 Ages.C) 
 
 We have thus imperfectly reviewed the sad but instructive 
 story of the Huguenots. The tale of heroism is always one 
 of woe. Yet the impulse toward reform began at Meaux by 
 Farel and Lef^vre has never been lost, and the energy and 
 the sufferings of their disciples have everywhere aided the 
 progress of mankind. It would not be difficult to trace the 
 beneficent influence of Huguenot ideas in the prosperity of 
 England, Holland, America, or France. 
 
 (') In a somewhat extensive work, by Professor Laurent, of Ghent, Le 
 Catholicisme et la Keligion de I'Avenir, may be fonncl a clear statement of 
 the media3val tendencies of Rome. The Pope still threatens persecution, 
 defies governments, annuls their acts, and only waits for an opportunity to 
 destroy all his foes. See pp. 362, 411, 568, etc. 
 
 C) At the congress of the Roman Catholic bishops of Germany, France, 
 Belgium, and England, at Malines, in 1863, Archbishop Deschamps excused 
 the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and defended ijersecution. No Roman 
 Catholic dares denounce the Inquisition, or to relate true history. He is 
 obliged to repeat the feeble ideas that flow from the diseased intellect of 
 the Romish Propaganda. See Laurent, Catholicisme, p. 574, and book xi,, 
 
 on Traditional Religion.
 
 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 In the first century of the Christian era the civilized world 
 rested in unexampled peace. It was the most tranquil period 
 Europe has ever known. ISTo general war disturbed the pros- 
 perity of Gaul, Italy, or the East ; no wide-spread revolution 
 carried carnage and desolation to the populous provinces of 
 imperial E.ome.(') It was a golden, autumnal season of classic 
 civilization, when the ripened fruits of long years of material 
 and mental progress were showered upon mankind, and when 
 the internal decay of the mighty empire was hidden in its 
 exterior and splendid tranquillity. Comj)ared with the later 
 centuries, the first was singularly frugal of human life. In 
 the seventeenth century, all Europe was torn by fierce religious 
 wars, and men died by myriads to gratify the fanatical malice 
 of kings and priests. In the eighteenth, the obstinate vanity 
 of a Louis, a Frederick, or a George III. covered land and sea 
 with slaughter. In the dawn of the nineteenth, millions of 
 the human race perished by the iron will of Napoleon ; and 
 the young generations of Europe and America have seldom 
 known any long repose from the dreadful duties of the camp. 
 But in the first century no battle of civilized men occurred 
 equal in importance to Sadowa ; no siege, except that of Jeru- 
 salem, as destructive as that of Sebastopol. Under its im- 
 perial masters, whether madmen, philosophers, or monsters, 
 the Roman world almost forgot the art of warfare, and, weigh- 
 
 (') Under Angnstns and Tiberius Italy was at peace, and their succes- 
 sors were satisfied ^vith distant conquests. The Vitellian wars filled Rome 
 and Italy with massacres, but were soon terminated by Vespasian. Tacitus, 
 Hist., iii., 72, laments the Capitol. From the Jewish war we must abate 
 much of the exaggeration.
 
 ANCIENT CAPITALS. 301 
 
 ed down by a general tyi'anny, gave itseK languidly to the 
 pursuits of peace. 
 
 A magnificent form of civilization at once grew up. Men 
 everywhere clustered together in cities, and surrounded them- 
 selves with the countless appliances of a luxurious life. The 
 theatre and amphitheatre, the aqueduct and bath, the grace- 
 ful temples of yellow marble, the groves and gardens, the tri- 
 umphal arches, the forums filled with statues and lined with 
 colonnades, were repeated in all those centres of artistic taste 
 that sprung up, under the fostering care of successive emper- 
 ors, from the Ceesarea of Palestine to the distant wilds of 
 Britain or Gaul. The Roman empire embraced within its 
 limits a chain of cities fairer than the proudest capitals of 
 modem Europe — a series of municipalities destined to be- 
 come the future centres of Christian thought. At the mouth 
 of the venerable Nile stood Alexandria. Its population was 
 nearly a million. It controlled the commerce of the world, 
 and its vast fleets often covered the Mediterranean. It was 
 the Paris of the East — gay, splendid, intellectual ; its univer- 
 sity and its library, its philosophers and critics, filled the age 
 with active speculation. Antioch, on the Syrian shore, still 
 retained its prosperity and its luxurious charms. In the 
 midst of its apocalyptic sisters, Ephesus glittered with artist- 
 ic decorations, and maintained in all their magnificence the 
 Temple and the ritual of Diana. Greece boasted the corrupt 
 elegance of Corinth, the higher taste of incomparable Athens. 
 Far to the west, Carthage had risen from its ruins to new im- 
 portance. Spain was adorned with the temples and the aque- 
 ducts of Saragossa(') and Cordova; the banks of the Phine 
 and the wilds of Gaul were sown with magnificent cities ; and 
 the camps of Britain swiftly grew into populous capitals and 
 peaceful homes. In the midst of the series of provincial 
 towns stood conquering Pome, the mistress of them all, slowly 
 gathering within her bosom the wealth, the luxury, the cor- 
 ruption of the world. 
 
 But of all the imperial cities the most wonderful was still 
 
 C) Cfesar Augusta.
 
 302 THE CHUBCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 Jerusalem.(') In a mysterious antiquity none of them could 
 rival her. The towers of Salem had been contemporary with 
 those of Belus or Semiramis, of the glory of Thebes and the 
 youth of Memnon. Jerusalem had seen the splendors of her 
 conquerors of Babylon and Egypt sink into decay. A thou- 
 sand years had passed since David founded the city of Mount 
 Zion, and still, in the first century, with a singular vitality, the 
 holy site was covered with magnificent buildings, and a new 
 Temple had risen on Mount Moriah to surpass the glory of 
 that of Solomon. When the Seven Hills of Rome had been 
 a desolate w^aste, and the Acropolis the retreat of shepherds — 
 when all Europe was a wilderness, and savage hunters roamed 
 over the site of its fairest cities, Jerusalem had shone over the 
 East a beacon of light, and had observed, and perhaps guided, 
 the progress of Italy and Greece. She had been often con- 
 quered, but never subdued. More than once leveled to the 
 ground, she had risen from her ashes.(^) For a thousand years 
 the priests had chanted the Psalms of David from Mount Mo- 
 riah, unless in captivity or exile, and still the Jerusalem of 
 Herod and Nero was, in her magnificent ritual and her sacred 
 pomp, the rival and the peer of Athens and Rome. 
 
 In the minds of her contemporaries^ the Jewish capital 
 seems to have excited an intense dislike. The Jews w^ere 
 noted for their bigotry and their national pride.Q Even in 
 their captivity they despised their conquerors; they turned 
 with contempt from the polished Greeks and Romans, and re- 
 fused to mingle wdth them as equals or as friends. To the 
 austere Pharisee a Cicero or an Atticus was a pariah and an 
 
 (') Tacitus, Hist., v., 8: "Hierosolyraa genti caput. lUic immens£B op- 
 ulentisB tenipliun." He sketches imperfectly the history of the famous 
 city. "Dum Assyrios peues Medosque et Persas Orieus fuit despectissima 
 pars servientium." See Jo.sephns, Ant., vii., 3, 2. 
 
 C') Josephus, Aut., x., 10 ; xii., 5, 3. Under Antiochus the finest buildings 
 •were burned, the Temple pillaged. 
 
 (') Tacitus, Hist., v., 5, recalls this feeling : "Ad versus omnes alios hostile 
 odium." 
 
 (^) Cicero, Pro L. Flacco, 28: "Quod in tarn .suspiciosa ac maledica civi- 
 tate," etc. He speaks of their barbarous superstition, and argues like an 
 advocate.
 
 THE HOLY CITY. 303 
 
 outcast, and the chosen people, as far as possible, shrunk from 
 the unholy society of the Gentile. But this exclusiveness 
 seemed to their cultivated contemporaries barbarous and rude ; 
 they repaid it by a shower of ridicule and sarcasm. The Ro- 
 man writers, from Cicero to Tacitus, paint the Jews as the de- 
 graded victims of a cruel superstition. The Eoman satirist 
 accused them of worshiping the empty air or the passing 
 cloud ;(') the people of Rome, of adoring the vilest of ani- 
 mals ;f) and no author of that intellectual age had discovered 
 that the lyrics of the Jewish king were more sublime than 
 those of Pindar; that the conflicts and the trials of a human 
 soul w^ere nobler themes than the Olympic sports or the tri- 
 umphs of Hiero. No Roman writer had studied with care 
 the Jewish Scriptures, or had contrasted the Sibylline oracles 
 with the prophecies of Isaiah. 
 
 Yet even to the Greeks and Romans a mysterious awe in- 
 vested the Holy City. They heard with wonder of that inner 
 shrine where no image of a deity was seen, but within w^hich 
 no profane eye was allowed to gaze; of the golden candle- 
 stick, the priceless veil ; of the pompous worship of an invisi- 
 ble God.(') They knew that to the austere Jew the fairest 
 statues of Phidias, the most glorious representations of Jupi- 
 ter and Apollo, were only an abomination. They had learn- 
 ed that the despised Israelites were looking forward to the ad- 
 vent of a prophetic Messiah wdiose reign should be universal, 
 and who should subject all nations to his sway ; and emperors 
 and kings had been startled and roused to cruelty hj their un- 
 flinching faith. But no heathen writer could have supposed 
 that the promised Messiah was to be a God of boundless love ;(^) 
 that from the heart of the abject and hated race was to come 
 forth a generous sympathy for the suffering and the sad of 
 
 (') Jnvenal, Sat., xiv., 100 et seq. : "Nil prreter iiubes et cceli numon ado- 
 rant." 
 
 C) Tertullian, Apol., cxvi : " Petronius et porcinum numen adoret." 
 
 C) Tacitus, Hist., v., 9. 
 
 C) Unless we trace the prophecy of Virgil to a Jewish source. The 
 liarsher traits of Judaism were well known to the Romans. See Martial, 
 v., 29 ; xi., 95. Persius, Sat., v., 180. Ovid, De Arte Am., i., 76, 416.
 
 304 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 every land ; that from mysterious Jerusalem was to descend 
 upon the world a faith that taught the common brotherhood 
 of man, a charity as limitless as its celestial source. 
 
 This remarkable mental revolution took place within the 
 first century. In a brief period Jerusalem was transformed 
 from a centre of bigotry and intolerance to become the joy 
 and hope of nations. The Church of Christ arose. Scarcely 
 thirty-five years elapsed from the death of the Divine Teacher 
 until the final ruin of the Holy City ; yet in those few years 
 grew up a society of insj)ired missionaries, equal in power, in 
 gifts and grace, who carried the tidings of hope and faith to 
 the distant capitals of heathendom. The Church of Jerusa- 
 lem, the Church of Christianity, was formed upon the sim- 
 plest and most natural plan. Its affairs were discussed and 
 determined in a general assembly of all the faithful. It knew 
 no earthly master, acknowledged no temporal head. The 
 apostles themselves, full of humility and love, yielded to each 
 other's opinions, and consented to be bound by the decisions 
 of their own body or of the united Church. (') Peter, whose 
 vigorous faith formed for a time the chief support of his com- 
 panions, was sometimes governed by the Hebraic impulses of 
 the austere James, and was afterward softened by the gener- 
 ous remonstrances of Paul. James himself, the brother of the 
 Lord,(") at the apostolic council urged compromise and peace. 
 The apostles laid no claim to infallibility ; they trembled lest 
 they themselves might become castaways. The Church was 
 a true republic, in which, in his unaffected humility, no man 
 sought authority over another, and where all were equal in a 
 common faith, an overpowering love. Its ritual was the nat- 
 ural impulse of a believing heart. The Christians met in pri- 
 vate rooms or on the flat tops of houses, and joined at regular 
 intervals in prayer and praise. The sermon of the presbyter 
 and the apostle was usually unpremeditated, and pointed to 
 
 (') Clem. Roman., about 97, disapproves of the people removing blame- 
 less i^resbyters. First Epistle to Corinthians, c. xliv. 
 
 (^) James is called "the brother of the Lord" in the Scriptures; tradi- 
 tion has sought to make him a cousin. See article Brothers, in M'Cliutock 
 and Strong's Biblical Cyclopaidia.
 
 SCENES ABOUND JERUSALEM. 305 
 
 the sacrifice of Calvary. No painted robes, no gorgeous rites, 
 no pagan censers or clianting priests, disturbed the season of 
 divine communion. The commemoration of the last sad sup- 
 per was performed by carrying the bread and wine from house 
 to house ; and when the inspired missionaries set out, full of 
 joy and faith, to bear their good tidings to splendid Antioch 
 or gilded Ephesus, their dress was as plain as their Master's, 
 their poverty as conspicuous as his. From Jerusalem, which 
 had till now heaped only anathemas upon the Gentiles, the 
 early Church descended, the teacher of self-denial, benevo- 
 lence, and hope to man. 
 
 The Holy City of the first century was not that scarred and 
 stricken waste that now meets the traveler's eye.(^) It was 
 gay with palaces of marble and streets of costly houses ; with 
 the homes of the wealthy Sadducees who had won their fort- 
 unes in trading with Eastern lands, and of that priestly aristoc- 
 racy who had engrossed the high offices of the Jewish Church. 
 Above the deep ravines of Jehoshaphat and Hinnom the hill 
 of Zion rose to the southward,(^) covered with fine buildings 
 and the palaces of its Idum^ean kings. On the west and north 
 the lower Acra was perhaps the home of the laboring class. 
 Farther northward, the new suburb of Bezetha, which had 
 grown up under the successors of Herod the Great, was no 
 doubt filled with the warehouses and the rich dwellings of the 
 Jewish merchants. On the eastern precipice, that overhung 
 the vale of Jehoshaphat and the brook of Kedron, stood that 
 magnificent Temple which, to the impassioned Jew, seemed to 
 surpass in splendor as in holiness every other earthly shrine. 
 A tall and shapely building of pure white marble, seated on 
 the high top of Mount Moriah,(') was the central fane where 
 the Almighty was believed to dwell. It was seamed witli 
 golden plates, and covered by a roof of gilded spikes, lest the 
 birds of the air might rest upon it. To the pilgrim afar off, 
 
 (') Robinson, Biblical Researches, i., p. 380 et seq. ; Tobler, Topographie 
 vou Jernsalem. 
 
 O Derenbourg, Essai snr I'Histoire et la G^ograpbie de la Palestine, i., 
 p. 154. 
 
 (') Miscbua, iii., 334. "Moiis a;<lis orat quadratus." — De Mcnsnris Templi. 
 
 2J
 
 306 THE CHURCH OF JEEU SALEM. 
 
 on the north or east, it glittered in the bright sunlight of Ju- 
 daea with an effulgence that seemed divine. Within were two 
 chambers. One was that Holy of Holies into which no pro- 
 fane eye was allowed to gaze. It was wreathed in rare work- 
 manship of the purest gold ; and before its golden doors hung 
 a veil, priceless in value, woven with the rarest skill of Jewish 
 and Babylonian maids.(') The outer chamber contained the 
 golden candlestick whose seven lamps were the seven planets ; 
 the twelve loaves that marked the passing year ; the fragrant 
 spices that declared the universal rule of God. Here, too, the 
 walls and roof were covered with golden vines, and huge 
 bunches of golden grapes hung on every side. The Jewish 
 taste for costly ornaments lavished itself on the Holy House.f ) 
 Its doors were of pure gold ; its whole front was covered by 
 immense plates of gold ; at the entrance hung a second veil 
 of Babylonian workmanship, embroidered with mystical de- 
 vices in scarlet, purple, or blue. 
 
 Such was the Holy House, the earthly resting-place of Him 
 who had thundered from Sinai or spoken by the prophets. 
 The approach to it was through a succession of magnificent 
 terraces.(^) Around the sacred precinct, at the foot of the hill, 
 ran a wall of immense stones, wrought into each other, and 
 embracing a circuit of several thousand feet. The inner side 
 of the wall was a portico supported on huge pillars of mar- 
 ble, beneath whose shelter the sellers of doves and the mon- 
 ey - changers held a busy traffic. The whole area was called 
 the Court of the Gentiles, and was the common resort of the 
 Greek, the Roman, and the Jew, But within it, at the base 
 of an ascending terrace, was drawn a graceful balustrade of 
 stone-work, upon whose pillars was inscribed a warning that 
 none but the pure Jew could pass, under pain of death. Nck 
 Greek nor Eoman might enter its exclusive barrier. Above 
 it, a flight of steps led to a second court or square, surrounded 
 
 OMiscbna, iii., 362. 
 
 (^) The Mischua is filled, ^vitll details of golden ornaraeuts and costly 
 wood, iii., 362. 
 
 (') It is impossible to reconcile the different accounts of the Temple iu 
 Josephus and the Mischua. I have therefore given a brief outline.
 
 THE CASTLE OF ANTOXIA. 307 
 
 by a magnificent wall. It was the outer sanctuary, and witliin 
 was provided a separate place for women. Still higher rose 
 a third court, with gates of gold and stones of costly work- 
 manship, containing the altar from which the perpetual smoke 
 curled up to heaven, and the Holy House with the candle- 
 stick, and the Holy of Holies. 
 
 To the north of the Temple, and joined to it by a bridge or 
 stairs, stood that well-known tower upon which no Jew could 
 look without a silent curse upon the Gentile. The Castle of 
 Antonia was at once a palace, a prison, a fortress. Within its 
 massive walls, that seem to have covered a wide surface, were 
 inclosed a series of magnificent rooms, courts, barracks for sol- 
 diers, and perhaps dungeons for the refractory Jew.(') Here 
 St. Paul found shelter from the angry crowds of the Temple, 
 and, by the care of the Roman captain, escaped the fate of 
 Stephen. The tower was always guarded by a Eoman gar- 
 rison ; its turrets overlooked the excited host of worshipers in 
 the courts of the Temple below, and the glitter of foreign 
 spears upon its impregnable walls reminded every Jew that 
 the kingdom of David and Solomon was no more. The hill 
 of Zion was profaned by a heathen master; the God of Ja- 
 cob seemed abased before the idols of the Gentiles. 
 
 Deep down below the eastern side of the Temple walls, the 
 chasm or ravine of Jehoshaphat, a rift, apparently cloven by 
 some fierce convulsion, separated the hill of Moriah from the 
 Mount of Olives. (^) The head grew dizzy in looking down 
 from the Temple walls into the bed of the Kedron. Yet the 
 Mount of Olives was only a few hundred feet distant from 
 the sacred precinct ; its sides were carefully cultivated, and be- 
 longed, perhaps, to the wealthy priests ;(') from its top could 
 be seen the city lying extended below ; and far to the east 
 might be traced the glittering line of the Dead Sea.(') Along 
 
 (*) Josephns, De Bell. JiuL, v., 5, 8. 
 
 (*) Robinson, Bib. Eesearches, i., p. 326. 
 
 (') Derenbourg, i., p. 467. See Tobler, Topographic von Jern8alem,wbo 
 quotes vol.il., p. 987, La Citez de Jerusalem, a description written in 1187. 
 
 (^) Robinson, i., p. 349. "The waters of the Dead Sea lay bright and 
 sparkling in the sunbeams."
 
 308 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 tlie side of the mountain spread the olive groves of the Garden 
 of Gethsemane. Its peaceful walks were no doubt a favored 
 retreat for the contemplative, the silent, and the sad. 
 
 Peace and prosperity seemed once more within the walls of 
 Zion. Its people, always industrious and frugal, were advan- 
 cing in wealth and ease. Jerusalem was a hierarchical city, 
 and resembled, upon an extensive scale, an English cathedral 
 town.Q Its topics of conversation, its subjects of interest, 
 were all religious. At the front of its society stood a few 
 priestly families, possessed of great wealth and influence, who 
 engrossed the chief ofKces of the Church. Ananias, Caiaphas, 
 and Eleazer were the leaders of a narrow aristocracy distin- 
 guished for its bigotry and pride, its luxury and pomp. The 
 splendor of their dress and their wasteful extravagance are no- 
 ticed with severity in the Talmuds. Of Ismael ben Phabi it is 
 related that he wore but once a magnificent robe worked for 
 him by his mother, and then gave it to an attendant. Eleazer 
 had one so splendid and so transparent that his colleagues re- 
 fused to allow him to use it.f ) The priests feasted together at 
 costly banquets, and lavished their wealth in pompous ceremo- 
 nials and useless display. A congregation of priests and doc- 
 tors of the law governed the city.(^) It was called the Sanhe- 
 drim, or the Seventy, and its intolerance and cruelty were felt 
 by all the apostles. It was a high-priest who ordered Paul to 
 be smitten in the face ; it was to the corrupt and fallen church- 
 man that the apostle cried out, " Thou whited sepulchre !" 
 
 The city was filled with a busy and prosperous popula- 
 tion. Every Jew was taught in his youth some useful trade. 
 The perpetuity of the race is due in great part to its habits 
 of industry and frugality. Amidst the crowds that filled the 
 shops and warehouses and the quiet homes of Jerusalem were 
 seen the wealthy Sadducee, to whom the present life seemed 
 the end of all ; the austere and formal Pharisee, who practiced 
 the minute requirements of the law ; the Jew from Alexan- 
 dria or Csesarea, softened by the contact of Greek philosophy ; 
 
 (') Derenbonrg, with the aid of the Talmud, has given new light upon 
 the condition of Jerusalem, i., p. 140. 
 
 (') Derenbourg, i., p. 232. (') Id., i., p. 141.
 
 THE HOME OF MAEY. 309 
 
 tlie wild Idumsean ; and the fanatical zealot. "When the great 
 paschal feast called the faithful to the Temple, its wide area 
 was filled with the united descendants of Benjamin and Ju- 
 dah, and a fierce religious excitement ruled in the sacred city 
 that the Koman garrison itself could scarcely restrain. It was 
 often a period of tumult and disorder. Strong patriotic im- 
 pulses stirred the fanatical multitude. The children of Israel, 
 gathered in their holy seat, saw before them the habitation 
 of the Most High, and in His strength fancied themselves in- 
 vincible. 
 
 To the eye of History twelve sad yet hopeful men, charged 
 with a heavy task, stand out distinctly amidst the busy throngs 
 of Jerusalem. The bold and ardent Peter, the fond and ten- 
 der John, the faithful James, led back their companions to 
 the beautiful city.(') They wandered together through the 
 crowded streets ; they preached in friendly houses ; they met 
 often in the Temple to pray. They were Jews, and they had 
 resolved that Jerusalem should be the centre of that wide re- 
 ligious reform which they felt was to flow from their teaching. 
 It was in the city of David rather than of Romulus that the 
 Christian Church was to find its model and its source.C') In 
 some plain house belonging to the mother of John lived the 
 Holy Virgin, cherished, tradition relates, by him who had been 
 the best beloved of her Divine Son, and by her whose bounty 
 had often fed and clothed the houseless Saviour. Her chil- 
 dren seem soon to have gathered around her. James, accord- 
 ing to the spurious epistle of Ignatius,(') which, however, may 
 retain some trabe of legendary truth, resembled in appearance 
 his Lord and brother. In character he was so eminently pure 
 as to be known as James the Just. He lived in honorable 
 poverty. He wore the plainest dress and fed on the simplest 
 food. His name was renowned for perfect honesty and truth. 
 He was a Hebrew of the strictest sect, and performed with 
 
 (') Acts i., 12. Neander, Kircbengeschichte, i., p. 329, flescribes the invis- 
 ible cburcb of Paul and James. The first epistle of Clemeut. Rom. may be 
 looked at as showing the sentiment of his age. 
 
 C) Acts i., 4. 
 
 (^) To St. John. See Hefele, Miguc, v., p. 626, for an account of Ij^natius.
 
 310 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 rigid care every requirement of the Jewish la\v.(') His knees 
 grew callous from his constant attitude of prayer ; his heart 
 was full of intense love for the departed Lord ; his life was 
 spent in visiting the widow and the fatherless and in keeping 
 himself unspotted from the world. It was natural, therefore, 
 that the disciples should turn with unaifected reverence to the 
 representative of the family of their Master, and James as- 
 sumed the position of the head of the early Church. By later 
 writers he is called bishop ; but no title or authority was an- 
 nexed to his office.^) He was but an elder or adviser, counsel- 
 ing the faithful in their difficulties, guiding the deliberations of 
 the inspired assemblies, and leading his followers to a holy life. 
 Around the home of the Virgin were probably assembled 
 her younger children, the brethren and sisters of the Lord. 
 But of them we hear nothing until after the martyrdom of 
 James, when Simeon, his brother or his cousin, becomes his 
 successor. Yet it is pleasant to fancy, with the old tradition, 
 that Mary staid long in the house of the gentle John, that her 
 last years were cheered by his constant care, and that she was 
 able to bear witness to the world that all the marvels told of 
 her Divine Son were surpassed by the truth. In the spurious 
 Ignatian epistles a letter of Mary is inserted. It is a reply to 
 an invitation of Ignatius, the martyr bishop, to visit him at 
 Antioch.(^) Its simplicity and its purity might almost affirm 
 its authenticity ; it has neither the superstition nor the gross- 
 ness of the papal age. The Virgin gently assures the good 
 bishop that all he had heard of Christ was true; that she 
 would gladly visit him in company with John ; and exhorts 
 him to stand fast in persecution. (*) The romance of the cor- 
 
 (') Eusebins, H. E., ii., 23, quoting Hegesippus, Aia Six^Tai ttjv tKKXeaiav — 
 6 a£t\<j)og tov Kvpiov 'laKioiiog. 
 
 (^) Eusebins, ii., 1. The title is uot Scriptural. 
 
 (^) Migue, Pat. Gra;c. Migne's nucritical and partial collection should 
 be read with caution, v., pp. 1)42, 943. Le Nonrry, in his Prolegomena, and 
 the Romish writers, reject these epistles, partlj' because Mary is called the 
 mother of Jesus, and not of God. 
 
 (") Migue, Pat. Grjec, v., p. 943. She is made to say, " De Jesu quae a Jo- 
 anne audisti et dedicisti, vera sunt." She calls herself " humilis aucilla 
 Cliristi Jesu."
 
 ST. PETEB. 311 
 
 respondence between Maiy, Jolin, Ignatius, seems to carry us 
 back into some humble and liappy home at Jerusalem, where, 
 amidst the harsh strife of the corrupt city, a boundless purity, 
 a limitless love, shed over its modest scene the peace of heaven. 
 A frequent visitor at the house of John and Mary was no 
 doubt the impetuous but true-hearted Peter. In history there 
 are two St. Peters. One is the ambitious, the unscrupulous, 
 the cruel, and tyrannical creation of the Church at Pome. Ev- 
 ery unhallowed and worldly impulse was gradually numbered 
 among the attributes of the great apostle. In the third cent- 
 ury his Roman defamers began to invest him with an ambi- 
 tious design of subjecting all other bishops. In the fifth, Leo 
 openly demanded for him a universal primacy of authority 
 that was denied both at Chalcedon and Constantinople. At a 
 later period he was made a temporal prince, ruling over the 
 Poraan States by force and fraud. In the eleventh century 
 the haughty Ilildebrand, in the hallowed name of Peter, pro- 
 claimed himself the temporal and spiritual master of the world. 
 In the thirteenth, Innocent III., to enforce the authority of 
 Pome, filled Europe with bloodshed, and exterminated the 
 heretics of Provence. St. Peter was now made the author of 
 the Inquisition, the champion of the Crusades, the oppressor 
 of the humble, a universal persecutor. Still later, he was rep- 
 resented by the horrible vices of a Borgia. At the Peforma- 
 tion he was held up to mankind as the foe of rising knowledge, 
 the patron of a dull conservatism. He was supposed to have 
 inspired the bitter malevolence of the Council of Trent, and to 
 have countenanced every crime of Charles V. or Philip II. 
 In the nineteenth century, his name is once more invoked by 
 the Bishop of Pome in exciting a new assault upon human 
 freedom. Priests and Pope, in their linal council, present once 
 more to mankind their traditional St. Peter — ambitious, cruel, 
 tyrannical — and declare his infallibility. (') 
 
 (') Baronius, Ann. Ecc, sees nothing but Peter in the early age, i., p. 283 : 
 " Petrns a Cbristo pritnatu in oniues est auctiis," etc. " Quid nam est, 
 quod oculi omnium convortuutur in Petium?" Within a brief period all 
 eyes were turned on I'aul.
 
 312 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 Yeiy different was the true St. Peter of tlie Gospels and 
 the Acts. He was ever lamenting his own fallibility. In a 
 moment of terror, at tlie thought of death, he had denied his 
 Saviour. On him the eye of affection had been turned re- 
 proachfully ; to him had been spoken the words of indigna- 
 tion, " Get thee behind me, Satan !" His fervent love had won 
 forgiveness ; he was the rock on which the Church was ])uilt. 
 Again he had denied his Master when he strove to enforce 
 the Mosaic law on the followers of Christ; again, he yielded, 
 conscience-smitten, to the intercession of James and the fierce 
 denunciation of St. Paul. At the sacred supper it was not 
 Peter that leaned on the bosom of the Lord, and only his age 
 and his rude eloquence gave him any precedence among the 
 disciples. Often the first to act or speak, his advice was not 
 always followed. To James the Just, to John and Peter, the 
 Lord, after his resurrection, communicated a divine knowl- 
 edge ;(') and Peter seems to have paid a willing deference to 
 the family of his Master. 
 
 His true greatness, his inspired eminence above mankind, 
 lay in the liumility with which he subdued his own impetuous 
 nature, in the lessons of gentleness and purity which he so 
 freely inculcates upon his disciples. To him the worship paid 
 to a modern Pope must have seemed a shocking idolatry. " I 
 am but a man," he cried to the Roman convert who would 
 have adored him. He could scarcely have presided at an auto- 
 da-fe, for his language is ever merciful and forbearing. For 
 himself he disclaimed all superiority, and would be only an 
 elder among elders.(") Listead of the vicar of Christ, the lord 
 of kings, the keeper of the sword of persecution, he would 
 liave all men humble themselves to one another. " Love as 
 brethren," he cried; "be pitiful, be courteous, not rendering 
 evil for evil." " God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to 
 the humble."(^) To such a nature the vain strife of contend- 
 
 C) Eusebius, H. E., ii., 1. So iu the fragments of Papias, Andrew is 
 iiauicd before Peter, iii., 39. 
 
 C) 1 Peter v., 1. 
 
 C) 1 Peter v., .5. So the epistles of Clement and Polycarp reflect the 
 luiniility of the apostles.
 
 ST. JOHN. 313 
 
 ing bishops, the pretensions of priests to spiritual and tem- 
 poral despotism, the unhallowed splendors of the mediaeval 
 Church, the horrors of the Inquisition and the massacres of the 
 religious wars, the pride of a Hildebrand, the cruel rage of an 
 Innocent III., must have seemed the orgies of evil spirits clad 
 in a sacred robe. 
 
 With St. Peter is constantly associated the gentler John. 
 Together they had fished upon the Sea of Galilee, had left 
 their nets at the call of the Master, and followed him in his 
 wanderings through Judaea. Together they had beheld the 
 crucifixion ; together they had wept through the night of 
 nights ; they had run together in the morning to the sepul- 
 chre. But the tender love of the faithful John had urged him 
 on swifter than Peter, and he had first seen that the stone was 
 rolled away. Together they were to suffer imprisonment and 
 persecution ; preached in Samaria ; performed miracles ; and 
 w^ere at last parted to die in foreign lands and by a different 
 death.(') St. John represents, if possible, a higher form of hu- 
 man excellence than his ardent companion. The Saviour, we 
 are told, loved him above all other men. In his boundless af- 
 fection his Master had discovered no flaw ; on him the divine 
 countenance had never turned reproachfully. St. John's life 
 and writings are filled with that intense sentiment of tender- 
 ness and compassion which is the soul of Christianity, and 
 which was to flow in a full tide over the human race.(^) 
 
 His youth was apparently passed in active labor. He was 
 a fisherman, like his father ; but he had inherited some prop- 
 erty, and was possibly able to obtain a better education than 
 fell to the lot of the other apostles. His writings show traces 
 of an acquaintance with Greek philosophy. Of the other 
 members of the sacred company scarcely any thing is told. 
 Tradition has vainly striven to follow them in their missionary 
 toils, and has sent them forth to found churches in India and 
 
 (') Eusebius, H. E. 
 
 (-) Neaiuler, Deukwiirdigkeiteii, Geschichte des Christentbums, etc., i., p. 
 399, has au instructive essay on Christian brotherhood. The Christians 
 formed a united family ; they sent aid to each other everywhere — " bis 
 nach den entforntsten Gesenden."
 
 314: THE CRUllCR OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 Ethiopia, in Britcaiu or Gaul. Tliej were all poor, plain men, 
 yet it can not be inferred that they were wholly uneducated. 
 Every Jew was usually taught to read, if not to write ; and 
 the apostles, from their youth, had been familiar with the 
 wonderful lyrics of David and the inspired precepts of the 
 law. Their minds had been fed upon the solemn liturgy of 
 the Temple ; they had heard the holy lessons chanted by the 
 priests, and had listened to the wild strains of the lyre and the 
 cymbals that accompanied the sacred rites. With music and 
 poetry, therefore, they were not wholly unacquainted, and they 
 had learned to watch the lovely changes of nature on the 
 shores of Galilee. Here, Josephus tells us, was the brightest 
 landscape of Judaea. In Galilee the sower trod the ever-fer- 
 tile fields with joy ; the songs of the marriage feast and the 
 cries of happy children were heard over the land; the lily 
 trembled on its stalk more splendid than Solomon's glory ; 
 the olive and the vine poured forth their abundant fruit.(') 
 But, above all, the disciples had heard lessons of divine wis- 
 dom, and been instructed by parable, precept, example, by the 
 Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 Affrighted and dismayed by the spectacle of the crucifix- 
 ion, the faithful eleven had fled from Jerusalem and betaken 
 themselves to their nets.(^) Recalled by the well-known voice 
 of their risen Lord, they returned to the city, and met togeth- 
 er in their plain lodging, the uj)per chamber, to found the in- 
 fant church. Before them lay a heavy task. Through perse- 
 cution and suffering, in poverty and weakness, they were to 
 preach to all nations the lesson of heavenly peace ; they were 
 to break down the mighty fabrics of formalism ; to blend into 
 one Christian family the Gentile and the Jew. Yet never 
 had the ruling religions of the world seemed more firmly 
 established than when the apostles began their labors. In 
 Jerusalem the fierce zeal of the Jews was aroused to new vig- 
 
 (') Eey, £tude de la Tribii do Juda, still liuds magnificeut groves of 
 olives in Judiea (p. 19), and quotes tbe reverend Robinson often. Of 
 Galilee, Joseplius has given a pleasing account, B. J., iii., 3. 
 
 (■) John xxi., 3 : " Simon Peter said, I go a-fishing."
 
 JEWISH FESTIVALS. 315 
 
 or by the shame of a foreign rule.(') The presence of a Gen- 
 tile master, the hostile spears of Antonia, deepened to a wild 
 enthusiasm the ardor with which the assembled nation per- 
 formed its devotions in the Temple, and kept with rigid mi- 
 nuteness the strict requirements of the law. Never were the 
 rites more splendid, the throngs of the festal seasons more 
 numerous, than when, under the Roman procurators, the tribes 
 gathered on the holy hill. A pei-petual horror hung over the 
 excited nation lest strangers might defile their Temple ; a 
 keen watch was kept over the sacred site ; and every Jew was 
 prepared to lay down his life to save it from Gentile desecra- 
 tion. Q Pharisees and Sadducees united in this dreadful res- 
 olution, and even the gentle Essenes were afterward found 
 fighting in defense of their Temple and its God. 
 
 Hatred for the Gentile had deepened the patriotic faith of 
 the Jew, but had left his religion a corrupt formalism. The 
 higher orders of the priests were noted for their pride and their 
 rapacity. To maintain their luxurious splendor, they plunder- 
 ed the people ; to confirm their power, they put to death their 
 rivals. The Holy City was often startled by the news of an 
 assassination or a murder, and frequently fierce tumults arose 
 w^ithin the walls of the Temple itself, and dyed its sacred courts 
 with blood. A general corruption of morals had followed the 
 cruel reign of Herod and the Eomans ; the Sadducees,Q rich, 
 venal, and unscrupulous — the Pharisees, linked together in 
 their unholy brotherhood, had filled Jerusalem with their vices 
 and their crimes ; the poor were oppressed by usurers and 
 cheated by forestallers ; and great wealth was seldom gained 
 by honest means. Throughout the open country, robbers 
 from the rocky caves of Lebanon j3reyed upon the industrious, 
 and perhaps gave rise to the parable of the Good Samaritan. 
 They were the zealots or patriots who had taken an oath nev- 
 er to submit to the Roman rule, and who fled from the city 
 to rocky fastnesses and hiding-places, whence they issued forth 
 
 (") Raphall, Post-Biblical Hist., ii., 399 et scq. 
 (■) Josephus, B. J., ii., x., 4. Kapliall, ii., 399. 
 C) Derenbourg, i., p. 143. See De Saulcy, Ilistoiie d'Hdrod.
 
 316 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 at night to plunder equally the Roman, Samaritan, or Jew.(') 
 Not seldom they made their way back to Jerusalem, and, min- 
 gling with the people, stabbed some unlucky priest or wealthy 
 citizen who had shown too great subservience to the Roman 
 rule.O 
 
 In the most bigoted of cities the apostles were to preach a 
 new faith ; to their enraged and rebellious countrymen they 
 were to teach lessons of tenderness toward the Roman and 
 the Greek. But if they ventured to look beyond the limits 
 of Judsea the prospect of religious reform seemed even less 
 encouraging. Far before them spread that Gentile world of 
 which they knew only by report, where for countless genera- 
 tions the white-robed priests had celebrated the rites of Jupi- 
 ter or Minerva, the gods of Homer and Pindar, of ^schylus 
 and Ennius, in temples splendid with the offerings of the 
 faithful and consecrated by an undoubting superstition. Un- 
 learned and modest rustics, touched only by a sacred fire, they 
 were commissioned to penetrate to Antioch and Ephesus, to 
 Athens and Rome, and declare to hostile paganism the won- 
 ders of the cross. But how could they hope to be believed? 
 Never had the ancient faith seemed more firmly established. 
 At its front stood the Roman emperor, the chief priest of the 
 pagan world, the master of the lives and fortunes of his sub- 
 jects, proclaiming his own infallibility, and announcing him- 
 self to be a god. In the city of Rome, the central shrine of 
 heathenism, beneath the golden roof of the Capitoline temple, 
 the St. Peter's of antiquity, amidst the chant of choristers, the 
 smoke of censers, the musical intonations of the stoled and 
 mitred priests, a Caligula(^) or a Domitian was adored by his 
 trembling subjects as the representative of deity on earth. 
 No Bishop of Rome ever possessed a more imperious sway 
 over the faith of mankind ; no Ilildebrand or Innocent was 
 
 (') Raphall, ii., 365. 
 
 O Joscphus, B. J., ii., 12, paints a dark picture of the horrors in the city 
 at a hiter period. The Sicarii iiuirilercd men in the day-time, and then hid 
 in the throng. They appeared in Herod's time. 
 
 C) Suetonius, Calig., 22. See Merivale, H. R., v., 405. Caliguhi claimed 
 an equality with Jove.
 
 BOM AX PAGANISM. 317 
 
 ever more jealous of his spiritual rule, or persecuted with 
 greater vigor the luckless heretic. Whoever denied the infal- 
 libility of Caligula was condemned to the cross or the scourge, 
 and the prudent cities of the Eoman empu-e hastened to adore 
 the statues of the imperial god. Kor was the splendor of the 
 ancient ritual inferior to that of modern Eome. The one, in 
 fact, is borrowed from the other. The Pontifex Maximus of 
 the Capitoline temple has been transformed into the Pontifex 
 Maximus of the Church of Rome ;(') the rich robes and mitre 
 of the ancient priest adorn the modern Pope ; the tapers and 
 lighted lamps, the incense and the lustral water, the images 
 glittering with gems and gold, the prayers, the genuflections, 
 the musical responses, and the gay processions of the servants 
 of the pagan temple have been preserved wherever the Eo- 
 man faith is dominant, from Italy to Peru. 
 
 It was against this imposing formalism, whose centre was 
 ancient Eome, that the apostles were to wage incessant war, 
 in poverty, humility, persecution, death. They were to strike 
 down the imperial Pontifex Maximus, who claimed to be a 
 god ; they were to drive the priests from the altar and ban- 
 ish the glittering images, the unhallowed rites ; they were to 
 preach, amidst the fearful corruptions of the age, a spotless 
 purity; to inculcate honesty, industry, humility, and love; to 
 prepare mankind for a better life. They met in an upper 
 chamber in Jerusalem, elected Matthias in the place of Judas, 
 by the suffrage of all the small band of Christians ; and then, 
 in the heart of the hostile city, surrounded by the fanatical 
 population of Pharisees and Saddueees, exposed to the dagger 
 of the Sicarii and the rage of the Sanhedrim, began to speak 
 of Him who had walked with them on the Sea of Galilee. 
 
 Suddenly there spread through the city of David a wild re- 
 ligious excitement, a revival more wonderful than prophet or 
 priest had ever caused. The Spirit of God moved over the 
 
 (') Muratori, Liturgia Eoniana Vetiis, vronld trace the Roman ritual 
 back to the apostles — " nulla autem dubitatio est, quia vel ipsis Apostolis 
 viventibus aliquis fnerit Liturgiai ;"' but tlie supposition is unhistorical as 
 well as unscriptnral. See cap. i., 3; ii., 10.
 
 318 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 chosen people.(') The voices of the apostles, accompanied by 
 miracles and prodigies, and telling the story of heavenly com- 
 passion, melted the hearts of the penitent Jews. Immense 
 congregations assembled around the house of the teachers, 
 and professed their faith. Three thousand were converted in 
 one day. The number of believers was constantly enlarged. 
 The Jews of every land, who had come up to Jerusalem from 
 their distant homes in Babylon or Alexandria, Syria and 
 Greece, were tilled with a novel fervor. The people of Je- 
 rusalem of every rank yielded to the general impulse, and 
 w^orshiped Him whom they had crucified. Priests, learned 
 in the teachings of the rabbis, and weary of the empty 
 formalism of the law, threw themselves at the apostles' feet. 
 Wealthy citizens sold their lands and houses, and gave their 
 possessions to the cause of Christ.(^) A holy brotherhood, a 
 congregation of saints, sprung up in the corrupt city; the 
 meek and spotless Christian walked in the crowded streets 
 teaching by his words and his example ;(') in many a hum- 
 ble dwelling on the Acra or stately palace on the hill of Zion 
 the sound of Christian prayer and praise was heard ; and all 
 Jerusalem seemed ready to worship at the cross of Calvary. 
 
 Thus, almost in a moment, the Church of Jerusalem and of 
 Christ arose. It was about the year 35. Tiberius was on the 
 throne of the world, and was hidden in his island fastness, 
 hated by mankind. Within two years he was to die, and 
 transmit his authority to Caligula. At Jerusalem the family 
 of Herod the Great, always patronized by the Roman em- 
 perors, still held a certain authority. Augustus and Tiberius, 
 Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, each maintained a friendly in- 
 tercourse with the Jewish kings. Herod the Great died in 
 the first year of the century, just after the birth of Christ ; 
 his son, Herod Antipas, succeeded him in a nominal rule over 
 a part of Palestine, and reigned until perhaps the year 39.(*) 
 
 (') Pressens^, Le Premier Si^cle, i., p. 347. 
 C) Eusebius, H. E., ii., 17. 
 
 (') Epistle to Diognetus, cap. v., defines the Cliristian. He is to love all 
 men : he is persecuted by all. 
 
 {*) Archelaus reigned a few years over Judaia.
 
 APOSTOLIC CHAEITIES. 319 
 
 Agrippa I., the grandson of Herod the Great, and tlie friend 
 from childhood of the Emperor Caligiiha, next governed Ju- 
 dsea, from 41 until 41:. His son, Agrippa II., was made king 
 of Chalcis in 48. His little kingdom was afterward enlarged, 
 but never embraced the province of Judsea nor the city of Je- 
 rusalem. He survived the destruction of the sacred seat. 
 During the whole apostolic period, therefore, the Holy City 
 was under the direct control of officials appointed at Home ; 
 and it can hardly be doubted that the Roman court was con- 
 stantly informed of the rapid progress of the new faith. 
 From the doubtful letter of Pontius Pilate to Tiberius, and 
 from the account of the trial of St. Paul, we may at least in- 
 fer that so important a movement had not been neglected by 
 the jealous despots of the Roman world ; and it seems proba- 
 ble that no city of the empire was better known to Claudius 
 and to Nero than the ancestral home of their friends Agrip- 
 pa I. and II., the direct descendants of Herod the Great. Be- 
 tween Jerusalem and Rome there was a constant intercourse. 
 
 Meantime the missionary labors of the apostles went on 
 unchecked. Full of joy and faith, they preached to increas- 
 ing multitudes. Beneath the shadow of the stately Temple 
 and the hostile vigilance of the bigoted Sanhedrim, the infant 
 Church grew in strength, and shed a refining influence over 
 the tumultuous city. One of its most pleasing traits was its 
 ceaseless liberality to the poor. The widow and the orphan 
 were visited and maintained at the cost of the community. 
 No one was allowed to suffer for want ; and the apostles, en- 
 grossed by the labor of teaching, were obliged to appoint sev- 
 en assistants, afterward called deacons, who distributed alms. 
 Presbyters or elders were also elected, at a later period, to re- 
 lieve the first missionaries in their holy toil ; and with this 
 simple organization the Church of Jerusalem was always con- 
 tent.(') It possessed no bishop or Pope ; no Pontifex Maxi- 
 mus or imperious head. The family of the Lord seem to 
 
 (') The presbyters were Jewish, the bishops or overseers of Gentile ori- 
 gin. The term bishop was, therefore, not used at Jerusalem. The Church 
 ofBcers, whether bishops or presbyters, held their positions onlj' during 
 good conduct (First Ep. of Clement, cap. xliv), possibly only at will.
 
 320 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM, 
 
 have held always a high place in the esteem of the common- 
 wealth, as the natural inheritors of his primacy; and James 
 the Just deserved by his rare piety the first rank in the assem- 
 blies of the faithful. Yet the iirst Christians still remained, 
 in outward form, a sect of the Jews. The converts observed 
 all the forms of the Mosaic law; the apostles went daily to 
 the Temple to pray ; and even Paul himself, at a later period, 
 submitted for a moment to the national observances. Witli 
 their fellow-Jews the Christians climbed the stately terraces 
 of the Temple, and worshiped within the sacred inclosure 
 where no Gentile was allowed to come. 
 
 They could not, however, escape the vigilance of the Sanhe- 
 drim. In the first joy and promise of its wide success, the 
 progress of the Church was arrested by the iron hand of per- 
 secution. Peter and John, the most eminent teachers of the 
 new faith, were seized and thrown into prison. They were 
 set free by a miracle ; were forbidden to preach ; and were 
 saved from a sudden death by the prudent counsel of Gama- 
 liel. "We may well conceive the deep excitement, the pro- 
 found alarm, of the peaceful Church, when it was told from 
 house to house that the two chiefs of the apostolic company 
 had been shut up in the common jail, and the thrill of awe 
 that followed their mysterious deliverance. Yet the apostles, 
 full of inspired ardor, refused to obey the Sanhedrim. For 
 persecution they were prepared, and the example of their 
 Master was ever before them. Perhaps, in this hour of dan- 
 ger, they wandered to Golgotha and the Mount of Calvary, 
 recalled anew the awful scenery of the crucifixion, and saw 
 above them the tender countenance crowned with its circlet of 
 thorns. Perhaps they looked above the world to a glorified 
 reign in heaven, and longed to stand at the right hand of the 
 Saviour. But no terrors of persecution damped their ardor. 
 Their voices were still heard above the fanatical tumult of 
 Jerusalem, preaching in opposition to the rigid law the single 
 doctrine of faith in the crucified Lord. " Believe," they cri.ed 
 to Sadducee and Pharisee, " and thou shalt be saved."(') 
 
 (') So in Pastor Hernias, Visiou 4, c;ix>. i. : "A voice answered, 'Doubt 
 not, O Hermas !' "
 
 TEE MARTYR. ' 321 
 
 The next phase in the history of the Church was martyr- 
 dom.(') To Stephen, one of the seven ahnsgivers, belongs the 
 lirst place in that countless company who have died for the 
 faith in all the long centuries of persecution. Like Stephen, 
 the victims of many an auto-da-fe have seen heaven open 
 as they passed away ; like him, Huss and Jerome died with 
 songs of joy. He seems to have been one of the most gift- 
 ed of the early converts, and his vigorous eloquence aroused 
 the intense hatred of the Sadducees and the Sanhedrim. His 
 learning and a Greek education enabled him to dispute with 
 Saul of Tarsus and the Cilicians, with the Jew of Alexandria 
 and of Antioch. He made converts, no doubt, wdio carried 
 into the pagan capitals the new revelation. He grew bold 
 and vigorous in his assaults upon the Jewish law, and Sad- 
 ducee and Pharisee felt that their authority with the people 
 was passing away. They resolved to use violence in silencing 
 the eloquent reformer. A wild and angry crowd gathered 
 around the preacher ; the scribes and elders seized and drag- 
 ged him before the Great Council of Jerusalem, charging him 
 with having uttered blasphemy against the holy law.f) The 
 assembly met in one of the courts of the Temple, beneath the 
 shadow of the Holy House ; no j)rudent Gamaliel restrained 
 the fanaticism of its high-born and imperious members ; and 
 among the fiercest of the accusers of Stephen was the gift- 
 ed and yet unsanctified Paul. The trial of the first martyr 
 recalls the long series of similar scenes in the annals of his 
 successors. From the seats in the sacred hall looked down 
 upon their victim an array of jndges as bitter and as hostile 
 as those who condemned the gentle Huss at Constance, and 
 who sought the life of Luther at the Diet of Worms. The 
 charge of blasphemy was preferred ; the high-priest said, "Are 
 these things so V Then, like Luther at Worms, or Jerome at 
 Constance, Stephen broke forth in an impassioned argument 
 for the truth of Christianity. He reviewed the story of his 
 
 (1) Acta Martyrorum, BoUaudns, i., IG ct scq. The faucied tales of luar- 
 tjrdom at least agree iu their leading traits. 
 (^) Acts vi., vii. 
 
 21
 
 322 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 ancestral faith ; lie charged the haughty priests, the high-born 
 doctors, with having violated ever^- precept of the law. " AVliich 
 of the prophets," he cried, " did not yoiir fathers persecute, and 
 you have destroyed the Holy One ; you are the betrayers and 
 the murderers of the Son of God." 
 
 They gnashed on him with their teeth ; they were cut to 
 the heart. A tierce clamor probably arose in the crowded 
 council ; but Stephen, conscious of his doom, said, " I see the 
 heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right 
 hand of God." 
 
 A loud outcry arose ; they stopped their ears. AVith frantic 
 rage, they dragged Stephen out of tlie city walls and stoned 
 him to death. He called upon his Master ; he prayed, " Lay 
 not this sin to their charge," and then fell asleep.(') 
 
 This picture of the iirst martyrdom at Jerusalem, painted 
 by the skillful touch of Luke, was ever before the minds of 
 the early Christians, and animated them with a divine fervor. 
 They, too, longed, like Stephen, to see heaven open, to win 
 through the pains of martyrdom an immediate access to celes- 
 tial bliss. As persecution deepened around them, and to em- 
 brace the faith of Christ was become almost a certain pathway 
 to torture and to death, the ranks of the martyrs were filled 
 by countless willing victims, who sought instead of avoiding 
 the terrible doom. The apostles looked forward gladly to the 
 last great trial. James the Great and James the brother of 
 the Lord died, like Stephen, at Jerusalem.(') Peter and Paul 
 are said to have perished at Rome. Tradition awards a vio- 
 lent death to nearly all the apostles. St. John is said to have 
 been thrown into a vessel of boiling oil, to have passed through 
 the ordeal unharmed, and, like Enoch, to have been linally 
 translated. (') The gallant Ignatius, the disciple of St. John, 
 traveled cheerfully to Rome to be devoured by wild beasts, 
 and longed for the moment when he should be torn to pieces 
 by the teeth of the lions. He prayed that the wild beasts 
 might become his tomb.(') His friend, Polycarp, gave thanks 
 
 (') Actsvii.,GO. (^.)Eiisebius, H.E.. ii..23. C) Id. 
 
 C) Iguatius, Ep. to Eoiuaiis, c. v. .
 
 DISPERSION OF THE CHUECR. 323 
 
 when he was bound to the stake.(') The passion for martyr- 
 dom grew into a wild enthusiasm with the spread of persecu- 
 tion ; the Cliristians often besought the pagan judges to grant 
 them the priceless boon ;(") parents educated their children to 
 become martyrs, and then threw themselves in the way of 
 death ; martyrdom descended in families, and the child thought 
 himself an unworthy member of a saintly race did he not re- 
 ceive the crown of his ancestors ; and when the Papal Church 
 of the Middle Ages revived the pagan practice of persecution, 
 the gentle Yaudois among their mountains, or the Calvinists 
 of France and Holland, learned, from the example of the first 
 martyr of the Church of Jerusalem, to die without a tear. 
 
 A general dispersion of the Christians followed the death of 
 Stephen. The persecutors broke into their houses and dragged 
 them to prison. Jerusalem was filled with scenes of violence ; 
 the happy Church, so lately rejoicing in prosperity and prog- 
 ress, was dissolved ; the new converts fled, with their families, 
 to Cyprus, to Antioch, or Alexandria, and, wherever they wan- 
 dered, preached the Gospel to attentive hearers. Churches 
 were founded in splendid cities by the humble missionaries, 
 that afterward grew into metropolitan sees and haughty bish- 
 oprics. Antioch owed its conversion to this sudden dispersion. 
 It is not improbable that the Church of Rome may have been 
 founded by some fugitive from Jerusalem. But while their 
 people fled, preaching and baptizing in foreign lands, the 
 apostles, and James, their moderator, still remained in the 
 Holy City, resolved to maintain its pre-eminence as the centre 
 of the Church. 
 
 Yet from this period (30) the elder members of the Church 
 of Jerusalem are almost lost to history. Peter and John ap- 
 pear for a moment as missionaries to Samaria ; Peter converts 
 a Gentile, and confounds a magician ; after a long silence the 
 apostles re-appear at the council (50) ; they are then lost except 
 
 (») Eusebius, H. E., iv., 15. 
 
 C') The legends are often touching, often gross. Sec Bolland., i., 569. 
 So in i., 16, the virgin martyr gives thanks: " Gratias ago tibi, Domino 
 Dens, qui ancilhim tnam in perfectione tiue instituisti." The story of St. 
 Martina is I'eiiulsivc.
 
 324 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 ill tradition; and they live and die in almost impenetrable 
 obscurity. AYe must conclude, however, that they were seldom 
 long absent from Jerusalem. In the sacred city they would 
 find an audience of rare magnitude, ever changing with the 
 varying seasons ; and when the Temple was filled with its mot- 
 ley throng from foreign lands, they could spread the Gospel 
 with little labor. They enlarged and strengthened the Church 
 at Jerusalem ; they made missionary tours to Samaria, which 
 lay north of Judaea ; they, no doubt, often crossed over it to 
 their native Galilee, still fertile and prosperous, beyond; they 
 saw the well - known lake, and trod its peaceful shores. St. 
 John is said to have lived at Jerusalem with the Virgin Mary 
 until, in 48, she died ; and we may fancy that often the be- 
 loved disciple and the gentle Mother wandered away from 
 their fair house on Zion Hill(') to the fertile environs of the 
 city, gazed with chastened sorrow on Calvary, and paused un- 
 der the olive groves of Gethsemane ; that James the Just was 
 ever in the Temple at prayer, or visiting among the sick and 
 the poor ; that Jude, Simeon, and the other younger brethren 
 of the family of Christ had grown up to be useful members 
 of the vigorous Church. Persecution seems- to have in a 
 measure ceased. The Roman rulers probably restrained the 
 rage of the Sanhedrim. From Jerusalem, the centre of the 
 ever-expanding limits of Christianity, the apostles watched over 
 the various missionary stations in the pagan world, guided the 
 ardent laborers in the fertile field, heard with joy of the wide 
 success of the faith, and were won from their Jewish prejudices 
 when they were told of the piety and humility of the Gentiles. 
 One great name, eminent only in its lowliness, from this time 
 overshadows and controls the Church of Jerusalem. Fierce, 
 cruel, unsparing in his unsanctified state, Saul of Tarsus had 
 disputed with vehemence against the eloquent Stephen, had 
 consented to his death.Q Among the eager populace who 
 
 (') Nicepliorus, He. E., ii., 42, describes John's house as a fine cue. John 
 sold his estate in Galilee, according to the same writer, and bought the 
 house on Mount Zion. 
 
 (-) Conybeare and Howson, St. Paul ; Neaudcr, Planting of Christianitj-j 
 1.. p. 99 d scq.
 
 PAUL AT DAMASCUS. 325 
 
 watched the fate of the holy martyr none was more malevo- 
 lent than the Jew of Tarsus. He saw without a tear the woes 
 he had occasioned ; he heard without a sigh the tender words 
 of forgiveness ; an impenetrable veil hid from the world and 
 from himself those nobler qualities that were yet to shine 
 forth with surpassing lustre upon mankind. From the mur- 
 der of Stephen, Saul proceeded to new excesses. He became 
 the leader of that fierce persecution that broke out in Jerusa- 
 lem. He forced his way into the Christian homes of the Be- 
 zetha, or Mount Zion ; amidst the wail of women, the cry of 
 little children, he dragged fathers and mothers to their doom ; 
 he tilled the prisons with his victims. When sated with per- 
 secution at home, he hurried to Damascus, armed with letters 
 from the high-priest and the Sanhedrim, to strike down the 
 infant Church that had sprung up amidst the groves and gar- 
 dens and the glittering waters of the fairest city of the East. 
 The incarnation of the rigid law, of a Pharisaical formalism, 
 of a cruelty not surpassed by an Alva or a Bonner, Saul trav- 
 eled swiftly and sternly over the ancient road from Jerusalem 
 to Damascus, dead to the fair face of gentle nature around 
 him, to the beautiful and true in life, to the loveliness of virtue 
 and of faith. A pride like that of Hildebrand, a cruelty like 
 that of Innocent, a madness such as ever clouds the intellect 
 of ambitious priests and overbearing churchmen, impelled him 
 as he rushed like a maniac to the slaughter of the just. Sud- 
 denly a light came down from heaven ; a gentle voice, the har- 
 mony of infinite compassion, pierced his soul ; he groveled in 
 the dust ; he knew that of all sinners he was the chief. 
 
 Blind, he staggered on to Damascus. He was led by his 
 companions, more helpless than a child. He saw no more the 
 ever-blooming groves, the countless gardens, the radiant flow- 
 ers that strewed the banks of the Golden River, the rich ba- 
 zaars, the crowded streets, the stately pomp of the paradise of 
 cities. For three days he remained sightless. A miracle re- 
 stored him ; a presbyter of the Damascene Church received 
 the penitent to its society ; and he was forgiven by those 
 whom he had sought to destroy. But not l)y himself. Paul 
 fled from the luxurious landscape of Damascus to the wild and
 
 326 THE CHURCH OF JEEUSALEM. 
 
 inhospitable desert. He hid in tlie sands of Arabia for three 
 years.(') Amidst the herbless solitude, overhnng by rocks 
 and mountains ever seared with torrid heat, the burning wind 
 parceling his fevered brow, his food the scanty gleanings of 
 the desert, his dress that of the impoverished Bedouin, his only 
 companions the wild beast and the serpent,(^) the apostle per- 
 haps lived in his remorse. Ever before him, in his wild re- 
 treat, must have hovered the memory of his guilt ; of the gen- 
 tle Stephen, whose dying love had failed to touch his own 
 cruel heart ; of the weeping families he had tortured at Jeru- 
 salem ; of the fierce hatred he had borne for the Church of 
 Christ ; of the persecution he had instigated against his Lord. 
 A man of deep conscientiousness, of the purest impulses, now 
 that the veil of a cruel formalism had been torn away from 
 his mind, we can well imagine with what abject penitence the 
 once haughty persecutor prayed and fasted in the homeless 
 desert. Yet, happier in his desolation than his pride, he toil- 
 ed for forgiveness, purity, faith.(') In the Arabian solitude, in 
 the bitter struggle with remorseful woe, Paul was prepared for 
 that fierce combat he was destined to wage with every dom- 
 inant formalism, with the high-priest at Jerusalem or the im- 
 perial Pontifex of Eome.(*) 
 
 Paul was born probably in the second or third year after 
 the Saviour's birth. He may have been thirty-five years old 
 at the time of his flight to Arabia. His youth was passed in 
 his native city. Tarsus, in Cilicia, one of those brilliant centres 
 of artistic taste and literary excellence that covered the pros- 
 perous East, and the young Jew was, no doubt, highly cultiva- 
 ted in its libraries and its lecture-rooms ; his avid mind gath- 
 
 (') The model of later aucborites. Hieron., Ep. 18, 43 : " Anachoretae qui 
 soli liabitant per deserta." 
 
 (') Hierou., Ep. 18, 30: "Scorpionnm tantum socius et ferarum." Je- 
 rome is describing tbe Syrian deserts. 
 
 (') See Galatians i., 17. 
 
 (*) Renau's painful picture of the great apostle is altogether unhistoric- 
 al; it is not the character painted by bis contemporaries. See Renan, 
 St. Paul. He impiites to liira want of heart, bitterness, intentional deceit. 
 See ch, xix.
 
 PAUL THE FEESECUTOB. 327 
 
 ered knowledge eagerly from every source. He was small 
 and plain in appearance ; his health always infirm ; his voice 
 sharp and tuneless ; his intellect ever active. From Tarsus he 
 had come up to Jerusalem to study the sacred law under Ga- 
 maliel, the most eminent of its professors, and at his house 
 probably became acquainted with many young men of the 
 priestly families who afterward sat with him on the bench- 
 es of the Sanhedrim, or joined in his condemnation. Every 
 young Jew was taught a trade, and was expected to provide 
 for his own support ; Paul, during his studies, labored as a 
 tent-maker, or perhaps a sail-maker, and from the coarse hair 
 of the Cilician goat wove cloths for mariners and travelers. 
 He was always industrious, and, having in his youth been 
 preserved by labor from immoral tastes, enforced the duty of 
 self-support upon his converts. He was a rigid formalist ; the 
 high-priest was to him almost a mortal god ; the services of 
 the Temple the only source of salvation ; the smoking offering, 
 the daily prayers, the fasts and feasts of the Jewish law, the 
 direct appointment of the Almighty. With horror, therefore, 
 the rigid Pliarisee beheld the daring innovations of the Chris- 
 tians; with inexpressible rage he listened to the arguments of 
 Stephen. By nature he was fierce and ardent; he was a de- 
 scendant of that savage Semitic race who had so often stoned 
 the prophets — whose relatives, the Phoenician and the Cartha- 
 ginian, forced mothers to throw their smiling babes into the 
 blazing caldrons of Moloch, and who delighted in human sacri- 
 fices. Paul's fierce fanaticism found a real joy in persecution. 
 But in a moment the savage was converted into the tender, 
 gentle saint. From the wild sands of Arabia, after his long 
 and painful probation, Paul returned to Damascus a preach- 
 er of the Gospel. He spoke w^ith a natural fervor that won 
 many hearts. Often scourged by Roman and Jew, in prison 
 or at the verge of death, he welcomed persecution with joy, 
 and was ever eager to wear the crown of martyrdom. He 
 escaped from Damascus, and about the year 43(') prepared to 
 return to Jerusalem to seek the friendship and support of the 
 
 (') The exact date cau uot be fixed.
 
 328 TEE CHUECH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 Christian Cliiirch. Once more lie approached the Holy City, 
 and saw before him the magnificent Temple, the centre of his 
 early adoration, glittering in the sunlight on Mount Moriah ; 
 the hill of Zion covered with its palaces; the busy suburbs 
 filled with the assemblies of the faithful. But for him all was 
 changed. Shame and contrition probably weighed him down 
 as he entered the scene of his former cruelties ; and he scarce- 
 ly complained when the Christian Church at first shrunk from 
 him in doubt and terror. How could they see in this man of 
 cruelty and blood the great teacher of gentleness and mercy, 
 whose inspired thoughts should pierce the hearts of the Gen- 
 tiles, wdiose ceaseless toil was to found a Church that should 
 live forever ? At last, in his humility and his contrition, Paul 
 w^as made known to James and Peter, and lived in the house 
 of the latter for fifteen days. Again he began to dispute in 
 public, but a higher faith was now his only theme. All the 
 vigor of his intellect, all the resources of his learning, were 
 lavished in his controversies with the Jews of his native Ci- 
 licia or of the Grecian lands. He was a new Stephen, teach- 
 ing the religion of the heart. 
 
 Driven from Jerusalem by the rage of his enemies, he be- 
 gan that wonderful series of missionary labors that fulfilled in 
 the highest degree the commands of the Master, that carried 
 the name of Christ to the chief capitals of heathendom, and 
 whose example has ever inspired the humble emulation of his 
 modern imitators, who have penetrated with their glad tidings 
 the savage shores of Greenland, the jungles of India, the isl- 
 ands of the Pacific. He was the leader of the great mental 
 revolution whose centre was the Holy City.(') For twenty- 
 five years the apostle wandered from land to land, maintained 
 chiefly by his own labors, and inculcating by his example the 
 dignity of honest toil. His intellect, ever active and vivid, 
 was only strengthened by time ; his feeble frame, often borne 
 
 (') St. Paul's freedom from Jewish prejudice is reflected in all the apos- 
 tolic fathers. The Epistle of Baruabas is a protest agaiust Judaism, c. iii., 
 iv. So in the Epistle to Diognetus, c. iv., the formal scrupulousuesa of the 
 Jev.'s is pronouuced ridiculous.
 
 DEATH OF JAMES. 329 
 
 down by disease, was sustained by a miraculous vigor; his 
 joyous spirit, glad in its release from bondage, carried hope to 
 the infant churches ; his inspired eloquence pierced with dead- 
 ly wounds the sensual formalism of the age. 
 
 An irreparable sorrow fell upon the apostolic company soon 
 after St. Paul had left the city. For several years the Church 
 had rested in peace. But now James the Elder, the first ap- 
 ostolic martyr, died by the commands of a royal persecutor. 
 Agrippa I., the grandson of Herod the Great, and the friend 
 from childhood of the Emperor Caligula, was the last king 
 that sat upon the throne of David. He had inherited the 
 vices and the cruelty of his grandfather ; he was a worthy as- 
 sociate of the infamous son of Germanicus ; yet his descent 
 from the priestly race of the Asmoneans gave him an heredi- 
 tary claim to the loyalty of the Jews, and he was eager to win 
 their favor. In the last year of his life and reign he began a 
 severe persecution of the Christians. To all the multitude that 
 trod the prosperous streets of Jerusalem the forms and feat- 
 ures of the apostolic band must have been familiar, and the 
 fame of their holy lives had reached the corrupt circles of the 
 palace on the hill of Zion. To gratify the Jews, xVgrippa re- 
 solved to destroy them all. He selected for his first victim 
 the bold and active James, brother of John, and one of the 
 best beloved of the disciples. James was beheaded. Tradi- 
 tion relates that on his way to execution his chief accuser, 
 stung by remorse, begged his forgiveness. The apostle kissed 
 the repentant enemy, and said, " Peace be with thee." But 
 the enraged Jews, unsoftened by the spectacle, put to death 
 the accuser with the accused. (') Peter was arrested and 
 thrown into prison, but was miraculously set free, and escaped 
 from the city. A dreadful doom hung over all the apostles, 
 when suddenly Agrippa died in horrible torments.(') The 
 kingdom of David and Solomon perished with their corrupt 
 successor, and from this time (-i-i) until its destruction Jerusa- 
 lem was governed by officials sent from Pome. 
 
 (') Eusebius, H. E., ii.,9, from Clem. Alex. 
 (*) According to Gieseler, he died August 6th.
 
 330 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 Paul soon after returned to the Holy City. A famine 
 raged in Judita ; the poor starved, and the Christian Church, 
 impoverished by its liberality, must have suffered with the 
 people. The Cliristians of Antioch and the other distant 
 churches sent aid to their brethren in Jerusalem, and Paul 
 was at the head of a delegation of the alms-bearers. He re- 
 mained but a short time. The city was no safe place for the 
 ardent missionary ; while far before him he saw that bound- 
 less field of labor, the splendid cities of Asia Minor, of Syria, 
 of Greece and Rome, toward which he was impelled by a 
 heavenly call. He could not, like Peter and James, remain at 
 rest in Jerusalem. He wept over the blindness of the heathen. 
 
 At Antioch Paul made his first missionary station ; at An- 
 tioch the disciples were first called Christians.(') In almost 
 all the cities of the Eoman world large colonies of Jews were 
 established, and with their usual industry and thrift had made 
 themselves powerful and wealthy. Cultivated and softened 
 by Greek civilization, the Hellenized Jews fell easy converts 
 to the inspired eloquence of the apostle. The Church at A.n- 
 tioch, the oldest next to that of Jerusalem, flourished with 
 singular vigor. From Antioch, attended by the chief presby- 
 ters of the Church, Paul set out on his first missio.nary jour- 
 ney ; he passed through Cj^^rus, Pisidia, Lystra ; he preached 
 in the synagogues to great numbers of Jews and Gentiles ; in 
 Lystra he healed a crijjple, and the savage people, struck with 
 wonder, believed that the gods were once more descended 
 among them. Barnabas, tall and commanding in appearance, 
 they supposed to be Jupiter. Paul, small, insignificant, but 
 ever eloquent, was Mercury ; and the simple people, full of 
 awe, summoned their priests, prepared oxen for sacrifice, and 
 would have made prayers and libations to the divine strangers. 
 Paul and Barnabas rent their clothes in anguish : " We are 
 but men !" they cried out to the by-standers ;f) and Paul, in 
 impassioned eloquence, preached to them the risen Lord. 
 
 ' (') Barouius, as usnal, -would make Peter fouud the Church at Antioch 
 (Auu. Ecc, i., 327) ; but when ? 
 
 (^) The conduct of Paul should check the siiirltual pride of modern priests.
 
 THE FIRST COUNCIL. 331 
 
 Meantime in Jerusalem the wonderful success of the apos- 
 tle had fixed the attention of the Church. They saw with as- 
 tonishment the conversion of the Gentiles ; they still doubted 
 if there could be salvation out of the Mosaic law. James and 
 Peter were startled at the liberality of Paul ; they trembled 
 lest he had departed f i-om the faith ; they resolved to hold a 
 general assembly of the Church, to decide, under the guidance 
 of inspiration, the future rule of belief, Paul and his fellow- 
 missionaries had determined that circumcision and an observ- 
 ance of the Jewish rites should not be enforced upon his Gen- 
 tile converts. James and the other apostles thought their doc- 
 trine heretical ; " false brethren," as St. Paul relates, had stim- 
 ulated and imbittered the controversy. To restore the rule of 
 Christian harmony, the infant Church assembled in the year 
 50 at Jerusalem. 
 
 The first council forms an instructive contrast to the lone; 
 line of its mediseval and corrupt successors. An apostolic 
 grace hung over all its proceedings.(') There was no claim of 
 infallibility on the part of Peter and his associates ; no threat 
 of violence and persecution ; no trace of priestly ambition or 
 of spiritual pride. James the Just presided as the represent- 
 ative of the family of Christ. Around him were gathered 
 John, ever gentle ; Peter, full of love and hope ; Andrew, 
 the first-born of the apostles. One vacant place must have 
 touched the hearts of all the sacred company. They looked 
 in vain for the well-beloved form of the martyr James. The 
 council met in some plain house in the city, and the whole 
 Church, of all degrees, took part in its proceedings. The 
 apostle claimed no greater authority than the simplest lay- 
 man, and every question was decided by a common suffrage.(^) 
 Each Christian was the member of a holy priesthood, and was 
 subject only to the Puler of the skies. From the Council of 
 Jerusalem to the Council of Constance, of Trent, or of Rome, 
 
 (') Pressens^, Hist. Trois. Sifec, has given a clear account of the apostolic 
 age, i., p. 459 et seq. See Schaffer, Hist. Ap. Church, p. 254, for the council. 
 
 (') For the purity and simplicity of the apostolic faith and usages con- 
 sult the Apostolic Fathers. Migue's edition may be used with discretion.
 
 332 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 tlie eje turns with singular interest. In the last — the council 
 of our own day — beneath the pomp of St. Peter's, the glare 
 of dull-eyed images, the glitter of gaudy idols, the peal of pa- 
 gan sounds and rites, a throng of bishops and an infallible 
 Pope meet to legislate for Christianity. But should some fol- 
 lower of St. Paul presume to assert the rights of conscience 
 and of private judgment before the modern sanhedrim, like 
 the apostle, he would, perhaps, be smitten on the face by some 
 despotic priest ; with apostolic indignation he might exclaim, 
 " Thou wliited sepulchre !" In the modern council freedom 
 of debate is forbidden, and religious despotism enforced by 
 the papal rifles. At Trent a still sterner tyranny prevailed. 
 Luther and Calvin, the spiritual descendants of St. Paul, 
 shrunk in aversion and terror from the unscrupulous assem- 
 bly. At Constance the contrast deepens into tragic interest 
 when, amidst mail-clad princes and mitred priests, its holy 
 martyrs, the defenders of mental freedom, are burned to ashes 
 beside the rapid Ehine. 
 
 Bat no temporal chief or spiritual despot controlled the as- 
 sembly of the saints at Jerusalem ; no gay-robed procession 
 of imperious bishops swept into the modest chamber. Paul, 
 covered with the dust of travel, clad in the coarse garb of per- 
 petual poverty, came up to speak words of inspired wisdom to 
 his brethren. The gentle Christians, no doubt, listened with 
 eager joy to his earnest elocpience. The narrow room over- 
 flowed with the number of the faithful. The strict nile of 
 the Mosaic law was swept away by a unanimous decision, and 
 Paul set out once more on his mission to the heathen, the 
 teacher of harmony, union, and a common faith.(') 
 
 Ever with the great labors of the apostle is associated the 
 venerable name of Ephesus, the chief of the apocalyptic 
 Churches. The traveler who approaches the site of the fa- 
 mous city,^) on the shore of Asia Minor, sees only a wide mo- 
 rass, a few huts and hovels, and various huge mounds of buried 
 
 (') Scliaif., Hist. Ap. Churcli, p. 255. Some restrictions were retained, 
 but soon forgotten. 
 
 (^) Arundell, Seven Churches, p. 4-24.
 
 EPHESVS. 333 
 
 ruins rising beyond. Yet the name of Paul still keeps alive 
 the memory of the lost metropolis, once more splendid than 
 any Europe boasts. One mound is called his j)rison ; anoth- 
 er the theatre where the clamorous Ephesians demanded his 
 death ; another the Temple of Diana. Of all the ancient 
 shrines the most gorgeous and the most reno^vned was that 
 of the virgin goddess, the bright, prolific moon of the tropic 
 East.(') All Asia had united in lavishing its vrealth on the 
 marvelous Temple ; the ladies of Ephesus had given their jew- 
 els to restore its splendors, and each of its columns of precious 
 stone or marble was the gift of a king. Amidst its flowery 
 groves, fed by perpetual springs, the fair fabric arose, the 
 largest and most costly work of the ancient architects. Its col- 
 onnade was more than four hundred feet long and two hundred 
 wide, and each Ionic column was sixty feet high. Statues by 
 Praxiteles, pictures by Apelles, and countless works of art em- 
 bellished its labyrinth of halls. In the interior a rude wooden 
 statue of Diana, venerable in its simplicity, and which was be- 
 lieved to have fallen from the skies, was hidden amidst a blaze 
 of precious stones. A train of effeminate priests and virgin 
 priestesses lived within the sacred precincts, swept in gorgeous 
 processions through the noble porticoes, and celebrated the 
 worship of the guardian deity of Ephesus. The high-priest of 
 Diana was the chief person in the city ; and little images of 
 the deity, of silver or gold, were manufactured by the jewelers 
 of Ephesus, and sold in great numbers to her devout worship- 
 ers throughout the East. In the month of May, when spring 
 had sown the fertile land with flowers, all Asia gathered with- 
 in the sacred city, and celebrated with games and sports the 
 annual festival of the goddess. 
 
 On one of these occasions Paul preached in Ephesus. Al- 
 ready his name was renowned in the East ; he was looked upon 
 with alarm and hatred by priest and worshiper. A wild tu- 
 
 (*) The Ephesiau Artemis can scarcely be disconnected from moon wor- 
 ship. Yet see Welcker, Griech. Gotterlehre, i., p. 562. She was the symbol 
 of productiveness. Eckenuanu, Rel. G., ii., 67. " Der Cult der Ephesischeu 
 Artemis eudlich ist ungriechischer."'
 
 334: THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 mult arose, and the artisans of Ephesiis called out for his death. 
 He was accused of having preached against graven images, 
 of having insulted the majesty of Diana. The people rushed 
 in a great crowd to their magnificent theatre, now one of the 
 mounds that disfigure the silent shore, and shouted with in- 
 cessant zeal, " Great is Diana of Ephesus !" Paul's fate seemed 
 certain ; he hid in a private house ; the tumult was quieted by 
 a prudent magistrate ; the apostle escaped. But his voice had 
 pierced the splendid ritual of Diana with mortal wounds. A 
 prosperous church arose at Ephesus ; the pagan worship passed 
 slowly away ; the graven images he had condemned were laid 
 aside for a purer faith ; the famous Temple sunk into ruins, 
 and in later ages its jasper columns were ravished away to 
 adorn the Christian churches built by Constantino. In the 
 devout city of Ephesus St. John is said to have passed his old 
 age,Q and a graceful tradition relates that when grown too 
 infirm to preach, he would be carried to the assembly of the 
 faithful, and repeat the words, " Little children, love one an- 
 other." 
 
 Swiftly the great apostle passed from city to city, filling the 
 world with the tumult of a radical reform.(^) The labors of 
 Luther, of "Wesley, of Whitefield but faintly represent the in- 
 cessant achievements of the last ten years of his life. At Co- 
 lossse, at Philippi or Corinth, he founded churches in the centre 
 of rigid paganism, and planted the conception of ideal virtue 
 in the corrupt soil of classic civilization. But it was at Athens 
 that the eloquence of St. Paul must have gathered around 
 him the most gifted of his audiences. The city had changed 
 but little in appearance since Socrates had taught in its public 
 square, or Demostlienes roused the dying patriotism of its peo- 
 ple — since Atticus had made it his mental home, or Cicero 
 studied in its schools. Still, on the Acropolis, the lovely tem- 
 ple of Pallas rose in the clear sunlight almost as perfect as in 
 the moment of its completion. The gardens and groves of 
 
 (') Eusebius, iii., 31. The history of Eusebins is a store-house of legends. 
 (-) Eusebius, iii., 3. Luke composed the Acts from what he saw bim- 
 self.
 
 ATHENS. 335 
 
 Plato and Aristotle were yet trodden by their disciples. The 
 statues of the greatest of sculptors, the pictures of the most 
 tasteful of painters, the most delicate conceptions of the ar- 
 chitect, and the fair landscape of its unsullied sea, made Athens 
 still the centre of the beautiful ; and its schools of thought 
 yet lingered fondly over the ballads of Homer, the wild crea- 
 tions of ^Eschylus, and the gentle philosophy of Plato. St. 
 Paul had no doubt studied Greek literature in his native Tar- 
 sus, and could scarcely have entered its ancient seat without a 
 thrill of admiration. 
 
 The people of Athens were still chiefly philosophers or stu- 
 dents. . For two centuries it had been an academic city, the 
 university of the world. They gathered eagerly around the 
 wonderful Jew. His fame had no doubt reached the Agora, 
 and the Athenians must have known that from him they need 
 look for no dull declamation, no trite philosophy. They re- 
 ceived him with respect, as he spoke, like Socrates, in the pub- 
 lic streets; they listened with interest, and invited him to ad- 
 dress them from the Hill of Mars. On some fair day of the 
 Attic autumn, when the grasshoppers chirped languidly be- 
 neath the gray and dusty olive, and when the herbage was em- 
 browned in the gardens of Academe, the people of Athens 
 gathered in the open air, around the stone pulpic of the ven- 
 erable hill. There for ages had sat the Areopagus — the su- 
 preme tribunal of the State. There the most eminent citizens 
 of Athens had formed the most respectable of human courts ; 
 there a long succession of important causes had awaited the 
 decisions of dignified judges ; and there the philosophers and 
 students of Athens assembled to hear, for the first time, the 
 higher eloquence of inspiration. Small, plain, wasted with 
 toil and sickness, with sufferings and endless persecution, his 
 voice feeble, his enunciation marred by the Semitic accent, 
 Paul yet enchained the attention of his hearers. His Jewish 
 face and figure could scarcely have pleased the lovers of the 
 beautiful ; his shrill intonation must have shocked their crit- 
 ical ears. But the acute Athenians may have seen in his jJain 
 aspect something fairer than any exterior grace. From his 
 eyes beamed the perfection of moral purity ; in his counte-
 
 336 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 nance shone that perfect honesty and manly self-control which 
 Plato had faintly described. He spoke of the unknown God, 
 now for the first time revealed, of the common brotherhood 
 of man, of the resurrection and a Messiah. "We have but a 
 slight abstract of his speech, yet we can readily imagine that 
 a solemn awe rested on the vast assembly as the temple-clad 
 hills above and the city below echoed for the first time with 
 the name of the Omnipresent, and philosophers and students, 
 stoics and epicureans, heard with astonishment a wisdom above 
 that of Plato and Aristotle. 
 
 The Church of Athens sprung up at the touch of Paul. It 
 was formed, no doubt, on the plan of that of Jerusalem. It 
 had its presbyters and deacons, its modest rites, its simple 
 faith. Its chief elder was afterward called a bishop, and tradi- 
 tion relates that Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, who 
 had been converted by the sermon on Mars Hill, was its first 
 presideut.(') We have scarcely space to follow the wonderful 
 career of St. Paul. At length old age approached him, and 
 he anticipated without alarm a martyr's doom. He had al- 
 ways longed to preach at Eome and in the farthest "West : he 
 was not to be disappointed. Once more he sailed along the 
 coasts of Asia Minor, visiting the churches. At Miletus he 
 delivered his farewell sermon to the assembled faithful ; he 
 left them kneeling and praying on the shore. He had told 
 them they were to see his face no more. He reached Jerusa- 
 lem about the year 58, and was received with friendly greet- 
 ing by James the Just and the other elders ; he told, with his 
 usual vigor, the story of his missionary labors. 
 
 But Jerusalem was now fast preparing its own destruction. 
 An insane hatred against the Pomans, a hopeless longing for 
 freedom, a wild rage against the tolerant Christians, filled the 
 vast multitude that came up to the Temple to pray.f) Had 
 the Jews yielded to the mild persuasion of James the Just or 
 the liberal spirit of St. Paul, Jerusalem might have escaped its 
 awful fate, and have survived through centuries as the head 
 
 OEuscbius, H.E., iv.,23. 
 
 (-) Couybeare aud Howsou, St. Paul, ii., p. 244.
 
 PAUL AT JERUSALEM. 337 
 
 of the Christian Church. Its people, however, were mad with 
 religious frenzy. The zealots controlled the nation ; the Ro- 
 mans felt that they were hated, and retaliated by a cruel op- 
 pression ; and the Christians at least foresaw that the dreadful 
 day foretold by the Master was near. In this period of wild 
 fanaticism among his countrymen, Paul, too conspicuous to be 
 neglected, in vain endeavored, by the advice of James, to dis- 
 arm their rage by conforming to the full requirements of the 
 law. It was too late. His name was abhorred by every fa- 
 natic, by almost every Jew. In the Pentecostal festival, when 
 the Temple was filled with strangers from Ephesus and Asia, 
 he ventured within the sacred courts. He was set upon by a . 
 ferocious mob. Feeble w^tli age and suffering, he was beat- 
 en and tossed about, and the people dragged him beyond the 
 Temple walls to put him to death. 
 
 North of the Temple, and joined to it by a bridge or stairs, 
 stood the Castle of Antonia, now filled with a Eoman garrison. 
 From its turrets the sentinels kept watch over the excited 
 worshipers below them in the sacred courts, and carefully ob- 
 served their conduct. The Komans saw Paul struggling in 
 the throng, and a band of soldiers sprung down the stairway 
 into the Temple court to save him from their rage. They 
 dragged him up the stairs ; he was safe. Yet, in the fierce 
 excitement of this perilous moment, the apostle still hoped to 
 soften and preserve his countrymen. lie said to the Roman 
 commander, " May I speak ?" He obtained permission, and 
 then turned to the Jews below. He waved his hand, and sud- 
 denly the angry people grew still. The spectacle of that last 
 appeal to Jerusalem still stirs the fancy more than the high- 
 est efforts of Cicero or Gracchus. Paul stood on an elevation 
 looking down into the Temple court.(') Above him glittered 
 the Holy House so soon to pass away. Before him shone the 
 hill of Zion ; below, the proud and prosperous city ; silent at 
 his feet hung the multitude from whose rage he had just 
 escaped, bruised, beaten, and forlorn, whose coming doom he 
 foresaw, whom he strove in vain to save. His clear voice 
 
 (') Couybeare and Howsou, ii., ji. 255. 
 
 99
 
 338 THE CHVRCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 rang out in his own melodious tongue through the Temple 
 and the castle, as he recounted his conversion, his penitence, 
 and hope. The Jews listened; perhaps some believed. But 
 when he spoke of the mission to the Gentiles, of toleration for 
 their oppressors, the hate of the fanatical nation broke forth 
 in a terrible clamor. They cried out that he was a wretch 
 unlit to live — that he polluted the earth ; in their rage, they 
 tore their garments and threw dust upon their heads. The 
 Roman commander, Lysias, was now convinced that Paul had 
 committed some dreadful crime, and ordered him to be carried 
 to the castle and put to torture. He was hurried to a dun- 
 geon ; the instruments of torture were brought, when the 
 apostle declared himself a Roman citizen. He was saved.(') 
 
 After the day of hori'ors he probably slept in the castle. 
 He lay surrounded by the coarse soldiers, yet less cruel than 
 his countrymen. The next day Lysias sent him under a 
 guard before the Sanhedrim ; and in the hall of Gazith, with- 
 in the Temple, where he had himself sat twenty-five years be- 
 fore to condemn Stephen, Paul ventured to defend his own 
 career of penitence.(^) Rage tilled the hearts of the insane 
 council ; the higli-priest, Ananias, ordered him to be smitten 
 in the face. Yet the apostle spoke with vigor, and even won 
 the favor of a part of liis judges. The council-room was tilled 
 with an angry multitude, and the Roman commander sent a 
 guard to bring Paul back to the castle. In the night Paul's 
 nephew, his sister's son, heard that a band of forty Jews had 
 sworn to assassinate his uncle. They belonged probably to the 
 party of the zealots, and had gained the assent of the Sanhe- 
 drim, the highest court in the cit}', to tlieir horrible design. 
 Paul told the Romans of his danger. In the night he was 
 sent secretly out of the city, under a strong guard, to Csesarea. 
 Swiftly the well - trained soldiers, with their weary charge, 
 swept over the road to the distant town, rousing the sleeping 
 peasant by their steady march, and followed by the curses of 
 the subject Jew. They passed the hills of Ephraim, the fields 
 
 (') Conybeare aiul Howsoii, ii., p. 259. 
 
 (*) lie addressed tbem as equals — " Meu and brothers."
 
 C^SAREA. 339 
 
 of Sharon glowing with a bountiful harvest, the mountains of 
 Samaria, The foot - soldiers w^ent only part of the way ; the 
 cavalry pressed on, and in the bright afternoon of the Jewish 
 summer rode into Csesarea.C) 
 
 It was the sea-port of Judsea, the seat of the Roman gov- 
 ernor, a city adorned by Herod the Great with all the reline- 
 ments of Roman taste. Its port was a basin of stone -work 
 of singular beauty. Its temples and theatres, its palaces and 
 gardens, were modeled upon those of Rome. Its name was 
 a compliment to the Csesars. Up to its low shores rolled the 
 blue Mediterranean, bearing the wares and the shijDS of Italy 
 to the land of David ; yet, later, to bring them tilled with 
 arms. To-day the wild bushes grow over the site of the pal- 
 aces where Herod, the two Agrippas, Felix, and Festus held 
 their revelry ;Q where the frail Berenice won or enchained 
 the heart of Titus ;(^) over the fragments of temples and the 
 sunken stone-work of the ancient walls. Yet Caesarea is hal- 
 lowed by the foot-prints of St. Paul. Above its lonely w^aste 
 one sacred figure still seems to hover perpetually ; from its 
 solemn ruin one voice is forever heard. Here for two years 
 Paul was held a prisoner. Here, soon after his arrival, he was 
 brought before Felix to be judged. The most infamous of 
 men, according to Tacitus, cruel, vicious, treacherous,(^) sat in 
 judgment upon him wdio was to be the herald of purity to 
 mankind. Paul's accusers, the Jewish priests, full of that 
 bitter hate toward him wdiich seems to have risen to insani- 
 ty, hastened from Jerusalem to Ciesarea to give testimony to 
 his guilt. There, in the judgment-hall, stood the tierce high- 
 priest, Ananias, the chief members of the Sanhedrim, and a 
 hired advocate employed to convict Paul of treason against 
 Rome. Amidst his tierce accusers, before the terrible judge, 
 
 (') It was the Pentecostal season, iu July. Caisarea was about sixty 
 miles from Jerusalem. 
 
 C') Pococke, Travels in the East. 
 
 (') They met first at Csesarea Philippi ; yet Titus must often have been 
 detained at the sea-port. 
 
 C) Tacitus, Hist., v., 9. Suetonius, Claud., 28, calls him " Trium regiua- 
 rum maritus."
 
 340 THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 the wayworn, aged apostle spoke with his usual fire ; the judge 
 hesitated ; the decision was postponed ; the high-priest and his 
 followers went back, disappointed, to Jerusalem. Again, at 
 C^esarea, Paul was brought before Felix and his wife, Drusilla ; 
 and now, at the sound of his rapt voice, Felix trembled. Two 
 years passed away. Often, followed by his guard, the apostle 
 probably wandered along the sandy beach of Csesarea, and 
 gazed with a martyr's hope upon the sea that was to be his 
 pathway to Rome and death. At length Felix was removed 
 from office. Festus was now governor, and, with strange per- 
 sistence, the fanatic Jews urged him to destroy Paul. They 
 hoped to assassinate him within the Holy City ; but Festus 
 refused to allow the prisoner to be taken back to Jerusalem. 
 He summoned Paul before him, and again at Cajsarea the tri- 
 al was renewed ; again the implacable priests came to prove 
 Paul worthy of death ; again they were disappointed. " I aj)- 
 peal," cried the apostle, '' to Csesar." He must now be sent to 
 Rome to be tried by Nero in person. Yet before he went, at 
 Csesarea, in the audience-chamber of some magnificent palace, 
 whose ruin now lies undistinguished on that desolate plain, 
 King Agrippa II., then a 3"0ung man of twenty-six, his sister 
 Berenice, beautiful as frail, and the generous Festus, called be- 
 fore them the famous missionary, and listened patiently to his 
 wonderful theme. He was chained to a soldier. He could 
 stretch out only one of his hands. Yet the youthful king, the 
 fair, unhappy princess, the friendly governor, heard perhaps 
 with solemn awe, perhaps with pretended levity, the divine 
 message. Once Festus interrupted him. Once Agrippa said, 
 " Thou wilt soon persuade me to be a Christian." Then they 
 separated and passed away. The dissolute king, the voluptu- 
 ous woman, to despair and death ; the eloquent old man to the 
 priceless joys of martyrdom. Thus Cnesarea and its princely 
 state revive with the memory of Paul. 
 
 Next the apostle is seen on the deck of a huge Alexandrian 
 corn vessel, guarded by Roman soldiers, passing slowly along 
 the southern coast of Crete on the way to Rome.f ) That the 
 
 (■-) Couybeare and Howsou describe at large the famous voyage, oh. xxiii.
 
 PAUL IN THE STORM. - 341 
 
 ship was very large is shown from the circumstance that two 
 hundred and sixty-seven persons, besides a heavy cargo, found 
 shelter within it.(') Like all ancient vessels, it was badly con- 
 structed, and in moments of danger was strengthened by ropes 
 passed around the keel. It had two rudders; its course was 
 very slow. The wind at first was uncertain ; the ship reached 
 the port of the Fair Havens safely, and here Paul advised the 
 captain to stay ; but the wind was now favorable, and the sail- 
 or drifted on before it. Then suddenly broke upon the un- 
 manageable ship a fierce storm from the mountains, driving 
 her toward the African shore. It was one of the hurricanes 
 of the Mediterranean. The waves rose high ; the sky was 
 covered with a perpetual night ; torrents of rain fell inces- 
 santly ; the wind drove the struggling vessel from its course. 
 For fourteen days the Euroclydon held the great corn ship in 
 its grasp. She sprung a leak ; was rapidly filling with water; 
 despair ruled on board ; and Romans and Egyptians, officers 
 and crew, assembled on the deck, looking for instant death. 
 But Paul alone, with cheerful countenance, watched the angry 
 skies, the raging seas, and said to his fellow-passengers, " Be 
 of good cheer ; you are safe." Next, in the lull of the tem- 
 pest, was heard the roar of distant breakers — the ominous 
 sound of land. Paul in the moment of peril almost held com- 
 mand of the ship ; he pressed the terrified passengers and crew 
 to take food to sustain their strength ; he ordered the boat 
 to be cut adrift ; the cargo was thrown overboard ; the ship 
 struck with a violent shock on an unknown coast, and broke 
 to pieces. It was a lonely part of the island of Malta. Float- 
 ing on portions of the wreck, or swimming through the surf, 
 the whole ship's crew escaped, as Paul had foretold. Roman 
 and Egyptian, bond and free, perhaps, gathered around the 
 apostle as he knelt on the desolate coast and gave thanks to 
 Heaven. 
 
 Of the later career of St. Paul we have little room to speak.(') 
 He became the connecting link between the Church of Jeru- 
 
 (') Penrose estimated the ship's hurdeD at five hundred tons. 
 (') Conybearo and Howson may be consulted, chh. xxv., sxvii.
 
 3:1:2 THE CHUECH OF JEHUS ALEM. 
 
 salem cand the early Church of Eome. lie impressed upon 
 liis first converts his own honesty and simplicity. The Church 
 of Rome owed at least its chief vigor to the preaching of the 
 saint. His disciples, Linus and Clement, became its first pres- 
 byters, or bishops ; and the epistle of the latter to the Corin- 
 thians is full of the liberality and humility of Paul.(') From 
 Jerusalem to Eome Paul bore only the simplicity of the faith. 
 Yet history throws but a feeble light on the last days of the 
 apostle. At Rome he lived a prisoner in his own hired house ; 
 he preached and wrote incessantly, in his own handwriting, his 
 letters and exhortations. He was probably tried again. He 
 stood before Nero, the Pontifex Maximus of the ancient faith, 
 in the imperial court ; again one of the most wicked of man- 
 kind sat in judgment upon the most innocent ; again St. Paul 
 must have spoken — must have been set free. From this time 
 nothing is known of his career ; yet tradition relates that he 
 preached in the fair cities of Spain, was perhaps permitted to 
 revisit his infant churches in Greece, and then returned again 
 to become a martyr at Rome. Far out on the Ostian Way, 
 in a desolate country, once clothed with groves and gardens, 
 a magnificent church, crusted with marble and costly stones, 
 rich in painting and mosaic — a miracle of useless wastefulness 
 and splendor — arises on the spot where tradition indicates that 
 the Roman lictors beheaded St. Paul.Q His boundless suffer- 
 ings and toils, his manly energy, his ceaseless hope, his joyous 
 trustfulness, and his supernatural powers, have made him the 
 most eminent of the apostles. 
 
 With the labors of St. Paul at Rome is connected the most 
 important or the most insignificant of historical questions :Q 
 Was St. Peter his coadjutor? was Peter ever at Rome? To 
 the Protestant the question is of- little consequence ; to the de- 
 fenders of an infallible papacy it is the most momentous of 
 
 (')Eusebins, H.E., iii., 4. 
 
 (') Merivale, H. R., v., p. 276 et seq., and Gibbon, o. xvi., doubt the martyr- 
 dom of Paul and the persecution of the Christians under Nero. 
 
 (') The literature of this question is, of course, immense, from Spanheim 
 to Gieseler. Schaff and some Protestants admit the tradition (see Schaff, 
 p. 362), but only iu part. See Neauder, Kiroh. Gesch., 1., p. 317, and note.
 
 WAS ST. PETER AT ROME ? 343 
 
 all. If St. Peter was never at Eome, or went thither only to 
 be martyred, the whole fabric of the papacy must fall with- 
 out a blow. For how could Peter transfer from Jerusalem to 
 Pome an infallible primacy ? How could he have reigned as 
 the vicar of Christ, the lord of kings, the vicegerent of Heaven, 
 in a city which he never visited, and whose infant Church was 
 fostered or founded by Paul and his disciples.(') 
 
 Historically it is impossible that St. Peter could ever have 
 entered the Imperial City. St. Luke, his contemporary, who 
 wrote the Acts of the Apostles, would certainly never have 
 neglected to mention the most important of them all ; but St. 
 Luke confines Peter's missionary labors to the distant East. 
 St. Paul in his letters carefully enumerates the chief members 
 of the Church at Pome ; the name of St. Peter never occurs in 
 the apostolic record. (^) During his imprisonment no one but 
 Luke, he said, was with him. We have St. Peter's own epistle. 
 It is dated at Babylon, and is addressed to the distant churches 
 of the East, where he had long been laboring. Whenever he 
 appears in the sacred writings, St. Peter is always at Jerusa- 
 lem or preaching in its neighborhood ;Q when he writes him- 
 self he is founding churches in Asia, and wholly forgets to 
 assert that he is the infallible representative of the Deity on 
 earth, reigning at Rome. He calls himself, indeed, only an 
 elder among elders. 
 
 Tradition, therefore, is the only foundation of the legend. 
 To have famous martyrs was the chief pride of the early 
 churches, and it is possible that some ardent presbyter of 
 Rome, as fanciful as Prudentius, first conducted St. Peter to 
 his martyrdom on the Vatican. The story grew with the lapse 
 of time. His tomb was discovered ; he was crucified with his 
 head downward ; his frequent timidity was recalled in the 
 legend of his flight and of the apparition of his Lord ; and 
 when the Papal Church of the Middle Ages began its usurpa- 
 
 (') Even Neander finally doubted tbo tradition (Apost. Gescb.): in bis 
 Cbnrcb Hist, be accepted it. 
 
 (^) See tbe list in Epist. to Romans. 
 
 (^) Tbe Roniisb writers make Peter travel as widely as St. Paul (Baro- 
 nius, i., 455) ; but of tbis, Luke knew uotbiug.
 
 344 THE CHUECH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 tion, it boldly claimed, enlarging upon St. Jerome, that Peter 
 had reigned for twenty - five years as the vicar of Christ at 
 Itome.(') The legend was first pronounced a fable by the 
 acnte Waldenses, who had for ages scoffed at the papal pre- 
 tensions, and who claim to represent the opinions of the early 
 Church that preceded and resisted the haughty hierarchy of 
 Constantino. The traditions of the Vaudois, the Church of 
 the people, may at least counterbalance those of the Eomish 
 priesthood, and confirm the accuracy of the Scriptural his- 
 tory.C) 
 
 . But we must hasten to the last period (66-70) of the suffer- 
 ings of Jerusalem and its Church. A deeper mental darkness, 
 a wilder fanaticism, rested upon the sacred city. The broth- 
 erhood of the zealots, linked together by their terrible oath, 
 grew in numbers and ruled the policy of the nation. The 
 wild robbers issued from their mountain caves to spread des- 
 olation over Galilee and Jud[ea ; assassins filled the city ; the 
 multitudes who came up to the Temple were roused to frenzy 
 by the secret promptings of the robber patriots ; the children 
 of Israel — poetic, impassioned, Semitic, easily moved to a vain 
 self-confidence, easily driven to a mad despair — fancied that 
 by a violent struggle they might shake off the yoke of Rome.(') 
 The higher orders of the city, the more intelligent, knew that 
 the plan was hopeless; but the half-savage zealots from the 
 rural districts now governed Jerusalem. In this moment of 
 patriotic excitement the Christians, who would take no share 
 in the rebellion, were probably looked upon as traitors as well 
 as heretics. The chief victim of this intense hatred was James 
 the Just, the brother of the Lord. For thirty years the face 
 and form of the son of Mary had been knoAvn to all Jerusa- 
 
 (') Baronius, with excessive minuteness, names the year 45 Petri Annus 
 1, Ann. Ecc, i., 409. He knows oven the day on which the Roman Church 
 was horn. Neander doubts even the martyrdom, Plant. Chris., i., p. 358. 
 
 (^) See Wahlensian Researches, Gilly, vol. i., p. 42, and Leger. The Wal- 
 denses boast a direct descent from the apostles. The Nobla Leycon, a poem 
 of the year 1100, notices their origin; but often, they have been nearly ex- 
 tirpated by the papal persecutions. 
 
 (^) Rabelleau, Histoire des H^breus, ii., p. 285. A useful narrative.
 
 MJJtTYEDOM OF JAMES THE JUST. 345 
 
 lem ; lie had grown old as the head of the Christian sect ; his 
 \nrtues were admired by Jew as well as Christian ; and he had 
 striven, by gentle compliances, to disarm the malice of his fel- 
 low-citizens. He had never, like Paul, denounced the Mosaic 
 law ; or, like a greater than Paul, preached a new dispensation. 
 In form and appearance James is said to have so closely re- 
 sembled his divine brother as scarcely to be distinguished 
 from him.(') He was now to share a not dissimilar fate. 
 When Paul had escaped l>y appealing to Caesar, the enraged 
 Jews, says Eusebius, turned their fury against James.f ) In 
 some wild season of fanaticism, when the city teemed with 
 savage worshipers, the priests and people seized James, per- 
 haps as he climbed the sacred terraces to pray, and bore him 
 to a high tower of the Temple, overlooking the Gentile court 
 below. The Sadducees were the bitterest enemies of the 
 Christians. It was the young Sadducee high-priest Ananus 
 that led the new persecution. "We may imagine the venerable 
 saint standing on the giddy height, waiting to be thrown down 
 on the pavement far beneath.(') They commanded him to re- 
 nounce his faith in Christ. He replied by pointing to the 
 risen Lord above. With rage they cast him down. When he 
 had fallen, the multitude stoned him nearly to death. " See," 
 said a by-stander, " Justus is praying for you." A fuller beat 
 out the brains of the dying saint with his club. His tomb- 
 stone was afterward shown outside the Temple. So eminent 
 were the virtues and the fame of the brother of Christ that 
 Josephus attributes the destruction of Jerusalem to the an- 
 ger of Heaven at the insane cruelty of his countrymen.(^) The 
 family of the Saviour, however, still ruled over the Church at 
 Jerusalem ; they possessed a kind of hereditary claim to its 
 leadership ; and after the fall of the city, Simeon, the brother 
 or the cousin of James, tilled his place for many years with 
 ecjual virtues, and died a martyr in extreme old age.(^) 
 
 (') Epistle of Ignatius. 
 
 C) Eusebius, H. E., ii., 23. The accounts of his death varj'. 
 
 (') Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius, gives the story, ii., 23. 
 
 (*) Josephus. Eusebius, ii., 23. O Eusebius^ iii., 11.
 
 SttG THE cnuncH of Jerusalem. 
 
 Around the city of Mount Zion, according to the Talmuds 
 and Josephus, began now to gather the omens of its doom. 
 In the western sky, as the sun was setting, the crimson clouds 
 formed themselves in the image of a battle-field. Armies 
 rushed over the fading heavens, engaged in a dreadful con- 
 test ; chariots filled with armed men contended on the celestial 
 plain ; cities were surrounded and sacked ; the fate of Jerusa- 
 lem was painted on the skies.(') Within its walls the prodi- 
 gies were equally alarming. A supernatural fire shone over 
 the Temple in the midst of the night ; the great eastern gate, 
 which could scarcely be shut by twenty men, bolted and fast- 
 ened by immense bars of iron, rolled open of its own accord ; 
 and when the priests were ministering in the inner sanctuary 
 they heard the noise of a multitude of voices crying, "Let us 
 remove hence." A blazing comet, shaped like a sword, hung 
 over the city. A madman or a prophet ran through the streets, 
 crying, " Woe, woe to the city, to the people, to the Holy 
 House !" No jjunishment, no kindness, no prayers could si- 
 lence his mournful wail. For seven years he kept up his 
 ceaseless cry, until, during the siege, a stone from an engine 
 struck him dead.Q The Christians, too, remembering the 
 prophecy of the Lord, knew that the evil days were approach- 
 ing, and prepared to fly from the coming woe. 
 
 In the last years of Nero's reign the war broke out. The 
 madness of the Jews, the cruelty of the Romans, arraved the 
 two hostile races against each other. The Jews were at first 
 successful in driving off a Eoman army ; and Nero, who was 
 singing and acting before the applauding audiences of Rome, 
 sent his best commander, Yespasian, to repress the insurrec- 
 tion. Jerusalem, meantime, had become an armed fortress, 
 the centre of rebellion. Its priestly rulers made preparations 
 for an inexpiable war. The city was filled with provisions, 
 arms, and men ; the walls were strengthened, the towers gar- 
 
 (') Josephus, B. J., vi., 5. 
 
 (■) The Tulmiuls repeat the prodigies, and show the overwrought condi- 
 tion of the Jewish niind. Nothing was natural — nothing simple. Deren- 
 bourg, i., p. 280 et scq.
 
 GALILEE EAVAGED. 34:7 
 
 risoned; all Palestine had risen in revolt; and skillful leaders 
 were set over the different provinces to array the popnlace in 
 military order. It was hoped, it was believed, that every Jew 
 would join the army, and that the Komans would be over- 
 whelmed by an immense host, irresistible in fanatical zeal. 
 
 Galilee, the most northern province, filled with populous 
 cities and a warlike people, must first meet the shock of in- 
 vasion.(') It was placed under the command of the historian 
 Josephus. A cloud of doubt will ever rest upon the character 
 of this eminent writer. In his own age he was looked upon 
 as a traitor, the destroyer of his country, and his most favora- 
 ble commentators have admitted his feebleness and his inef- 
 ficiency ;Q yet in his own writings Josephus has painted him- 
 self in such favorable colors as to have won the regard of gen- 
 erations of readers. He was rich, high-born, connected with 
 the noble and priestly families of Jerusalem, and his learning 
 and mental culture have given him a respectable place among 
 the inferior historians ; but as a commander he was singu- 
 larly unfortunate. He entered Galilee commissioned to raise 
 an army of one hundred thousand men; he obtained only 
 eight thousand. He aroused no enthusiasm among the war- 
 like people ; his movements were slow and ineffectual. Ves- 
 pasian invaded the flourisliing province, and, with terrible rav- 
 ages, sacked its happy cities and filled its sacred landscape 
 with scenes of woe. The Lake of Genesareth was dyed with 
 blood. Its charming environs, the paradise of Palestine, re- 
 sounded with lamentation. (') The Roman cavalry swept over 
 the country, killing the helpless people. Josephus was be- 
 sieged at Jotopata, was beaten ,(") was captured, made his 
 peace with the Romans, and lived and died the companion 
 and the friend of his country's destroyers. 
 
 Vespasian moved slowly onward, destroying the country 
 as he passed.(*) He left behind him a bleeding, half-desolate 
 
 (') Josephus, B. J., iii., 3. C) Id., iii., 10. 
 
 (') Rapbal], Post-Bib. Hist., ii., p. 417. ' 
 
 C) " Jos^phe," says Dereubourg, i., p. 417, " m<5rite peu de confiance pour 
 ce qu'il raconte de cette lutto supreme de ses coreligiouuaires," etc. 
 (') Rapball, ii., p. 4'28.
 
 348 THE CHVECR OF JEliVSALEM. 
 
 waste. He swept throiigli Samaria, and the Samaritan wom- 
 en wept over their husbands and their brothers slain on the 
 hill of Gerizim. Joppa and Tiberias fell. He passed around 
 Jerusalem, and ravaged all Judaja, Emmaus and Jericho, 
 Lydda and Jamna, surrendered. He killed ten thousand men 
 in the heart of Idumaea, The Dead Sea echoed to the note of 
 the Roman trumpets ; all Palestine had felt the dreadful dis- 
 cipline of the Eoman chief. Two years of warfare passed ; 
 Jerusalem stood alone in the midst of its ruined country. At 
 this moment Nero was dead ; Vitellius ruled at Rome ; a war 
 of succession followed ; Rome was filled with massacres ; and 
 at last Yespasian was proclaimed emperor. The impoverished 
 soldier, the horse-dealer, the plebeian, was alone fitted to con- 
 trol that mighty empire that reached from the Jordan to the 
 Thames. He left Judsea for Rome, and the conquest of Jeru- 
 salem was intrusted to a young man of twenty-seven, his son, 
 Titus. 
 
 A cloud of horror now rested upon the Holy City.(') Its 
 condition resembled that of Paris in the dreadful days of ter- 
 ror when the prisons were filled with the suspected, the scaf- 
 fold ran with blood, and robbers and miscreants had risen to 
 rule in the fatal despair that had fallen upon its people. The 
 Christian Church had fled from the city, warned l3y the proph- 
 ecies of their Master, and found refuge in the little town of 
 Pella, beyond the Jordan. Many of the wealthy and cultivated 
 Jews had also escaped from Jerusalem ; but their places were 
 filled by a savage company of refugees from desolate Galilee 
 and Judfea, the robbers of Libanus, and the zealots of the 
 distant towns. John of Giscala led the furious horde ; and a 
 fierce assault was begun U])on the native citizens, who were 
 believed to have shared in the treachery of Josephus, and to 
 have meditated an abject surrender to Rome. Night and day, 
 robberies, massacres, and civil war filled the streets of Jerusa- 
 
 (') The Talmuds give Derenhourg only a few anecdotes of the condition 
 of the city, i., p. 280. Yet the legends celebrate the valor of the Jews, and 
 are all on the iiatriot side, i., p. 284. See Eabelleau, Hist, des Hebreux, 
 ii., p. 294.
 
 TEE LAST PASSOVER. 349 
 
 lem. The citizens, led by Ananiis, tlie high-priest, strove to 
 destroy the zealots in the Temple ; bnt on a dark and stormy 
 night a band of Idumseans broke into the city and over- 
 whelmed the resistance of the priestly faction. Simon, an- 
 other brave and cruel partisan, entered Jerusalem and garri- 
 soned the hill of Zion.(') Between John in the Temple and 
 Simon in the upper city a constant warfare raged ; their sol- 
 diers fought madly with each other on the bridge that joined 
 Mount Zion with the Temple ; and united only in the plunder 
 and massacre of the helpless citizens, whom they accused of 
 being inclined to peace with Rome. Day and night the fight- 
 ing went on ; a ceaseless lamentation for the dead resound- 
 ed over Jerusalem ; the city was sacked and desolated by the 
 robbers; and while Yespasian was sweeping over Judiea,(') 
 the Jews consumed their strength in horrible excesses. All 
 preparations for defense were neglected ; the stricken city 
 seemed filled only with raging madmen. 
 
 The Passover drew near, and in the first days of April, in 
 the year 70, the Jews gathered in multitudes at Jei'usalem to 
 celebrate for the last time the most sacred festival of the law. 
 The poor remnants of a fallen nation, they yet filled once 
 more the desecrated courts of the Temple. Still the priests 
 performed with sad minuteness the various rites; still in the 
 midst of the raging factions the smoke of the bumt-oiferings 
 arose from the holy altar, and the Psalms of David resounded 
 through the inner sanctuary ; still the countless worshipers 
 made their way through streets filled with the dead and the 
 dying, and went up to the Temple to pray. Still John and 
 Simon watched each other from their hostile hills, and with 
 fierce forays terrified and desolated the fairest quarters of Je- 
 rusalem. But suddenly their rivalry ceased.(^) A common 
 
 (') Rabellocan, v., p. 301. 
 
 (^) Tacitus, H., v., 10: "Intra duas estates cniicta cainporimi, oinucsque 
 prseter Hierosolyma urbes." The accouut of Tacitus is ouly a fragment. 
 
 (^) Josephus has described witli minuteness, Tacitus with a few brief 
 touches of genius, the ojiening of the Avouderfnl siege; but the narrative 
 of the Roman leaves a clearer impression than that of the Jew. Tacitus, 
 Hist., v.
 
 350 TEE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 danger united them too late. Sweeping along the road from 
 Csesarea appeared a band of six hundred Roman cavalry, the 
 first squadron of an army of eighty thousand veterans, and at 
 their head rode Titus, the young heir of the empire of the 
 world. At the sight, John and Simon, conscious of their own 
 madness, forgot their enmity and entered into a compact of 
 mutual aid. Cruel, wicked, remorseless, these savage chief- 
 tains were still patriots, and began now with heroic courage to 
 provide for the defense of Jerusalem. John had nine thou- 
 sand men in the Temple: Simon, fifteen thousand on Zion 
 Hill. As Titus rode carelessly along at tlie head of his cav- 
 alry a sudden sally was made, and the Roman commander es- 
 caped with difiiculty from the fury of the Jews. 
 
 Jerusalem was renowned as the strongest of ancient cities. (') 
 Two impassable valleys nearly surrounded the hill of Zion 
 and Mount Moriah ; on the north a triple wall and the Castle 
 of Antonia seemed to provide an easy means of defense. The 
 city was filled with munitions of war, and food was at first 
 abundant. The Jews, in their last struggle, showed all the 
 chivalry of the Semitic race; they fought with unrivaled 
 courage; they suffered with unconquerable patience; priests, 
 warriors, people, showed their proud contempt of death, their 
 unchanging devotion to their country, their faith in the ritual 
 and the law. They fell by thousands in fierce sallies, often 
 successful ; they inflicted terrible losses on the foe ; they were 
 always happy in death Avhen their enemy died with them. 
 Yet Titus, with his well-trained legions, made constant prog- 
 ress. He soon broke down the outer walls, and burned or 
 pillaged all the lower portion of the city. Often the learned 
 Josephus was sent to address his countrymen from the Roman 
 works, offering them pardon and life if tliey would surrender; 
 always the suffering garrison refused to listen to the traitor. 
 They shot at him with their arrows. At last an enemy ap- 
 peared within the city more dreadful than the Romans. Ti- 
 tus had raised around Jerusalem a long wall that shut out all 
 
 (^) Tacitus, v., 11 : "Sed urbem, ardiiara situ, opera molesque fiimave- 
 ruut."
 
 THE HOLY OF HOLIES. 351 
 
 exterior aid, and famine raged in the homes of the rich and 
 the poor.(') The summer of the year TO passed in horror over 
 the ruined city. As the hot sun beat on its pestilential streets, 
 as vegetation withered, and only the gray and dusty olive lived 
 in the torrid heat, men, women, children died in their stately 
 houses ; and robbers, fierce and starving, snatched the last loaf 
 from the hearth of the poor. The woes of Jerusalem seemed 
 to Josephus to have surpassed those of every other city ; the 
 terrors of the siege awoke a thrill of pity in his vain and self- 
 ish breast. Yet happier, perhaps, the Jews who died with 
 simple faith for their God and their country, than the stately 
 historian, the friend of an emperor, who wrote in a Eoman 
 palace(') an unsympathizing narrative of their woes. 
 
 Then came that saddest of all their sorrows, which has never 
 yet faded from the memory of the Jews. In the absence of 
 all grosser forms of idolatry, the chosen people had learned 
 to look upon their Temple, its pyramid of terraces, its golden 
 gates, its glittering shrine, almost as the heathen looked upon 
 his brazen gods. It was their idol and the centre of their 
 hopes. The Temple of the Most High(') had been sung in 
 immortal lyrics by their regal poet ; the sanctity of the courts 
 of the Lord, the future splendors of the Holy House, had been 
 the theme of his pei'petual meditation. The nation was filled 
 with the enthusiasm of its inspired bard. In all his wander- 
 ings at Alexandria, Athens, or Rome the impassioned Jew 
 ever kept in his memory the glory of his native shrine, and 
 hastened with devout enthusiasm to the paschal feast. To 
 him the Temple was the light of the world, the Ziou of his 
 weary soul.Q In the season of fniit, the month of Ab, the 
 irreparable woe fell upon the children of Israel. Titus had 
 pressed on his slow approaches all through the summer. He 
 
 (^) See Jost, Allgemeiue Gesclilchte dcs Israelitisclien Volkes, ii., p. 99. 
 
 C) Josoplius probably composed his dull speeches long after the event 
 iu his spleudid residence at Rome. 
 
 C) David's solicitude for the building of the Temple is told by Josephus, 
 Aut. 
 
 C) Jost, Allgemeiue Gesch. des Israel. Volkes : " Der hochgefeierte Sitz — 
 von vieleu Fremdeu bewundert, geehrt, bereichert," etc., ii., p. 100.
 
 352 THE CRUECR OF JEBUSALEM. 
 
 heard with no compunction of the horrors within the city, 
 lie was told that Mary, the wealthy matron, had cooked and 
 perhaps dev^ oiired her own infant ; he appealed to God that he 
 was innocent of the dreadful deed. His engineers made their 
 way into the Castle of Antonia : he prepared to storm the Tem- 
 ple. He knew that around it centred the fanaticism of the 
 Jews, and he gave orders for its destructiou.(*) A general as- 
 sault was made. John of Giscala, the patriots, and the priests, 
 fouslit with terrible resolution in its defense. The skillful 
 Romans, under the eye of Titus, forced their way into the sa- 
 cred courts ; they climbed terrace after terrace, where the pave- 
 ments were thickly strewed with the dying and the dead ; a 
 soldier threw a blazing torch into an open window of the Holy 
 House ; the priceless veils, the cedar beams, the gilded orna- 
 ments, blazed forth in a wild conflagration ; the priests killed 
 themselves before the altar; and the Temple of the Most 
 High was consumed to ashes. A wail broke from the hapless 
 Jews more sad than any their own sorrows had ever occasioned. 
 It was repeated in desolate Galilee and wild Judaea ; in the 
 distant synagogues of Alexandria and Eome. It has never 
 ceased : it still breaks forth from every Jewish heart ; and the 
 most touching spectacle of modern Jerusalem is that of the 
 cowering Israelites, amidst the brutality of Turkish soldiers 
 and the mockeries of Armenian boys, wailing over the crum- 
 bling foundations of what was once the most hallowed of 
 earthly shrines. 
 
 Titus hastened on the labors of destruction. Mount Mo- 
 riah was already a scene of ruin and death. Next the Roman 
 engines shattered the walls of Mount Zion, and the palaces and 
 line mansions of the hill of David were given to the flames.(') 
 No more w^ere peace and prosperity to reign within her walls ; 
 never again was the holy hill to rejoice in the consciousness 
 of her freedom. The most dreadful cruelties were inflicted 
 
 (') The Talmuds say that Titus gave orders to burn the Temple, De- 
 reubourg, i., p. 289, and refute the accouut of Josephus, that he wished to 
 
 save it. 
 
 (■) Josephus, vi., p. 8
 
 TITUS THE DESTROYER. 353 
 
 by Titus and his remorseless legions ; the Jews were slaugh- 
 tered like some hated reptile, and the Gentiles repaid the iso- 
 lated pride of Israel by one of the most brutal massacres that 
 mark the annals of war. One million Jews, it is stated, per- 
 ished in the siege of the city — a number that can not bear a 
 careful criticism. But still worse than death was the fate 
 of the living. Ninety-seven thousand prisoners fell into the 
 hands of Titus.Q Of these some were cultivated and accom- 
 plished priests, some pure and spotless patriots, some indus- 
 trious artisans, some fair and virtuous women, some robbers 
 and miscreants, deformed with crime. Their fate was the 
 same. Many were sent to labor in the mines of Upper Egypt ; 
 many were forced to fight with wild beasts in the amphi- 
 theatres of the two Csesareas ; one of the fairest and noblest 
 women of Jerusalem was seen, in her hunger, struggling to 
 gather the grains of corn that fell beneath the horses' feet of 
 the Roman soldiers ; another was fastened by her hair to a 
 horse's tail, and dragged, in that condition, from Jerusalem to 
 Lydda.(^) The needless barbarities of Titus are pei-petuated 
 in the Talmuds. 
 
 Yet Titus, the destroyer of Jerusalem, has been painted by 
 his countrymen and by Josephus as the mildest and the purest 
 of men. He was called the love, the delight, of the human 
 race.Q He was almost a Christian in benevolence, almost a 
 philosopher in self-control. But history has at length re-as- 
 serted its verity, and Titus stands before us one of those half- 
 savage monsters who revel in bloodshed and crime, and have 
 yet moments of transitory penitence. His early youth was 
 corrupt and shameless ; his later life showed little change ; 
 he was the chief instrument in the horrible massacres of Je- 
 rusalem; he was merciful or pure only in contrast with a 
 Caligula or a IS'ero. Xor is it wonderful that the Talmuds 
 paint with unusual bitterness the cruel malignity of the con- 
 queror of Jerusalem, and that the Jewish writers have never 
 
 (') Jost, All. Ges. Is., ii., p. 100 : " Uud 97,000 (was wolil glaublich) zu 
 Gefangcnen gemacht worden." 
 
 C) Dereobourg, i., p. 290-293. (') Suetonius, Flavius, i. 
 
 23
 
 354 THE CHUECn OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 ceased to denounce as false and traitorous the pleasing portrait 
 of Titus left by the unpatriotic Josephus.(') 
 
 Over the smoking ruins of Jerusalem the Roman soldiers 
 passed more than once, destroying what remained of its for- 
 mer splendor. It is probable that few houses were left stand- 
 ing. Only two or three towers, it is said, were preserved. 
 Tha day of wrath, foretold by the Master, had fallen upon 
 Zion. If the Christians had retained the sentiment of venge- 
 ance, they might have exulted in the fate of their persecu- 
 tors. The haughty priests, who had pursued Paul with per- 
 severing malignity, had died by the assassin's hand or in the 
 amphitheatre of Ctesarea. The Sadducees, the murderers of 
 James the Just, were robljed of their vast possessions, and had 
 fallen by famine or the sword. Of all the great throng that a 
 few years before had assailed the venerable Paul in the Tern- 
 pie courts, or- rejoiced in the torture of James, only a few 
 wretched fugitives remained. But the Christian Church, still 
 in its apostolic purity, felt only a tender sympathy for the 
 general woe. It is not possible that every Christian could 
 have made a timely escape from the city ; it is not unlikely 
 that many of the faithful perished in its dreadful doom. The 
 Church wept over the fate of its less fortunate members, over 
 the woes of its country, the desolation of Judsea. When the 
 storm had passed away a solemn congregation was held of all 
 the faithful. The apostles that still survived, the disciples, 
 and nearly all the members of the family of the Lord, assem- 
 bled to elect an elder in the place of James the Just. Sim- 
 eon, the cousin, perhaps the brother, of Christ, was chosen by 
 a unanimous vote.f ) The Church of Jerusalem still survived 
 in poverty, humility, persecution ; and when the fugitive Jews 
 once more ventured to return to their ruined city, the Chris- 
 tians probably followed them. Once more the hill of Zion 
 may have resounded with songs of praise, and Christian and 
 
 (') Dereubonrg, i., p. 289. The learuiug ami accuracy of this writer 
 promise extensive progress iu Jewish history. The story of the Hebrews 
 has not yet found its snccessful narrator. 
 
 (-) Eusebius, H. E., iii., 11.
 
 SIMEON RULES THE CHUECH. 355 
 
 Jew have wept together over the desolation of Mount Mo- 
 riah. 
 
 Simeon, whether at Pella or in Jerusalem, ruled over the 
 Church for thirty years.(') It is the most obscure, it was no 
 doubt the most active, period after the fall of the city. The 
 surviving apostles had wandered away on their various mis- 
 sions ; Andrew was piercing the wilds of Scythia ; Tliomas 
 penetrating the Indian shores. The daughters of Philip 
 prophesied at Ilierapolis, and the sons and daughters of St. 
 Peter were emulating the virtues of their father.^^) St. John 
 was at Ephesus or in exile, and his inspired visions began to 
 be read in the churches. All over the world we can trace the 
 career of the undistinguished Christians by the swift decline 
 of the imperial faith, the violence of the persecutions, the 
 countless tales of martyrdom. (') In no later period of histo- 
 ry has so vigorous a tendency toward reform been witnessed 
 among mankind. From the Church at Jerusalem flowed over 
 the world a wave of purity. The gifted missionaries, succes- 
 sors of the apostles, but clad in poverty and humility, preached 
 in every city and village a spiritual refinement, an ideal virtue. 
 " Be honest, be virtuous,"(') they cried, with the pastor of Her- 
 mas. " Be simple and guileless, and speak no evil." "With 
 Clement of Rome, they professed a saintly humility ;(^) the 
 way of the world was to them, as to Barnabas, a way of 
 darkness, leading to arrogance and hypocrisy, sensuality and 
 crime.(°) 
 
 The gentle voice from fallen Jerusalem touched the heart 
 of nations. City after city fell captive to its spell. Anti- 
 och and Ephesus, Alexandria and Rome, learned to look to the 
 ruined capital, once so hated and contemned, as the only source 
 of hope and joy. During the first century after the destruc- 
 
 (') Eusebina, H. E., iii., 32. ('•') Id., iii., 30. 
 
 (') The Pastor of Hernias, the Pilgrim's Progress of the secouil century, 
 throws light on the purity of the Church. See Migne, Pat. Graec, ii., p. 
 910. The first command enforces the unity of God. 
 
 {*) Migne, Pat. Grajc, ii., p. 922. ■ 
 
 (^) First Epistle of Clement, c. xvii. 
 
 (") See Epistle of Barnabas, c. xx.
 
 356 TEE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 tion of its early seat the Chiircli of Jerusalem spread over the 
 world, and retained, in all its purity, the apostolic spirit of its 
 founders. It was the light of the decaying age. The apostol- 
 ic choir, says Ilegesippus, overshadowed it with their grace.(') 
 Then came a period of decline. Paganism mingled with the 
 simple ritual of the Church its coarse and formal observances. 
 The swinging censers, the processions of gay-robed priests, the 
 peal of barbaric music, supplied the place of the hymns and 
 prayers of the Church of Paul and James the Just. Images, 
 once the abhorrence of all believers, were first tolerated, then 
 adored. The saints and the gentle Mary were made to fill 
 the place of the Penates or Artemis. Presbyters were con- 
 verted into bishops ; the rival sees contended for the suprem- 
 acy; the Bishop of Rome became the ruler of the Western 
 world. A tyrannical formalism, the image of that against 
 which Paul had contended at Kome, and Stephen at Jerusa- 
 lem, ruled over Christendom ; the Roman Church began a per- 
 petual persecution, more terrible, because more lasting, than 
 that of Nero or Domitian ; the Church of Jerusalem seemed 
 to live only amidst the humble and the poor, and in the dying 
 visions of some inspired martyr — a Jerome or a Huss. 
 
 When the city had sunk to ashes, and Mount Moriah rose, 
 discrowned and desolate, an image of the broken law, the gen- 
 tle saint in Patmos had painted a new Jerusalem in the skies. 
 A fairer temple arose not made with hands ; a golden city 
 shone above, where, at the perpetual paschal feast, the countless 
 generations of the hallowed dead gathered in its spiritual 
 courts. There the fancy of St. John lavished all its wealth ; 
 there the streets of the Holy City were paved with gold, and 
 all its bulwarks glittered with precious stones ; there met that 
 sacred company with whom he had loved to mingle on earth ; 
 there a perpetual peace filled the walls of Zion ; there the veil 
 was withdrawn from the Holy of Holies ; and the redeemed 
 dwelt in the presence of the Most High. Amidst the cor- 
 ruptions of later ages, the degradation of the faith, the Church 
 of Jerusalem seemed only a vision of the past. 
 
 (>)Eusebius,H.E.,iii.,32.
 
 THE PASTOR OF HERMAS. 357 
 
 Then once more the ideal beauty of the early Church dawn- 
 ed upon mankind. That graceful virgin, spotless and refined, 
 who had shone in the Pastor of Hermas, and gladdened the 
 fancy of St. John, broke from the spells of the enchanters, and 
 put to flight the rabble rout of Comus. Dissolute churchmen 
 and barbarous priests strove in vain to bind anew their cap- 
 tive ; tlie Church was free. The successors of Paul and James, 
 hidden for so many ages among the Yaudois, or the Walden- 
 ses, the Lollards, the Paulicians, came forth at the call of Wyc- 
 lifie, Huss, and Luther. The Church of Jerusalem, simjDle, 
 lowly, pm-e, became once more the centre of a wide reform ; 
 the Church of Eome retreated step by step, imtil at last it 
 cowers, fallen but not repentant, beneath the pagan magnifi- 
 cence of St. Peter's.
 
 DOMINIC AND TEE INQUISITION 
 
 Of Dominic of Guzman we are told, upon the unerring au- 
 thority of InfallibiHty, that his life was surrounded by a cloud 
 of miracles : that at the sound of his inspired voice the dead 
 arose and walked, the sick were healed, the heretics converted ; 
 that often in his moments of ecstasy he floated in the air be- 
 fore the eyes of his disciples; that the fiercest flames refused 
 to consume the parchment ui^on which were written his di- 
 vine meditations ;(') and that, in the midst of the carnage his 
 eloquence excited, the saint ever remained the gentlest and 
 meekest of his race. Once, as Dominic stood in the midst of 
 a pious company in the Convent of St. Sixtus, conversing with 
 the Cardinal Stephen, a messenger, bathed in tears, came in to 
 announce that the Lord Napoleon, the nephew of Stephen, 
 had been thrown from his horse, and lay dead at the con- 
 vent gate. The cardinal, weighed down by grief, fell weep- 
 ing upon the breast of the saint. Dominic, full of compas- 
 sion, ordered the body of the young man to be brought in, 
 and prepared to exercise his miraculous powers. He directed 
 the altar to be arranged for celebrating mass ; he fell into a 
 sudden ecstasy, and, as his hands touched the sacred elements, 
 he rose in the air and hung, kneeling, in empty space above 
 the astonished worshipers. Descending, he made the sign of 
 the cross upon the dead ; he commanded the young man to 
 arise, and at once the Lord Napoleon sprung up alive and in 
 perfect health, in the presence of a host of witnesses.^ ) 
 
 Such are the wonders gravely related of Dominic, the 
 
 (') Vaulx-Cernay, cap. vii. A contemporary account of the Albigeusian 
 ■war relates the famous miracle. 
 
 (^) Butler, Lives of the Saints, viii., j)- G2.
 
 THE INQUISITION. 359 
 
 founder of the Inquisition ; yet, if we may trust the tradi- 
 tion, the real achievements of his seared and clouded intel- 
 lect far excel in their magnificent atrocity even the wildest le- 
 gends of the saints. He invented or he enlarged that grand 
 machinery by which the conscience of mankind was held in 
 bondage for centuries ; whose relentless grasp was firmly fast- 
 ened upon the decaying races of Southern Europe, the con- 
 verts of Hindostan, and the conquerors of Mexico and Peru ; 
 whose gloomy palaces and dungeons sprung up in almost ev- 
 ery Catholic city of the South, and formed for ages the chief 
 bulwarks of the aggressive career of Home. The Holy Of- 
 fice, from the time of Dominic, became the favorite instru- 
 ment for the propagation of the faith; it followed swiftly 
 the path of the missionary, and was established wherever the 
 worship of Mary extended, whether in Lima, Goa, or Japan ; 
 it devoured the Netherlands, silenced Italy and Spain, and its 
 hallowed labors and its happy influences are still celebrated 
 and lamented by all those pious but diseased intellects who 
 advocate the use of force in creating unity of religious belief. 
 Its memory is still dear to every adherent of infallibility ; nor 
 can any one of that grave assembly of bishops who so lately 
 sat in St. Peter's venture to avow, without danger of heresy, 
 that he doubts the divine origin of the institutions of Dom- 
 inic. 
 
 Nothing, indeed, can be more impressive than tliat tender 
 regret with which the Italian prelates lament over the fall of 
 the venerable tribunal. Modern civilization has inflicted no 
 deeper wound ; modern governments have never more gross- 
 ly invaded the rights of the infallible Churcli.(') One of the 
 means, the bishops exclaim, which the Church employs for the 
 eternal safety of those who have the good fortune to belong 
 to her is the Holy Inquisition ; it cuts off the heretic, it pre- 
 serves the faithful from the contagion of error ; its charitable 
 
 (') Laurent, Le Catliolicisme et tie I'Avenir, gives the lament of the Ital- 
 ian bishops : " Un des moyeus que I'figlise emploie pour procurer le saint 
 ^ternel de ceux qui out le bonheur de lui appartenir est le tribunal de la 
 sainte Inqumtion," p. 575.
 
 o 
 
 60 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 solicitude, its exhortations and its teachings, its venerable pro- 
 cedure, its necessary and remedial punishments, have won the 
 admiration of generations of devoted Catholics. It has been 
 hallowed by the approval of a series of infallible popes ; it is 
 consecrated by the voice of Heaven. For a time it may be 
 snppressed by the action of hostile governments, by the cor- 
 rupt influence of modern civilization. But the Church has 
 never for a moment abandoned its most effective instrument ; 
 and in some happier hour, when the claims of St. Peter are 
 acknowledged in every land, his infallible successor will es- 
 tablish anew the charitable solicitude and the remedial pains 
 of the Holy Office in Europe and America, and the civilized 
 world shall sit once more, humbled and repentant, at the feet 
 of Dominic and his holy Inqnisitors.Q 
 
 The saint was born of a noble family in the kingdom of 
 Castile, and from early youth practiced a rigorous asceticism 
 that prepared him for his supernatnral mission. He slept on 
 the bare floor instead of a bed ; his frame was emaciated by 
 abstinence ; he passed days and nights praying before the al- 
 tar, and the holy place was often wet with his tears.(^) Yet 
 Dominic had been a diligent student of rhetoric and philoso- 
 phy at the University of Salamanca, and soon his fervid elo- 
 quence, set off by his wasted figure, his haggard countenance, 
 and flashing eyes, awoke the attention of his age. A dreadful 
 heresy had sprung up in Italy and France ; and while Coeur 
 de Lion and Philip Augustus were fighting the battles of the 
 Church on the burning sands of Syria, the joyous Provengals 
 sung their pagan melodies at the courts of love, and Toulouse 
 and Montpellier rang with sharp diatribes on tlie vices of the 
 priests or tlie cruel ambition of the Court of Rome. In the 
 year 1200 heresy threatened the downfall of the Church.Q 
 The people seemed resolved to throw off the yoke of the Ital- 
 
 (') Laurent, p. 577: "lis [the Cburcb] rt^poudraient (rune voix unanime, 
 que les charituhles soUicitudes t-t toutm les procedures du tribunal de la salute 
 Inquisition ne tendent par elles-meuies qu'au plus grand bien," etc. "Les 
 avertissoments, les peines uiediciuales," are highly extolled by the bishops. 
 
 (°) Butler, Lives of the Saints, a narrative accei)ted by infallibility. 
 
 (') Kaynouard, Monumeus, etc., vol. ii., p, 51.
 
 HERESY IN FEAXCE. 3G1 
 
 ian antichrist. In many cities the priests were driven from 
 the altars, the churclies abandoned by tlie worshiper, and a 
 simple ritual, borrowed from the Vaudois valleys, was swiftly 
 supplanting the pompous ceremonial of Rome. 
 
 To the gay and thoughtless heretics of the South of France 
 Dominic opposed his fervid oratory, his sordid poverty and 
 austere penances, his fanatical violence, and the iron hand of 
 persecution. He believed himself destined to revive the de- 
 caying fortunes of the Church ; and he founded a new order 
 of preaching friars, that multiplied under his care with singu- 
 lar rapidity, and spread into every land. Clad in black cape 
 and cloak, austere and fanatical, yet often possessed of rare elo- 
 quence and attainments, the Dominican missionaries wandered 
 over Europe, and preached anew the supremacy of the Pope. 
 The aspirations of the saint seemed miraculously fulfilled. 
 Heresy, discomfited and overborne, hid from the light of day. 
 It was apparently forever dissipated. The Church ruled tri- 
 umphant over Europe, and the popes trod on the necks of 
 haughty kings and rebellious nations. But the success of the 
 Dominicans was not due alone to their eloquence or their 
 austerity ; to their care had been committed that wonderful 
 agent of conversion, the Holy Inquisition. 
 
 It is claimed by his disciples that Dominic was the first In- 
 quisitor-general, and that he was sent forth by the Pope him- 
 self to repress heresy by medicinal pain.(') The Dominicans 
 account it the highest glory of their order that its founder 
 gave rise also to the Holy Office. He at least laid the founda- 
 tion of the wonderful structure. The Inquisition was the in- 
 heritance of the Dominicans ; their priests presided at the sol- 
 emn sacrifices ; their assistants were the familiars, who moved 
 like shadows around the suspected ; and the Dominican In- 
 quisitors often lived in unbounded luxury and license in the 
 magnificent " holy houses" of Lima or Seville.(^) They clung 
 
 (') See Llorente, luquisition, i., p. 48. 
 
 (^) Sclimidt, MOucb- u. Nonueu-Ordeii, Die Inquisition : " Schon seit Do- 
 minicns verwaltete der jeclesmalige General des Ordeus als bcsoudres Vor- 
 reclit," etc. Master of the papal palace, -p. 186.
 
 3G2 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 to their privileges with rare tenacity ; the holy houses grew 
 rich from the spoliation of Jews and wealthy heretics. The 
 Incjuisitor wielded a power before which the great and noble 
 trembled ; and of all ecclesiastical prizes none was more cov- 
 eted by rising churchmen and ambitious monks than a seat at 
 the holy tribunal. The vices of Dominic had been a brutal 
 cruelty, a savage intolerance ; his successors enlarged the cata- 
 logue, until it embraced every infamy and every crime. 
 
 In the sunny fields of Languedoc, where nature laughs in 
 tropical luxuriance, where the soft waves of the Mediterranean 
 meet upon its tranquil shores, where the skies are ever bright, 
 and a brilliant landscape, sown with stately castles and gen- 
 erous cities, with villages the homes of contented labor, and 
 farms glowing with unbounded fertility, tenanted by a people 
 the most refined and gentle of their age, arose, about the be- 
 ginning of the thirteenth century, the most fearful instrument 
 of human malignity.(') It was in the home of the troubadours 
 and of early European civilization. The southern provinces of 
 France, in that dark and troubled age, shone with a cultivated 
 lustre amidst a world of barbarism and cruelty. Some traits 
 of Grecian and Eoman refinement had survived and borne 
 fruit in the classic province of Aquitaine. Marseilles had been 
 the seat of a busy Greek population, and the worship of the 
 Ephesian Artemis and the gay festivals of the Ionian faith 
 were not wholly forgotten by the descendants of the tasteful 
 Greeks. They delighted in music and the dance, in proces- 
 sions and cheerful sports, and it was noticed with horror by 
 the rigid monks that the Provengals even enlivened the gloom 
 of the cemetery by chanting gay songs around the grave. 
 Toulouse had preserved the classic form of government, and 
 its chief officers were still called consuls, and its people still 
 retained the memory of their civic freedom. 
 
 England, Germany, and France lingered in barbarous indo- 
 lence, while the gifted Provengals had filled their happy land 
 
 (') Fauriel, Provengal Lit., and Raynouard, Monnraens de la Lan. Eo- 
 inane, paint the manners of Provence. See Lavall6e, Hist, des Inquisit. 
 Eelig., i., p. 1.
 
 THE ALBIGENSES. 363 
 
 with the fruits of industry, and had cultivated a literature of 
 song and romance that was destined to give rise to the genius 
 of Dante and Petrarch, and was perhaps imitated in the sagas 
 of the Northern skalds.(') But the most remarkable trait of 
 this gifted people was their vigorous Protestantism.^ In the 
 twelfth century the Albigenses ruled in Provence. A pure 
 religion, the result, perhaps, of the teachings of the Vaudois 
 missionaries, and of the example of Waldo of Lyons, grew up 
 in Montpellier and Toulouse. It taught that Pome was An- 
 tichrist, forbade the worship of Mary and the saints, scoffed at 
 the doctrine of transubstantiation, and proclaimed a univers- 
 al toleration. Even the hated Jews, persecuted in all other 
 lands, were received with signal favor in the industrious cities 
 of the South. A swarm of heretics of every shade of faith 
 lived peacefully together under the mild rule of the Counts 
 of Toulouse. The doctrines of the Albigenses spread rapidly 
 over Europe. Germany, England, France, and Spain are said 
 to have abounded with similar heretics, who scoffed at the cor- 
 rupt priesthood and defied the tyranny of Pome. The Bible 
 was read in every land ; and now began the first of those great 
 struggles for freedom of conscience which were continued by 
 the labors of Wycliife, of Huss, of Luther and Calvin, of the 
 Huguenots of France and the Puritans of England, and which, 
 after a contest of seven centuries, have ended in the final over- 
 throw of the usurping Church of Dominic and Innocent HI. 
 
 But miserable was the doom of the first of the European 
 reformers. In 1208 Innocent preached a crusade against the 
 Albigenses, and a savage horde of bishops, princes, dukes, and 
 nobles, at the head of their feudal followers, swept over the 
 fair fields of Provence. Q The gay and wealthy cities were 
 
 (') Fauriel, p. 20, notices the wide iuflueuce of Provencal literature and 
 opinions. Careful research will probably show that the people were ev- 
 erywhere rebels against Rome. 
 
 (^) " Les pretres se scut faits les inquisiteurs de nos actions," sung an 
 Albigeusian bard ; but he complaiued only of their caprice. Eayuouard, 
 ii., p. 52. O Rome ! " telle est la grandeur de votre crime que vous mdprisez 
 et Dieu et les saints," they cried, p. G3. 
 
 (^) Vaulx-Cernay, cap. vii., p. 37 : " Sus done soldats du Christ ! sus done 
 novices intr6pides !" cried the Pojie.
 
 3Gi DOMIXIC AXD THE INQUISITION. 
 
 plundered and laid waste by the papal persecutors; a large 
 part of the population perished by famine or the sword ; the 
 traces of classic civilization sunk before the barbarians of the 
 North ; the troubadours vanished from the earth ; and a dread- 
 ful gloom of barbarism and decay settled upon the South of 
 France. Toulouse, the home of the first reformation, became 
 renowned for its intolerant bigotry ; the industry and the en- 
 ergy of the people of Provence died with their freedom ; and 
 amidst the blood-stained ruins of the classic land, Dominic, or 
 his successors, invented and built up the Holy Inquisition. (') 
 It was designed to pursue the Albigenses into their most secret 
 retreats ; to penetrate into the family circle ; to plant spies in 
 their daily path ; to catch the incautious utterance, detect the 
 hidden discontent ; to throw so complete and careful a chain 
 around the intellect that even the idea of heresy should be 
 banished from every mind. The fierce Dominicans patrolled 
 the ruined cities, eager for their prey. 
 
 Wherever they appeared they were received with disgust 
 and horror; wherever they passed they left behind them a 
 track of desolation. The gentle Albigenses, unacquainted 
 with religious persecution, accustomed only to deeds of tender- 
 ness and mercy, saw with amazement and terror the pious and 
 the good racked by fatal tortures, and burned alive in their na- 
 tive cities, the victims of the Moloch of Kome.(') At Albi, 
 from whence the reformers had probably received their name, 
 as the white-robed Inquisitors passed through its streets, ev- 
 ery door was closed and barred, the affrighted people hid, 
 with their trembling families, from the face of day ; a solemn 
 gloom settled upon the once happy town. But no sentiment 
 of remorse, no thought of the popular detestation, delayed the 
 fierce Dominicans. They dragged the heretics from their se- 
 cret retreats ; they called upon friend to betray friend, neigh- 
 bor to denounce neighbor ; and a universal suspicion destroyed 
 
 (') See Chronique de Gnillaumc do Pny-Laureus. lu Guizot, vol. xv.,p. 
 293, " L'iuquisitiou comuieuf a pen a pen a atteiudre," etc. 
 
 (-) Vaulx-Ceruay throws the guilt of the war ou the harmless reformers. 
 Guillaume de Puy-Laurens, p. 226, laments that the Church should be ex- 
 posed to the horrible iusults of the heretics.
 
 ALBI DESOLATED. 365 
 
 the peace of the innocent community. At length a fearful 
 act of sacrilege aroused the towns -people to resistance. In 
 the horrible code of persecution which the followers of Dom- 
 inic had invented, it was the custom to inflict the vengeance 
 of the Church even upon the dead. They exlmmed the bodies 
 of persons suspected of heresy and burned their ashes. One 
 night the Inquisitors, with a train of their familiars, aroused 
 the magistrates of Albi from their slumber, and commanded 
 them to follow them. The officials did not dare to ask whith- 
 er they were to go, but obeyed in silence. The strange pro- 
 cession traversed the streets, lighted by torches, and came to 
 the public cemetery. The town was aroused, and a throng 
 of people had gathered around the sacred scene, scarcely con- 
 scious of the design of their persecutors. At the grave of a 
 woman suspected of heresy the Dominicans paused, and com- 
 manded the magistrates to disinter the body, in the name of 
 the Church. They hesitated ; the people murmured ; a tierce 
 rage began to arouse the multitude to resistance. But when 
 the officials refused to obey, the Dominicans took up the 
 spades and began to remove the earth from the coffin. The 
 solemn shades of night, the flickering light of the torches, the 
 fatal act of sacrilege about to be perpetrated, awoke anew the 
 fury of the people, who now drove the Inquisitors before them 
 from the cemetery with violence and blows, and soon after- 
 ward expelled every monk and priest from the limits of Albi. 
 Their revolt was avenged by the Dominicans with unsparing 
 cruelty ; the city was excommunicated ; and a swarm of rob- 
 bers let loose upon it by the exasperated Church nearly blot- 
 ted it from existence. 
 
 The Albigenses sunk before the vindictive rigor of Eome, 
 and the Inquisition pursued a career of triumph throughout 
 all the districts infected by the early elements of reform.(') 
 In every city of Languedoc and Provence two Dominican In- 
 quisitors presided ; the civil power enforced their decrees, and 
 
 (■) The chronicle of William is full of the malice of the heretics and the 
 success of the Church, i). 228. " Satan," he cries, " possddait en repos la 
 majeure partie de ce pays comme nn sien domicile."
 
 366 DOMIXIC AXD THE IXQUISITIOX. 
 
 every trace of heresy disappeared from sight. A reward of a 
 mark of silver was offered to any one who would denounce a 
 heretic ; every house that had sheltered the Albigenses was 
 razed to the gi-ound ; whoever lent aid or kindly otHces to the 
 persecuted reformers was deprived of his property, and per- 
 haps shared their fate ; every cottage or lonely cave in which 
 the exiles might find a refuge was carefully sought for and 
 destroyed ; and the teachings of Dominic and the zeal of his 
 disciples produced a system of rigid repression that seemed to 
 secure the perfect supremacy of the Church.(') 
 
 Gregory IX., from the papal throne, speaking the language 
 of infallibility, declared it the duty of every honest Catholic 
 to denounce and destroy the heretics, and ingrafted upon the 
 creed of his usurping sect the doctrine of universal persecu- 
 tion. The heretic was henceforth held unfit to live. He was 
 the enemy of the only infallible Church, and must therefore 
 be treated as the Jews treated the Amalekites, as Diocletian 
 had persecuted the Christians of Syria and Rome. His crime 
 involved the ruin of his family. His home was broken up ; 
 his children were driven out naked and penniless; his goods 
 enriched the Holy Inquisitors and the treacherous informer; 
 and in every part of Europe the papal injunctions were obey- 
 ed, at least by kings and nobles, and countless numbers of her- 
 etics suffered the extreme penalties imposed by the relentless 
 Popes. 
 
 When the new civilization of Southern Europe in the thir- 
 teenth century had been so perfectly effaced by the Inquisitors, 
 when the Albigenses no longer ventured to defend liberty of 
 conscience and mental reform, when the song of the trouba- 
 dour was hushed in its early home, and a cloud of barbarous 
 superstition had once more settled over Montpellier or Tou- 
 louse, the Popes and the Dominicans, encouraged by their 
 first success, prepared to apply the vigorous remedy of the 
 Inquisition to the dawning heresies of every land.(^) It was 
 
 (•) Milmaii, Lat. Christ., iv., p. 168. 
 
 C) Llorente, Inquisition, 1., p. 55. Gregory IX. would treat all heretics 
 as unfit to live.
 
 TRE SPANISH INQUISITION. 367 
 
 introduced in a modified form into Northern France. Saint 
 Louis, tlie purest of his regal race, was one of the bitterest and 
 most inhuman of persecutors. Pie had encouraged the mas- 
 sacres of the harmless Albigenses ; he would have rejoiced to 
 have made Paris the chief seat of the Dominican tribunal.(') 
 But his successors were more merciful ; the Galilean Church 
 grew jealous of the power of the Inquisitors, and no holy 
 houses, provided with dungeons, racks, and scourges, were per- 
 mitted to be erected in the cities of France, The French 
 kings preferred to burn their own heretics in their own way. 
 The royal prisons were often filled with reformers ; and when 
 the Bastile, the emblem of mediaeval tyranny, was built in the 
 fourteenth century, its first inmate was Aubriot, provost of 
 merchants, suspected of heresy. He was afterward released 
 from his horrible confinement by an insurrection of the Pa- 
 risians, and escaped from France. In Germany the Domini- 
 cans exercised their inquisitorial privileges to some extent, but 
 were held in check by the independent spirit of the princes 
 and the people. Italy was less fortunate, and her rising in- 
 tellect was constantly subjected to the scrutiny of the Inquisi- 
 tion. Yet the principle, if not the institution, of the rancorous 
 saint was applied in every land ; and England, Germany, and 
 France met every tendency toward reform by the whip and 
 the stake. He who strove to amend his age, to teach freedom 
 of conscience, to introduce a modern civilization, was destroy- 
 ed by the united bigotry of Church and State. 
 
 In Spain the savage genius of Dominic gained its highest 
 triumph. The Spanish Inquisition for more than six centuries 
 has awakened the wonder and the horror of mankind. From 
 Provence it was early transferred to Aragon and Castile ; but 
 its beginnings were modest, its influence comparatively slight, 
 and it was not until the reimi of Ferdinand and Isabella that 
 its fatal tyranny began to sap the energy and destroy the 
 foundations of Spanish civilization. Never, indeed, was there 
 a land more filled with the elements of progress, more capable 
 of a generous and honorable career, than was Spain in the 
 
 (') Llorente, Inquisition, i., p. Gl. See Rule, Hist, of luq., a useful work.
 
 3GS DOMINIC AXD TEE IXQUISITIOX. 
 
 tliirteenth century. As the IMoors slowly receded before the 
 vigorous revival of the Gothic race, the Spanish cities retain- 
 ed much of the refinement and grace of the gifted Saracens; 
 the countrymen of the Cid had never forgotten the generosity, 
 the honesty, the purity, inculcated in their national epic, and 
 an industrious and liberal people swarmed over the banks of 
 the Ebro and lined the fair valleys of the Guadalquivir or the 
 Tagus. They were bold, free, and full of self-respect. The 
 brave soldiers, the accomplished artisans, the wealthy mer- 
 chants of Aragon and Castile, defended their privileges of free 
 thought and free speech against every encroachment of the 
 Church or the crown. Seville and Barcelona, Valencia and 
 Cordova, were almost republican in their sentiment and their 
 institutions ; the rights of labor and of the intellect were 
 respected ; heretics, Jews, and Moriscoes lived unharmed to- 
 gether in many of the cities, and liberty of conscience was in 
 part secured by the familiarity of the people with various 
 creeds. No cloud seemed to rest upon the fair promise of 
 Spain, when the teachings of the Popes and the rancor of 
 Dominic fell suddenly like a thunder-bolt upon the sources of 
 its prosperity. 
 
 The Jews were the wealthiest, the most active, and perhaps 
 the most deserving of its population. Tempted by the soft 
 climate, the productive soil, and the comparative liberality 
 of the Spanish Government, the olive-colored children of the 
 East had settled in great numbers in the prosperous cities of 
 Spain. (') They had grown rich by honest toil. The shops of 
 the Hebrew lined the narrow streets of Cordova or Seville ; 
 and while Moors and Christians wasted their energy in useless 
 wars, the capital and the industry of the nation fell into the 
 hands of the followers of Moses. The synagogue grew up al- 
 most unmolested by the side of the church, and learned rabbis 
 celebrated their ancient rites in the devout cities of Spain. 
 Acute and versatile Hebrews were often raised to high offices 
 in the State, gained the favor of their sovereign, and were 
 intrusted with the most important affairs. . The highest so- 
 
 (') Llorente, i., p. 141 ; Prescott, Ferdinand and Isabella.
 
 THE JEWS PERSECUTED. 369 
 
 cial position was sometimes attained by the Jewisli families.(^) 
 Their daughters, gifted with the rare charms of an Eastern 
 clime, richly dowered, and educated in refinement and ease, 
 often intermarried with the sons of proud grandees who 
 traced their descent from the comj^anions of the Cid ; and the 
 immense wealth of many of the Castilian nobles was due to 
 the successful industry of their Hebrew ancestors. Jewish 
 money-lenders held half the nation their debtors ; the Chris- 
 tian nobles and oflicials, careless and luxurious, often found 
 themselves fallen into a servile dependence on the Hebrew ; 
 the debt was no doubt sometimes enforced with rigor; the 
 rich land, the ancient estates of Aragon and Castile, were 
 transferred to the Jewish usurer ; the wealth of Spain seemed 
 about to centre in the hands of an alien race. A throng of 
 prosperous Jews in every city deserved, by their industry and 
 frugal lives, their cultivation and taste, the general favor of 
 their fellow-subjects. 
 
 But their success awakened envy; their debtors resolved 
 upon their ruin.Q The fierce flame of religious hatred was 
 aroused by the teachings of the Popes and the example of 
 Dominic. The avarice or the dishonesty of the Christians was 
 excited by the convenient doctrine that the spoil of the unbe- 
 liever belonged of right to his persecutors. A general perse- 
 cution of the Jews began ; and the unhappy people, teiTified 
 at the torture and the stake, hastened to seek for safety by be- 
 coming reconciled to the Church. Every city was filled with 
 these new converts who had abjured the errors of Moses and 
 received the rite of baptism. The synagogues were abandon- 
 ed ; the Sabbaths no longer observed ; the abject race con- 
 formed with dangerous readiness to the requirements of tlieir 
 new faith. Yet the malice of their enemies would not be sat- 
 isfied with their speedy conversion, and the persecutors soon 
 discovered with secret joy that many of tlie new Christians, 
 as the recanting Jews were called, were still in private attach- 
 ed to the Mosaic rites, were in the habit of abstaining from 
 the meats forbidden by the law, of observing forbidden festi- 
 
 (•) Llorente, i., p. 141. (^) Id., i., pp. 142-146. 
 
 24
 
 370 DOMIXIC AXD THE IXQUISITIOX. 
 
 tivals, and celebrating within the seehision of their homes the 
 worship of Jehovah. A new persecution broke out more bit- 
 ter tlian the first ; the relapsed were punished with cruel pains ; 
 informers were enriched by the plunder of the wealthy crim- 
 inals, and the Dominican Inquisitors wandered over Spain, 
 crushing with austere severity the most mdustrious and de- 
 serving portion of its people. Merchants, mechanics, artisans, 
 men of intellect and eminent statesmen, the chief authors of 
 the national progress, were confined in horrible dungeons, 
 tried by the code of Eymeric, and burned with novel tort- 
 ures.C) 
 
 To complete the extirpation of the Jews, the Spanish In- 
 cpiisition was established in its later form. It was a more 
 methodical system than that of Dominic. A single Inquisitor- 
 general presided over the inferior tribunals established in the 
 chief cities of the realm ; an army of familiars acted as the 
 spies of the Dominicans ; a series of holy houses was built for 
 the use of the tribunal and its victims; a rigid watch w^as 
 kept over every household ; and a fearful gloom of doubt and 
 terror settled upon the land. The Pope approved the new 
 machinery of torture ; Queen Isabella, after some show of re- 
 luctance, lent it her especial favor. Torquemada became the 
 Chief Inquisitor of Castile, and his dreaded name has ever 
 been associated with a relentless reign of terror. 
 
 Torquemada, the Caesar of the Inquisition, ruled over the 
 Church of Spain like the genius of slaughter. It is difiicult 
 to compare the degrees of human woe, yet it is probable that 
 no pestilence was ever more hurtful, no conqueror ever more 
 dangerous, to the human race than this chief of the holy tri- 
 bunal in the boasted reign of Isabella. He is said to have 
 burned ten thousand persons — his own countrymen — at the 
 stake ; to have punished a hundred thousand more with im- 
 prisonment in his dungeons, ^vith confiscation and ruin ; to 
 have destroyed an equal number of happy homes. But in this 
 computation are not included his countless victims among the 
 Jews. And these frightful enormities were pei'petrated in a 
 
 (') Lloreute, i., p. 149 ; Rule, Hist, of the Inquisition.
 
 TOEQUEMADA. 371 
 
 nation whose population can not have numbered many mill- 
 ions. The tyrant, conscious of general hatred, lived in a con- 
 stant alarm. He wore "a close coat of mail; a mounted body- 
 guard of fifty familiars of the Inquisition, and two hundred on 
 foot, surrounded him wherever he went : shielded by the fa- 
 vor of his sovereign, he swept through the provinces of Spain, 
 carrying desolation to the peaceful scenes of industry, and en- 
 forcing the exterminating principles of Dominic.(') 
 
 At the instigation of Torquemada, an edict was issued, March 
 30th, 1492, banishing every Jew and Jewess from Spain who 
 refused to become Christians. Their crimes were enumerated 
 in a careful preamble ; the wild accusations of their enemies 
 had been eagerly received by the court, and it was believed 
 that the Hebrews had intended to sacrifice a Christian in- 
 fant in a sacred rite, to steal a consecrated host, and poison the 
 Inquisitors with a magic compound ; they were charged with 
 perverting Christiaus, and indulging in impossible crimes. 
 The last day of July, 1492, was fixed as the limit of their stay 
 in their native land, and whoever lingered beyond that period 
 was to be punished with death. The dreadful decree, scarcely 
 paralleled in cruelty by those of Louis XIV. or Ahasuerus, of 
 Philip II. and of Alva, was received with wailing and lam- 
 entation on the banks of the Guadalquivir and the Tagus, 
 and a hundred thousand mourning families, often among the 
 wisest and most innocent of its people, prepared to part for- 
 ever from their beloved land. 
 
 Full of tender impulses, strongly ruled by the ties of home, 
 of relationship, and of early association, often connected with 
 the most eminent Christian families by marriage and a com- 
 mon descent, the Hebrew population employed the few weeks 
 that yet remained in supplicating their inhuman masters to 
 recall the fatal decree. They cried aloud for mercy; they 
 promised to submit to any law, however oppressive, rather 
 than be exiled from the fair landscapes of their childhood, 
 and the cities and villages adorned and enriched by their toil. 
 An aged rabbi, the most eminent of his race, who was well 
 
 (') Llorcnte, i., p. 235 ; Kule, Hist. luq., p. 113.
 
 372 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 known to the king and queen, knelt, weeping, at tlieir feet, 
 offering an immense ransom of six hundred thousand pieces 
 of gold for mercy to his people. Again and again he return- 
 ed, seeking to move them. Thrice on his knees he importuned 
 the hard-hearted Ferdinand. " I wearied myself," he relates, 
 " to madness in striving to win tlieir compassion ; I besought 
 all the councilors and princes." But Isabella interposed, ruled 
 by the priests, and Torquemada forbade the reversal of the 
 order. Ferdinand, tempted by the rich offering of the Jews, 
 might have yielded to their prayers ; Isabella was inclined to 
 the side of mercy ; Torquemada rushed into the room where 
 they were deliberating, and cried out, " Judas sold his Master 
 for thirty pieces of silver ; your highnesses are about to sell 
 him a second time for thirty thousand." He flung a crucifix 
 upon the table before them. " Sell Him if you will," he ex- 
 claimed, and fled from their presence.(') His fanatical appeal 
 was successful ; the prayer of the Jews was denied, and they 
 were ordered to leave the country. They were permitted to 
 take with them no gold nor silver, and were cast out, impov- 
 erished, among strangers. 
 
 Torquemada offered them baptism and reconciliation to the 
 Church, but few suljmitted. He then forbade all Christians 
 from having any intercourse with them, or affording them 
 food or shelter. In July, the mournful emigration began, 
 and eight hundred thousand persons, in long and sad proces- 
 sions, made their vray to the sea-ports and frontiers of Spain. 
 The Jews had exchanged their fine houses, their rich vine- 
 yards and fair estates, for articles of little value ; had aban- 
 doned their synagogues to the Christians, and traveled on 
 foot, on horseback, or in wagons, on their melancholy jour- 
 ney. Some had concealed small quantities of gold in their 
 baggage ; some even swallowed their golden ducats to escape 
 the rigorous search. The rich defrayed the expenses of the 
 poor with unstinted generosity ; the strong helped the weak ; 
 women walked through the weary journey bearing their in- 
 fants at their breasts ; and the sick and aged often died upon 
 
 (')Rule,Hist.Inq.,p. 112.
 
 FATE OF THE SPANISH JEWS. 373 
 
 the way. Even the Christians wept as they watched the faint- 
 ing travelers, and besonght them to be converted; but very 
 few consented. The rabbis strove to encourage them with 
 cheerful words, and made the youths and the women sing or 
 play on pipes and tabors to soothe their sorrow. The sweet 
 songs of Israel floated with touching melody over the path- 
 way of the departing exiles.(^) 
 
 How fair and graceful women, reared in luxurious ease, and 
 learned and accomplished men, the best scholars of their age, 
 perished in the crowded ships, or died starving in the burning 
 heats of Africa and Syria — how fevers, famine, storm, and 
 quicksands preyed upon the disheartened host — how mothers 
 sold their children for bread — how faithful Israelites often 
 preferred death to the violation of their ancient law — what 
 infinite woes oppressed the victims of Torquemada, is told by 
 contemporary writers with simple and startling accuracy ; and 
 we can well believe that in the last years of his life the Inquis- 
 itor's conscience was oppressed by no visionary terrors ; that 
 he lived in constant fear of assassination ; and that the hor- 
 rors he had inflicted were in some measure avenged. Hated 
 and contemned by his countrymen, he might well fear their 
 rage. The people of Spain abhorred the Inquisitor and the 
 Inquisition. They felt its impolicy, and saw that it aimed its 
 most deadly blows against the purest and best of their con- 
 temporaries ; but their opposition was overwhelmed by the 
 feudal and priestly caste, and the labor and intellect of Spain' 
 began swiftly to decline. 
 
 Yet the Inquisition had its birth at a moment of singular 
 national prosperity. Granada had fallen when Torquemada 
 issued his edict ; Spain was united from the Pyrenees to Gi- 
 braltar ; a grave and thoughtful mariner was soon to sail from 
 Palos, on an expedition that was to bring immortal renown to 
 the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. The New AYorld was 
 added to their dominions ; while the voyage of Gama, not 
 long after, opened to the sister kingdom of Portugal the 
 boundless commerce of the Indies. Soon the wealth of the 
 
 (') Contemporary narrative. Liudo, Hist. Jews in Spain and Portugal.
 
 374 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 world began to flow into the fortunate peninsula — the gold 
 of Mexico and Peru, the gems and spices of the East, were 
 distributed over Europe from the ports of Lisbon and Cadiz ; 
 the Spaniards and the Portuguese seemed to stand in the 
 front rank of the advancing civilization of the age. But in 
 their onward path stood the genius of Dominic, turning them 
 back \vith the flaming sword of persecution. The holy houses 
 and the familiars, the stringent rule that repressed liberty of 
 conscience, the silent terror that rested constantly upon the 
 minds of men, planted the elements of decay in the heart of 
 their wonderful prosperity. There is no more remarkable 
 spectacle in history than that of the swift and unprecedented 
 decline of Spain and Portugal. The Inquisition penetrated to 
 every part of the peninsula ; followed in the track of Gama 
 and Columbus ; destroyed the vigor of the most magnificent 
 colonies the world had ever seen ; was as fatal to India as to 
 South America ; and England and Holland snatched from 
 the enfeebled South all the fruits of its renowned achieve- 
 ments. 
 
 Torquemada died, and was succeeded by Deza, the second 
 of the great Inquisitors. He was no unworthy governor of 
 the powerful tribunal. His victims are said to have number- 
 ed nearly forty thousand, of whom twenty-five hundred suffer- 
 ed the extreme penalty of fire. Deza supplied the Holy Of- 
 fice with new laws, improved its organization, and carefully 
 enjoined that no town or hamlet, however humble, should be 
 left unvisited by the Inquisitor.(') Under his successful rule 
 the secret tribunal grew into a vast engine of state, whose in- 
 cessant blows fell heavily upon the great as well as the low. 
 Bishops and archbishops, grandees and princes, were made to 
 feel the power of the fearless tyrant ; the Church trembled be- 
 fore the Inquisition ; the people murmured, often rose in re- 
 volt, and were crushed into obedience. Deza died in the 
 midst of a storm of discord in Church and State ; his successor 
 was "the learned, the liberal, the munificent" Cardinal Xi- 
 menes. To the liberal cardinal, Llorente attributes over fifty 
 
 (') Lloreute, i., p. 333.
 
 TEE MOORS IN SPAIN. 375 
 
 thousand victims. Under this learned Inquisitor the holy 
 houses sprung up in great numbers, and within their secret 
 cells were perpetrated unexampled enormities. They were 
 filled with accomplished scholars, rising poets, pm-e and high- 
 born women, the artisan, and the serf ; and to the magnificent 
 Ximenes is due the gradual extinction of the last traces of the 
 Moorish civilization of Spain. 
 
 The Moors had filled the lower provinces of the peninsula 
 with countless evidences of their industry and their taste.(') 
 Gardens of rare beauty, blooming with the flowers of the trop- 
 ics ; farms cultivated and watered into perennial fertility ; 
 factories where the finest tissues of linen or silk were woven 
 by workmen of unrivaled skill ; palaces and mosques whose 
 rich and lavish decorations surpassed the fairest creations of 
 the Gothic architects ; schools and colleges whose accomplish- 
 ed professors had taught to barbarous Europe the first ele- 
 ments of the sciences — were swept into ruin by the ruthless 
 Inquisitors, and faded away with tlie wonderful race that gave 
 them birth. A few shattered fragments, a few modern im- 
 itations, alone attest the taste of the Moorish builders. At 
 Seville, the Alcazar displays the wild yet chastened splendor, 
 the myriad of original decorations, the lavish use of color and 
 mosaic, that marked the palaces of the Saracenic rulers ; at 
 Granada, the delicate outline and stately courts of the Alham- 
 bra have delighted and instructed generations of observers ; 
 and the imagination may faintly conceive what was the pride 
 and glory of the land when its busy cities, clad in orange 
 groves and hidden in verdure, were filled with a dusky people 
 cultivated to the highest refinement, and were profusely adorn- 
 ed with a native architecture of which the Alcazar and the 
 Alhambra are almost the last surviving examples-C*) 
 
 Avarice and fanaticism soon destroyed the feeble Moors. 
 They were ordered by the Inquisitors to be baptized ; they 
 
 (') Llorente, i., p. 325. 
 
 (^) Wells, Antiquities of Spain, p. 327, describes the Alcazar at Seville, 
 its court, and orange groves. And Lady Louisa Teuuison laments over the 
 fall of the Moors amidst their rare creations, p. 38G. Cordova, too, has fine 
 remains of Moorish architecture.
 
 376 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 yielded. Tliey were still dragged to the dungeons of tlie holy 
 houses on suspicion of a relapse. On the faintest evidence 
 of having abstained from wine or forbidden meats, they were 
 sent to the torture. They rose in fierce but vain revolts ; they 
 fled to the wild mountains, and hid in dismal forests. Their 
 factories were closed ; their colleges disbanded ; their wealth, 
 once the wonder of their contemporaries, melted away ; and at 
 length a few impoverished and dejected Moors, the remnants 
 of a mighty race, seared by the fires of the Inquisition, were 
 banished from Spain (1609), amidst the savage joy of the de- 
 vout court and the haughty Dominicans. It is not possible to 
 estimate accurately the loss of their native land in the expul- 
 sion or the destruction of the Moors and the Jews ; several 
 millions of the population perished ; cities and villages sunk 
 into ruin ; the most industrious of its people were extirpated ; 
 and neither the genius of Columbus nor the valor of Cortez 
 could make amends for that fatal check which the prosperity 
 of Spain received at the hands of its Inquisition. 
 
 Since the time when the Dominicans had wandered by 
 night through the streets of Albi, dragging its affrighted her- 
 etics to their secret tribunal, the Holy Inquisition had con- 
 stantly advanced, until it became a well-ordered and method- 
 ical institution, governed by a code of laws that seemed to its 
 admirers the perfection of wisdom and humanity. The co- 
 pious rules of Eymeric, laid down in the fourteenth century, 
 formed the basis of its proceedings.(') They were extended 
 and improved by the experience of Deza and Torqueraada. 
 The first principle of its conduct was a solemn secrecy. Its 
 familiars and informers mingled in all societies, watching si- 
 lently for their prey. The heretic was seized without any 
 warning. He was ordered to appear at the Holy House.Q 
 Here he was required to state whether he was conscious of 
 any heretical act or thought. He was shut up alone in a cell 
 
 (' ) Llorente, i., p. 85. Eymeric composed his " Guide " about 1356. 
 
 O Almost the first stop was plunder; see Montauiis, Inquisition : "Bo- 
 norum seqnestratio." Tiie accused was asked " an liabeat secum aut pecu- 
 niam, anulumne, aut monile aliquod pretiosum." His goods were seques- 
 trated.
 
 THE HOLY HOUSES. 377 
 
 in order to give him leisure for reflection. From liis dreadful 
 solitude, in darkness and despair, he was brought out to fre- 
 quent examinations before the awful tribunal ; and if he still 
 refused to confess his crime, he was shown the instruments of 
 torture. If he still remained obstinate, the torture was ap- 
 plied in the presence of the Holy Inquisitors : it was renewed 
 as often as his strength allowed. Often months and years 
 rolled over the obdurate reformer, alternating between the si- 
 lent gloom of his narrow dungeon and the unsparing applica- 
 tion of the dreadful rack. Men and women grew crazed with 
 suffering, and the strongest intellects sunk into idiocy. At 
 last the impenitent reformer was declared condemned and con- 
 victed, was given over to the civil tribunal, and graced the 
 final festival of the triumphant Church. 
 
 The holy houses of Castile and Aragon had also been im- 
 proved. At first a castle in the Triana of Seville was used 
 as a prison for the suspected ; but as the Inquisition grew in 
 power its residence was called a palace ; its holy house was 
 usually a vast and sombre building, strongly built, and placed 
 in a conspicuous street of the city it was designed to overawe. 
 Within, it possessed spacious and often splendid apartments, 
 where the high officials lived in luxurious ease, and whose 
 walls often resounded with the sound of revels and feasts, of 
 witty conversation and licentious mirth. But beneath were 
 the dungeons and the cells. A long corridor or hall was lined 
 on each side with chambers ten feet deep, liglited by a small 
 aperture with a faint gloom, and shut in by double doors of 
 immense strength. A single prisoner was usually inclosed in 
 each cell ; he saw no one but the jailer, and was fed upon 
 scanty and coarse food. No friend was permitted to visit or 
 to cheer him, or even know of his abode ; he met only the 
 averted glance of familiars who abhorred him as a heretic, or 
 of the Inquisitors who condemned him to the rack. He was 
 forbidden to cry out, to lament, or even to implore the mercy 
 of his tormentors ; the watchful officers enjoined a perfect si- 
 lence through the dim corridor, and its crowded population 
 were early taught the danger of disobedience. A maniac 
 laugh, a feeble wail, alone were heard at intervals in the abode
 
 378 DOMINIC AND TEE INQUISITION. 
 
 of despair. (') Yet far down below, beneath the surface of the 
 earth, were the deepest dungeons of the Inquisition, the pris- 
 ons of the most advanced of the reformers. Here no ray of 
 light penetrated, no genial warmth from heaven reached the 
 chill and moldy cells.(') Here Lutherans and Calvinists, the 
 impenitent Jew, the relapsed Morisco, the English missionary, 
 and the Vaudois teacher were held close in the grasp of the 
 Inquisition. A company of the gentle and the good wasted 
 away in perpetual torture. For them no hope remained un- 
 til, at the caprice of some royal Catholic or ambitious Inquis- 
 itor, they were summoned from then* living grave to ascend 
 amidst the flames to heaven. 
 
 Such were the remedial pains of the holy tribunal, whose 
 memory is still held dear by the advocates of papal infallibil- 
 ity. We shall not pause to dwell upon the variety and the 
 curious originality of the implements of torture. The inge- 
 nuity of meditative monks and fanciful Inquisitors seems to 
 have been employed through laborious days and years of vig- 
 ils in the wonderful inventions : the machines for twisting 
 joints and stretching sinews ; the ponderous weights that 
 pressed upon the body ; the stream of water whose intermit- 
 tent flow was designed to produce a temporary suffocation ; or 
 the thumb-screw and the various improvements upon the rack.Q 
 Yet it may be safely asserted that each machine was well fitted 
 for its appropriate aim, and must convey a high idea of the in- 
 ventive genius of the disciples of Loyola and Dominic. 
 
 So vigorous, so successful had been the assault of the In- 
 quisitors upon the new civilization of the fifteenth century, 
 that, like the Albigenses of the thirteenth, the reformers of 
 Europe seemed everywhere disheartened or destroyed. An 
 apparent unity reigned throughout the West. IIuss had per- 
 ished at Constance ; the ashes of W3"cliffe had been scattered 
 to the winds ; the Pateriui concealed themselves in the cities 
 
 (') Montanus, iu Refomiistas Autigiios Espauoles, vol. siii., p. 24. 
 
 C) Moutauus: "Augustia, pcdore et si inferue est, huiniditate, sepulcruin 
 qiiam vivorum cai'cerem lectins dixeris," p. 105. 
 
 O The plates iu such books as the IiKiuisition Unmasked, etc., give 
 a trustworthy couceptiou of the various tortures.
 
 SAVONAEOLA, 379 
 
 of Italy ; the people of Europe, never reconciled to the tyr- 
 anny of Rome, were yet terrified into silence ; an infallible 
 Pope, a Borgia, or a Medici ruled unchecked from the bleak 
 Grampian Hills to the torrid coasts of Sicily ; and the fires of 
 the Inquisition were soon to be lighted in the city of Mon- 
 tezuma and the capitals of Hindostan. A halcyon day had 
 come to Christendom, and the Church was never more out- 
 wardly prosperous than when Alexander YI. sat on the papal 
 throne, or when his son, Caesar Borgia, preyed upon the peo- 
 ple of Rome. The awful prodigy of a man eminent in crime 
 presiding over the congregation of Christians, and proclaiming 
 his own infallibility, awakened no resistance in the minds of 
 priests or Inquisitors, and the voice of the people was hushed 
 in tlie general terror of the Dominicans. 
 
 One illustrious victim alone had ventured to denounce the 
 crimes of Alexander, and to herald the era of reform. Sa- 
 vonarola had fled from his father's house in early youth to 
 become a Dominican monk, and had given his life to austere 
 devotion.Q His first attempts in preaching had failed— he 
 stammered, he faltered; but his fervid genius and his bound- 
 less faith soon threw ofE the restraints of timidity, and his 
 commanding intellect gathered around him a host of fol- 
 lowers. From the magnilicent Cathedral of St. Mark, at 
 Florence, in the classical and skeptical age of Lorenzo de' 
 Medici, he assailed, with unexampled eloquence, the corrup- 
 tions of the Church, the vices of the Pope, and even the ele- 
 gant licentiousness of the great Lorenzo. Immense congrega- 
 tions heard with delight his inspired voice, and it is not dif- 
 ficult to conceive with what extraordinary power such sermons 
 as those on the vanity of human glory and the chief end of 
 man must have touched the consciences of the impassioned 
 people.(*) Florence was swept by a storm of religious frenzy. 
 
 (') Tiraboschi, vi., p. 1125. He was born 1452. He became a Dominican. 
 He began some years after to ascend the pulpit — "a salire sul pergamo in 
 Firenze " — but "with little success. 
 
 (^) Sermoni e Prediche di F. G. Savonarola, 1846. Delia Pace Supcrna Cit- 
 tk ; Del Verbo della Vita, etc. " Lasciate ormai i pcnsieri del secolo, c ricor- 
 datevi del vostro Creatore," he cried, p. 34. See Del Fine dell' Uomo, p. 189.
 
 3S0 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 At the command of the new reformer nobles abandoned their 
 hixurious indolence, and the people cast aside their hght 
 amusements, to join in the austere observances of the con- 
 gregation of St. Mark's. The world was forgotten and de- 
 spised, and every eye was fixed on a life in the city of God. 
 Savonarola lived in a monkish cell ; but he had early been 
 touched by the sorrows of the poor, and his aspiring genius 
 seems to have meditated a political, a moral, and a religious 
 reform. He resolved to make Florence once more a repub- 
 lic, to curb the tyranny of the great, to destroy the papacy, to 
 arouse in the heart of decaying and licentious Italy the higher 
 impulses of an uncorrupted faith. 
 
 When Lorenzo the Magniticent was dying, he perhaps re- 
 membered the sermon on the heavenly city, and sent for the 
 monk to hear his last confession ; the preacher came to the 
 bedside of his enemy, full of charity and forgiveness. He 
 heard his promises of amendment, bade him submit to the will 
 of God, but required him to declare that, if he survived, he 
 would restore its ancient liberty to Florence. Lorenzo hesi- 
 tated ; Savonarola left the room without giving him his absolu- 
 tion. The legend may not be trustworthy, but it indicates the 
 vigorous love of freedom that was attributed by his contem- 
 poraries to the eloquent monk. Soon after Lorenzo had died 
 a republic sprung up at Florence, of which Savonarola became 
 the spiritual chief; he labored for the elevation of the work- 
 ing-classes, and strove to blend together the whole population 
 in the enjoyment of liberty, equality, and religious freedom.Q 
 Yet it is possible that his various and endless excitements dis- 
 turbed his reason, and that in his last years he believed him- 
 self capable of prophesying and working miracles as well as 
 of amending mankind. His generous life came to a disastrous 
 close. One of his followers promised to work a miracle, but 
 
 (') "To some," says Tiraboschi, with caution, "he seemed inspired; to 
 some, an impostor." The learned Jesuit can not admit that Savonarola was 
 a saint, for had he not been condemned ? vi., p. 1126. Roscoe, Life of Loren- 
 zo, ii., pp. 370, 375, sneers at the ardor and hopes of the victim. But Comi- 
 nes, c. xxvi., bears witness to the sanctity of his life ; says he did not at- 
 tempt the miracle, and was destroyed by a faction.
 
 DEATH OF SAVONAROLA. 381 
 
 failed ; his enemies seized Savonarola, and dragged him, with 
 two of his friends, to prison ; the guilty pope, Alexander YI., 
 prepared a commission to try him for heresy ; he was put to 
 the torture, was condemned, and, with his two associates, was 
 burned in the city he had labored to set free. Ilis ashes were 
 thrown into the Arno, and the fair river of Florence is ever 
 eloquent with the fate of the great genius that, perhaps, laid 
 the foundations of European reform. 
 
 Savonarola had taught that civil and religious freedom are 
 inseparable, and his austere lessons perhaps affected the opin- 
 ions of the chief of sculptors, Michael Angelo,(') and the taste- 
 ful Vittoria Colonna. But with his death the Inquisition 
 ruled once more unrestrained, and the zeal of the Dominicans 
 was only baffled by the difficulty of finding a heretic in all the 
 wide dominion of the Church. The holy houses were empty 
 except for a few sorcerers or magicians, and the abundant 
 machinery of the secret chambers decayed in idle disuse. 
 Alexander, Julius, or Leo X. had no disobedient children, and 
 the people of Europe slumbered in peaceful submission. 
 
 As if to provide sufficient employment for the disciples of 
 Dominic, for priests and kings, another monk renewed the 
 contest between the people and the Church ; and at the com- 
 mand of Luther, a greater Savonarola, the next important 
 struggle began between Europe and the Pope. There was 
 now no more rest for the Inquisitors. The Reformation 
 made its way even to Spain, and the holy houses of Valladolid 
 and Seville were once more filled to excess with tlie learned, 
 the progressive, and the wise.Q Even Italy itself was found 
 to be swarming with gentle and cultivated reformers ; whole 
 states and kingdoms in the North separated from the infal- 
 lible Church, and were only to be regained by fire and the 
 sword. The ashes of Savonarola, that had been flung into the 
 Arno ; the ashes of Huss and Jerome, that had consecrated 
 the Rhine, had germinated into countless bands of heretics, 
 
 (') Prediche, Preface. 
 
 (^) Reforniistas Autigiios Espanoles, vol. ii. ; Perez, Epistola. Bibles and 
 tracts were brought into Spaiu hidden in casks of wine, p. 10. Seville and 
 Valladolid were full of Lutherans.
 
 382 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 who renewed the faith and the rites of the Albigenses and the 
 Yaudois, and who proclaimed the revival of apostolic truth. 
 
 Surrounded by the advancing tide of modern civilization, 
 assailed by the printing-press and the free school, the keen 
 literature of progress, the discoveries of science, and the 
 mighty intellects of the reformers of the North, the Inquisi- 
 tors of the sixteenth century showed no want of barbarous zeal 
 in their defense of the infallible Church. In Italy and Spain 
 their victory was complete.(') The Spanish Inquisition sprung 
 up into fresh vigor ; new Torquemadas and Dezas applied the 
 code of Eymeric to every city and village, and banished every 
 trace of heresy from the decaying land ; a long line of illus- 
 trious victims perished, almost unrecorded, at the hands of the 
 secret tribunal ;f ) monks were snatched from their cells, bish- 
 ops from their thrones, professors from their colleges, and 
 grave citizens from their families and homes, to pine in hid- 
 eous dungeons, and die at last amidst the flames. The litera- 
 ture of the age reflected the spirit of persecution, and great 
 poets and historians encouraged the barbarous instincts of 
 their countrymen. The descendants of the generous Cid, 
 the contemporaries of Camoens and Cervantes, became noted 
 throughout Europe for their savage cruelty ; the Inquisition 
 had instructed the Spanish and Portuguese in lessons of bar- 
 barism such as no civilized race had ever learned, and had 
 planted its holy houses and celebrated its fearful sacrifices 
 throughout all the vast region that had been won by the gen- 
 ius of Columbus and De Gama. 
 
 The favorite spectacle of the Spaniards was an auto-da-fe. 
 As the holy day approached on which the enemies of the 
 Church were to perish, a sacred joy sat on every countenance. 
 Seville or Yalladolid resounded with the note of preparation ; 
 the great square was filled with workmen raising a series of 
 seats for vast numbers of spectators, and the halls of the 
 
 (') Llorente or Rule may be consulted; Montaiins; and Perez, Epistola. 
 
 (") Eeforniistas Antigiios Espauoles, vol. ii. ; Perez, Epistola, lut., p. 
 xviii. Two lauudred reforuiers were arrested ou oue day at Seville ; in all 
 eight hundred. Perez wrote his consolatory letter to the persecuted con- 
 gregation.
 
 AX auto-da-fjS. 383 
 
 Palace of the Inquisition echoed with religious festivity.Q 
 The most glorious sacrifice of the Universal Church was about 
 to be celebrated ; its safety and honor were once more to be 
 assured ; priests and citizens exulted that the city of their birth 
 was to be purged from the chief of criminals, and that heresy 
 was to find no shelter in the streets still enlivened by the 
 orange gardens and the graceful courts of the exiled Moors, 
 and adorned by the palaces and cathedrals reared from the 
 plunder of the industrious Jews. A lavish expense was wasted 
 on the national festival. No Roman triumph or imperial 
 show could equal in magnificence the great acts of faith of 
 Valladolid and Seville ;(°) no gladiatorial combat within the 
 Coliseum was ever witnessed with deeper enthusiasm ; no Ro- 
 man multitude was ever more eager to cast Ignatius to the 
 lions than were the assembled hosts of priests and people to 
 conduct the feeble heretic to the flames. 
 
 On the day before the festival the gates of the palace of the 
 Inquisition were thrown open. From its secret halls a band 
 of its servants descended into the public square, amidst a 
 crowd of spectators, bearing banners on which the rules of 
 the proceedings were inscribed. For two days the Inquisitors 
 took possession of the city, and gave notice that no one, how- 
 ever high his rank, should wear arms during the festival, and 
 that no private carriages w^ould be allowed on the streets 
 through which the procession was to pass. Meantime every 
 household was filled with a singular interest — a feigned or 
 fanatical joy. The little children who were at school were 
 being trained to the part they were to take in the gay pro- 
 cession; young men and women were eager to secure seats 
 on the grand gallery, where they could observe the splendors 
 of the royal court and the magnificence of the procession ; the 
 prudent parents prepared to join the eager crowd, lest their 
 absence might provoke some jealous priest. At night the 
 
 (') Schmidt, Moncb- u. Nomien-Orclen, p. 159: "Die auto-da-fe wareu 
 Feierlichkeiten." 
 
 C) Montes, Inquisition, in Ref. Ant. Espauoles, vol. v., p. 146: "El apa- 
 rato i pompa con que en el aqnel triunfo se prozecle, que ni Persica poiupa, 
 ni Romano triunfo, pueda compararse."
 
 384: DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 interest deepened. The procession of the Green Cross, com- 
 posed of all the monks and friars of the city, and of all the 
 secret tribunal, assembled at the Holy House, and, bearing long 
 white torches, passed through the i:)ublic streets to the place 
 of execution. An altar had been raised on a scaffold in its 
 midst, and a large green cross, covered with a black veil, rose 
 high over the scene. Around it blazed twelve white tapers 
 of enormous size. A low, sad chant was raised by the monks 
 as they moved along; the veil was taken from the cross; a 
 band of instrumental music filled the air with barbarous mel- 
 ody; a guard of lancers and a few Dominicans were left to 
 watch the green cross throughout the night, and the monks 
 and friars dispersed until the morning.(') 
 
 The first gay beams of sunlight on the festal day were wel- 
 comed by the incessant tolling of the great bell of the cathe- 
 dral. The people sprung up at the summons, and all the city 
 was full of expectation. The King of Spain, the royal family, 
 and all the beauty and chivalry of the realm, were to prove 
 their piety by attending at the act of faith ; the most holy 
 bishops and archbishops, and all the inferior clergy, were to 
 assist at the destruction of the traducers of Mary. Meanwhile 
 at the Holy House a banquet was prepared for the throng of 
 ofiicials ;(■) next, the Chief Inquisitor, standing at the door of 
 the palace, read the roll of the condemned. They came forth 
 at his summons, fainting, from noisome dungeons, starvation, 
 disease, or torture ; some with a smile of triumph, some weep- 
 ing in idiotic woe. Those who were to be burned wore a yel- 
 low sack over their feeble bodies — a tall paper cap upon their 
 heads, painted with the figures of horrible demons ; those less 
 guilty M'ore coarse black cloaks ; some were gagged ; and by 
 the side of each victim walked two guards, or sponsors, to sup- 
 port him to the place of death.(') 
 
 It was usually a Lord's day, the hours hallowed by the joy- 
 ous memory of the resurrection, when the procession began 
 
 (') Rule, Hist. Inq. 
 
 (-) Moutiinus, p. 132: " Spleudescente mane, raiuistri ac familiares," etc. 
 (') Rule, Hist. Inq., p. 152. The form of the procession seems to have 
 varied at times, but the Inquisitors were always most conspicuous.
 
 THE PROCESSION OF IXQUISITOES. 385 
 
 to move tlirougli the orange groves and beneath the sunny 
 skies of Seville. At its head came the Dominicans, bearing a 
 black banner inscribed with a green cross. Full of pomp and 
 pride, the Chief Inquisitor and his servants, surrounded by a 
 mounted company of familiars, led the way to the scene of 
 their final triumph. A troop of little children from the city 
 schools came next, the emblems of innocence. The victims 
 followed, in yellow robes and towering caps, walking two by 
 two. In front of them was borne a banner, o^n which was 
 painted the severe but august likeness of Dominic, founder of 
 the Inquisition. Images or effigies of heretics who had es- 
 caped the rage of the persecutor came next, destined to be 
 thrown into the flames. All the authorities of the city, high 
 officials and dignified citizens, followed ; tlien a long train of 
 regular and secular clergy, and a crowd of the rabble of the 
 town. To the chant of a solemn litany, the various members 
 of the procession, led by the Inquisitors, entered the vast am- 
 phitheatre provided for the spectacle, and slowly ascended to 
 their appropriate seats in the spacious galleries. (') 
 
 Never scene more imposing opened upon human eyes than 
 one of these palaces of persecution raised by skillful architects 
 in the stately square of Valladolid — a limitless range of plat- 
 forms and galleries, encircling a broad arena, covered with rich 
 carpets and costly hangings, bright with ornaments of gems 
 and gold, splendid with thrones and chairs of state, and so ar- 
 ranged that from every seat the spectator might embrace at 
 a glance the whole scene of the dying heretic and the count- 
 less array of his persecutors. On Sunday, October 8th, 1559, 
 Philip 11. , to prove his gratitude to Heaven for preserving 
 him in a violent storm off Laredo, celebrated an act of faith 
 at Valladolid. The splendor of the pageant was miexampled. 
 The wealth of the Indies was lavished in decorating the pan- 
 demonium, and providing robes and banquets for the eccle- 
 siastical concourse. The grand square of Valladolid was en- 
 circled by magnificent ranges of galleries, radiant with gilding. 
 
 (') Montes, p. 146 : " Las canziones sou las letauias de los sautos," etc. I 
 have sometimes used the Latin text. 
 
 25
 
 386 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 and hiino; with cloth of the rarest texture. In one sat the 
 King of Spain and of the Indies, with his son, the Prince of 
 xYstiirias, who was believed to be tainted with the heresies of 
 the Netherlands, and w^ho was himself destined to die at a 
 later period by the hands of the Inqiiisitors.C) His sister and 
 his cousin, the Prince of Parma, were also there. Three em- 
 bassadors from France looked on at the splendid scene. The 
 Archbishop of Seville, with a train of bishops, nobles, and dig- 
 nitaries of state, assisted at the festival of the Inquisition, 
 and the fairest and noblest women of Spain filled the seats 
 around the royal gallery. The chief officers of the city occu- 
 pied conspicuous places, and range over range of curious citi- 
 zens, dressed in their richest attire, looked on, an uncounted 
 multitude, and filled every seat in the immense amphitheatre. 
 But in a plainer gallery, placed so as to be easily seen by all 
 that devout throng, were gathered a pallid and feeble company 
 of the elect. Their yellow robes, tlieir sordid dress, their gro- 
 tesque and terrible decorations, marked them as the enemies 
 of the Church, and the victims of the proud and great. One 
 was the Lutheran pastor of Yalladolicl, who had ministered in 
 secret to his humble flock, who had pined for a year in the 
 dungeons of the Inquisition, but whose constancy had never 
 wavered, and who now came forth with holy joy to endure the 
 pains of martyrdom. May the name of Don Carlo di Sesso 
 forever live in the memory of the just, when the splendid host 
 of his royal and priestly persecutors have sunk beneath the ab- 
 horrence of posterity ! With a gag in his mouth, he sat unter- 
 rified before his destroyers. Some had wavered, but had not 
 been forgiven. Fourteen in the fatal gallery were destined 
 to the stake. One was a nun, a woman, gentle, high-born, and 
 pure. She had adopted the opinions of Luther, had been shut 
 up in fearful dungeons, and stretched upon the rack. She had 
 confessed her errors, and her powerful relatives strove to save 
 her life ; but she was a nun, and the Inquisitors asserted that 
 her guilt could only be expiated by fire ; and the fair and gen- 
 tle woman perished with the rest. 
 
 (') Lloreute, ii., p. 234.
 
 ITALY FBOTESTAXT. 387 
 
 A bishop ascended the pulpit and preached a sennon full of 
 bitter denunciations of the helpless heretics ; the sentences 
 were read, a solemn miserere swelled over the vast assembly, 
 and the king, with his guards, followed the condemned as they 
 were led away to the place of burning. Here Philip, the Nero 
 of his age, liis vices notorious, his crimes unpardonable, looked 
 on with cruel joy and untiring zeal until the last of the mar- 
 tyrs had been burned, and nothing remained of the holy pastor 
 or the gentle nun, and all their sad society, but a heap of ashes. 
 
 Italy, soon after the advent of Luther, was threatened, in the 
 sixteenth century, by the fearful spectre of modern civiliza- 
 tion.(') The Pope trembled on his throne. The German Eef- 
 ormation seemed about to swell hi disastrous inundations over 
 the Alps. Academies of science and letters had grown up at 
 Modena or Turin, whose gifted members were known to hold 
 opinions not far removed from those of Calvin or St. Paul. 
 Literature and science stood on the side of reformation ; the 
 new books of the day were often unsound in doctrine, and elo- 
 quent for progress. The Lutheran theories had penetrated the 
 cloister, and an Augustine monk preached heresies at Eome. 
 The papacy must have fallen had not Ignatius Loyola stood 
 at the side of the trembling Paul, inspired him with a stern 
 audacity, and painted to his fancy a magnificent vision of the 
 renewed Church ruling over the East and the West, proclaim- 
 ing its own infallibility, and crushing heresy by fire and sword. 
 
 Loyola, the Dominic of the sixteenth century, had revolved 
 in his dull and clouded intellect, but ever fearless and ad- 
 venturous, a project for assailing the central defenses of mod- 
 ern civilization, and crushing it by its own arts. AVhy, he 
 meditated, might not the discoveries of science and the gen- 
 ius of letters be condemned to labor for the propagation of 
 the Church and the defense of infallibility ? Why could not 
 learning, wit, philosophy, progress, be concentrated in his own 
 
 (') M'Crie, Eeformation in Italy, p. 372. A letter from Rome shows that 
 a large part of the Eomans sympathized with Luther. For the reformers 
 of Naples, see Life of Jnau Valdes, Betts, p. 106-109; and the Alfabeto 
 Christiauo, Eeformistas Aut. Esp., tome xv.
 
 388 DOMINIC AXD THE IXQUISITIOX. 
 
 society, while all the outer world lay eclipsed in darkness? 
 "Why might not the intellect of tlie Jesuits rule mankind, and 
 heap contempt upon all those inferior spirits who were too 
 faintly educated to discover the divine power of the infallible 
 Church ? He would seize upon education and the free school, 
 as Dominic had seized upon the pulpit, and make his compa- 
 ny a society of teachers. But to the free school he would also 
 join the Inquisition. The example of Spain, where heresy 
 had swiftly decayed under the rigid rule of Torquemada, show- 
 ed how admirable was the remedy of Dominic, how speedy its 
 operation. The Spanish Inquisition must be enlarged to em- 
 brace all mankind. Its centre should be Rome, the Pope the 
 Chief Inquisitor. The Society of the Jesuits should go forth 
 on their missionary labors holding in one hand the sword of 
 St. Peter, and in the other the sceptre of mental supremacy ; 
 and, by an incongruous union of education and the auto-da- 
 fe, must modern civilization be reduced to subjection, and 
 made the firm ally of the Moloch he would erect at Eome. 
 
 From tlie suggestions of Loyola grew up, in 1542, the Eo- 
 man Inquisition.Q It was controlled by six cardinals, the 
 most active of the sacred college, who were empowered to de- 
 stroy the heretic wherever he could be found. No mercy was 
 to be shown to the enemy of the Church and of Heaven. The 
 punishments were to be speedy, the sentences without reprieve. 
 A doubtful word, a hesitating assent, were held to be sufficient 
 proofs of guilt ; and it was made the duty of every devout 
 Catholic to inform against his relatives, his neighbors, and his 
 friend. A house was at once hired at Rome for the meetings 
 of the tribunal, instruments of torture were provided, and a 
 modest beginning was made by the burning of several her- 
 etics before the graceful Church of Santa Maria.(') The Pope 
 and the college of cardinals often attended the executions, and 
 watched with approving countenances the final doom of the 
 
 (') Ranke, Popes, i., p. 157, is inclined to lessen Loyola's share in tbe 
 honor of erecting the new tribunal, but the Jesuits claim for him the chief 
 part. 
 
 C) For various executions, see M'Crie, p. 278-284.
 
 ITALY SUBDUED. 389 
 
 impenitent. But, as the labors of the Inquisitors increased 
 with the rigor of their search, a larger building was demanded, 
 and new implements for their dreadful trade. The people of 
 Rome, in a wild tempest of rage, broke down the gates of the 
 first prisons and set them on fire. At length, to defy their 
 malice, in 1569, was completed that grand and sombre palace 
 of the Inquisition, within whose dreadful cells a long line 
 of illustrious Italians have suffered or died ; whose massive 
 walls and Cyclopean architecture for three centuries filled the 
 minds of the helpless Romans with awe or hate ; and whose 
 dungeons, pitfalls, and secret machinery have but recently 
 been exposed, by a happy revolution, to the light of modern 
 civilization.(') The Pope, Pius V., now assumed the title of 
 Supreme Inquisitor. The successors of St. Peter have never 
 ceased to hold that eminent position ; and it is the duty, the 
 right, and perhaps the desire of Pius IX., as it was once of 
 Pius v., to inflict upon every heretic the remedial pains of the 
 holy tribunal. 
 
 Consternation filled all Italy as the ministers of the new 
 tribunal penetrated into every city and village, and struck 
 down 'their victims with relentless speed.Q Every day at 
 Rome, in 1568, a heretic died ; the jails were filled with the 
 suspected ; in the rural districts great numbers of Protestants 
 were seen making their way toward the Alps. The Inquisitors 
 hunted their flying victims with unequaled success ; men of 
 science, of letters, and of elegant cultivation, fled from Italy to 
 the shelter of the North. The academies of Modena and Turin 
 were silenced or dissolved, and Venice lamented in silence the 
 loss of its industrious heretics and the ruin of its prosperity. 
 It is quite impossible, indeed, to estimate too highly the woes 
 inflicted upon Italy and upon mankind, upon letters, science, 
 and the industrial arts, by the series of Popes who, as Supreme 
 Inquisitors, struck down the most eminent men of their age, 
 
 (') The building was partly destroyed in 1808, and another built in 1825. 
 
 (*) Ranke, Popes, Inquisition, gives some of the details. See Reformistas 
 Antigiios Espanoles, tome xv., Int., p. xssv. el seq. Carnessechi, the friend 
 of Vald^s, was one of the victims.
 
 390 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 and aroused throughout Europe the flames of religious strife ; 
 who burned a Bruno, persecuted a Galileo ; and who taught 
 the half -savage Europeans to extirpate the Huguenots in 
 Erance, and chase the Hollanders to the walls of Leyden. As 
 Supreme Inquisitors the Popes have never ceased to inculcate 
 the destruction of the heretic, and the high privilege is still 
 openly claimed by the last Pope and the last council of sup- 
 pressing heresy by force. 
 
 Generations have lamented with vain regret and useless in- 
 dignation the dark cloud of sorrow and shame that fell upon 
 the illustrious old age of him, the glory of modern science, 
 who first unfolded the machinery of the heavens ; who opened 
 to mankind the magnificent scenery of the skies ; who pierced 
 the spacious firmament, and revealed the most wonderful of 
 the works of God. The greatest, and perhaps the wisest, of 
 all the victims of the Holy Oflice was Galileo Galilei. (') He 
 was born at Pisa, in 1564, when the rigor of the Inquisition 
 was just beginning to crush the intellectual energy of Italy. 
 He gave himself to scientific studies, and was early renowned 
 over Europe as the most active of discoverers. He was made 
 professor at Pisa, Padua, and Florence ; his lectures were at- 
 tended by archdukes and princes, and by a yet more noble 
 band of ardent disciples ; his generosity to his mother, his sis- 
 ters, and his friends kept him poor ; yet he was constantly 
 covered with honors and emoluments, and his incessant labors 
 were ever rewarded by discoveries in almost every branch of 
 science. 
 
 To crown his prosperity and complete the splendor of his 
 renown, Galileo, in 1609, chanced upon one of those inventions 
 that in all the annals of science have most struck the imao-ina- 
 tions of men. He had invented the telescope. The wonder- 
 ful instrument, even in its infancy, delighted and astonislied 
 his age. Europe lavished its honors and its applause upon 
 the Tuscan artist, who had given to his race new fields of 
 knowledge and a boundless realm of speculation. The sena- 
 tors and nobles of Venice climbed their liighest campaniles, and 
 
 (') Nelli, Vita del Galileo : Tirabosclii, p. 8.
 
 GALILEO. 391 
 
 saw througli Galileo's telescope distant islands and shores, that 
 had never been visible before, approach and grow distinct, and 
 watched their galleys, laden with the wealth of commerce, ad- 
 vance and recede far down the Adriatic.Q The merchants of 
 the City of the Sea felt at once the priceless value of the in- 
 vention. But when Galileo turned his telescope to the heav- 
 ens, a new series of discoveries broke suddenly upon his fancy, 
 so unlooked for and so entrancing as have fallen to the lot of 
 no other man. The moon revealed the rivers and mountains 
 on her spotty globe — her caverns and volcanoes, her arid plains 
 and dusky hollows ; planets were seen for the first time encir- 
 cled by their attendant moons ;(') the Milky-Way dissolved into 
 countless stars ; the tangled threads of the Pleiades were swift- 
 ly unraveled ; and the huge orb of Saturn, the giant of the 
 planets, appeared belted by its luminous rings, and covered 
 with exterior veils of glory. The majestic depths of the heav- 
 ens, never before pierced by mortal eye, were found swarming 
 with hosts of stars and radiant with islands of light ; and the 
 magnificent vision which had filled the fancy of the Hebrew 
 poet with a sense of his own insignificance and of the omnip- 
 otence of his Creator, was adorned with a thousand novel beau- 
 ties and sui-passing wonders at the touch of Galileo. 
 
 The philosopher could little have foreseen the dangers that 
 surrounded him in the moment of his unprecedented success. 
 He heard calmly the applauses of Em-ope, and modestly re- 
 ceived the honors heaped upon him. Animated by the favor 
 of his age, he pursued his researches with ceaseless ardor, and 
 added each year to the sum of human knowledge. He strove 
 to penetrate the secret of the heavens ; to separate into accu- 
 rate divisions its grand machinery, and fix the place, the or- 
 bit, and the aim of suns and planets. At length the theo- 
 ry, which had been suggested by Copernicus, but which was 
 proved alone by his own discoveries, and made intelligible by 
 
 (') Nelli, Vita del Galileo, i., \). 165. The invention is claimed for the 
 Dutch and the Jesuits. " Sparsasi la fama uella Veneta metropoli di es- 
 sere stata construita questa inacchina," etc., i., i>p. 165, 166. 
 
 (^) Nelli, i., p. 199,
 
 392 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 his clear argument, was announced to the world, and Galileo 
 declared that the solid earth was ever in motion, circling round 
 the sun.Q " It moves !" he cried, with boundless ardor ; and 
 men listened to him with astonishment, awe, and doubt. 
 
 Few, indeed, in the dawn of the seventeenth century, were 
 willing to receive the revelation of the Tuscan artist, or to ac- 
 cept that principle which was to form the elementary faith of 
 modern science, which was to become as familiar to civilized 
 man as his alphabet, by which suns were to be measured, plan- 
 ets weighed, and comets tracked in their wild flight through 
 unbounded space ; which was to fire the genius of a Newton 
 and a Herschel, and conduct the minds of men to a familiar 
 acquaintance with the skies. Who could believe that the solid 
 globe, with its mountains and seas, its mighty empires, and its 
 busy tenants, was ever rushing swiftly around its immovable 
 sun ? Every sense seemed to contradict the announcement of 
 science. Sight taught that the heavens moved around the 
 earth ; none felt the tremor of incessant motion ; no ear could 
 catch the music of the spheres. Ignorance derided the new 
 theory ; philosophers of the Ptolemaic school opposed it with 
 vigorous arguments ; and truth seemed about to die out in the 
 clamor of the multitude and the hostilitv of rival sects. 
 
 Galileo might have despised or pitied the violence of his sci- 
 entific foes, but he soon found himself drawn within the toils 
 of that secret tribunal which aspired to hold in check the pro- 
 gressive thought of Italy. In his scientific enthusiasm the 
 philosopher had uttered heresy. A fierce Dominican, in a la- 
 bored essay, detected the unpardonable error. It was heresy 
 to say that the earth moves. The infallible Church had de-. 
 Glared that it stood still. (") How could a vain philosopher pre- 
 sume to know more than Popes, councils, fathers, who had all 
 strictly maintained the Ptolemaic theory ? Such presumption 
 could not be borne, and Galileo was summoned by the Inquis- 
 itors before the tribunal of Rome. It is possible that some 
 trace of shame, some fear of peipetual infamy, the aid of his 
 royal friends, and the compassion of the Pope, may have led 
 
 (■) Tiraboscbi, viii., p. 190. («) Nelli, i., p. 9G.
 
 GALILEO'S CRIME. 393 
 
 the congregation of cardinals to soften the pains inflicted upon 
 their ilhistrious prisoner, and they only demanded that he 
 should abandon forever the fearful heresy of Copernicus. He 
 consented, abjured his scientific errors, and was admitted once 
 more to the bosom of the Church. Yet he must have felt his 
 degradation keenly ; and his firm and manly intellect, buoy- 
 ant and ever joyous, could only have recovered slowly from 
 its subjection and dishonor. 
 
 Fourteen years roiled away in ceaseless study. The pros- 
 perous manhood of Galileo declined into feeble old age. His 
 hair and beard were white as snow ; his eyes, that had first 
 pierced the depths of the heavens, were growing dim ; his 
 health decayed, and he was often prostrated by disease. (') 
 Poverty, too, had come upon him in his old age, and his sal- 
 ary was taken away. His generosity, that had never failed, 
 had left him little for his own support. Yet his cheerful and 
 active intellect was still fertile in resources, and he had amused 
 the decline of life by enlarging and perfecting his theory of 
 the skies ; truth ever grew more dear to him ; the prospect of 
 immortal renown blinded him to his danger, and he resolved to 
 proclaim once more, in defiance of the Pope, the Church, and 
 the Inquisition, the unchangeable law of the solar system.f ) 
 He composed those graceful and witty dialogues in which the 
 acute Salviati and Sagredo rally the dull Simplicio on his be- 
 lief in the antiquated errors of Ptolemy, and gave them (1632), 
 with wide applause, to the Italian public. 
 
 Horror and indignation awoke in the breasts of the Holy 
 Inquisitors when they discovered the design of the popular 
 book ; and Pope Urban VIIL, who was thought to be intend- 
 ed in the character of Simplicio, was filled with senile rage. 
 The Jesuits, who had envied the scientific glory of Galileo, 
 pressed for his destruction ; the Dominicans pursued him with 
 unsparing denunciations. He was summoned to Rome to un- 
 dergo the penalty of heresy. Faint and feeble, Galileo left 
 his favorite home at Florence, the scene of his joys and his 
 
 (') Nelli's portrait of Galileo sbows the effect of age. 
 (=) Nelli, ii., p. 512.
 
 394 DOMINIC AND THE IXQUISITIOX. 
 
 triimiplis, and, weighed down by sickness and misfortune, be- 
 came the prisoner of the Koman Inquisition. His confine- 
 ment was not severe, yet he grew weary and sad. He was 
 brought before the holy tribunal and condemned, after a vain 
 defense ; his sentence was read to him on a memorable day, 
 when the assembled Inquisitors sat in their high tribunal, full 
 of empty pride, and the great philosopher, clothed in a peni- 
 tential garb, knelt humbly at their feet. It was the triumph 
 of ignorance and folly over the humiliation of one of the most 
 eminent of his race. 
 
 His sentence was still to be fulfilled. A series of ridiculous 
 and degrading punishments was imposed upon Galileo by the 
 silly and ignorant priests. He was to abjure his heresy in the 
 presence of the cardinals ; to retract all that was said in his 
 book; to promise that he would never more assert that the 
 earth moved around the sun ; to be imprisoned in the cells 
 of the Holy House ; to recite weekly the Seven Penitential 
 Psalms ; and to remain for the rest of his life under the watch- 
 ful care of the Inquisition. Once more the dull and malicious 
 cardinals sat on their thrones of state, while Galileo, clothed in 
 sackcloth, was led in a prisoner, his illustrious head bowed in 
 penitence, his mighty spirit touched by remorse and shame. 
 He knelt, and, placing his hand on a copy of the Evangelists, 
 declared that he would never more assert the motion of the 
 earth. Thus was Science dishonored by Popes and priests in 
 the person of her immortal son. Yet tradition relates that, 
 as the venerable philosopher rose from his knees, he was heard 
 to murmur, " But it moves, nevertheless." He was imprison- 
 ed for a few days in the Inquisition, and was then carried to 
 Arcetri, near Florence, where he was held a prisoner for five 
 years. He became totally blind in 1637, his health having de- 
 clined in his captivity ; and at length he died, in 1042, at the 
 age of seventy-seven. The malice of the holy tribunal pursued 
 him even after his death, and his remains were scarcely suf- 
 fered to be interred in consecrated ground. They were hid- 
 den, at last, in an obscure corner of the Church of Santa Croce, 
 at Florence, and were left without a monument to indicate 
 the place where slept the greatest genius of his age.
 
 TEE FIRST AERONAUT. 395 
 
 Amidst the storm of ridicule and reproaeli with which pos- 
 terity has overwhelmed the infallible Church for denying that 
 the earth moves, and for inflicting its rigorous pains upon the 
 aged and illustrious Galileo, Tiraboschi, the Jesuit, with the 
 ingenuity of his order, suggests a casuistical defense.(') It 
 was the Inquisition, he says, that denied the axiom of sci- 
 ence; but the Inquisition is not infallible, and the Church 
 does not consent to be bound by its decisions. Yet, if the 
 Pope, as Supreme Inquisitor, may enforce opinions in science 
 or morals that are untrue, how can we be sure that he is in- 
 fallible when he acts in any other capacity ? If he asserts it 
 to be the doctrine of the Church that the earth does not move 
 around the sun, either he fails in interpreting the opinion of 
 his predecessors, or he declares the Church to believe what 
 observation has shown to be false. In either case infallibility 
 sinks before the light of science. Galileo's doctrine survived 
 his abjuration and his death, and the name of the martyr of 
 the Inquisition is written among the stars. 
 
 In another branch of science the holy tribunal was scarcely 
 more successful. A learned Jesuit in the seventeenth centu- 
 ry first suggested the method of ascending the air in balloons ; 
 another, Bartolomeo Gusmao, toward the close of the century, 
 seems nearly to have succeeded in the design. He had seen 
 in Brazil light vegetable substances of a spherical shape float 
 in the air, and imitated them in paper balloons fllled with gas. 
 At length he formed a larger one, and, having come to Lis- 
 bon, proposed to ascend himself in the presence of the people. 
 Amidst a wondering multitude he sent up one of his balloons, 
 the first, perhaps, that had ever been seen, and • assured his 
 friends that there was no danger nor difliculty in navigating 
 the air.(^) He even offered to carry the Grand Inquisitor and 
 all the holy tribunal with him on his adventurous journey ; 
 but the clergy shuddered at the impious attempt to defy the 
 
 (') Tiraboschi, viii., p. 177 : "Ma riflettero solamente che il Galileo non 
 fu coudanDato nfe dalla chiesa universale, uh dalla Eomaua, ma solo dal 
 tribuuale della Inquisizione." The ex-Jesuit had not forgotteu his casu- 
 istry. 
 
 C) Crdtineau-Joly, Compagnie de Jdsus, iv., p. 318.
 
 396 DOMINIC AXD THE INQUISITION. 
 
 laws of nature ; the IIolj Office resolved to interfere. The 
 Inquisitors were convinced that the ingenious Jesuit was pos- 
 sessed by an evil spirit ; that Satan alone could have invented 
 the stransce machine. Gusraao was seized and thrown into 
 one of the deepest cells of the Holy House, and vainly strove 
 to persuade his persecutors that his invention was opposed to 
 none of the doctrines of the Church. His arguments were re- 
 jected as frivolous. The Church condemned the balloon ; and 
 the ambitious aeronaut, after lingering some time in confine- 
 ment, was set free at the solicitation of his fellow-Jesuits, fled 
 to Spain about the year 1700, and seems never to have again 
 attempted to navigate the air. 
 
 Between the magicians and sorcerers of the Middle Ages 
 and the acute Inquisitors a long contest raged, and all the gen- 
 tle solicitude and the medicinal pains of the Holy Oflice were 
 employed in vain in extirpating the ever-increasing host of the 
 servants of Satan.(') Tlie magician of the Inquisition was a 
 being sufiiciently portentous. He was invested with all the 
 learning of the time. He had studied alchemy, geometry, and 
 mathematics in the schools of the Arabs. He could raise the 
 spirits of the lower world, and call the dead from the grave, 
 the demon from the abyss. In some dark and subterranean 
 vault, hung with black, in a lonely wood or torrid desert, or 
 amidst the ruins of an abbey or a castle, the magician stood at 
 midnight, clothed in an ephod of white linen, and an exterior 
 robe of black bombazine sweeping the ground. His faithful 
 assistant was at his side. A storm of thunder and shai-p light- 
 ning raged above as he traced around him his magic circle, in- 
 scribing it with triangles and crosses, and marking it with hal- 
 lowed names. The circle was his only safeguard against the 
 raging band of demons. He stepped within the safe pre- 
 cinct, and, holding a Hebrew Bible in his hand, began to mut- 
 ter his most powerful incantations. Wild cries and fearful 
 noises soon arose ; flashes of fire and tremblings of the earth 
 announced the approach of the Satanic company.^ ) The magic 
 
 (•)Llorente,ii.,p.40-61. 
 
 C) Del Rio, Disqnisitiones Magicse. The learned Jesuit gives ample de- 
 tails of the magic art.
 
 ITALY AND SPAIN DECAY. 397 
 
 circle was surrounded by spirits in the shapes of savage lions 
 and tigers, vomiting flames, and struggling to devour their im- 
 passive master. He must remain calm and without a tremor, 
 or he would fall a victim to the malicious beings he had sum- 
 moned ; he must awe them into obedience. When they found 
 that they could not alarm him, the spirits assumed graceful 
 and enticing forms, and strove to deceive him into confidence. 
 But the skillful magician knew that they were as false and ma- 
 licious as they were cruel, and looked upon them with stern and 
 self-respecting eyes. He laid on them his commands ; forced 
 them to fly over land and sea, mountains and deserts, to do 
 his bidding, and only ventured to step beyond his magic circle 
 when the last shriek of the demon host had died on the mid- 
 night air. But the harmless pretender often found himself in 
 the hands of the familiars of the Inquisition, no less treacher- 
 ous and cruel than the spirits they imagined and described. 
 For centuries the dungeons of the Holy Oflice were filled with 
 sorcerers and witches. And when the belief in the occult arts 
 had long ceased in other lands, an unlucky sorceress was burn- 
 ed, in 1T80, by the Spanish Inquisition. 
 
 Thus in the sixteenth century was the tide of modern civ- 
 ilization rolled back from Italy and Spain, and every trace of 
 resistance to the papal power had disappeared before the iron 
 rule of the disciples of Dominic and Loyola. A new ambition 
 inspired the Supreme Inquisitor, the Jesuits, and Philip of 
 Spain : encouraged by their unquestioned triumph, they now 
 proposed to extii-pate the heretics of Germany and France, 
 and bring back rebellious England to a modest submission to 
 the ancient faith. 
 
 How nearly this design had succeeded, how almost resistless 
 was the progress of the Inquisition and of the papal armies in 
 the close of the sixteenth century, can scarcely be reviewed 
 without a shudder by the historical inquirer who remembers 
 the fate of all Southern Europe under the remorseless rule of 
 its oppressors. That England, Germany, and the Scandinavian 
 kingdoms escaped the doom of Italy and Spain, is one of the 
 marvels of history. The Popes deposed Elizabeth, absolved 
 her subjects from their allegiance, and aimed the assassin's
 
 398 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 dagger at the heart of the courageous queen. Had she fallen, 
 Mary of Scotland might have ascended the vacant throne, and 
 the armies of Philip have swept over the divided land. En- 
 gland, already half Catholic, and torn by civil discord, must 
 have made a bold but useless resistance to the superior skill of 
 the Prince of Parma and his well-trained troops. France in 
 this ominous period was striving to destroy the Huguenots ; 
 and the Holy League and the Catholic princes were eager to 
 enforce the principles of Dominic and Loyola tlu'oughout all 
 their bleeding country. Supine and enfeebled, the German 
 Protestants awaited that storm of ruin which the vigor of 
 Wallenstein was soon to let loose upon the whole region, from 
 the Danube to the Baltic coast. The war in the Netherlands 
 was raging with unexampled horrors ; the Inquisition was tri- 
 umphant over the deserted ruins of Antwei"p, and the silent 
 streets of Brussels and Ghent ; and Holland, the last fortress 
 of European civilization, had Elizabeth died or the League been 
 successful, must have sunk forever in despotism and oblivion. 
 Of all the disastrous wars of this unhappy age, clouded with 
 human calamity, the lessons of Dominic and the zeal of the 
 Liquisitors were the primal cause. To plant the Inquisition 
 in the cities of the Netherlands, Philip II. employed all the 
 resources of his immense empire, and all the remorseless arts 
 he had learned in the schools of the holy tribunal. He was 
 eager to celebrate an act of faith in Amsterdam or London, 
 and to renew the favorite spectacle of Valladolid or Seville in 
 lands teeming with heretics, and filled with the elements of 
 reform. His fanatical passion was very nearly gratified. He 
 assassinated William of Orange, and the Prince of Parma 
 pressed successfully upon the last defenses of Holland. More 
 than once Philip had nearly procured the death of Elizabeth 
 of England. His sliij^s and his armies threatened to bear the 
 rack and the scourge to the home of Shakspeare, Bacon, and 
 Spenser. Often it seemed in doubt whether England might 
 not be crushed beneath a new Torquemada, and its Protestant 
 population perish in the final triumph of the Inquisition. (') 
 
 (') It is shown by tlie accurate pictures of Motley and Froude how fee- 
 ble were the defenses of England, how superior the resources of Spain.
 
 ENGLAND UNDER AN INQUISITION. 399 
 
 It is a curious, perhaps an instructive, question to examine 
 the results that must have flowed from the success of the de- 
 vout hopes of the Popes and the Inquisitors — an inquiry now 
 as practically needless as the question of the Roman histori- 
 ans as to what would have followed had Alexander invaded 
 Italy. But the complete subjection of Holland and England 
 to the Supreme Inquisitor at Rome must have been attended 
 by a change so vast in the condition of mankind as can scarce- 
 ly fail to arrest curiosity ; nor can it be doubted that it would 
 have been succeeded by a limitless period of decay. The 
 English kings must have followed the example of those of 
 France. In 1600, Henry IV. enforced a general toleration, 
 and France grew in industry and power. In 1700, his de- 
 scendant, Louis XIY., had become his own Supreme Inquisi- 
 tor, and expelled the working-classes from his kingdom. In- 
 dolence, chivalry, and a barbarous passion for military glory, 
 made France the terror and the shame of Europe. An Inqui- 
 sition ruling in London, and a line of Catholic kings on the 
 English throne, must have destroyed the industry of the 
 nation, and planted the elements of moral and mental de- 
 cay wherever the fleets and colonies of England penetrated. 
 Holy houses would have sprung up along the coasts of North 
 America, and an act of faith might still have formed the fa- 
 vorite amusement of the people from Labrador to Patagonia. 
 The chief employment of governments would have been to 
 crush heresy; of the mechanic, to invent a new rack or a 
 more effectual thimib-screw ; of the author, to celebrate the 
 victories of infallibility ; and of the man of science, to defend 
 the miracles and the doctrines of Dominic. To such a des- 
 tiny were the people of Spain and Italy condemned in the 
 prosperous period of the holy tribunal. 
 
 But England and Holland repelled the armies of the In- 
 quisitors, and preserved their narrow territories to be the 
 birthplace of a new civilization. It was the terror of the In- 
 cpiisition that aroused the people of both countries to their 
 desperate resistance. In England, the Puritans, children of 
 industry and of honest thought, gathered around their queen, 
 and kept the wavering Elizabeth in the front of the Protest-
 
 400 DOMINIC AXD THE INQUISITION. 
 
 ant movement of the age. A war with Spain was always pop- 
 ular ; a raid on Lisbon or Cadiz enlisted the sympathy of men 
 of intellect and men of toil. But in Holland the dread of the 
 Inquisitors and the horrors of the Spanish rule awoke to a 
 still grander heroism a people singularly calm and phlegmat- 
 ic. " Better to die together," they exclaimed, " than to sub- 
 mit to the slow ruin entailed by the holy tribunal." Indus- 
 try and intellect rose in the contest. The laboring classes 
 and the men of thought flocked to the free cities of the be- 
 leaguered land ; and, amidst the perils of an inexpiable war, 
 factories and work-shops were never idle, great fleets thronged 
 the ports of Amsterdam and Zeeland, universities were found- 
 ed, churches flourished, and the dismal fens and wastes of 
 Holland became the centre of the highest progress of the age, 
 because they had driven back the Inquisition. 
 
 Discomfited in all their plans of conquest, the Inquisitors 
 retreated to Italy and Spain, and here, throughout the sev- 
 enteenth century, exercised an unparalleled severity. The 
 passion for autos-dcc-fe grew in strength with the kings and 
 the people, and each Spanish monarch celebrated his accession 
 to the throne by the popular spectacle. At the great act of 
 faith in 1G80, the famous, the noble, and the gay attended. 
 An immense concourse of people assembled in the galleries.(') 
 The king looked on from eight in the morning, with devout 
 interest, until the last rites were performed ; and it was ob- 
 served, as an example to all future ages, that his majesty nei- 
 ther withdrew to take any refreshment nor showed any signs 
 of weariness, but was ever cheerful and composed. A work 
 was published describing the ceremony, with all its horrible 
 details. The names of the eminent spectators are recorded, 
 the pious zeal of the king celebrated ; and the author's pro- 
 duction is commended by the censors of the press as worthy 
 to be read, not only in Spain, but throughout the world. So 
 glorious a triumph of the faith ought never to be forgotten. 
 
 From the year 1700 the vigor of the Inquisition began to 
 decline. Literature aimed its sharpest blows at the institu- 
 
 (') Bourgoanne, Travels iu Spain, ch. xiii.
 
 CONDITION OF SPAIN. 401 
 
 tions of Dominic. The free press, which it had striven to 
 destroy, covered the secret tribunal with ignominy, and de- 
 nounced its most glorious triumphs as more savage than the 
 wild orgies of the Carib. Even Spain and Italy felt the ab- 
 horrence of mankind ; the acts of faith no longer drew ap- 
 plauding crowds at Yalladolid and Seville; the bull -fight 
 and the blood-stained matadore supplied the excitement that 
 had once followed the Inquisitor and his victim ; and liberal 
 priests began to lament the fanatical rage that had covered 
 their Church and their native land with infamy. Yet the 
 Holy Office still defied the indignation of the reformers, and 
 as late as 1763 heretics were burned in the midst of Spanish 
 civilization ; the Inquisition still ruled with a mysterious ter- 
 ror over the minds of men ; literature, science, and invention 
 still withered beneath its frown. The French Eevolution and 
 Napoleon swept away the Inquisitors and the holy houses; 
 they were restored by the arms of Wellington and the return 
 of the old dynasty. In 1823, a Tribunal of Faith punished 
 heretics; and in 1856, English and American missionaries were 
 imprisoned or banished by the Spanish priests.(') 
 
 Under the rule of its native Inquisitors, Spain sunk into a 
 complete decay. Aragon, in the last century, presented a 
 dreary waste of deserted hamlets and villages, and of cities 
 where a scanty and degraded population wandered amidst the 
 ruins of former opulence and grandeur.(^) In every province 
 the same spectacle of ruin met the traveler's eye. Cordova, 
 the centre of Moorish industry and taste, once teeming with 
 its countless artisans and scholars, had become an insignificant 
 town, abandoned by almost every trace of its ancient renown ; 
 but its w^onderful cathedral, the mosque of Abd-er-Rahman, 
 glorious in its wilderness of jasper and marble columns, the fair 
 creations of the Moorish architects, its ruined courts filled Avith 
 groves of orange-trees, shading with tangled shrubbery their 
 sparkling fountains, its immense and tarnished exterior, still 
 
 (') Rule, Hist. Inq. Lloreute, iv., p. 143, saw the Inquisitiou abolished by 
 Napoleon. 
 
 {^) Bourgoanne, Travels in Spain, vol. iii., ch. v. 
 
 26
 
 402 DOMINIC AND THE IXQUISITIOX. 
 
 revived the memory of the gifted people who had perished 
 by myriads under the bitter tyranny of the Inquisition. The 
 rich province of Granada was still more desolate. Its thin 
 and impoverished population starved amidst the opulence of 
 natm-e — amidst the gentle climate and prolific soil that had 
 once nourished the countless subjects of Bobadil, and where 
 the tall mountains covered with eternal snow, the rich valleys 
 never reached by the torrid heat, the torrents of limpid water 
 leaping from the precipices and fertilizing the happy plains, 
 the boundless productiveness of fruit and flower, seemed to 
 invite the hand of industry, and promise perpetual ease to 
 man. Above the fair but solitary scene arose the Palace of 
 the Alhambra, almost as perfect as when the victorious Span- 
 iards first entered its graceful courts, and drove into exile the 
 Moorish host.(*) Seville, from whose gates four hundred 
 thousand Moors marched out at the entry of Ferdinand, was 
 now languishing in a feeble decline — its priceless industries 
 slowly passing away. Such was the Spain of the Inquisition 
 in the last century, and such it had almost been to-day. 
 
 It was the people against whom the Holy Ofhce had aimed 
 its shai-pest pains ; it is the people who have at length swept 
 it from their path of progress. Since the flight of its queen 
 and the fall of the ancient dynasty, no trace of the Spanish 
 Inquisition lingers in the land of its birth ; the Bible, for the 
 first time, is freely read in Valladolid and Seville ; the Lu- 
 theran, the Hebrew, and the Morisco may wander at will over 
 the scenes where the great acts of faith were celebrated, and 
 the Protestant missionaries preach to attentive audiences on 
 the squares where their spiritual ancestors, clad in yellow 
 robes, perished amidst the clamor of rejoicing priests. The 
 change is startling; it is full of promise for the people of 
 Spain ; and we may trust that freedom, civilization, and prog- 
 ress are once more to visit the peninsula ; that with the death 
 of the Spanish Inquisition the factory and the workshop, free 
 
 C) Bourgoanne, iii., ch. v., describes the decline of Seville, and notices the 
 •waste wealth of Granada. Andersen lias painted the modern aspect of 
 Granada and Cordova. Travels in Spain, ch. ix.
 
 THE ROMAN INQUISITOBS. 403 
 
 schools and colleges, will spring np amidst the ruins of Grana- 
 da and Cordova ; and that Spain, under republican institutions, 
 may enter anew on that path of progress from which it was 
 turned back four centuries ago by the flaming sword of per- 
 secution. 
 
 We have no space to follow the desolating march of the 
 Holy OflSce over the East and the West ; to its grim and fear- 
 ful dungeons, so often tilled with victims, in the torrid heats 
 of Portuguese Goa; to the acts of faith of Mexico and the 
 calamities of Peru. The story would be the same unvary- 
 ing record of cruelty and crime. It would be easily shown 
 that most of the misfortunes of Latin America may be traced 
 to the Inquisitor — the decay of the intellect, the barbarism of 
 the people, the fall of a vigorous race. The revolutions excited 
 by fanatical priests have never ceased to spread anarchy 
 throughout Mexico and South America, and the Popes at 
 Pome have steadily endeavored to overthrow those free gov- 
 ernments that have sprung up in the rebellious colonies of 
 Catholic Spain. The Supreme Inquisitor still professes to 
 command in New Granada and Peru.(') 
 
 But we may pause to sketch briefly the fate of the Poman 
 congregation. The Popes as Supreme Inquisitors proved wor- 
 thy successors of Deza and Torquemada. Throughout the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries heresy died out in the 
 Papal States, and the Italians were carefully shielded from 
 the growing blight of modern civilization.(') The Yaudois, 
 whose missionaries had stolen into the patrimony of St. Peter, 
 were nearly lost in a storm of persecution ; the Lutherans fled 
 to the hospitable North; literature faded into dull submis- 
 sion, and science mourned over the fate of Bruno and Galileo. 
 One of the most eminent scholars of his age, Giordano Bruno, 
 had traveled over Europe, and had returned trusting to find a 
 safe refuge in the territories of republican Venice. He was 
 
 (') Laurent, Le Catholicisine, etc., p. 581 : " Mais il a abrogd eu Ani«5ri(iue 
 les principes et les maximes qui formeut la base de notre droit public." 
 Pius IX. annulled the laws of Mexico and New Granada, see p. 549. 
 
 {■) M'Crie.
 
 404 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 suspected of holding heretical opinions, was seized, and finally 
 taken to Rome. He was shut up in the new prisons of Pius 
 v., and defended his faith in various arguments with Bellar- 
 min and the congregation of cardinals. Two years passed 
 away. The cardinals grew weary of the vigorous controversy, 
 and the poet, scholar, and philosopher was condemned to deg- 
 radation and death. In February, 1600, the fagots and the 
 flames concluded the argument with a signal victory for the 
 Church. 
 
 From 1600 until 1808, the prisons of the Inquisition, sur- 
 rounded by a terrible mystery, overshadowed the homes of 
 the Romans. Their annals are lost, their records destroyed. 
 Ko footsteps crossed their awful portals but those of the 
 priests who administered their secret punishments, and the 
 victims whose silence was successfully insured. The armies 
 of the First Napoleon destroyed them, at least in part ; they 
 were renewed in 1825 ;(') but when Pope Pius IX. fled from 
 Rome before the revolution of 1848, the people broke into the 
 mysterious cells and set free an aged bishop and a nun, the 
 only occupants of the labyrinth of torment.f ) Gavazzi, who 
 entered the deserted palace surrounded by the enraged citi- 
 zens of Rome, describes the narrow corridors, the fearful cells, 
 the pitfalls — the evidences of unpardonable crimes — the luxu- 
 rious chambers and stately halls, in which the cardinal Inquis- 
 itors had held their revels and condemned their guiltless vic- 
 tims. Yet, when the armies of the French republic had re- 
 stored Pius IX. to his unstable throne, the Inquisition was once 
 more renewed ; the Pope ruled again as Supreme Inquisitor. 
 Giacinto Achilli occupied for a time a cell in the ruined pris- 
 ons, and was then removed to the safer shelter of St. Angelo. 
 He was afterward suffered to escape by the directions of the 
 Emperor of the French. 
 
 For more than twenty years Pope Pius IX. has ruled over 
 
 (') Jules Janin, Voyage en Italic, 1838, describes tlie ruin of Bologua. 
 From " cette ruine savaute vous passez dans una autre ruine, Ferrare," p. 
 246. It reflected that of Rome. 
 
 .{-) Rule, Hist. Inq., p. 430, gives Gavazzi's letter. Id., p. 433.
 
 PIUS IX. REVIVES TEE INQUISITION. 405 
 
 the Koman Inquisition, the last remnant of that mighty fab- 
 ric which had once overshadowed great states and empires, 
 and had embraced all Europe in its fatal chains. If we may 
 trust the records of his officials, his reign has not been unwor- 
 thy of his unsparing predecessors. The Holy Office, even in 
 the midst of the nineteenth century, has proved no empty 
 shadow to those who have deserved its attention ; and Dom- 
 inic might have recognized in its careful scrutiny of heresy, 
 blasphemy, and sorcery the vigorous tribunal that swept the 
 Albigenses from the earth. 
 
 Pius IX., when the French arms had destroyed the Eoman 
 republic, entered upon his new despotism with all the fierce 
 resolution of an Innocent III. He felt himself to be infalli- 
 ble. No gem had been ravished from his triple crown that 
 he was not prepared to reclaim ; no prerogative that had been 
 assumed by his predecessors but was still inherent to the chair 
 of St. Peter. The press was laid under an interdict ; the Bi- 
 ble in the vernacular was banished from Rome ; Protestant 
 assemblies were forbidden ; and the thunders of the Vatican 
 were launched against the surging waves of modern reform.(') 
 An excommunication was hurled against Victor Emmanuel 
 ^d the Italians, and troops of Jesuits and monks, of priests 
 and cardinals, filled the Eternal City with the clamor of a 
 new religious warfare. Strong in the protection of imperial 
 France, the priestly rulers despised the united hostility of the 
 Roman populace, shut up the Roman reformers in dismal 
 dungeons, or mercilessly shot them down upon the Roman 
 Campagna. Rome became the last refuge of religious per- 
 secution — the scene of enormities over which Dominic and 
 Loyola might have exulted with fond congratulations. » 
 
 The Inquisition was at once revived. In March, 1850, a 
 convention of cardinals, bishops, and archbishops met at Lo- 
 retto, the most sacred shrine of Mary, and issued an edict, 
 which was afterward confirmed by the Pope, to enforce the 
 
 (') I need scarcely confirm facts so notorious by any, authorities; yet the 
 reader will do well to look over the Syllabus and the cauous, and the de- 
 crees of the Council.
 
 406 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 devotion of the rebellious people.(') "Whoever committed the 
 crime of blasphemy by offering insults to the Blessed Mary 
 or the saints, might be punished with from ten to thirty days' 
 imprisonment ; and upon a second offense the extreme pen- 
 alties of the canon law might be imposed. (') Heresy was to 
 be punished still more severely ; and whoever should omit to 
 inform against a heretic might share his doom. Whoever re- 
 fused to kneel in the public way as the host passed by, neg- 
 lected a feast-day, violated a fast, or profaned a church by any 
 act of irreverence, was exposed to the penalties of the law. 
 An earlier edict, which is still retained, enjoined all good 
 Catholics to inform against any one who was a sorcerer, who 
 had made a compact with Satan, or who praj-ed or made liba- 
 tions to the Prince of Evil.Q 
 
 These regulations seem to have been enforced with all the 
 bitterness of spiritual tyranny. Informers sj)rung up in every 
 district, and priests and monks hunted the heretic in his most 
 secret retreats. At Fermo, a citizen died under torture ; at 
 Bertinoro, in 1855, five years' imprisonment was imposed for 
 insulting a priest.(*) The prisons of Pius IX. were tilled with 
 unhappy captives who had offended against the spiritual or the 
 temporal authority of the Church. 
 
 Thus, in the midst of the glories of modern civilization, in 
 the heart of the nineteenth century, the reign of Pius IX. 
 passed on before the eyes of Europe, a living picture of the 
 barbarism and degradation of the days of Pius V. or Innocent 
 III. Eome \vas a fortress, a prison, and a convent. The 
 streets of the Etefoal City swarmed with a population of in- 
 dolent monks and begging friars.(') The pompous festivals 
 of the mediaeval Church drew crowds of cin-ious pilgrims from 
 Europe and America, who wondered or smiled at the magnifi- 
 cence of its pagan rites, and too often forgot the woes of the 
 murmuring people who trembled before their priestly rulers. 
 
 (^) Italy in Transition, Appendix, gives the edict. 
 
 (') Article VI., cap. i. 
 
 C) Italy iu Transition, Appendix E., p. 460. 
 
 C) Italy in Transition, p. 215. The act of faith was not renewed. 
 
 (') Seymour, Pilgrimage to Rome (1848), p. 187.
 
 SOEEOJVS AXD DELIVERANCE OF ROME. 407 
 
 The Komans wept in secret over tlieir untold oppression ; the 
 strano-er alone swelled the multitude that assisted at the cere- 
 monies of St. Peter's. Few cared to remember, beneath the 
 glitter of the illuminations and the magnificence of the stately 
 show, that a garrison, half brigand, half convict, gleaming in 
 rich uniform, and armed with the most effective rifle, was re- 
 quired to suppress the indignation of every Koman patriot 
 and maintain the barbarous government on its throne ; few 
 suspected that in almost every dwelling of the decayed and 
 fallen city were impoverished families lamenting for their ex- 
 iles or their dead, and men and women shuddering at the enor- 
 mities of the papal guard.(') Eome sat separate from the civ- 
 ilized world, surromided by the waste of her desolate Cam- 
 pagna, a heap of venerable ruins ; and the last Supreme In- 
 quisitor — the successor of Deza and Torquemada — enforced 
 for a moment the discipline of Dominic, and, supported by 
 a host of bishops and cardinals, launched his final anathema 
 against the progress of the age. 
 
 Chanting the hymns of Luther, and patriotic songs that re- 
 call the wild strains of the Teutonic hosts that flung them- 
 selves upon the armies of Julian, the Germans crossed the 
 Rhine, and marched victorious to the walls of Paris. With 
 the fall of his imperial ally, the Pope was left without a friend. 
 Italy in a moment sprung to arms, to deliver the hapless Ro- 
 mans and expel the robber garrison from the Eternal City. 
 Fifty thousand ardent soldiers, beneath the burning heats of 
 September, encamped around Pome upon the desolate Cam- 
 pagna, and awaited patiently on that deadly plain, scorched by 
 the autumnal sun and tenanted by poisonous vipers, until the 
 Holy Father, after a mischievous delay, consented to resign his 
 temporal crown. Q A brief assault and a needless waste of 
 
 (') Some earlier travelers — Ladj' Morgan, Mrs. Trollope, and others — see 
 only the splendid rites. Simoud, Tour in Italy (1817), p. 297, is more dis- 
 criminating. 
 
 (") London Times, September 24tb ; Daily News, September 27tb. In 
 consequence of the delay, great suffering was occasioned in the Italian 
 army ; soldiers died of malarious fevers ; food and water were scarce ; the 
 ground was covered with poisonous vipers.
 
 408 DOMINIC AND THE INQUISITION. 
 
 life enforced his submission ; the Italian troops and a train 
 of exiled patriots swept into the rejoicing city. The Romans 
 met their deliverers with grateful acclamations, and, clinging 
 to their side, exclaimed, " Save us from the Pope and his brig- 
 and soldiers !" A boundless joy, a guiltless triumph, swelled 
 over Italy, and every patriot exulted in the thought that for 
 the first time since the fall of the Roman empire his country 
 ■was united — was free. 
 
 The German march across the Rhine was the signal for an- 
 other change. The Holy Office was no more. The Supreme 
 Inquisitor had been driven from his temporal rule; the pris- 
 ons were opened ; the persecuting edicts were of no further 
 significance; the Bible was read beneath the sliadow of St. 
 Peter's ; and Yaudois missionaries from the valleys were al- 
 ready planning a seminary and a church at Rome. For the 
 first time since the destruction of the Albigenses, it may be 
 safely afiirmed that the Inquisition of Dominic has ceased to 
 exist. 
 
 Yet the sacred duty will ever remain for us and for poster- 
 ity to celebrate, with gratitude and admiration, the memory of 
 the countless hosts who perished by the fires of persecution ; of 
 those generous martyrs who fell in the front ranks of human 
 advance. The gentle Albigenses, gifted children of the South ; 
 the Spanish Hebrew, teacher of industry and tlirift ; the Moors, 
 adorned by scholarship and taste ; the Lutheran and the Cal- 
 vinist ; the men of science, philosophy, and thought — the hon- 
 ored list of the victims of Dominic and tlie Inquisition — must 
 shine forever with a softened lustre amidst the gloom of the 
 Middle Ages ; and it is possible that some historian from the 
 declivities of the Rocky Mountains or the shores of the Pacific, 
 when, six hundred years from now, according to the limitation 
 of Cicero, he studies the annals of European barbarism, will 
 neglect the useless strife of savage kings and persecuting 
 priests to record the fate of the inventors and artisans, the la- 
 borers and the thinkers, who laid in suffering and toil tlie foun- 
 dations of modern freedom.
 
 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 On the sharp promontory of St. David's, that cuts the tur- 
 bid waves of the Irish Sea, stood Dermot Macmorrough, Prince 
 of Leinster, planning the ruin of his native hind. Exiled for 
 his cruel oppressions, hated and contemned by friend and foe, 
 the royal traitor, says the contemporary chronicle, watched 
 with eager eyes the distant coast of Ireland, and caught with 
 joy the scent of the gales that breathed from his ancestral 
 fields.(') To Dermot of Leinster his countrymen may well 
 ascribe the loss of their freedom and the destruction of their 
 national faith. The savage chief was one of the numerous 
 kings or rulers of Ireland. lie was tall in stature, of huge 
 proportions, valiant in war, terrible to his foes ; his sonorous 
 voice was become hoarse from raising the war-cry of battle ;(^) 
 his sanguinary joy was to count the heads of the slain and ex- 
 ult over the heaps of the fallen. But misfortune or retribu- 
 tion had at last come upon the haughty Dermot : his people 
 had risen against his tyranny. And a woman, adds the monk- 
 ish writer, with natural injustice, has usually been the cause 
 of the chief woes of man, as witness Helen or Cleopatra ; nor 
 was this destructive element wanting to the sorrows of Der- 
 mot.(') The barbarous Paris had snatched from King O'Roric 
 of Meath a faithless bride ; the Irish princes, like the Grecian 
 chieftains, had united to avenge the unpardonable wrong ; 
 Koderic of Connaught, then monarch of all Ireland, led the 
 forces of his country against the offender ; the nobles of Lein- 
 ster deserted their guilty prince, and Dermot fled to Wales or 
 
 — 4—- -,.-,,■ . ..■■, .-_-■ ■ ■ ■■ - , ... — ■ ■ - 
 
 (') Giraldus Cambreusis, Hibernia Expuguata, caj). ii. : "Et quasi desi- 
 deratsB nidorem patriaj naribus trabens." 
 
 ('')Girald.,Hib.Ex. 
 
 (') " Sed quouiam mala fere cuncta majora tarn M. Autonio quam Troja 
 testante."
 
 410 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 England in a convenient sliip, glowing with hatred against his 
 countrymen, resolved to destroy, by the aid of foreign arms, 
 the irresistible confederacy of the Irish chiefs.(') 
 
 Kevenge, or a passionate longing to revisit the green mead- 
 ows of Leinster, probably blinded the Irish chieftain to the 
 consequences of his design. Yet, however deep and insatiable 
 his vengeance, he must have shrunk appalled from his fatal 
 purpose could he have foreseen through the lapse of centuries 
 the endless chain of tyranny he was about to entail upon his 
 country ; the miseries of its people, that were never to cease ; 
 the cruel triumph of the Nor;uan knights as they hunted the 
 Irish from their pleasant pastures to wild fens and dismal sol- 
 itudes ; the utter ruin of its ancient Church, that was to be 
 crushed beneath the furious bigotry of Rome ; the series of 
 perpetual sorrows that were to weigh down an innocent and 
 happy race, and make the Irish name from the twelfth to the 
 nineteenth century the symbol of national subjection and de- 
 cay. 
 
 l^OY could Dermot have succeeded in his aim had he not 
 been aided by the two most potent of his country's foes. The 
 ISTorman King of England, Henry II., and the Pope of Eome, 
 had already resolved upon the destruction of Ireland. Of the 
 causes and the results of this unmerited enmit}^ we propose to 
 give a brief but, we trust, a not uninstructive sketch. 
 
 From that gloomy period that lies between the fifth and 
 the tenth century, when all Europe was desolated by the swift 
 inroads of ^Northern barbarians, and w^lien Goths or Huns 
 were laying the foundations of novel systems of govern- 
 ment, the island of Erin, sheltered amidst the waves, shines 
 ont with the tranquil lustre that won for it the appellation of 
 the Island of the Saints.f ) Ko savage hordes ravaged its fer- 
 tile fields ; no papal crusade corrupted its early Christianity ; 
 a soft and misty climate made it the perpetual abode of plenty 
 
 (') Haumer and Campion should be consulted for the early history; 
 Moore is uncritical ; O'Connor more independent. The Four Masters give 
 the annals briefly. 
 
 (^) Campion, Hist. Ireland, p. 19, is filled with legends, but is entertain- 
 ing. Hanmer relates the miracles of Patrick, p. 76.
 
 miSH SCENERY. 411 
 
 and temperate ease.(') From the central ridge of picturesque 
 mountains, often covered with bog, or supporting, like natural 
 vases, some crystal pool amidst their summits, the soil of Ire- 
 land slopes downward on all sides to the sea. It was ever 
 rich in pastures and meadows, honey and milk; countless 
 herds of cattle wandered beneath its forests and over its 
 bountiful fields ; it purchased, with its hides and skins, an 
 abundance of wine from the coasts of Poitou ; its stags, with 
 noble antlers and slender sliapes, ranged in troops over its se- 
 questered hills, and herds of wild boar, more numerous than 
 those of any other land, tilled the thickets of Ulster and Killar- 
 ney. There were swans and cranes ; crows, always party-color- 
 ed, and never black ; no nightingales ; swift hawks and count- 
 less eagles, who could gaze with unwinking eyes upon the 
 sun, who soared upward until they almost reached the fiery 
 gates of heaven, whose lives were so prolonged that they look- 
 ed down from their mountain peaks upon the successive genera- 
 tions of dying man, and scorned the feeble race beneath them.(^) 
 One strange exception marked the animated life of Ireland. 
 At least in the year 1170, we are assured, no venomous rep- 
 tiles could exist upon its sacred soil ;(') no snakes nor adders, 
 no scoi-pious, frogs, nor dragons, were found in its green fields, 
 or lay hidden in the recesses of its mountains. In France, it 
 was said, the frogs filled the air with their croaking, in Britain 
 they were silent, but in Ireland there were none ; reptiles or 
 toads brought in ships to the shores of Leinster died as they 
 touched the enchanted ground ; the soil of Ireland, sprinkled 
 over foreign gardens, exjDelled the reptile crew ; once only a 
 single frog was discovered alive in the grassy meadows of 
 Wexford, and was surrounded by an immense crowd of the 
 Irish and the English, gazing in speechless wonder upon the 
 unparalleled prodigy. Bearded natives and shaven strangers 
 
 (}) Girald., Topog. Hib., is always unfavorable to the victims of the Ger- 
 
 aldines, but extols the country. 
 
 (") Girald., Top. Hib. : " lu ipsos Solaris corporis radios." 
 
 (') Gerald, who studied the country with care, affirms the virtue of the 
 
 Irish soil. The tradition proves that reptiles were at least rare: they 
 
 have since multiiilied.
 
 412 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 were struck with equal consteraation. Gliost or apparition 
 they might liave borne with cahnness, but a frog, green and 
 vigorous, was never seen in Ireland before. At length Don- 
 ald, King of Ossory, a man renowned for wisdom and pru- 
 dence, advanced among the thick press of his people to ex- 
 plain the omen. Beating his head, and weighed down by un- 
 feigned grief, he cried, " That reptile is the bearer of doleful 
 news to Erin."(') The Normans soon after, says the chroni- 
 cler, invaded the unhappy land, and fulfilled the saying of the 
 acute Donald. 
 
 The people of Ireland belonged to that wide-spread family 
 of Celts that had once ruled over France, Britain, and the hills 
 of Scotland. They were tall, well - formed, and vigorous.(^) 
 Their hair and eyes were black ; parents educated their chil- 
 dren to bear privation and live on scanty food; their dress 
 was a thick coat of the black wool of the country, and heavy 
 hose or breeches — a plain mark of barbarism to the l^ormans, 
 who still wore the flowing robes of ancient Rome. They suf- 
 fered their beards and hair to grow to an enormous length ; 
 they built no towns nor cities, but lived a pastoral life, filling 
 the woods and fields with immense herds of cattle. Yet, like 
 all the Celts, the Irish were passionate lovers of music and 
 poetry. Bards, renowned from Cork to Derry, sung at the 
 great assemblies of Tara the exploits of the O'Tooles and the 
 0']*<^eils, and took rank with the chief nobles and princes. 
 The musicians of Ireland excelled those of all other lands; 
 they touched the strings of their native harp with such deli- 
 cate and cultivated art, and produced strains so soft yet lively, 
 so rapid, sweet, and gay, that even their Norman conquerors 
 yielded to its seductions, and filled their castles with Irish 
 hai-pers-C) The Irish bishop or saint in his missionary toils 
 carried his harp with him to soothe his lonely hours. The 
 
 (') Topog. Hib., cap. sxiv. : " Pessimos in Hiberniam rumores vermis ille 
 portavit." Gerald relates the incident as if of his own knowledge. 
 
 (-) Girald. : " Pulclierrimis et proceris." 
 
 (') Girald., Top. Hib., cap. xi. : " In niusicis solum instrnmentis cora- 
 raeudabilem." The Irish airs began and closed on B flat, and were singu- 
 larly melodious.
 
 PATRICE IN IRELAND. 413 
 
 Irish princes swept their harp-strings with rapid touch as they 
 made ready for battle. 
 
 But the chief boast of Ireland was its independence. The 
 Romans had seen, but scarcely visited, the savage isle, whose 
 inhabitants, Strabo relates, sometimes devoured each other. 
 The Saxons had made no incursions on the Irish shore. The 
 Norwegians, masters of the Western isles, founded the flour- 
 ishing cities of Dublin, Wexford, Cork, or Limerick, but were 
 blended peacefully with the native inhabitants ; and of all the 
 Celtic races the Irish alone remained free. Their kino;s were 
 elective ; a supreme ruler was chosen in the national assembly, 
 and was crowned upon the Stone of Destiny at Tara ; the im- 
 pulsive people obeyed cheerfully their native rulers, and only 
 rebelled when some cruel Dermot drove them to revolt and 
 outraged the higher instincts of humanity. 
 
 Christianity, in its purer form, came to Ireland about the 
 middle of the flfth century.(') For six years Patrick, the son 
 of pious parents, the child of a priest, had been held in slavery 
 in Ireland, and on the hills of Antrim had tended his sheep 
 and worshiped God. Every seventh year it was the Irish 
 custom to set free all bondmen. Patrick returned to his 
 native Brittany, to his parents and his Christian friends, was 
 ordained a presbyter, and studied in the Celtic schools of Gaul. 
 Yet his fancy must often have gone back to the pleasant fields 
 and generous natives of Antrim, where his spotless youth had 
 passed, who were still lost in savage superstitions, who sacri- 
 ficed the firstlings of their flocks, and sometimes their infants, 
 in the Yalley of Slaughter, and knelt in the groves of the 
 Druids. A vision came to Patrick as he labored at his studies 
 in Gaul, summoning him to the conversion of Ireland. A 
 voice called him in the midnight: he obeyed. About the 
 year 432 he crossed the seas to the land where he had once 
 been a slave, and preached the simple Gospel to the bards, the 
 princes, and the bearded people of Erin.f ) 
 
 (') Thierry, Conquete de TAugleterre, iii., p. 195 et scq., preseuts au ac- 
 curate picture of the early Irish Church. 
 
 C) The only trustworthy account of Patrick is his own Coufessio and a 
 single letter. The more recent lives are filled with the visions and mira- 
 cles of the Dark Ages.
 
 414r TEE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 In the year 432 there were no images nor crucifixes, no 
 pompous ritual, no spiritual despotism, no moral corruption 
 emanating from Rome. The Imperial City, sacked by Goth 
 and plundered by Ilun, torn by discord, soon to be desolated 
 by Genseric, and reduced almost to a naked waste, harried by 
 robbers and polluted by savages, had simk to the condition of 
 a provincial town. Its scanty population, its corrupted priest- 
 hood, or its trembling bishop were scarcely able to maintain 
 the existence of its fallen Church. Patrick, therefore, the 
 humble slave and missionary, brought to Ireland the simple 
 elements of an apostolic faith ; he preached only the doctrines 
 of Paul, with almost equal success.(') The savage Irish re- 
 ceived him with generous hospitality ; he preached to the as- 
 sembled nation on the hill of Tara ; he purged the Yalley of 
 Slaughter of its dreadful rites ; he founded schools, churches, 
 and monasteries in the wilds of Connaught and along the 
 dreary coasts of Ulster, and Ireland became a Christian coun- 
 try, renowned for its intelligence, its pious genius, and its mis- 
 sionary zeal. 
 
 For many centuries the island of the saints abounded with 
 schools where countless teachers were educated, and where 
 scholars from all the neighboring countries came to study 
 at the feet of the most accomplished professors of the age.(^) 
 While Rome and Italy had sunk into a new barbarism, Ire- 
 land had revived the taste for classical learning, and was filled 
 with a thoughtful and progressive population. At the great 
 college of Armagh seven thousand students are said to have 
 been gathered at once ; a hundred schools studded the green 
 fields of the happy isle; in every monastery its inmates la- 
 bored and taught with ceaseless industry ; its missionary teach- 
 ers wandered among the Franks of Gaul and the Celts of 
 Scotland, to Belgium and to Germany, sowing everywhere the 
 genns of Christian civilization. Irish scholars established the 
 
 (') There is uo trace in the Confession of any knowledge of Romish 
 practices, or any mention of Rome. 
 
 (-) Thierry, Couquete, iii., p. 195 : " Leur lie comjitait une foule de saints 
 et de savants." See Ware, Hist. Bishojis of Ireland, i., p. 4, for Patrick's 
 life and the legends.
 
 lEISE SCHOLARS. 415 
 
 colleges of Charlemagne. Yirgilius and Erigena renewed the 
 taste for philosophical inquiry ; Columban, among the recess- 
 es of the Vosges, had taught honesty and independence to the 
 savage Franks ; St. Gall, an Irishman, founded in the heights 
 of Switzerland that famous monastery long afterward renown- 
 ed for its opulence and pride ; nor would it be possible even 
 to enumerate the long succession of Irish scholars who in this 
 eventful period laid the foundations of European progress. 
 It should be remembered that the Irish were the first to im- 
 press upon the barbarians of the jSTorth the necessity of popu- 
 lar education, the priceless importance of the public school. 
 
 A bleak and rocky island washed by the stormy l^orthern 
 seas has become immortal as the home of the most renowned 
 of the Irish missionaries.(') lona, or the Druid's Isle, on the 
 western coast of Scotland, swept by fierce arctic winds and 
 lashed by the wintry waves, still preserves traces of that sa- 
 cred company who once prayed and labored on its inliospitable 
 rocks. Here are the ruins of extensive churches, composed 
 of blocks of stone five or six feet long ; the foundations of 
 ancient schools and monasteries, wdience Europe was once in- 
 structed ; a multitude of tombs, overgrown with weeds, where 
 forty-eight kings of Scotland and a throng of saints and he- 
 roes lie buried ; and sculptured crosses and sepulchres, from 
 which the grim faces of angels or demons, distorted by time, 
 still gaze upon the observer.^ The legends on the tombs are 
 no longer legible ; the names of the saints and poets, scholars 
 and kings, who sleep in the wild Westminster of the seas are 
 forgotten ; yet perhaps no holier or more heroic spirits have 
 visited the earth than those who for many centuries made 
 lona an island of light amidst the general decay and degra- 
 dation of the intellect. 
 
 Columba, the missionary of lona, was educated at the open- 
 ing of the sixth century, in the pure religion of the Irish 
 
 (') Becle, Hist. Ecc, iii. : " Venit aiitem Brittaniam Columba." 
 (-) The tombs and ruius of loua do not probably reach back beyoud tbc 
 tenth century ; are the products of Romish labors. See Pennaut, Tour, 
 lona. Wilson, Tour round Scotland, p. 130, notices a " giant cross."
 
 416 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 Church. He was the descendant of kings, perhaps born to 
 opulence and power. But he sought a spiritual crown, and 
 gave himself eagerly to ceaseless study. Learned in all the 
 attainments of the age, his chief delight was ever in the liter- 
 ature of the Scriptures. With Paul he meditated upon the 
 mighty problems of life and death ; like Paul he went forth 
 to convert mankind. He passed over Ireland, founding great 
 monasteries and schools, long afterward renowned as centres 
 of purity and faith ; he preached in the wilds of Scotland ; 
 he planted the germs of Christianity in the British Isles. At 
 leno-th he selected the bare and barren lona as the scene of 
 
 CI 
 
 his chief labors, the home of his adventurous spirit. He land- 
 ed ^\^th twelve disciples on its rocky breast, and built liis hum- 
 ble monastery. Amidst the roar of the angry waves and the 
 rage of the arctic seas the prayers and toils of the faithful 
 company ripened into a wonderful success. The bleak rocks 
 of lona were wrought into a chain of costly buildings, and 
 were covered with a pious and studious population. The 
 kings of the North laid their offerings on its modest shrines, 
 and claimed the right of burial by the side of its scholars and 
 saints. Centuries passed on ; Columba slept peacefully on 
 his Druid's Isle ; the fame of lona spread over the world, and 
 its missionaries carried learning and Christianity through all 
 those savage lands over which the benevolent Columba had 
 bent with affectionate regard. 
 
 Late in the seventh century the malarious influence of the 
 Italian priesthood began to subdue tlie British churches, and 
 reached even to the rebellious presbyters of lona. To Pome 
 they had ever presented a silent opposition.(') They owed it 
 no allegiance; they followed none of the Pomisli rites.f) 
 They had founded a Northern Church in Scotland, Ireland, 
 
 (') The acnte, learned, judicious Thierry (iii., p. 197) asserts the liberty 
 of the Irish Church, and observes the incessant efforts of the Popes to sub- 
 due it. " Les papes se bornorent h n(5gocicr, par lettres et par messages, 
 pour tacher d'amener les Iilaudais a 6tablir dans leur ile uue hierarchic 
 ecclfeiastique," etc. 
 
 (-) Bede, Hist. Ecc, iii., 25. Colmau cites against the popes the exam- 
 ple of St. John.
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH. 417 
 
 France, or Saxony, that professed to draw its origin from the 
 gentle model of Ephesus and St. John, and had scarcely heard 
 of the primacy of Peter. By force and fraud the unscrupu- 
 lous prelates of Home pursued and subjugated the primitive 
 Christians, massacred tlieir bishops in "Wales, seized on their 
 churches in Scotland, and at last intruded a Eomish bishop 
 and Italian rites into the hallowed seat of Columba. lona 
 now lost its reputation for scholarship and sanctity. The 
 pestilential breath of Italian corruption dissipated its moral 
 vigor. Its missionaries no longer poured forth in devoted 
 bands to civilize and restrain the barbarous ISTorth. The 
 Danes and Norwegians began their savage inroads upon the 
 Irish seas, and in 806 a fleet of swift vessels, tilled with the 
 yellow-haired worshipers of Odin, surrounded the holy island, 
 and landed its vikings upon the sacred soil. A brief contest 
 followed. The monks and scholars fought bravely in defense 
 of their peaceful home. But soon all was carnage and desolation. 
 The Norman pirates laughed as they beheld the island strewed 
 with the dead, and gathered their impious plunder ; and the 
 chant of the j)agan bards celebrating the victory of the vikings 
 was the only sound heard amidst the desolate ruins of lona.(') 
 The Irish Church meantime flourished with signal vigor. 
 It was in the fresh ardor of evangelical prosperity. Its simple 
 elders, or bishops, without any flxed sees, traveled from coun- 
 ty to county, confirming their intelligent people in their an- 
 cestral faith. (■) They were maintained by voluntary contribu- 
 tions. Avarice and priestly pride were unknown to the suc- 
 cessors of Patrick. They founded their ritual upon the vener- 
 able practice of the apostles, their doctrines upon the study 
 of the Scriptures. No archbishop had ever been known in 
 Ireland ; no legate from the papal court was allowed to in- 
 trude within the sacred isle.(') No contributions from the 
 
 (') It was renewed, aud, often ravaged, it slowly declined. 
 
 (^) Thieny, Conqnete de I'Angleterre, x. : " Leurs ^veques n'<^taiont qne 
 de simples pretres, auxqnels on avait coufi6 par 61ectiou la charge i)urciiient 
 de surveillans ou de visiteurs des <5glise8," iii., p. 198. They held no su- 
 periority of rank, nor thought of it. 
 
 (') Thierry, Conquete, iii., 198: "On achcter le pallium pontifical." 
 
 27
 
 418 THE CONQUEST OF lEELAND. 
 
 Irish Cliiircli swelled the ever-craving treasury of St. Peter. 
 No tithes, lirst-fruits, or ecclesiastical tribute helped to con- 
 firm the growing splendor and corruption of the Roman See. 
 Tlie Irish bishops firmly maintained their independence against 
 the constant menaces of Popes or councils; would consent 
 to hold no intercourse with the Court of Rome; denied its 
 claim to the right of ordination, and consecrated each other 
 by a simple laying-on of hands ; rejected the worship of im- 
 ages, the adoration of Mary, the infallibility of the Pope, and 
 in all their schools and colleges persisted in a free study of 
 the Scriptures. With an earlier Protestantism that Luther 
 mio'lit have suggested and Calvin approved, they inculcated 
 and exercised a general liberty of conscience founded upon the 
 wide education of the people, and a moral vigor that had been 
 handed down from their forefathers. The honesty, simplicity, 
 and pious zeal of the Irish teachers are admitted by the more 
 intelligent of their opponents.(') 
 
 But bitter was the hostility with which the Roman Popes 
 and the Italian conclaves had long been accustomed to view 
 the Island of the Saints, where alone their maledictions had 
 been treated with neglect ; which had never trembled before 
 the violence of a Hiklebrand or the milder reproofs of Hono- 
 rius ; where they could never levy the smallest tax nor sell a 
 benefice ; where presbyters were married, and suffered their 
 hair to hang down upon their shoulders.(') As the Popes 
 advanced steadily in their career of ambition and crime, and 
 the authority of Rome was established by a general extirpa- 
 tion of the primitive Christianity of Gaul, Britain, Wales, and 
 Scotland, the Church of Ireland became more than ever be- 
 fore the object of the envy and hatred of the Italian priests. 
 Its simple honesty put to shame the unprincipled lives of 
 those guilty men who from the fabled chair of St. Peter had 
 set the world an example of falsehood and duplicity that had 
 
 (') Girald., Topog. Hib. : " Clerus satis religione commendabilis." Grer- 
 ald allows them piety, chastity, etc. 
 
 (-) Thierry, Conquete, iii., p. 198. New Rome, says Thierry, must rely on 
 its arts, not its legions. The inhuman St. Bernard, the Popes, and Gerald 
 unite in violent abuse of the Irish Church.
 
 THE POPE SELLS IRELAND TO ITS ENEMIES. 419 
 
 corrupted generations, and made Christianity a vain pretense, 
 a fearful formalism. Its apostolic usages, its Scrij)tural doc- 
 trines, and its ever -open Bible were arguments so strong 
 against the fabric of Eomish superstition that the Popes felt 
 that they could never be secure until they had swept from 
 their path, in lire and blood, the schools, the churches, and the 
 native bishops of Ireland, 
 
 To accomplish this inhuman aim, Pope Adrian IV., in 1156, 
 sold Ireland to the Normans. For a certain tribute, to be torn 
 from its bleeding people, the Holy Father transferred all the 
 rights of St. Peter in the soil, the inhabitants, the schools, the 
 churches of the Island of the Saints, to Henry II. of England.(') 
 The Italian priest saw all the iniquity of his act. He knew 
 that he was letting loose upon a free and prosperous country 
 the horrors of an inexpiable war; that the fair iields of Lein- 
 ster and Ulster would be swept by bands of ravagers and mur- 
 derers ; that the Norman knights, who, in their rage, did not 
 spare sex, age, or condition, would harry the land of plenty, 
 and bring famine and desolation, waste and ruin, to populous 
 cities and pleasant towns ; that women, children, and old men 
 would find no mercy from their conquerors, and the stalwart 
 youth of Ireland perish in endless seditions. Yet he also 
 knew that the vengeance of Eome would be at last accomplish- 
 ed, and the rebellious Church of St. Patrick die out in the sor- 
 rows of its native land.(') The sale of Ireland to its foes is the 
 guiltiest of all the evil deeds of the Italian priesthood. It pro- 
 duced a succession of St. Bartholomews ; it was worse than the 
 expulsion of the Huguenots ; it has proved more fatal to the 
 Irish race than the Holy Office to Spain. From freedom and 
 ease they were suddenly reduced to the condition of slaves 
 and paupers; from pleasant homes they were driven to live 
 in caves, huts, and forests ; they became outcasts and beggars 
 amidst rich lands whence their ancestors had won abundance. 
 They were herded together by the Normans in narrow dis- 
 
 C) Mat. Paris, i., p. 95 ; GiraW. Cam., Hib. Ex., ii., 6 ; Thierry, iii., p. 203. 
 i"^) The Irish iu 1081 scarcely knew what was the Church of Kome. See 
 Lib. Mun. Nul. Hib., i., p. 50. The bishops and Lanfranc define it to them.
 
 420 TEE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 tricts, and learaed to live like cattle in miserable dens. Once 
 the most learned of their contemporaries, the teachers of Eu- 
 rope, the Irish sunk at once into unparalleled ignorance. 
 Within sight of the great colleges of Cashel and Armagh, they 
 forgot the use of books, and knew only the dull drivel of the 
 Eomish priest. Their bards were silent ; their musicians had 
 lost their art ; a broken harp hung against the ruined walls of 
 Tara. In fierce, blind ignorance from age to age they have 
 risen in vain revolts and striven to be free ; they have shown 
 courage without discretion, magnanimity with little knowledge. 
 Yet a keen discernment may still discover in the modern Irish- 
 man the elements of that character which produced in the age 
 of Columba and Columban the purest of saints, the most as- 
 siduous of students, before it was betrayed and degraded by 
 the cruel Popes of Eome.(') 
 
 So servile and so enfeebled has become the Irish intellect 
 under the tyranny of misfortune that not one of its native his- 
 torians has dared to trace its sorrows to their source, or to de- 
 nounce in honest indignation the selfish crimes of Adrian and 
 his successors. No patriot of Ireland has ventured to curse 
 the hand that betrayed his country.(°) Possessed by a strange 
 infatuation, the Irish have become in every land the firmest 
 adherents of the Italian priesthood, the authors of all their 
 woes ; they have joined in every bold assault of Italian Popes 
 upon modem civilization ; they have assailed the public schools 
 of America, the new colleges of their native land ; they have 
 striven to tear down those institutions of freedom under which, 
 in the New World, they might hope to regain their ancient 
 ease and vigor ; they have proved everywhere the willing 
 slaves of the dying papacy, and have never ventured to rebel 
 against that spiritual bondage that was imposed upon them by 
 the Normans and the Popes. 
 
 How long this strange delusion will continue can scarcely 
 
 (') GiraM. Cam. gives the bull of Adrian (Hib. Ex., ii., 6) without any 
 sense of its injustice. There was no doubt of Adrian's authority. 
 
 (=) Moore thinks it " a strange transaction." Lanigau (iv., p. 223) is a 
 little more explicit ; but the Irish clergy in general submit to the authority 
 of Adrian silently.
 
 DERMOT IN ENGLAND. 421 
 
 be told. Yet the descendants of the companions of Patrick 
 and Columba, of the victims of Adrian and Dermot, can not 
 always remain the dupes of their destroyers ; and it is possi- 
 ble that in the careful study of the annals of their country the 
 Irish may discover some vigorous impulse that shall lead them 
 to value once more freedom, education, and a liberal faith. 
 
 Dermot Macmorrough in his distress had fled to the court 
 of Henry II., had received his permission to enlist his subjects 
 in the expedition against Ireland, and had engaged Richard 
 Strongbow, of the somewhat decayed family of the Clares, 
 Earls of Pembroke, to lead the invading force. Richard was 
 to marry Eva, Dermot's daugliter, and to inherit the princi- 
 pality of Leinster.(') But the promised bridegroom was slow 
 in his preparations, and Dermot glowed with fiery ardor to 
 tread once more the fair fields of Leinster, and disturb the 
 repose of his enemies. He hired, therefore, Robert Fitz-Ste- 
 phen and the family of the Fitzgeralds to join his enterprise, 
 and, when they still delayed, set out alone for his native land. 
 It was August, 1168, when the traitor took ship at the prom- 
 ontory of St. David's ; a fair wind blew from the east over 
 the tranquil sea, and bore him safely to the hostile coast. Why 
 no fierce hurricane sunk his fragile bark, whirlpool dragged 
 him down to the caves of the ocean, or raging storm wrecked 
 him, where so many innocent have perished, on the lonely 
 wilds of Leinster, Irishmen may well wonder ; but Dermot, 
 bearing ruin in his path, landed safely at Glass-Carrig, a little 
 creek near Wexford, and, hiding in woods and wastes, escaped 
 the eyes of his enemies, and was concealed through the winter 
 by the clergy and bishop at Ferns. 
 
 In 1168-69 various circumstances had conspired to weaken 
 the unity of the Irish people : the ravages of the Danes had 
 sw^ept away many of the institutions of learning ;(^) the cruel 
 necessities of warfare had aroused the baser passions of the 
 race; internal strife was frequent; the princes had become 
 
 (') Hib. Ex., ix., p. 3 : " Stepbanides vero cum suis se ad insultum acriter 
 preparantes." 
 
 (-) Gordon, Hist. Ireland ; O'Connor, Hist. Ireland ; Moore, Hist. Ireland.
 
 422 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 savage and corrupt ; the Danish settlements had accepted Rom- 
 ish bishops, and for the first time an archbishop graced with 
 the pallium of Rome sat in the chair of Patrick at Armagh ; 
 tlie Irish Church was divided by the intrigues of the corrupt 
 Italians, although it still refused to pay tribute to Rome or 
 confonn to the Roman ritual ; and a cloud of gloom and dan- 
 ger seemed to hover around the island home of the last of the 
 Celtic races. 
 
 The traitor, meantime, had not been idle, and in the spring, 
 when the green meadows glowed once more with fresh flow- 
 ers, and the forests were thick with leaves, Dermot, at the 
 head of a few natives, or strangers from Wales, crept serpent- 
 like from his hiding-place and began to ravage his native 
 land. But the Irish, led by O'Roric, fell upon him with vig- 
 or, and he fled back to his refuge in the woods. It was an 
 important opportunity lost forever. Had the Irish pursued 
 him to his covert, and cut him down with his followers, the 
 country might have been saved, and the Normans would 
 scarcely have ventured to cross the dangerous seas. But they 
 chose to accept his treacherous submission, his gold, and his 
 professions, and suffered him to retain a small portion of his 
 former territory. Dermot swore fealty to Roderic, King of 
 Ireland, and awaited until the approach of his foreign allies 
 should enable him to destroy the freedom of his country. 
 In May, 1169, Robert Fitz-Stephen, with several Fitzgeralds, 
 landed at Banne, a small promontory near "Wexford ; forty 
 knights clad in complete armor, and a band of a few hun- 
 dred men at arms and archers accompanied them ; a slight in- 
 trenchnient was thrown up to protect them from the Irish ; 
 and the place is still pointed out where the ships of Fitz- 
 Stephen were sheltered among the rocks, and the ruin of Ire- 
 land began.(') 
 
 Dermot, with savage joy, came out from his forests once 
 more, to greet his foreign allies, to promise them the town of 
 Wexford and ample lands as the reward of victory ;(') and 
 
 (') Some doubt exists as to the exact place of the laudiug. Tiaditiou 
 points to Bauue. 
 
 C) Hauiuer, p. 223-^231.
 
 IRISH VALOR. 423 
 
 again his hoarse battle-cry resounded in various contests along 
 the Wexford shore. Forty Norman knights, in bright and 
 impenetrable armor, attended by their men at arms with flash- 
 ing swords, and a troop of the famous archers of Wales, drove 
 in the Irish forces and besieged the prosperous city. Like 
 pillars of steel, with lance and falchion, the Geraldines, skilled 
 in all knightly exercises, pierced the thick masses of the na- 
 tives ; the Irish had only battle-axes of steel, sharp arrows, and 
 short pikes, a small shield of wood and a wadded vest ; the 
 shock was too unequal, and the Geraldines conquered in ev- 
 ery fray. Wexford was taken or betrayed by its bishop ; the 
 invaders pressed into Ossory, along the gentle banks of the 
 Nore ; the Irish fought with desperate vigor among their bogs 
 and forests, but the Xormans chased them to the open fields 
 and cut them down with fierce delight. Dermot's hoarse war- 
 cry was now one of exultation. Two hundred of the enemies' 
 heads lay trunkless on the battle-field. The savage hunted 
 amidst the strange trophies for the face of his chief foe, and, 
 when he had found it, gnawed and mangled it with his teeth.(') 
 Scarcely would it be profitable to review these barbarous 
 skirmishes of the bearded natives and the steel-clad knights 
 in the wild forests of Ossory, did they not form part of that 
 remarkable chain of events by which the whole current of hu- 
 manity has been stirred, and the Celts driven from their na- 
 tive land to swarm over the ocean to the New World and con- 
 trol the elections of New York. For the barbarian Dermot 
 and his cruel allies were only the leaders in a great crusade, 
 which the Popes had planned and Henry Plantagenet had 
 been chosen to execute. The blessings of the Church attend- 
 ed them ; they were fighting the battles of the papacy ; and 
 the giant Dermot, mangling and tearing the features of his 
 foe, might have furnished to Spenser a happy allegory by 
 which to paint in melodious verse the acrid bigotry of Rome 
 tearing the rebellious Church of St. Patrick ; or it may well 
 have suggested to Dante the most terrible scene in the " In- 
 ferno," where Ugolino banquets on his perj)etual revenge. 
 
 (') Girald., Hib. Ex. ; Gorclou, Hist. Ireland, i., p. 74 et seq.
 
 424 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 The news of the landing of the Normans and the double 
 treachery of Dermot aroused all Ireland.(') The nation sprung 
 to arms. An assembly was summoned to the sacred hill of 
 Tara, and princes, chiefs, and people met in a solemn council 
 on the spot most dear to the memory of Irishmen.^) There 
 Patrick had preached to the pagan host. There was the Stone 
 of Destiny, on which the Irish kings had been crowned for 
 endless generations. There the O'Neils, the MacCarthys, and 
 the O'Connors had sworn to preserve the liberties and the 
 laws of their country. In the national assemblies at Tara 
 from age to age the accomplished bards of Ireland, in every 
 moment of danger, had awakened the martial ardor of their 
 race by reciting in wild bursts of poetic fancy the patriotic le- 
 gends of the Great O'Neil or of Brian Born, and the sweetest 
 melodies of countless hai-pers had ever ascended from the sa- 
 cred hill, rousing to boundless self-devotion the impulsive nat- 
 ures of the gifted Celts.(^) Nor, we may well imagine, were 
 ,any of these stirring elements wanting to the last great as- 
 sembly of united Irishmen. Eoderic O'Connor, King of all 
 Ireland, presided. The princes of Connaught and Ulster, Mun- 
 ster and Leinster, sat around their national chief ; messengers 
 had been dispatched to the farthest limits of the island, call- 
 ing its leaders to arms; and one traitor alone was absent, 
 whose treachery and crime were known to all his country- 
 men. Poets chanted to the enraged and startled people their 
 sublimest lyrics, denouncing the traitorous prince, and a thou- 
 sand harps clanged, as with rapid touch warriors and princes 
 struck their strings and made ready for battle. It was unani- 
 mously resolved that the whole force of the nation should be 
 gathered, and a perj)etual war be waged against the foreigner 
 
 (') Gerald., Hib. Ex. : " Auditis itaque per insulam novis successibus." 
 
 (■) Leland, Hist., i., p. 36. 
 
 (') So eminent was the Irish bard that his wife might dress as fine al- 
 most as a princess. She was allowed, according to the Brehon laws, orna- 
 ments worth three cows ; the princess, six cows. A cow was the standard 
 of value in early Ireland. See Vallancej-, Collect. Aut. Laws, i., p. 20. A 
 poet laureate was allowed five cows for fine clothes. It seems the Irish 
 ■were restricted by sumptuary lawa.
 
 EODERIC O'CONNOR. 425 
 
 and Dermot, the ISTormans' friend. A vast host poured into 
 the fields of Leinster, led by the King of Ireland, and Dermot 
 and the Normans, dismayed and disheartened, fled to a wild 
 fastness among the marshes of Ferns, where they intrenched 
 themselves by felling trees, digging deep trenches, and hiding 
 in impenetrable retreats. 
 
 Roderic O'Connor, of the ancient line of Connanght, was 
 the last king who sat on the throne of Celtic Ireland, His 
 character and exploits are painted with no flattering hand by 
 the monkish writers, who longed for his destruction, or later 
 historians, who have written in the interest of the Koman 
 Church. All the crimes and woes of a fated CEdipus are at- 
 tributed to the unhappy king who ventured to strike a last 
 blow for the freedom of Ireland, who resisted with obdurate 
 patriotism the steel-clad legions of the Pope and Henry II., 
 and who more than once seems to have been on the eve of a 
 final triumph. It is said that Roderic was thrown into chains 
 by his father, who feared his savage temper ; that he put out 
 the eyes of his two brothers ; and that he wasted in civil feuds 
 the forces that should have been turned against the foe. He 
 seems, indeed, to have wanted prudence, and too often to have 
 been deceived by the treacherous arts of Dermot and the 
 priests. Yet one can not avoid reviewing with sympathy the 
 story of the unhappy monarch whose disastrous reign was at 
 least marked by a sincere patriotism, and whose misfortunes 
 were never merited by his treachery or his servile fear. 
 Amidst his savage wilds and ancestral forests, the O'Connor, 
 terrified by novel dangers, assailed by the most powerful mon- 
 arch of the age, exposed to the anathemas of the Italian 
 Church, surrounded by traitors, and scarcely safe from the in- 
 trigues of his own sons or his ambitious rivals, still maintained 
 a spirit not unworthy of that long line of patriotic chiefs of 
 whom he was destined to be the last ; and it is a graceful trait 
 in the character of Roderic that he strove once more to revive, 
 by liberal endowments, the famous College of Armagh, as if 
 conscious that Ireland could only hope to secure its freedom 
 by a general education of its people. 
 
 At the head of his gallant army, Roderic surrounded the
 
 426 TEE CONQUEST OF IFxELAND. 
 
 Normans in their secret liicling-place, and by liis immense su- 
 periority might have forced them to surrender. Dermot's 
 Irisli allies in this moment of danger deserted him. His cause 
 seemed lost. His cowardly flight to the forest had checked 
 his tide of success ; but his cunning had not failed him, and 
 once more he applied himself to negotiation. The cautious 
 Roderic was, perhaps, misled by priests or bishops to spare the 
 traitor, or may have feared to press the Normans to a desper- 
 ate battle. Dermot took a new oath of allegiance to his na- 
 tion's king ; gave his favorite son, Connor, as a hostage, who 
 was to marry Eoderic's daughter ; and came out from his fast- 
 ness to rule over Leinster, and to invite new bands of foreign- 
 ers to assail the monarch he had sworn to obey. The Irish 
 league was broken by internal dissension, and in the last sad 
 hours of their country's freedom the unhappy race was torn 
 by civil strife.(') 
 
 Dermot now resolved to drive Eoderic from his throne, and 
 become himself the master of Ireland.(°) He had pledged him- 
 self to his countrymen to invite over no more strangers. He 
 kept his oath by sending at once for Eichard Strongbow. 
 " We have watched the storks and swallows," he wrote ; *' the 
 summer birds are come and gone, yet you delay." Fair Eva 
 was soon to see her promised bridegroom, and the earl, allured 
 by Dermot's offer of a kingdom, sent over a small force and 
 prepared himself to cross the sea. Led by Eaymond Fitz- 
 gerald, the Normans cut to pieces an army of three thousand 
 Irish who had issued from the great city of "Waterford ; and 
 when Earl Eichard arrived, in August, with twelve hundred 
 men, the city was taken by a desperate assault. The citizens 
 lay slaughtered in heaps. Eeginald's tower, whose ruin still 
 overhangs the modern town, was captured, and its garrison put 
 to death ; and amidst the dreadful scene of waste and carnage 
 Eva was given to the sanguinary Eichard, and the joy of the 
 
 (') Eoderic iu vaiu told the Normans all tlie crimes of Dermot. Hau- 
 mer, p. 2:U. 
 
 (^) Lanigaii, Eec. Hist., whose epithets give no high idea of the taste of 
 the Uiiiversitj- of Pavia, never spares Dermot, iv., p. 191.
 
 DUJBLIX TAKEX. 427 
 
 wedding festival succeeded to the unparalleled horrors of the 
 assault. 
 
 A nobler conquest followed . In bold array, with banners fly- 
 ing, the whole army marched to the siege of Dublin. Found- 
 ed or renewed by the Danes, the metropolis of Ireland was 
 already — in the twelfth century — the centre of commerce, in 
 wealth and power the rival of London itself. Asgal, tlie Dane, 
 was its civic ruler, or king ; its bishop the famous Lawrence 
 O'Toole ; and the latter, whether hopeless of resistance or in- 
 clined to the papal interest, formed a treaty and a truce with 
 the powerful invaders.(') But the Normans, eager for plun- 
 der, unscrupulous and daring, broke into the city before the 
 terms were settled, and filled it with bloodshed and terror. 
 The needy Geraldines grew rich by a general robbery. Asgal 
 and the Danish citizens escaped in their ships to the western 
 isles, and the Normans with resistless vigor swept over the 
 neighboring districts, and ravaged the fertile fields of Meath. 
 
 In this moment of their country's humiliation the native 
 clergy of Ireland, representatives of that ancient Church which 
 was soon to be dissijDated forever, met in a convocation at 
 Armagh to consult upon the causes of their misfortunes. 
 With something of the simple honesty and love of justice 
 that had marked the followers of Patrick or Columba, the 
 pious assembly inquired, through long and careful deliljera- 
 tions, why divine vengeance had sent the foreigners into their 
 country, and which of their sins had chiefly merited the judg- 
 ment from above. They determined that their chief national 
 crime was the slave-trade. The Irish had long been accus- 
 tomed to purchase Saxon slaves from England : was it not a 
 retribution from Heaven that their own people were now re- 
 duced to the same condition? The enormity of their guilt 
 struck the sacred spiod, and a generous decree was issued and 
 published throughout the land that every English captive 
 
 (■) Girald., Hib. Ex., 16, 17: "Et intervenientc prrecipue laudabilis me- 
 moria, Laurentio." The praises of the Normans must throw doubt on the 
 patriotism of the archbishop. Yet he is extravagantly lauded by most 
 Irish historians.
 
 428 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 should be at once set free. It is curious to remember that in 
 our recent civil war the Irish, in obedience to their Italian 
 masters, were always on the side of the slave-holders; that 
 their votes were always given against the Government in its 
 greatest distress; and that to defend slavery and the slave- 
 trade they had nearly destroyed those free institutions beneath 
 whose shelter they had found a tranquil home. They forgot 
 the synod of Armagh; they were ignorant of the story of 
 their ancestors ; they strove at once, in their blindness, to ruin 
 themselves and desolate the land that of all the world alone 
 offered them a o-enerous welcome ! 
 
 Unlike his degenerate descendants, Roderic O'Connor made 
 a last effort for a free Church and a free State. He denounced, 
 in a vigorous proclamation, the traitor Dermot and his papal 
 crusade; he began to collect the last army of Ireland; and 
 when Dermot insolently claimed, in reply, the sovereignty of 
 the whole country, Roderic put to death his son Connor, and 
 declared an inexpiable war.(') Meantime dangers again thick- 
 ened around the Norman invaders. They held the three 
 cities, Dublin, Wexford, and AVaterford; but the open country 
 was probably hostile, and they must have relied upon England 
 for their supplies. At tliis moment Henry II, grew jealous 
 of the designs of Earl Richard, who seemed by his marriage 
 with Dermot's daughter to aspire to an independent crown, 
 forbade the English to send him any aid, and ordered him to 
 return. For two months the small garrison in Dublin were 
 without any assistance from their countrymen. Famine op- 
 pressed them ; the people were hostile ; their hopes and their 
 resources faded away ; when suddenly a great fleet of Danish 
 vessels entered the harbor, and Asgal, with a large force of 
 Norwegians from the western isles, surrounded the famished 
 city. The red shields and shirts of mail of the strangers, their 
 steel battle-axes and shai*}) spears, were seen before the eastern 
 gate. They were men of iron hearts and tried courage ; and 
 when the Normans made a desperate sally, with their usual 
 
 (') Girakl., Hib. Ex. ; The Four Masters' Anuals, O'Donovan, ed. Dublin, 
 1854, ii., p. 1185 et seq.
 
 THE NOEMAXS IX DUBLIN. 429 
 
 vigor, they were beaten back with considerable loss. The city 
 must have fallen had not a Xomian knight surprised the 
 tumultuous enemy by an attack in the rear. A general pan- 
 ic seized them ; they fled to their ships, routed and broken ; 
 Asgal, King of Dublin, was captured as he fled over the sands 
 to the sea, and was beheaded in the city where he had once 
 reigned over a prosperous community. 
 
 Cruel, daring, desperate, the small band of I^oi*mans, led by 
 Earl Eichard and the Geraldines, cut off from the aid of their 
 countrymen, abandoned by their jealous king, now clung with 
 the remorseless energy of robbers to the prey that seemed 
 escaping from their grasp. They knew that the Irish were 
 rising on all sides around them ; they felt the universal hatred 
 of the land they had ravaged and plundered ; yet not one of 
 the guilty knights faltered in his aim, or thought for a mo- 
 ment of the sorrows of the people he had ruined, or of the 
 dangers that hung over himself. Chief of the robber band. 
 Earl Kichard, founder of the noble house of Clare — tall, rud- 
 dy, freckled, his eyes gray, his voice weak, his manner gentle 
 and undecided except when the fierce rage of battle stirred 
 him — ruled over Dublin. By his side stood Maurice Fitzger- 
 ald, the spotless knight, modest, fair, generous, courteous, the 
 famous ancestor of the earls of Kildare and Desmond, but 
 whose savage courage and unsparing cruelty were known 
 chiefly to the helpless Irish ; and Raymond, whose yellow 
 curls and florid face, pleasant countenance and laughing eyes, 
 were joined to a vigilance that never 'was deceived and a res- 
 olution that never wavered. A hundred kniglits, perhaps, of 
 less renown, and four hundred archers and men at arms, made 
 up the remainder of the garrison who were assembled in Dub- 
 lin at this eventful hour, and who, with ferocious severity, re- 
 strained the angr}' ;population of the city they had sacked and 
 captured, and awaited, in the midst of the hostile kingdom, 
 the general onset of its people. 
 
 One friend alone had. welcomed the Normans to the shores 
 of Ireland, but he was now gone to some undiscovered place 
 of rest for the traitor, to the scorn and hatred of posterity. 
 A judgment from above, it was believed, had at last fallen
 
 430 THE coy QUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 upon Dermot ; his huge frame was torn and con-upted by a 
 disease so terrible as to drive all men from his presence ; his 
 agony had been noted with joy by his countrymen ; his mind 
 gave way ; he died without any of the solaces of religion ; but 
 horrible imprecations escaped his lips as he passed away, and 
 his traitorous soul fled, disconsolate, from the land it had 
 plunged into ruin.(') 
 
 It is possible that the ingratitude or the contempt of the 
 Norman knights may have clouded the last days of the Prince 
 of Leinster ; that some patriotic thought may have touched 
 his impulsive nature ; that he may have resisted the I^orman 
 projects for exterminating the Irish, and have wavered in his 
 friendship to his foreign allies. Earl Richard may have been 
 too eager to wear the crown of Leinster, and his fellow-plun- 
 derers to appropriate the last hoards of Dermot's treasure ; 
 and the fierce barbarian, stung by their faithlessness, may 
 have died cursing the strangers whom he had nourished into 
 greatness. But to all Irishmen the example of Dermot should 
 be a lesson and a warning. While they survey the long cent- 
 uries of unparalleled woes which his treason has entailed upon 
 his country, while they heap imprecations on his name, and 
 blast his memory with infamy, they must remember that he 
 was only the ignorant instrument in fulfilling the long- cher- 
 ished designs of the Italian Popes upon the spiritual independ- 
 ence of Ireland. 
 
 Once more Eoderic O'Connor descended from his fastness 
 of Connaught. Around him were gathered a throng of na- 
 tive chiefs and an army of thirty thousand men ; and it seem- 
 ed a happy omen for the success of the expedition that the 
 Bishop of Dublin, Lawrence O'Toole, had abandoned his IS'or- 
 man associates, and entered with patriotic ardor into the plans 
 of his native king.('} The bishop's eloquence and pious fame 
 stirred the dying hopes of his countrymen ; the Irish presby- 
 
 (') Four Masters, p. 1171, describe his painful death. Gerald merely says 
 he died full of years. 
 
 (=) Girald., Hib. Ex. : "Missis qunque Uteris tarn Archipriesulis quam 
 Rotherici Connactiensis."
 
 THE IRISH UNITE. 431 
 
 ters preached through all their parishes a holy eriisade against 
 the papal invaders ; an army and a fleet, led by the king of 
 the western isles, joined the national forces, and the whole 
 mighty host sat down to besiege Dublin. Earl Richard had 
 thrown himself into the beleaguered city ; Maurice and Ray- 
 mond, with unflinching courage, stood at his side. Yet the 
 earl, as he surveyed the long lines of the Irish army inclosing 
 him on every hand, the masts of the Danish fleet rising over 
 the banks of the Lifl^ey, the red shields and flowing locks, the 
 stalwart forms and iron armor, of the brave Norwegians, 
 might well believe that all was lost. His few bold knights 
 and followers were faint from famine and toil. For two 
 months no supplies of food or arms had reached them. As 
 they rode through the streets of the half-dei^opulated city they 
 might hear the low imprecations of the Irish and the wail of 
 the suffering people. Incessant vigils must have taxed their 
 strength ; rider and steed grew feeble in the general need ; 
 and Earl Richard, doubtful of the result, sent to oiier terms 
 to tlie enemy. He proposed to become Roderic's vassal, and 
 to hold Leinster as an Irish prince. 
 
 But Roderic replied that unless the Normans abandoned 
 Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford, and would consent to leave 
 Ireland forever, he would at once assault the city. The Nor- 
 mans hesitated. In the midst of their distress a fugitive 
 reached the city, a son of the late King Dermot. He bore 
 sad news : that Roljert Fitz - Stephen was shut up, with his 
 wife and children and a few soldiers, in a small fort of turf or 
 timber ; that the people of Leinster were rising ; that the life 
 of every Norman was in danger. 
 
 Then, remorseless and desperate, the Geraldines resolved to 
 conquer or to perish. Young, vigorous, torn by the evil im- 
 pulses of avarice and of ambition, the Norman robbers gath- 
 ered their scanty force in the centre of Dublin, prepared to 
 rush upon the foe. Before them lay the plunder of a peace- 
 ful country ; behind them shame and death. " We are hated 
 equally by Irish and English," cried Maurice to his compan- 
 ions. "We have no refuge but victory. Remember your 
 former triumphs ; renew your ancient courage. Let us ride
 
 432 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 over this miserable rabble, and enisli them to the earth."(') 
 Ra3'mond, ever hopeful, repeated the sentiments of his cous- 
 in ; and every Norman knight, from his raised viso;-, sternly 
 gave his approval. It was determined to attack first the great 
 army of lioderic. Not Cortez, when he cut his way to the 
 palace of Guatemozin, nor Clive when he broke the ranks of 
 Plassey, fought at greater disadvantage than did Eichard, Ray- 
 mond, and Maurice in the final battle at Dublin. 
 
 Twenty knights, or men at arms, went first, led by Ray- 
 mond ;(') thirty, under Miles de Cogan, followed ; the rear, 
 composed of forty more, was commanded by Maurice and 
 Earl Richard ; six hundred archers, citizens, esquires, com- 
 pleted the army of the invaders. Yet wonderful was the re- 
 sult of this desperate charge, as, through an oi:)en gate, the 
 Normans poured like a stream of fire upon the army of King 
 Roderic, surprised his guards, and chased his followers, in 
 wild panic, to their woods and bogs. The king himself was 
 nearly captured while bathing ; negligence and disorder reign- 
 ed throughout the Irish lines ; the Norman knights cut down 
 the enemy at will upon the fatal plain ; the Norwegians fled ; 
 and late in the evening, wearied with slaughter, laden with 
 the plunder of the hostile camp, the Norman conquerors 
 rode into the streets of Dublin, masters of the destiny of Ire- 
 land. 
 
 Three years had scarcely passed since Dermot Macmor- 
 rough had planned upon the cliffs of St. David's the ruin of 
 his country. The fierce barbarian slept not imavenged ; his 
 traitorous hopes had been fulfilled. And now Henry of En- 
 gland stood with his fair army of knights and retainers on the 
 same wild promontory, and, pausing to pay his devotions in 
 that renowned cathedral that still rises the central shrine of 
 AVales, besought, with unaccustomed fervor, the blessings of 
 Heaven on his projected crimes.(^) Jealous of the successes 
 
 (') Girakl., Hib. Ex., i., 23 : " Quid igitur expectamns ?" etc. I have re- 
 duced tbe eloquence of Maui'ice or Gerald. 
 
 (-) '"'Certatim igitur electa juventus ad arma frosiliens." 
 (^) Girald., Hib. Ex., i., 30. Some fragments of the ancient cathedral 
 arc supposed to be included iu the modern. See the fine illustrated edi-
 
 HENEY II. 433 
 
 of Earl Ricliard and of tlie audacious Geraldines, fearful that 
 his own subjects might ravish away his expected prize, Henry 
 had hastened from his distant domains in Aquitaine, had aban- 
 doned the pleasures of London and the charms of a ceaseless 
 chase, and with angry countenance surveyed afar off the dim- 
 seen shores of Ireland. The barbarian Dermot beheld them 
 with a fatal affection ; the savage king, with the destructive 
 cravings of a conqueror. His fleet of four hundred ships 
 swung safely at anchor on the coast of Wales ; five hundred 
 knights — companions, perhaps, of his French campaigns — and 
 four thousand men at arms attended him ; his vessels were 
 filled with horses, arms, provisions, and all that could insure 
 success. In October, 1171, a fair wind bore the papal arma- 
 da in triumph to the Irish shore, and the crusade against the 
 Irish Church was to be followed out with all the brutality of 
 chivalry and all the rigors of spiritual pride. 
 
 Henry Plantagenet was the first of that unhappy line of 
 English kings whose follies and whose crimes so often brought 
 ruin to the toiling throngs upon whom they trampled. Edu- 
 cated in the schools of knightly adventures, trained to cruelty 
 and to ambition, the Plantagenets rained war, pestilence, and 
 famme upon their unhappy realm. Even the Tudors might 
 seem merciful, the Stuarts just, when contrasted with the Ed- 
 wards and the Richards who descended from the ill-starred 
 union of Henry II. and Eleanor of Aquitaine. But when Hen- 
 ry, in the vigor of manhood, ascended the English throne, he 
 was learned, acute, generous ; his early misfortunes might have 
 softened a selfish nature ; his ambition might have been tem- 
 pered by a higher intelligence; yet every circumstance con- 
 spired to deprave the youthful king ; and from his wife, his 
 friend, and his spiritual head he could have heard only the 
 dreadful lessons of cruelty and selfish crime. 
 
 The conqueror of Ireland stands before us painted by one 
 who had studied his features and his life with care. He was 
 of moderate height, and stout ; his head was large and round, 
 
 tion of Giraldns by Sir R. Hoar, 1806, vol. i., p. 21. There is a view of tbe 
 more recent cliurcb. St. David's was tlie uatioual shrine of Wales. 
 
 28
 
 434 THE CONQUEST OF IBELAXD. 
 
 his complexion ruddy, his eyes gray, and often flashing and 
 blood-shot with anger ; his countenance fiery ; his voice tremu- 
 lous ; his form inclined to grossness, yet strengthened by in- 
 cessant exercise. Henry seems never to have known ease or 
 rest ; some fierce excitement always stirred him in peace or 
 war. In peace, at the first dawn of day, he would mount his 
 fleet horse and pass the hours in riding through woods, pen- 
 etrating the thick forests, and climbing the ridges of lofty 
 hills ; in the evening he returned to a spare supper, but scarce- 
 ly sat down until he slept. He loved to watch the falcon 
 sweeping on his frighted prey, or to follow the sagacious 
 hounds in chase of a weary stag.(') Labor was the chief 
 amusement of the active king ; but all his toils tended only to 
 the destruction of his own happiness and that of mankind. 
 He died cursing the day on which he was born ; and his cease- 
 less labors were wasted because he never strove to place him- 
 self in unison with the pei-petual laws of benevolence and 
 Truth. 
 
 Clad in royal pomp, surrounded by the knightly paragons 
 of his age, Henry landed upon the shores of Ireland — a regal 
 falcon fastening upon his prey. The bleeding land writhed, a 
 helpless victim, in his grasp. There was now nothing to resist 
 his progress. He moved on in triumph from Waterford to 
 Dublin. Earl Richard yielded to his authority, and soothed 
 his anger by humble compliances; and at Christmas, 1171, 
 Henry celebrated his triumph by a festival at Dublin, where 
 many of the Irish princes had gathered to offer him their sub- 
 mission, and where a great assemblage of the bearded natives 
 beheld for the first time the stately feats of chivalry, the unac- 
 customed magnificence of a royal court ; tasted the rich viands 
 and rare wines of a Korman feast, and were dazzled by the 
 shining armor, the golden ornaments, the precious gems, and 
 the wasteful luxury of their conquerors. A palace of pol- 
 ished wood and osiersf) was erected, after the Irish custom, 
 
 (') Girald. Cam., Hib. Ex., i., 45. Henry was accustomed, to put out the 
 eyes of his male prisoners and cut off the noses of the female — at least in 
 Wales. 
 
 (-) Roger de Hovedeu, a.d. 1172.
 
 IRELAND SUBJECTED TO ROME. 435 
 
 and bishops and princes were forced to approve the ceaseless 
 revehy. Yet if any grave and thoughtful chief, unimpressed 
 by the pompous show, ventured to ask by what authority Hen- 
 ry had taken possession of Ireland, he was told that the Pope, 
 as vicar and head of the Church, had given it to the king ; 
 and that he who resisted the generous donation of St. Peter to 
 his favorite son was a heretic, condemned to everlasting rep- 
 robation. 
 
 It was ever the aim of the Poman Church in these savage 
 ages — nor does the policy seem yet to have been abandoned — 
 to set nation against nation, and from, the horrid discord and 
 general woe to add to its own revenues and its growing 
 strength. Henry, conscious of the claims, the avarice, and the 
 malice of his Italian masters, hastened to lay Ireland at their 
 feet. A council was summoned at Cashel professing to rep- 
 resent the Church of St. Patrick. The ISTorman king ordered 
 the bishops of Ireland to assemble. A motley group of ^ov- 
 man priests, of martial monks, of the papal archbishops, and a 
 few trembling presbyters, natives of the South, gathered at 
 his command ; but it was noticed that none of the bishops of 
 Ulster or Connaught assisted at the destruction of their na- 
 tional faith ; that they still adhered to the usages of St. John, 
 of Patrick, and of Columba ; that the Irish Church, amidst 
 bogs and forests, still defied the ambition of cruel Pome. Yet 
 the sacrifice was nominally complete. Every trace of inde- 
 pendence was abandoned by the Council of Cashel. The Pom- 
 ish ritual was enjoined on every priest ; the worship of Mary, 
 of images, and of saints was to extend throughout the island ; 
 the priest was forbidden to marry ; his hair was to be tonsured 
 after the exact fashion at Pome; the enormous crimes and 
 vices of the simple clergy who had failed to observe the new 
 customs were condemned with indignant solemnity ; tithes 
 were to be paid by the laity ; and Ireland for the first time 
 was made tributary to the Pomish Pope.(') 
 
 (') Girald. Cam., i., 33, 34. Eoger de Hoveden iiretends that all the bish- 
 ops of Ireland were present or obeyed the council ; but Gerald notices only 
 a scanty attendance, chiefly Norman. Lanigan, Ecc. Hist., iv., p. 211, says 
 Peter-pence are not mentioned. They were perhaps implied.
 
 436 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 "With a generosity admired by all except the unhappy na- 
 tives, Henry next rewarded liberally his Norman followers.(') 
 The impoverished knights were enriched by a general plunder. 
 The conquered lands were divided among the victors, and the 
 territory which had been given by St. Peter to the king was, 
 by an infallible title, now vested in the triumphant Normans. 
 The Geraldines, unscrupulous offspring of a disreputable par- 
 ent, founded noble houses that were long to shine illustrious 
 in the revelries of the court or the crimes of the camp. The 
 daughter of Richard and Eva, laden with the spoils of her 
 country, transmitted the fruits of Dermot's treachery to the 
 famous race of Clare. A single knight, De Lacy, received 
 eight hundred thousand acres of land in the province of 
 Meatli; another, Raymond the Poor, whose name indicates 
 his condition, became a mighty baron, founder of the house 
 of Power. The English territory was slowly extended until 
 it embraced the lower portions of Ulster and Connaught, and 
 along the frontier was drawn a line of palisades and forts to 
 protect the new settlers from the fierce assaults of the hostile 
 Irish. 
 
 Within the palisades the country was known as the English 
 Pale, and for many centuries formed the stronghold of the 
 Norman robbers, from whence they issued in cruel raids upon 
 the rebellious districts of the native chiefs. Its Irish popula- 
 tion had been wholly extirpated, or were reduced to the con- 
 dition of serfs. Many had fled to the mountains and forests, 
 and perished in frightful solitudes ; some were permitted to 
 return to till, as slaves, the lands where their ancestors had 
 lived in prosperous ease. The slow process of a national deg- 
 radation was begun, and the Irish within the Pale, after many 
 bold uprisings, were trodden down nearly to the condition of 
 savages or brutes. Their education, their intelligence, passed 
 away with their freedom, and the Normans sedulously en- 
 forced upon the subject race the fatal bondage of superstitious 
 ignorance. 
 
 In the winter of Il71-"r2 wild storms swept incessantly 
 
 (') Roger de Hoveden, a.d. 1172, notices his liberality or bis robbery.
 
 HENRY II. IX IRELAND. 437 
 
 over the Irish seas : scarcely a ship crossed from England. 
 Henry and his courtiers trembled before the rage of the ele- 
 ments, and men believed that the wrath of Heaven was im- 
 pending over the troubled land.(') Fear, doubt, and gloom 
 were the king's chief attendants in the moment of his suc- 
 cess, and his liery eyes must often have been turned across 
 the stormy waves during that perilous season, eager to catch 
 the first sail that might bring him news from England. He 
 had left his native realm covered with the odium of the recent 
 murder of Becket; he had fled to Ireland as if to dissipate 
 his cares in new excitements ; and now he waited with impa- 
 tience, shut out by perpetual storms, for some tidings of the 
 results of his hasty words, and of the condition of his wide 
 dominions. A ship at length came in bearing the most omi- 
 nous news. The Pope had threatened to lay his kingdom 
 under an interdict; the most fatal of the judgments of the 
 Church might soon absolve his subjects from their allegiance.^') 
 To add to his distress, he was told that his three sons had 
 formed a conspiracy against his throne. His fond heart was 
 torn by filial ingratitude, and Henry returned from the con- 
 quest of Ireland racked by those domestic griefs and those 
 eating cares that were at last to bring his proud spirit to igno- 
 minious despair. 
 
 A west wind bore the king swiftly back to England ; and 
 he once more knelt at St. David's shrine — now no longer with 
 feigned grief and assumed contrition — and prepared, with a 
 broken heart, to fight for his throne and even his life against 
 his children, whom he fondly loved ; his wife, their mother, 
 whose evil nature he had so often exasperated and wronged ; 
 against the King of France, and the avengers of Becket. 
 That Henry should have triumphed in this doubtful contest 
 has always been held a proof of singular ability. His inces- 
 sant activity enabled him to surprise or confound all his foes. 
 He drove back Louis of France to his capital ; he met and 
 
 (')Girakl. Cam., i., 35. 
 
 (■■') Girald. Cam., Hib. Ex., i., 36, details the evil news and the sorrows 
 of the barbarous king. Roger de Hovedeu, a.d. 1172, is more prolix.
 
 438 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 defeated on the battle-field his three ungrateful sons ; he saw- 
 Henry and Geoffrey die in the midst of their madness; he 
 wept over the early profligacy of the depraved Eichard and 
 John. Eleanor of Aqmtaine,(') shut up in a solitary castle, her 
 husband's prisoner, had leisure to repent of her crimes against 
 two kings. The Pope was pacified by enormous bribes, abject 
 concessions, and by the spectacle of bleeding Ireland prostrate 
 at St. Peter's feet. 
 
 Meantime the Normans, inclosed in a narrow territory, 
 found that the conquest of the island was but just begun. A 
 few abject and unworthy bishops might declare at Casliel that 
 Henry was the rightful lord of Ireland, but Eoderic O'Connor 
 still scoffed at the pretensions of his rival, and the Irish pres- 
 bj'ters rejected the authority of the unpatriotic synod. All 
 was disorder and unrest within the English Pale. The native 
 chiefs seldom left the I^ormans any repose. At length Hen- 
 ry, when his affairs were somewhat settled in England, re- 
 solved to test the effect of superstition upon the savage race, 
 and to launch the thunders of the Romish popes against the 
 Irish patriots. He had procured from Alexander III. a con- 
 firmation of the bull of Adrian excommunicating all who op- 
 posed his authority over Ireland, and he now prepared to pub- 
 lish the two solemn decrees, in their full enormity, to all its 
 schismatical Church. He fondly hoped that no Irish bishop 
 or priest would venture henceforth to resist the authority of 
 the Roman See.Q 
 
 A new synod was assembled at Waterford in 11Y5, and the 
 two bulls were read to the corrupt archbishops, the Norman 
 monks, and a feeble delegation from the Irish Church. In 
 sonorous tones, John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres, who had 
 come from Rome bearing the final decree of Alexander, re- 
 cited the doom of Ireland. The first bull, that of Adrian IV., 
 
 (') She was daughter of William, Duke of Aquitaiiie, the heiress of his 
 great possessions, the wife of Louis aud of Henry — the least fortunate of 
 women. 
 
 (^) Lanigan, Ecc. Hist., iv., p. 233, has an implied condemnation of Adri- 
 an's Trail. He can not admit the coarse charges made by the popes against 
 the Irish clergy.
 
 TEE POPE'S BULL. 439 
 
 had been granted to Henry twenty years before, and had been 
 safely kept in the royal treasury of England until the moment 
 seemed favorable for its publication. Under a florid profes- 
 sion of Christian zeal it contained a bitter denunciation of the 
 Irish Church.Q It appointed Henry a martial missionary to 
 extirpate the seeds of vice from Ireland, and do whatever he 
 thought proper with its people ; it declared the island a part 
 of the patrimony of St. Peter ;{') it commanded the people to 
 receive Henry as their sovereign lord and ruler ; it insisted, 
 with strenuous avarice, that every house in the land sliould 
 pay a penny annually to the blessed Peter, and promised Hen- 
 ry the favor of Heaven and an illustrious renownQ should he 
 succeed in planting true religion in the home of Patrick and 
 Columba. Alexander's bull was still more effective, if we 
 may trust the infallibility of its source, since it not only con- 
 firmed the gift of his predecessor, but excommunicated all 
 who resisted Henry's authority or that of his heirs, and aban- 
 doned them to the power of the devil. Every Irish patriot 
 was converted into a child of Satan ; every aspiration of free- 
 dom was an impious defiance of the Roman Church. (') 
 
 And now began that perpetual conflict of races, the saddest 
 in the annals of Europe, which was to oppress with endless 
 misfortunes a gifted and innocent people, and plant in their 
 hearts the bitter seeds of ceaseless malignity and revenge. 
 From the wild shores of Ulster, where the northern seas break 
 fiercely along the rocks and hills of Derry; from the tall 
 mountains and endless bogs of Connaught, whose savage land- 
 scape has ever been the last retreat of Celtic freemen ; from 
 the lovely vales and stately glens of Wicklow, where the bright 
 waters of Avoca melt into harmony, and leaping cataracts 
 seam the granite precipices, and towering rocks shoot upward 
 to the skies ; from soft Killarney, sleeping in its beauty ; or 
 
 (') Girald., Hib. Ex., ii., 6 ; Mat. Paris, i., 95. 
 
 C) Mat. Paris, i., 95 : " Oinnes iusulas, quibus sol jtistitise Christus illux- 
 it, ad jns Sancti Petri et sacrosanctse Romanai ecclesiaj pertinere." 
 
 C) Mat. Paris: " Gloriosum uomeu valeas iu SEeculis obtiuere." 
 
 C) Lanigan, iv., pp. 211,223, notices various emiueut aud pure-miuded 
 Irisli prelates of this age not surpassed iu any laud.
 
 440 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 grassy Meath, the greenest and the richest of all northern 
 pastures — a monrnfnl wail has never ceased to ascend to heav- 
 en and bliglit the charms of the Island of the Saints. Herded 
 in filthy hovels, starving in wealthy cities, crouched among the 
 wild hills where their ancestors once reigned — a lost, accursed 
 race, the Celts breathe endless maledictions on their conquer- 
 ors, and, amidst the boundless opulence of nature, live sullen- 
 ly in a hopeless decay. 
 
 But when the papal decrees were proclaimed they still re- 
 tained a manly sentiment of independence. Princes and peo- 
 ple united in defying the authority of the Italian priests. The 
 Irish bishops still refused to cut off their flowing locks or put 
 away their faithful wives ; the native chiefs derided the for- 
 eign pope who claimed their ancestral lands. The Celtic 
 kings retreated more and more from the intercourse with pol- 
 ished nations. On some wild mountain-side or lonely glen, 
 sheltered by trackless forests, sylvan lakes, and lofty hills, the 
 Irish monarchs raised their palaces of polished wood roofed 
 with wattles, and, surrounded by a courtly train of bearded 
 nobles, famous bards, harpers of matchless skill, and brave re- 
 tainers, administered the Brehon laws to a faithful race, and 
 worshiped with the liturgy of Columba. Shut out from the 
 Eomish Church, which had excommunicated them, and the 
 Normans by whom they were oppressed, the Celts sunk into 
 the vices of isolation. They shared in' none of the progressive 
 movements of the age. Their literature was a poetic lament 
 over a half-imaginary past ; their churches were simple build- 
 ings of wood, like those of Patrick or Columba ;(') their relics 
 some rude but ponderous bell, whose dull note may have struck 
 uj)on the ears of generations of saints, which was adorned with 
 gems and inclosed in a gilded cover ; or some pastoral staff 
 of an early bishop, glittering with modern decorations. AYar 
 was their chief employment.^ ) When no band of Norman 
 
 (') Bede, Hist. Ecc, describes these early churches "iion de lapide, sed 
 de robore secto totam composuit atque harundine texit." 
 
 C) Spenser, State of Ireland, p. 7,.says: "Yes, truly ; for there be many 
 ■wide countries in Ireland in which the laws of England were never estab- 
 lished," etc. This was under Elizabeth. Tbe Brehon laws prevailed.
 
 TEE DEATH OF EODEEIC. 441 
 
 knights threatened their lonely glens, they preyed npon one 
 another; the Irish princes covered their native wilderness 
 with slaughter, and the Irish kerns paid the penalty of the 
 follies of their chiefs. 
 
 Yet in the opening of the conquest the Celts seemed des- 
 tined to a sudden subjection. The Norman chivalry swept 
 over the island, and even Koderic O'Connor was driven to a 
 temporary submission. At the head of a few men at arms 
 and a band of archers, Kaymond dashed over countless hosts 
 of natives, and pierced the West of Ireland ; and John de 
 Courcy, the Cojur de Lion of the war, broke into the limits 
 of Ulster, and, like an enchanted paladin, clove his way, al- 
 most by his single arm, to the northern sea. With one stroke 
 of his bright falchion he lopped off heads ; with another, 
 limbs.(') His huge and stalwart form, mounted on a milk- 
 white steed of unusual size and strength, his fair complexion, 
 his fiery valor, and ceaseless activity ; his piety, and the Chris- 
 tian zeal with which he knelt regularly at the holy altar, and 
 from the spoils of war founded churches and endowed monas- 
 teries ; his marriage with the daughter of Godred, the Nor- 
 wegian King of Man ; his princely state — are celebrated by 
 the English chroniclers. But we are also told that the Irish 
 began now to resist with vigor, and that even John de Courcy 
 and Miles de Cogan fled more than once from the valor of 
 Eoderic and the sharp pursuit of the men of Ulster or Con- 
 nauglit.(^) 
 
 The ruins of a graceful abbey, now shorn of roof and win- 
 dow, and opening their moss-grown arches to the forest-glade, 
 in the lonely wilds of Mayo, are pointed out — for we must 
 now dismiss to his repose one of the chief actors in our dra- 
 ma — as the refuge for many years of the weary spirit of the 
 last of the Irish kings, and the place of his final abode. Rod- 
 eric O'Connor sleeps beneath the shattered walls of the mon- 
 astery of Cong.(') Hopeless, perhaps disheartened, shocked 
 
 (') Girald., Hib. Ex., ii., 16. (■') Girald. Cam., Hib. Ex., ii., 16, 17. 
 
 C) Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall describe the graceful ruins and the lonely 
 tomb. Yet some doubt rests upon the tradition of Eoderic's grave.
 
 4^:2 TEE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 by the ruin of his country, the cruel ambition of his own chil- 
 dren, the cloud of woe that had fallen upon his guilty house, 
 the patriotic king had signalized the last years of his reign 
 by various bold and successful but seemingly useless exploits 
 against the ]S"ormans, and then, laying down the crown which 
 he had assumed in a happier hour, remained for thirteen 3'ears 
 a monk or a recluse. We may trust that in the peace of the 
 forest glade Eoderic forgot the cares of earth, and entered 
 into communion with the spirits of Patrick and Columba. A 
 sacred bell, covered with rude but rich decorations, is still 
 preserved in the neighborhood, that may have often smnmon- 
 ed him to his devotions or tolled his requiem. The winds 
 that sigh amidst the broken arches of Cong seem eloquent of 
 his hapless fate ; and if the harp of Tara be hushed and shat- 
 tered, and the bards of Erin heard no more, history at least 
 must pause to drop a compassionate tear over the moss-grown 
 tomb of the patriotic king. 
 
 To compose the troubles of the English Pale, Henry sent 
 his son John, a boy of twelve, to rule over Ireland. It would 
 scarcely have been possible to have selected a worse exam- 
 ple of the results of a chivalric education. John's vices and 
 follies were already mature. He was prepared to stab an 
 Arthur and to break his father's heart.(') But he was also 
 surrounded by a corrupt train of youthful courtiers, painted, 
 effeminate, cruel, vain, who shocked the grave and melancholy 
 Irish by a strange levity of vice. The miserable prince and 
 his fitting associates plundered the land they were sent to 
 rule. But a final insult aroused Ireland to revolt. "When the 
 grave chiefs and wealthy citizens, clothed in their national 
 dress, their hair plaited behind in heavy braids, their beards 
 flowing upon their breasts, came forward to offer allegiance 
 to John, and to give him, as had been their custom with their 
 native princes, the kiss of peace, the idle courtiers mocked the 
 solemn deputation, and at length seized them contemptuously 
 by their beards. The fierce Celtic fire was aroused. The 
 chiefs fled to Connaught or Ulster, the people to the forests ; 
 
 C) Gerald faintly indicates the vices of his pupil. Hib. Ex., ii.
 
 ROMAN PRIESTS KILL IRE IRISH. 443 
 
 and around the English Pale sprung up a circle of deadly 
 foes, and the contest became one of extermination. John re- 
 turned to England disgraced and penniless, and the Xorman 
 knights harried the land he might have soothed into repose.Q 
 
 Centuries of fatal discord followed, during which the ISTor- 
 mans strove in vain to extirpate the accursed race who refused 
 to obey the decrees of the Popes or submit to a foreign lord. 
 Papal legates launched new excommunications against the 
 Irish, and Romish priests urged on that work of extermina- 
 tion vfhich alone could secure the suj^remacy of the Eomish 
 See. The papal monks declared that it was no crime, no sin, 
 to kill a Celt. The Norman priests offered free absolution to 
 the murderer whose hands were yet stained with the blood of 
 an Irishman. The Holy Church opened its most sacred rite 
 — which could only be approached with a good conscience and 
 a pure heart — to him who had slain one of the abject race. 
 The Norman knights thought no more of killing an Irishman 
 than a dog : to rob his home, to ravish away his land, to drive 
 him, wdth his family, starving and famished, to the lonely 
 wilds, was the favorite sport of the chivalric invaders. The 
 mountain lands of Connauo-ht and of Ulster were thronged 
 with the population of the plains, who had fled for life from 
 the papal robbers ; and every cave and cranny of the glens, 
 every inaccessible fastness and hidden glade, was thickly ten- 
 anted by men, women, and children, crouching like wild beasts 
 from their destroyers.(') Nor would even this suffice. The 
 priests and knights pursued them to their caves and forests ; 
 the miserable tenants were killed in their wild retreats like 
 wolves or stags ; and, cursed by popes and persecuted by 
 kings, the Church of St. Patrick seemed ready to perish for- 
 ever — a victim to the Moloch of Eome. 
 
 One cry of mournful indignation has reached us from the 
 fourteenth century — a subdued but touching appeal against 
 
 (*) Giralcl., Hib. Ex. ; Eoger de Hoveden. 
 
 O Letter of Donald to John. J. de Fordun, Scotichron., p. 908, ed. 
 Hearne : " Ejectis nobis violenter de spaciosis habitatiouibus uostris," etc., 
 p. 911.
 
 444: THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 the cruel policy of the Italian priests. To John, Pope of 
 Kome, Donald, King of Ulster, ventured to assert that the 
 woes of Ireland were the result of the gift of Adi-ian to Ilen- 
 ry,(') to hint that the Eoman See was the cause of the miseries 
 of his race, and to proclaim that war until death against their 
 oppressors which should cease only with their destruction. 
 Superstition checked the warmth of the Irish ruler ; nor did 
 he venture to utter all the thoughts that must have filled his 
 mind when he reviewed the fate of Erin from the days of 
 Adrian and Henry to his own. He was overawed by the re- 
 nown of that spiritual tyrant to whom he was addressing him- 
 self ; he hoped something, perhaps, from the clemency of a 
 ruthless pope. Yet he lays bare, with unflinching accuracy, 
 the crimes of the Eomish clergy. It was the monks, he de- 
 clares, that taught that it was no more sin to kill an Irishman 
 than a dog.C") It was the Church that roused the ceaseless 
 fires of hate. The Cistercians of Granard or Innis every day 
 wounded and killed the Irish, yet said their masses as usual. 
 Brother Simon, the Franciscan — ^ unworthy disciple of his 
 sweet and gentle founder — preached openly that there was no 
 harm in killing or robbing an Irishman. A Clare murdered 
 Brian the Red at his own table after they had shared the con- 
 secrated wafer tos-ether. Tlie assassin of an Irishman was 
 never punished ; and Donald, with mournful truth, declared 
 that nothing but the total ruin of his race would satisfy the 
 malice of their conquerors. 
 
 The Irish prince closes his appeal with a malediction and 
 vow.(') " We nourish in our hearts," he cries, " an inveterate 
 hatred against our oppressors, produced by the memories of 
 long years of injustice, by the murders of our fathers and our 
 kindred. So long as we have life we will light against them. 
 
 (') '•' Miserabile iu qiio Eomanus pontifes statu nos posuit." — Fordun, 
 Scotichron., p. 912. 
 
 (-) "Non magis est peccatura iuterficere hominem Hibernicum qii^m 
 unum canem." — Fordun, p. 918. 
 
 ('") "Quanidiii vita aderit, ipsos impugnabimus — ruortalem guerram," 
 etc. — Fordun, p. 923.
 
 TEE IRISH VICTORIOUS. 445 
 
 without pity or remorse ; our children shall continue the end- 
 less feud. Kever will we lay aside the sword until the Su- 
 preme Judge shall have taken vengeance upon their crimes, 
 until we have recovered that independence which is our nat- 
 ural right, and have avenged those insults which to brave men 
 are worse than death." 
 
 Thus the barbarous chief expressed the passions of the 
 savage ; but had he aimed his maledictions against the Roman 
 See as well as against its Norman allies, had he vowed for his 
 countrymen a deathless hostility against those Italian priests 
 and that usurping Church which had instigated all the woes 
 of Ireland, had he been able to preserve the pure faith of St. 
 Patrick from contamination and decay, he would have pre- 
 pared a weapon sharper than a thousand swords for the pres- 
 ervation of the freedom of his native land. 
 
 Of the later history of the conquest of Ireland the i-eader 
 may desire a brief detail. The ceaseless warfare, sometimes 
 slumbering, yet ever renewed, glowed around the circuit of 
 the English Pale ; and when the wars of the Roses cut down 
 the flower of the Norman nobility, the Irish chiefs, in the fa- 
 vorable moment, had nearly driven the invaders from their 
 land. Ulster, Connaught, and even Munster were free. The 
 English were burned within their frontier castles, or nearly 
 driven inside the walls of Dublin. The sufferings of centu- 
 ries were avenged by horrible atrocities, and the colony of 
 English might well tremble before the rage of united Ireland. 
 In the fair country below the Shannon, the O'Briens swept 
 away the Clares of Thomond, and renewed the Brehon laAvs 
 and the ancient faith in their ancestral lands. The harpers 
 gathered in their hospitable courts, and j)oets chanted by the 
 still waters of Killarney, All over Ulster and Connaught it 
 is probable that the married priest, unshorn and unpolluted 
 by Roman ordination, preached the pure doctrines of Columba, 
 and tempered the vengeance of his countrymen. Compara- 
 tive peace settled upon Ireland, and its national laws and its 
 ancient faith were maintained unchanged except within the 
 narrow limits of the English Pale. 
 
 When the Irish were converted to the faith of Rome can
 
 446 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 scarcely be discovered.(') Until the opening of the sixteenth 
 century they can hardly have felt any bond of sympathy to 
 the chair of St. Peter, which had covered them with its male- 
 dictions and condemned them to slavery. The savage chiefs 
 who ruled the wild coasts of Ulster and the wide bogs of Con- 
 naught, with their uncultivated and warlike people, knew at 
 least that the Bishops of Kome had ever been their bitterest 
 enemies, and that the English within the Pale relied upon the 
 papal bull as the chief ground of their usui-pation. It was 
 remembered, no doubt, that the Eomish priests had taught 
 that an Irishman might be killed like a dog, and that Fran- 
 ciscan friars had urged the extirpation of the Irish race. It is 
 possible, it is almost certain, that the native chiefs, until the 
 opening of modern history, owed no allegiance to Eome, and 
 that the Irish Church, endeared to the native Celts by ages of 
 persecution, still ministered by its primitive bishops, and, with 
 Colman and Columba, traced its authority to Ephesus and St. 
 John. But all this was now to change. A reformation had 
 passed over Europe, and the chief leaders of the religious 
 movement were Henry and Elizabeth, the persecutors of the 
 Irish name. The English within the Pale had become Prot- 
 estants, but they showed no disposition to abandon the island 
 which they had received from St. Peter's patrimony ; and in 
 the vigorous reign of Elizabeth, the English armies, renewed 
 by the fresh impulses of progress, began to press once more 
 upon the limits of Celtic independence. The conquest, be- 
 gun nearly four centuries before, was now slowly advancing. 
 Laws of unusual severity were enacted; tanistry and other 
 Irish usages were abolished. It was plainly the design of the 
 English queen to reduce the island to a passive subjection to 
 her power. 
 
 The cause of this fresh assault upon the liberties of Ireland 
 
 (') Usher, tvIio was in Ireland as bishop (1640), asserts with confidence 
 that the Irish had never been Romanists. See Hanmer, p. 87. Murray, 
 Ireland (1845), a defense of Irish freedom, may bo consulted, p. 43-60. So, 
 too, De Vinn6's useful compend (1870), The Irish Primitive Church. The 
 Romish writers content themselves with denying well-kuown facts. See 
 Moore, Hist. Ireland ; Lanigan, etc.
 
 TEE JESUITS IN IRELAND. 447 
 
 were the restless intrigues of the Jesiiits.(') In that gallant 
 struggle which Elizabeth was destined to wage for the safety 
 of her crown and her life against the Pope, the Spaniards, the 
 adherents of Mary of Scotland, and all Romish Europe, the 
 most active and most dangerous of her foes were ever the dis- 
 ciples of Loyola. To ruin and break down every Protestant 
 government, to cover with discord and slaughter every Prot- 
 estant land, and from the wreck of nations to build up a spirit- 
 ual empire as tyrannical and as severe as was that of Tiberius 
 or Nero, was then, as now, the secret or open aim of every 
 Jesuit. To wound or to destroy Elizabeth the society began 
 its disastrous labors in Ireland. The Jesuits, in various dis- 
 guises, penetrated to the courts of the native chiefs. They 
 roused the fires of national antipathy ; they scoffed at the Sax- 
 ons as heretics ; they allured the Irish to abandon forever the 
 usages of St. Patrick and to ally themselves with the Italian 
 Church ;(^) they promised the natives the protection of St. 
 Peter, the shield of Mary, the blessing of the Pope, and the 
 military aid of all Catholic Europe, if they would rise once 
 more in a grand crusade against the English of the Pale and 
 drive the Saxons from their soil. 
 
 The alluring vision painted by the skillful touch of the un- 
 sparing Jesuits drew on the Celtic chieftains to their ruin. 
 Not satisfied with the possession of three-fourths of the isl- 
 and, with the enjoyment of their own laws and their own 
 faith, with the prospect of a gradual imj)rovement and a peace- 
 ful union with their Englisli masters of the Pale, the impul- 
 sive people accepted the offers of Rome, threw themselves at 
 the Pontiff's feet, and became, for the first time, the willing 
 instruments of the Jesuits and the Popes. They may be ex- 
 cused, if not forgiven. Their schools had long been swept 
 away ; their people had sunk into ignorance ; history, poetry, 
 
 (') Sacchinus, iv., p. 148. Wolfe, a Jesuit and a papal miucio, made bis 
 way to Cork iu 1561. 
 
 {^) So Wolfe probably induced some Irisb married priests — for wo can 
 not believe bis scandalous account — to put away tlieir wives. " Clericos 
 ca?nobitasque passim omnes cum mulierculis suis," It is plain tbat in 
 1561 tbe priests were married.
 
 448 TEE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 and music had given place to the ceaseless turmoil of a border 
 war. Home stretched forth its cunning hand to extii-pate the 
 Irish Church, and, after four centuries of violence, succeeded 
 at last by a fatal fraud. 
 
 From Ulster and Munster, from the banks of the Shannon 
 and the glens of Wicklow, the wild Irish, inspired by the sav- 
 age teachings of their Italian masters, fell bravely upon the 
 English Pale. But the whole scheme of the crusade proved 
 soon the desperate vision of deluded priests. The Pope could 
 give little aid to his new converts (1560-1600) ; the Spanish 
 were too far off to be of service ; and Elizabeth, resolute and 
 bold, sent, one by one, the bravest or the most renowned of 
 her courtiers to secure her dominion over the fertile isle. 
 Here Paleigh cut down the Irish kerns, and Grey massacred 
 the hopeless rebels ; here the Norrises and the Blounts were 
 heard of in many a fray ; here Essex, brave but inexperienced, 
 wasted his fine army, and returned to perish on the block ; and 
 here, at length, the prudent Mountjoy broke the strength of 
 the Irish league. Tyrone, the great O'Neil, once master of 
 half Ireland, the terror of Elizabeth and of the English Pale, 
 went into exile ; the savage chiefs of the West sunk into sub- 
 mission ; and when Elizabeth died, Ireland was almost wholly 
 conquered. Happy had the fertile isle submitted peacefully 
 to its inevitable doom ! 
 
 The later sorrows of this unlucky land may still be traced 
 to the mischievous plottings of the society of Loyola.(') The 
 Jesuits would never suffer Ireland to repose. A Romish fac- 
 tion grew up among its ignorant people pledged to the hope- 
 less task of winnino; back the island to the dominion of the 
 Pope. A colony of Scottish Protestants had settled on the 
 wasted soil of Ulster, and by industry and intelligence were 
 fast restoring the early prosperity of tlie favored scene of Pat- 
 rick's labors and Columba's prayers. The Jesuits and the pa- 
 pal chiefs resolved upon their destruction (1640-161:4). On a 
 sad and memorable day, the source of many a bitter woe to 
 
 (') Allen, Archer, and many other Jesuits are noted in the various ris- 
 ings. See Moore, Hist. Ireland, ii., i)p. 437, 497.
 
 MASSAC BE OF ULSTER. 44:9 
 
 Ireland, the Romish forces sprung upon the prosperous colo- 
 ny, and wasted it with fierce malignity. Forty thousand Prot- 
 estants were massacred without remorse ; the fields of Ulster 
 were filled with the dead ; the noble perished in his castle, 
 the priest was hanged in his garden, and a new St. Bartholo- 
 mew's swept over Ireland.(') But a pei^petual terror now set- 
 tled upon all Protestant minds ; the Irish massacre shocked 
 all Europe ; the Protestant natives brooded over their venge- 
 ance ; the spirits of the dead seemed to their impassioned fan- 
 cies to float over the terrified isle; spectral illusions filled the 
 air. A group of women, whose husbands had been murdered 
 and their children drowned at Armagh, saw, about twilight, 
 the vision of a woman rising from the waters ; her form wa& 
 erect, her hair hung long and disheveled, her skin was white 
 as snow, and she cried incessantly to the sad spectators, " Re- 
 venge ! revenge !" A ghost was seen constantly from Decem- 
 ber to spring-time, stretching out its spectral hands over the 
 scene of death.f ) 
 
 Had Ireland retained the liberal faith of Patrick and Co- 
 lumba it might readily have shared in the new impulses of the 
 age, and the colleges of Cashel and Armagh and the monas- 
 teries of lona might once again have imparted a consecrated 
 civilization to Northern Europe ; once more the hills of An- 
 trim might have echoed to the tread of seven thousand stu- 
 dents, and the saints and scholars of Erin have restored the 
 intellectual glory of the sacred isle. But the fated land was 
 now bound by terrible ties to the See of Rome. The Celtic 
 race had doomed itself to ceaseless ignorance ; the Popes and 
 the Jesuits ruled the hopeless people with remorseless skill; 
 and Ireland had allied itself to that cruel and immoral conserv- 
 atism which was exemplified in the massacres of Ulster or the 
 ravages of Philip of Spain. The name of an Irish Catholic 
 seemed now the symbol of barbarous malignity. The Celts, 
 
 (') The English had often iutermingled with the Celts and adopted their 
 manners. The contest has from this jteriod been one of religion. 
 
 C) These spectral illusions, the creations of minds torn by grief or rack- 
 ed by apprehension, remind one of the oracles of Thucydides or the appa- 
 ritions of Livy. 
 
 29
 
 450 THE coy QUE ST OF IRELAND. 
 
 who had once educated Europe, became, under Koraish influ- 
 ences, accursed in the eyes of civilization. 
 
 Cromwell, the avenger of the massacre of Derry, in 1649 
 entered Ireland to crush the Komish league ; and if retaliation 
 or retribution ever soothed a revengeful spirit, the wraiths 
 that hovered over the rivers of Ulster must now have sunk to 
 rest. The Komish forces melted away before the vigorous 
 soldier ; that keen intellect, which had never faltered on the 
 battle-field, cut to pieces, by its bold strategy, the Irish host ; 
 no pity moved him as he blotted cities from the earth, or 
 strewed the land with dead. His cruelty was inexcusable; 
 his followers imitated his severity, and Ireland was crushed 
 into submission. From Cromweirs time the English ruled 
 over the subject island, a severe and exacting caste. The 
 bravest and most adventurous of the Celts abandoned their 
 native land. They fought in the armies of the Catholic pow- 
 ers in every crusade against the reformers. Their valor be- 
 came conspicuous on the battle-fields of France and Germany, 
 and the papacy had no more remorseless defenders than that 
 misguided race who had been sold into slavery by Adrian, 
 and reduced to a more fatal bondage by the unscrupulous arts 
 of the Jesuits. 
 
 The devotion of the Irish to the Italian prelate grew into 
 an insane passion. They gave their lives freely for the priest 
 who had destroyed them. The Italians smiled at their sin- 
 cerity, and employed them in their bloodiest deeds. A band 
 of Irishmen, a Butler and a Devereux, were selected to assas- 
 sinate Wallenstein ; an Irishman defended the murder ;(') an 
 Irish legion committed fearful crimes in the Vaudois valleys ; 
 the brutal cruelty of the O'Xeils and the O'Connors shocked 
 the moral sense of an unscrupulous age. At length James II. 
 set up a Catholic kingdom in Ireland, and the barbarities of 
 Tyrone were renewed at the siege of Derry and the pillage of 
 Ulster. But the abject race which lay sunk in superstitious 
 
 (') " Carve, Itinerarium, cap. xi., reliqui Hiberni." Carve, an Irish exile, 
 calls Bntler, the assassin, au illustrious iiuuderer, and exults over the woes 
 of the enemies of Rome.
 
 THE IRISH EMIGRANTS. 451 
 
 decay was no match for the vigorous Protestants who fought 
 under William of Orange. The Irish fell once more into gross 
 degradation. Even Swift, the idol of Dublin, scoffed at his 
 wretched countrymen ; and for a century the Celts starved 
 in their miserable hovels, and groveled before their oppressors. 
 The French Revolution and the vain ambition of Naj)oleon 
 roused them to a new insurrection, but the fall of the tyrant 
 left them more wretched than before. 
 
 Then began the remarkable emigration of the Celts. A 
 free and Protestant land opened wide its hospitable shores to 
 the hapless race, and with unbounded generosity offered them 
 liberty, equality, and a peaceful home. They swarmed over 
 the ocean. A ceaseless tide of Celtic bondmen has poured 
 into the cities of the New World. But unhappily the virtues 
 of Patrick and the modesty of Columba have too often been 
 forgotten by their countrymen. They have brought with 
 them an insane devotion to the Romish See — a strange hostili- 
 ty to the free institutions of their adopted land. They have 
 labored to destroy that wide system of public instruction by 
 which alone they can hope to rise from their mental decay. 
 They have proclaimed their hostility to the Bible, whose pure 
 lessons had once made Ireland the island of the saints. They 
 have chosen to linger in vicious ignorance, and to fill the 
 prisons and the alms-houses, instead of rising, by education and 
 industry, to the dignity of freemen. They have become the 
 servile tools of corrupt politicians or foreign priests; and 
 when danger hovered over the nation the votes of Irishmen 
 were uniformly aimed against the Government, and proved 
 often more fatal to the hopes of freedom than the plots of 
 Davis or the sword of Lee.(') 
 
 Yet we may trust that a more honorable career awaits the 
 Celts in the future. Gratitude must awaken when knowledge 
 has taught them to reflect ; when they compare the generous 
 hospitality of the New World with the bitter persecutions of 
 
 (') Of course this rebuke will touch ouly the guilty ; some of the Irish 
 immigrants have been iiatriots, many industrious and useful ; but yet our 
 Btatement is true.
 
 452 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 the Old ; when they reflect that here alone they are free from 
 the malice of tyrants and the exactions of the priest ; when 
 education shall have aroused them from their blindness, and 
 they have discovered, with remorse and shame, that every 
 Irishman who, at the command of popes or prelates, labors to 
 destroy the free institutions of his adopted home, is a traitor 
 worse tlian Dermot Macmorrough when he guided the papal 
 lesrions to the ruin of his native land. 
 
 On a fair hill, amidst the gentlest scenery of Ulster, stands 
 the venerable Cathedral of Armagh, said to have been found- 
 ed by St. Patrick, and around it, on the sloping declivities, 
 were once gathered the modest buildings where countless 
 students, in the period of Ireland's intellectual glory, were 
 freely educated and maintained.(') The hills and vales of the 
 beautiful landscape are consecrated in the history of education. 
 Here Patrick founded his first free school. Here grew up 
 the most renowned of European colleges. Along yonder vales 
 the youth of Scotland, Germany, Gaul, and Britain came to 
 study the poetry, the music, the history of Ireland, and to list- 
 en to illustrious lecturers whose names were famous in Italy 
 and Spain. Men of profound learning and undoubted piety 
 trod from age to age yonder peaceful plain. The streets of 
 Armagh, it is said, were crowded with students. A scholastic 
 tumult hung over the quiet scene where now the shuttle and 
 the spinning-wheel alone disturb the peace of the rural vil- 
 lage ;f) a boundless passion for knowledge filled its early 
 population ; the clamor of a hundred lecture-rooms resounded 
 not far from the tall cliffs of Derry, or where the huge pillars 
 of the Giant's Causeway 1)reak the waves of the northern sea. 
 Patrick, the apostle of the free school and the Scriptural 
 Church, still lives in the memories of Armagh. Disciple of 
 
 (') The Four Masters celebrate a long succession of brilliant lecturers 
 and accomplished rectors of the native colleges. Even in 1170 (ii., 1175) 
 the death of the great lector Cormac is related, almost the last of the sages 
 of his country. 
 
 C) Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, Beauties of Ireland, describe with enthusiasm 
 the landscape of Armagh, 11., p. 458-460, the charms of the Banu, the grand- 
 eur of Lough Neagh.
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARMAGH. 453 
 
 St. John, child of the Bible, the humble missionary early dis- 
 covered the power of education, and from his free schools or 
 colleges sprung up a cultivated nation and a ceaseless throng 
 of saints and scholars, poets and priests. 
 
 Touching is it to remember .that when, seven centuries later, 
 Dermot, Henry, and the Pope were conspiring to let loose 
 upon Ireland the horrors of an inexpiable war, to destroy its 
 freedom, to crush its Church, and to blot from existence its 
 colleges and schools, Roderic O'Connor gave a munificent and 
 a last endowment to the master of the University of Armagh. 
 He remembered the heroes and saints who had been educated 
 within its walls ; he felt the power of knowledge.(') An an- 
 nual donation of ten cows was settled upon the office. The 
 generous prince declared that his gift was designed to educate 
 freely the youth of Ireland and Scotland, and to advance the 
 taste for letters.(^) Soon the tide of war rolled over the isl- 
 and ; Armagh was sacked and deserted ; Irish literature and 
 learning ceased to adorn the world; and the free system of 
 education established by St. Patrick was blotted from exist- 
 ence by envious Rome. 
 
 To a still hoher shrine of Celtic piety and genius we may 
 turn as we close our retrospect. Across the waves, near the 
 Scottish shore, lie the tombs and ruins of lona. Two recent 
 and accomplished writers have essayed to paint the landscape 
 that met the eyes of the Irish saint and the waves that mur- 
 mured to his prayers.^ ) The warm fancy of the Southern 
 
 (*) Four Masters, ii., 1171. See Trias Thaum., p. 310. "Rodericus rex 
 Bummopere cupiens iu academia Ardmochaua studia promovere — -ea cou- 
 ditione et studinm generale pro scholaribus, tarn ex Hibernia unde quo- 
 que, qnara ex Albania adventantibus." The Four Masters say that Eoderic 
 gave it in honor of St. Patrick, and to instruct yonth in literature. 
 
 C') Ten cows yearly was a munificent endowment. The Brehon law al- 
 lows six cows as the price of a queen's wardrobe. Vallancey, Col. i., App. 
 By the example of a modern court the income of the rector may be esti- 
 mated at a very high rate. Compared to his modern successors, he was 
 wealthy ; for what professor would not be content with an income nearly 
 twice the value of a queen's wardrobe ? 
 
 C) Montalembert, Monks of tho West, and the Duke of Argyll's loua, 
 paint its different aspects.
 
 454 THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 Celt sees only the cold and misty sky, the barren rocks, the 
 pale Sim of the North, the wild and stormy ocean ; the High- 
 land chief adorns the scene with richer colors. Ked cliffs rise 
 out of an emerald sea; the heavy banks of clouds far out 
 on the western main are lighted with dazzling sunshine ; the 
 blue outline of the Scottish coast, a throng of islets, bare or 
 verdant, and the endless waste of the dim Atlantic — an un- 
 rivaled wealth of sea, cloud, and sky — surround the home of 
 Columba. But, more majestic than nature's grandest aspect, 
 ever hovers over his beloved isle the form of the holy teacher 
 proclaiming its immortal renown, and the rulers and the" peo- 
 ple of many lands have fulfilled his proj)hecy, and nations 
 have worshiped at his shrine.(') 
 
 It is possible that from lona and Armagh, from Patrick 
 and Columba, from the free school and the free Church, may 
 come the restoration of the Celtic race ; that a fallen but vig- 
 orous people, long corrupted and degraded by superstitious 
 ignorance, may submit to a nobler conquest of reason and 
 humanity ; and that Irishmen, in every land, may once more 
 learn from their ancient teachers modesty, docility, gentleness 
 — the foundations of mental strength. 
 
 (') Colnmba prophesied that every barbarous and foreign nation ■would 
 celebrate the renown of hia narrow and barren isle.
 
 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 The annals of man offer few more varied, more magnifi- 
 cent, or more touching records tlian those of the Eastern 
 Church ;(') and from its dim yet hallowed origin, through its 
 long career of worldly triumph and of spiritual joy, of bitter 
 overthrows and of swift decline, of fresh revivals and unpre- 
 cedented strength, until to-day it rules over half Europe, and 
 threatens the subjugation of Asia from the Indus to the China 
 seas, a sui-passing interest has ever followed the only Christian 
 body that can claim a visible descent from the companions of 
 its founder. A cloud of doubt, of fable, or conjecture, rests 
 upon the pretensions of the Church of Kome ; the legend of 
 St. Peter relies upon no contemporary proof, and belongs to 
 the domain of faith rather than of history ; nor does any Prot- 
 estant communion profess to trace its origin through an un- 
 broken line of presbyters and bishops to the apostolic age. 
 But the Oriental Church seems possessed of a well-authenti- 
 cated genealogy. Its language is still that in which the Gos- 
 pels were written and Polycarp and Ignatius preached ; its 
 melodious ritual(') reaches back to the days of Constantine 
 and Athanasius ; its great patriarchates, that sprung up in the 
 veritable homes of the apostles, are yet faintly delineated in 
 the feeble churches of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Constanti- 
 nople ; along the fair shores of Syria and Asia Minor the shat- 
 tered ruins of the Christian Church have outlived the fallen 
 shrines of Antioch or Ephesus ; and from the city of Con- 
 stantine, the capital of the Christian world, has flowed a regu- 
 
 (') Mouravieff, Hist. Russ. Church, trans. Stanley, Eastern Church, has 
 made free and effective use of the Russian historian, besides his own care- 
 ful researches, 
 
 {^) King, Rites, etc., of the Greek Church ; Rcuaudot, Liturg. Orient., 
 1847, Paris, p. 30 ; Neule, Patriarchates.
 
 456 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 lar apostolic succession, whose members still minister to de- 
 vout congregations from the Kremlin to Solovetsky. 
 
 Scholar as well as theologian will iind much in the annals 
 of the Greek Church to touch his sympathy and startle his 
 curiosity. The genius of Attic civilization seems often re- 
 vived in its teachings ; the humane and liberal spirit of phi- 
 losophers and poets, the gentler impulses of Plato or Socrates, 
 are renewed, together with their names, through all those bar- 
 barous races that were educated from the brilliant schools of 
 Constantinople. While the Latin Church, under its illiterate 
 popes, inculcated persecution, and grew into a fierce and ag- 
 gressive political desiDotism, the Greeks, looking ever to the 
 teachings of Nice and of Constantine, have preserved a hu- 
 mane toleration.(') As if in tender recollection of their high 
 intellectual ancestry, the monks of Mount Atlios and the 
 priests of the Kremlin have painted on the walls of their ca- 
 thedrals the venerable faces of Homer, Pythagoras, or Plato, 
 and admit to the catalogue of the just the sages and heroes 
 who prepared the path of Christianity. In Moscow or Nov- 
 gorod, the Mohammedan, the Lutheran, and the Roman Cath- 
 olic are permitted to enjoy their faith and their religious rites 
 undisturbed. No St. Bartholomew''s, no dragonnades, no ra- 
 ging Inquisition, no hecatombs of martyrs, no strange and 
 cunning tortures, such as those devised by the keen invention 
 of Jesuits and Romish priests, have ever defiled the venerable 
 ministry that traces its origin to Ephesus and St. John. 
 
 Along that hot but luxuriant shore, reaching from the falls 
 of the Nile to the lower borders of the Euxine, still fertile at 
 that momentous period in the richest productions of nature 
 and art, the land of Homer and Herodotus, Scopas and Par- 
 rhasius, of stately architecture and perpetual song, the East- 
 ern Church, at the opening of the Council of Nice and the 
 triumph of Constantine, had fixed its immutable foundations. 
 Its mighty bishoprics — seats of learning as well as of abundant 
 
 (') Stanley, Eastern Church, pp. 34, 35. King, p. 6-8, notices that the 
 Greeks have never worshiped the Virgin or the saints. But Covel, Greek 
 Church, p. 376, thinks the Greeks "the most zealous adorers of the mother 
 of God."
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 457 
 
 faith — seemed the corner-stones of Christianity. Alexandria, 
 Antioch, and the Seven Churches were flourishing with such 
 outward vigor as to overshadow the feeble Church of Eome 
 and the missionary stations of the barbarous West. Kome, in 
 fact, had long remained a Greek congregation. Its bishops 
 employed the Greek language in their writings or exhorta- 
 tions ;(') its presbyter, Anicetus, admitted the superior author- 
 ity of Polycarp ; its members were obscure, uncultivated, and 
 humbled by frequent persecutions. But, in the great cities of 
 the East, Christianity already had invested itself with material 
 and intellectual splendor. At the famous schools of Alexan- 
 dria the keen faculties of the heretic, Arius, and the resolute 
 genius of his young opponent, Athanasius, had been prepared 
 for that vigorous contest that was to divide Christendom. 
 In all the Syrian cities Christianity became the religion of the 
 intellectual classes. Learning and philosophy were blended 
 with faith ; the Eastern bishops were voluminous writers, po- 
 ets, orators, even novelists ; while all along the sacred shore 
 stately churches grew up above the ruins of the pagan tem- 
 ples, the Nile was lined with monasteries and cathedrals, the 
 cHffs of the Grecian coast were converted into pious strong- 
 holds, the abode of cultivated eremites ;(') the soft music and 
 the gay processions of the classic creed were borrowed to en- 
 large and corrupt the Christian ritual ; and the Greek Church 
 had already assumed something of its modern form. 
 
 At length (325), with cries of victory and peace, the Coun- 
 cil of Nice assembled. Martyrs and confessors, maimed bish- 
 ops and eyeless hermits, cultivated scholars from the learned 
 seminaries of Egypt and Alexandria, monks from the The- 
 baid, and anchorites from the desert, gathered at the call of 
 Constantine to decide the doctrines and the usages of the tri- 
 
 (') The epistles of Clemeut are in Greek. Paul wrote in Greek to the 
 Romans. 
 
 (■) The Egyptian ascetics appear about the middle of the third century. 
 The practice was rapidly adoiited. Of the monasteries of Mount Athos 
 some boast an origin at least contemporary with Constantine. See Cur- 
 zon, Levant, p. 340. The Vatopede is said to have had Constantine for its 
 founder.
 
 458 THE GREEK CRUECH. 
 
 iimpliant Clmrcli. Amidst its eager and clamorous tlirong 
 wandered the inspired dwarf Atlianasius, deformed, with glit- 
 tering eyes ; or the tall, emaciated Arius, wasted with penance 
 and conscious of defeat, summoning his followers to that in- 
 tellectual combat whose decision was to fix the opinions of 
 half mankind. Yet the decrees of the first, perhaps the only, 
 general council deserving of a lasting veneration are observed 
 alone by the obedient Greeks. Imperious Rome has long 
 neglected its injunctions and interpolated its creed. Protest- 
 antism has preferred to revive the simpler usages of the apos- 
 tolic age. But the Eastern Church has remained immutable. 
 Its clergy are married ; its creed is still that of Constantine 
 and of Nice ; the worship of Mary has never been allowed 
 to overshadow the purer rites of a cultivated age ; the priest 
 has never aspired to a temporal supremacy; the Scriptures 
 are still read in the national language in its churches ; the au- 
 thority of the sultan or the czar is admitted in the selection 
 of its patriarchs and bishops. The mild genius of Constan- 
 tine founded an ecclesiastical system that for fifteen centuries 
 has obeyed his precepts and reverenced his fame. 
 
 To Constantine the Eastern Church was to owe its central 
 shrine. The Christian capital arose on the verge of Europe 
 and of Asia, over whose mental and religious progress it was 
 never to lose its influence, in the fairest site kno"UTi to the 
 ancient world. The waters of the Euxine rushed before the 
 city of Constantine, through a long and sometimes narrow 
 strait, to mingle with the ^gean. By its side the Golden 
 Horn offered a safe and almost tideless harbor ; ships from 
 Arabia and from Scythia might meet in the friendly shelter. 
 Around it opened a landscape rich with the later results of 
 Greek cultivation ; and the delusive beauties of the modern 
 city can only faintly reflect the magnificence of the scene when 
 the shores of the thickly wooded Propontis were cultivated 
 with Attic elegance,(') and the marble churches and palaces of 
 Constantine covered the swelling promontory from the harbor 
 
 (') Gibbon often describes the attractions of Constantinople. Von Ham- 
 mer, Constantinople, etc., may be consulted.
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 459 
 
 to the glittering sea. Nothing was wanting, except perhaps 
 creative genius, to make the new Rome the chief of cities. 
 The weahh of an empire was Lavished in its decoration. 
 "Within ten years it attained a splendor that might rival the 
 fruits of ten centuries of the slow progress of ancient Eome. 
 The new Romulus traced the circuit and witnessed the com- 
 pletion of his capital. Its temples were brighter than the yel- 
 low columns of the Parthenon ; its circus more spacious than 
 that of Tarquin ; its baths, aqueducts, and fountains, its abun- 
 dant markets and its stately churches, provided for the re- 
 quirements of a population that sprung iip with artificial vig- 
 or ; and for more than a thousand years, amidst the barbarous 
 turmoil of mediaeval Europe, Constantinople outshone all its 
 rivals, even in its slow decay. 
 
 It was a museum and a store-house for the ravished treas- 
 ures of Greece. A tripod of serpents from Delphi, statues 
 from the deserted temples of the ancient faith, columns carved 
 in the days of Phidias, gems and precious stones from the cor- 
 onals of ancient deities, libraries gathered in the home of phi- 
 losophy, the writings of the fathers, the poets, and the sages, 
 found shelter in the halls of Constantino, when the museum 
 of Alexandria was made desolate, and the Acropolis had be- 
 come the haunt of robbers. Protected by its fortunate situ- 
 ation and its lofty walls, Constantinople held securely within 
 its bosom its precious deposit. A last bulwark of civilization 
 when all the world was savage, its schools still employed the 
 language of Homer; its students read Euripides or dreamed 
 of Plato ; the wisdom which had been lost to all other men 
 was still familiar to its children ; the priests of the Greek 
 Church were all cultivated, and often gifted with rare ability ; 
 and while the Latin clergy could seldom read or write, a liv- 
 ing fountain of true learning fertilized the intellect of the 
 East. 
 
 With the death of its founder a remarkable revolution 
 passed over the Christian capital, and under the rule of the 
 corrupt Constantius the opinions of the heretic Arius were 
 enforced upon its clergy and its people ; the whole Christian 
 world seemed converted by the subtle argument of the new
 
 460 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 sect.(') The great see of Alexandria, almost imperial in pow- 
 er and state, was governed by an Arian bishop ; Antioch and 
 Jerusalem yielded to the arts of the emperor ; Rome and dis- 
 tant Spain obeyed his commands ;(") but Athanasius, and per- 
 hajDS the majority of the laity, still defended the Trinitarian- 
 ism of Nice, and the latent principle of Christianity was kept 
 in remembrance by the sharp diatribes of the exiled prelate. 
 Bitter, vindictive, magnanimous, unconquerable, a weary life 
 awaited the presbyter who had defeated Arius in his early 
 vigor, but who seemed at last to have sunk in his old age into 
 a forlorn and powerless victim before the avenging sj)irit of 
 his fallen foe. The cruelty and the keen persecutions of the 
 Arians drove Athanasius to a savage retreat in the wilderness, 
 and oppressed his adherents with bitter tortures. Yet more 
 than once the heroic Copt, his diminutive frame inspired by a 
 genuine courage, came out from his hiding-place to terrify the 
 court and the hostile clergy into an insincere compromise; 
 often the faithful Egyptians concealed, at the peril of life and 
 fortune, the great head of their Church. Of all the spectacles 
 witnessed at Alexandria, the most memorable was the recep- 
 tion of Athanasius after his first exile and return. The whole 
 Eg}q3tian population poured out like a swelling Nile — it is 
 the figure of the narrator — to greet with shouts of joy and 
 adoration the national saint. On the one side a huge mass of 
 dusky children lined the broad highway ; the men and wom- 
 en, separated into two vast hosts, as was the Oriental custom, 
 rolled out of the city gates, an endless stream ; every trade 
 and profession was ranged in order ; branches of trees were 
 waved aloft ; the richest carpets of the Alexandrian looms 
 were flung, radiant with gay colors and costly figures, in the 
 pathway of the hero ; and when his feeble form rose on the 
 sight, one wild burst of acclamation broke from myriads of 
 hps. Countless hands were clapped with rapturous joy, and 
 
 (') Mosheim, i., p. 345; Gieseler, i., p. 302; Gibbon, iii., p. 11. Constan- 
 tiuople was the principal seat and fortress of Ariauism. 
 
 C) See Hefele, Con., i., p. 658; Milmau, Hist. Christ., ii., p. 431. Tlie 
 forced apostasy of Hosius and Liberius is well known. I need not allude 
 to the vain controversy.
 
 THE DOME OF ST. SOPHIA. 461 
 
 the most precious ointments, cast before him, filled the air 
 with fragrance. At night the whole city glowed with a gen- 
 eral illumination, and in every house rich entertainments in- 
 vited perpetual guests. An unusual religious fervor followed. 
 Men, women, children, hid themselves in convents, or sought 
 a hermitage in the desert ; the hungry were fed, the orphans 
 sheltered, and every household, filled with devotion, seemed 
 transformed into a Christian church. 
 
 Through a weary life of ceaseless persecution Athanasius(') 
 passed onward to old age and death. But his victory was at 
 last secured. Constantinople, Rome, and Alexandria returned 
 to the Trinitarian faith, and the great Theodosius reigned in 
 the Christian capital over an undivided church. The fair 
 and prosperous city of Constantine became now the admit- 
 ted head of Christendom. Eome, sacked and depopulated by 
 Goth and Yandal, almost ceased to dispute the supremacy of 
 the Eastern bishops ; the Patriarch of Constantinople claimed 
 a universal rule ; the Popes feebly or violently protested 
 against the assumption ; the Eastern emperors selected or de- 
 posed at will the Latin bishops ; Justinian and Belisarius 
 scoffed at the fallen priests of the ancient capital. 
 
 From Justinian the Eastern Church was to borrow that 
 novel and pleasing style of architecture which was to adorn 
 the Kremlin and satisfy the fancy of Moslem or Christian, 
 whose glittering domes and lavish decorations of gems and 
 gold are more grateful to the Oriental taste than the wildest 
 or the grandest of the Gothic minsters ; and in his long and 
 wasteful reign churches and monasteries were scattered with 
 profuse hand over his tottering empire. It is the character- 
 istic of feeble rulers to seek for renown in huge or costly 
 buildings. The active but imbecile Justinian toiled to com- 
 plete the splendor of Constantinople, and to " make it worthy 
 of himself. Nor was he unsuccessful. The magnificence of 
 
 (') Such was the pre-eminence of Alexandria in mathematics that to its 
 bishops only was given the duty of fixing the beginning of Lent and the 
 Easter season. The bishop issued every year a festal letter. Those of 
 Athanasius have recently been discovered. See Curetou, Festal Let. of 
 Athauasius.
 
 462 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 the decaying capital was perfected by the last resources of an 
 impoverished world. A throng of stately churches, a palace 
 of unequaled splendor, groves, gardens, and public edifices, 
 rich with varied marbles, mosaics, and gold, covered anew the 
 fortunate site where Constantine had first transplanted the 
 simpler forms of Grecian architecture, and preserved the 
 memory of the Doric temple or the Corinthian shaft. But 
 under Justinian arose that tall and graceful dome of St. So- 
 phia, the most wonderful of the inventions of the later ar- 
 chitects, whose fair proportions still rise over the Moslem city, 
 and reproach the Eastern Church with the spectacle of its 
 desecrated shrine.(') St. Sophia was built of brick, but coated 
 with marble ; its exterior, like the churches of the Kremlin, 
 could never have been imposing ; but no sooner had the spec- 
 tator passed its gates of bronze than he was dazzled by a pro- 
 fusion of rare embellishments such as St. Peter's can scarcely 
 surpass. Above him soared the central cupola, surrounded by 
 six smaller domes, covered with heavy gilding and gleaming 
 with varied colors. A hundred columns of jasper, porphyry, 
 or costly marble, torn from ancient temples, and dissimilar in 
 form and carving, sustained the lofty roof. Tlie altar was a 
 pile of silver. The sacred utensils were of purest gold, stud- 
 ded with inestimable gems. From the walls looked down the 
 figures of saints and angels ; and in the form of a Greek 
 cross the magnificence of St. Sophia opened at once upon the 
 observer, and presented all its gilding, its mosaics, and its 
 bronzes, its gold and gems, at a single glance. In its modern 
 dress only the bare and dusky walls and the graceful domes 
 remain ; the priceless ornaments of the shrine and chancel are 
 gone ; yet the columns of porphyry from the Temple of the 
 Sun, and the green marbles of Ephesus, may yet be distin- 
 guished, and the dull echoes of Mohammedan eloquence seem 
 profane and dissonant in the desecrated shrine where once the 
 Christian world collected its treasures and poured forth its 
 prayers. 
 
 (') Gibbon's account of St. Sophia, iii., p. 523, has been enlarged by mofl- 
 ern investigations. See Von Hammer, Constantinople und der Bosporus, 
 i., p. 34G ; Byzantine Arch., Toxier aiul riillan, p. 21-59.
 
 ST. SOPHIA. 463 
 
 To perfect his grand conception of a Christian cathedral, 
 Justinian labored with an ardor that never tired. Often he 
 was seen under the glare of the noonday sun, while all others 
 slept, clad in a coarse linen tunic, a staff in his hand, his head 
 bound with a hnen cloth, directing his workmen, urging on 
 the indolent, and stimulating the industrious. Tradition re- 
 lates that angelic visions guided him in his labors and suggest- 
 ed his happiest ideas.(') A spiritual guest revealed to him a 
 hidden treasure ; a figure robed in white descended on the sa- 
 cred site, and was deluded by the acute emperor into a prom- 
 ise to remain forever. But the ceaseless industry of ten thou- 
 sand laborers, toiling often by night and day, in the course of 
 six years completed the Church of the Holy Wisdom. Four 
 columns, tall, graceful, and firm, sustained the swelling dome. 
 Its tiles of Rhodian clay were the lightest of building materi- 
 als. Its height from the pavement was one hundred and sev- 
 enty-nine feet, its breadth one hundred. Twenty -four low 
 and rounded windows threw streams of light through its 
 groined ribs of equal number. Four colossal figures of winged 
 seraphim adorned its four angles ; and from its summit looked 
 down the majestic face of Christ, the Sovereign Judge, wdiose 
 noble aspect is still imitated or reproduced in every Byzantine 
 cathedral. At the eastern end of the pillared nave, the climax 
 of the magnificent interior, arose the silver screen of the altar, 
 composed of twelve pillars wrought with arabesque devices, 
 twined into pairs, and graced with holy faces. A massive 
 cross of gold appeared above. The table of the altar was 
 formed of molten gold, into which the most costly gems had 
 been cast in uncounted masses. Behind the altar, seats of sil- 
 ver, separated by golden pillars, were arranged for the bishop 
 and clergy. Tall candelabra of gold, of the richest workman- 
 ship, threw a soft light over the glittering scene. A pulpit, a 
 throne for the emperor and one for the patriarch, and seats 
 for innumerable priests, probably filled all the space of the 
 
 (') Paul the Sileutiary, and Anonymi, in Bandiiri, p. 61. The late sultan 
 permitted St. Sophia to be studied, the walls purified, the figures copied, 
 but re-covered. See Fossati, drawings litliographed by Hnguc : Loudon, 
 1854. For the first time they were seen since 1453.
 
 404 TEE GREEK CHUBCH. 
 
 eastern end. The altar cloths were stiff with gold and gems, 
 and patriarch and emperor were adorned with robes encum- 
 bered with the spoils of ages. 
 
 Such was the monument of barbaric follj which Justinian 
 transmitted to the Eastern Church. Feeble vanity, religious 
 ardor, artistic genius, and inhuman waste are all exemplified 
 in the story of the Greek cathedral. The world groaned with 
 taxation and misery that the corrupt Church might possess a 
 gorgeous shrine ; yet the great edifice has proved more lasting 
 than any of its contemporaries, and promises to be almost as 
 enduring as that grotesque, half-barbarous, and haK-imbecile 
 scheme of law which Justinian embodied in the Pandects 
 and the Novels.(') Often shattered by earthquakes or defaced 
 by insurrections, plundered by conquerors and stripped by the 
 Turk, St. Sophia has outlived the cathedrals of Charlemagne 
 and the early basilicas of Rome. It preceded by nearly a 
 thousand years the foundation of St. Peter's. It opened a new 
 era in architecture. Its graceful dome has been imitated at 
 Moscow and Novgorod, in Florence and Rome. The bound- 
 less richness of its interior decorations has been nearly rivaled 
 in the Kremlin or the churches of St. Petersburg. C^) Yet no 
 modern cathedral can recall such splendid and such touching 
 memories as those that cluster around the central shrine of the 
 Eastern Church. On Christmas-day, in the year 538, its found- 
 er dedicated his stately labors with a j^ompous pageant that 
 exhausted the wealth and the invention of his emj^ire. The 
 great bronze doors rolled open. The emperor, clothed in jDur- 
 ple ; the patriarch, radiant with cloth of gold ; a host of inferi- 
 or clergy, arrayed in the rich vesture of a corrupt ritual, filled 
 the silver seats around the altar. The golden candlesticks 
 poured down their light. The courtiers and the people cov- 
 ered the wide expanse of the nave or dome. The graceful 
 galleries were thronged with the fairest and the noblest 
 women of Constantinople ; and Justinian, in grateful exulta- 
 
 (') I would scarcely wish to do injustice to Justiniau's codifiers ; but Ga- 
 ius is better than his imitator, and the Twelve Tables better than Gaius. 
 
 {^) The Church of St. Isaac, at St. Petersburg, is said to surpass all that 
 man can conceive of splendor. Dicey.
 
 THE OBIENTAL SHRINE. 4G5 
 
 tion, with arms outstretclied and lifted in the attitude of 
 prayer, exclaimed, " Glory to God, who has deemed me wor- 
 thy of such a work ! I have conquered thee, O Solomon !" 
 The chant of countless choristers swelled through the pil- 
 lared aisles. Immense sums were expended in lavish gifts to 
 the poor, and the whole city shared in the boundless yet too 
 transient satisfaction of its master. 
 
 For nine centuries, in St. Sophia emperors were enthroned, 
 patriarchs installed, and the Christian festivals celebrated with 
 Oriental pomp. It was the favorite scene for the display of 
 the feeble magnificence of the Byzantine court. The impe- 
 rial marriages and baptisms were celebrated at its altar ; and 
 above the holy spot, in the vain pride of Greek exclusiveness, 
 was inscribed the law forbidding the marriage of a Byzantine 
 prince with a stranger. Often its interior witnessed wild 
 outrages and riotous fanaticism ; its pavements were stain- 
 ed with blood in the fierce struggle of the image - breakers. 
 From its j^ulpit Photius pronounced the excommunication of 
 Rome and the separation of the two churches. The sweet 
 music of its choristers and the splendor of its rites converted 
 the Russians to the faith of Constantine. It was desecrated 
 with barbarous sacrileges by the Latin Crusaders ; a papal 
 priest sat for a moment in the chair of Photius ; and the ha- 
 tred of the Greeks for the Latins sprung up with new inten- 
 sity as they saw the brutal deeds of the chivalry of the West. 
 " Rather," they cried, " would we see the turban of Moham- 
 med than the pope's tiara in Constantinople." At length, in 
 the opening of the tenth century of its existence, the vast ca- 
 thedral beheld the most dreadful of all its woes. Amidst the 
 groans and cries of the host of dying Greeks, Mohammed II. 
 strode up its blood-stained nave, and proclaimed from its higli 
 altar the God and Prophet of an accursed faith.(') A gold- 
 en crescent was raised above the dome of St. Sophia. The 
 Greek Church, fallen and powerless, yet wept over the dese- 
 
 (') "Die Miinner wurden mit Stricken, die Wciber mit ihren Giirteln 
 zwey nud zwey ziisammengebuuden." Von Hammer, i., p. 550. The des- 
 olation of St. Sophia was completed by the iilunder of its ornaments and 
 the covering-np of its pictnres. 
 
 30
 
 ■iQQ THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 cration of its central shrine as the chief of its hnmiliations ; 
 nor in all its wide domain is there to-day a priest or layman 
 who does not remember that St. Sophia was torn from his 
 ancestors by the savage Turk, or long for the day of its res- 
 toration. 
 
 Not from Goth or Hun, from the fierce tribes of the Ger- 
 man forests who had stricken down the mighty fabric of the 
 Latin rule, was to come the final desolation of the Eastern 
 Church. In the opening of the seventh century it still re- 
 tained an exterior grandeur that overawed the feebler sees of 
 Western Christendom. The authority of Constantinople, in 
 Church and State, was admitted at Antioch and Alexandria, 
 in Africa and Italy. Rome, already ambitious and avaricious, 
 was a humble dependency of the Eastern empire. The arms 
 of Parses and Belisarius had alone saved the fallen capital 
 from the rule of an Arian chief, and perhaps an Arian 
 pope.(') Nor was it without a reasonable sense of superior 
 intelligence as well as power that the bishops of Constantino- 
 ple had assumed the title of Universal Patriarch, and claimed 
 a general control of the Christian Church. Gothic Spain was 
 yet held by the Arians ; the great Lombard kingdom of 
 Northern Italy still threatened to enforce the doctrines of 
 Arius upon the Catholics of Rome and Naples ; at Alexandria 
 the native Copts clung to the Monophysite heresy, and sub- 
 mitted reluctantly to the supremacy of the Greeks ; yet the 
 Patriarch of Constantinople was still tlie chief head of Catho- 
 lic orthodoxy, and from the pulpit of St. Sophia instructed 
 an obedient world. 
 
 It was the sword of the Saracen that swept into sudden ruin 
 the venerable seats of early Christianity. Tlie children of 
 the Arabian deserts are divided into two hostile and dissimi- 
 lar families — the dwellers in cities and the dwellers in the 
 sands.f ) The former, assuming the pacific habits of the mer- 
 chant, had laid aside the savage virtues and vices of the Bed- 
 
 (') How nearly Eome became Arian forever, Tvhen its infallible popes 
 mnst have propagated fatal heresy, may be seen in the history of the 
 time. It was long a qnostion whetlicr Arianism wonlcl not rule the West. 
 
 C) AmarijLa Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia, i., p. 34.
 
 THE ARABS AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 467 
 
 ouin. Tliey lived in the rich fields of Yemen and Arabia the 
 Happy; their fleet ships bore the spices of the East to the 
 docks of Rome and the coast of Coromandel ; their caravans 
 had founded and cherished the jjrosperity of Hira and Pal- 
 myra. But it was not from the more civilized Arabs that the 
 swift storm of reform was to break over dying intellect and 
 virtue. The fiery children of the desert, free, impetuous, in- 
 dependent ; whose companions from infancy had been the 
 boundless landscape of sand and sky, the hot sun, the splendid 
 wanderers of the night ; who never rested, who had no home 
 nor possessions but the dromedary and a tent, were now to be 
 moved by great thoughts, and to issue from Arabia armed 
 with a comparative truth. Amidst the wide decay of Chris- 
 tianity, the apparent flight of honesty and mental vigor from 
 the earth, the cry of fallen human nature for reform was an- 
 swered by a wild voice from Mecca. A Bedouin, though soft- 
 ened somewhat by a more pacific life, Mohammed preached 
 to the dull world God and himself. 
 
 Mecca is described as one of those j^laces where only neces- 
 sity or habit could induce men to dwell.(') An arid valley, 
 shut in by bare and rugged mountains, is watered by a few 
 feeble springs that support its scanty herbage. The hot sun, 
 the perpetual blasts of the desert, are imprisoned in its nar- 
 row cleft, and the surrounding rocks reflect and deepen the 
 torrid heat. Yet, by the vigorous impulse of a single active 
 mind, the Arabian village became the rival of Rome and of 
 Constantinople ; and when Mohammed, half crazed by the 
 problems of life and of immortality, prayed and fasted amidst 
 its loftiest cliffs, he was preparing the swift destruction of 
 that degenerate Christianity that had grown up in the ven- 
 erable churches once tended by Mark and Jolin.(^) At his 
 death his followers issued from the desert, and the sword of 
 the Saracens, during the seventh and eighth centuries, per- 
 fected their work of purification or of desolation. Jerusalem, 
 
 (') Muir, Life of Mohammed, vol. i., p. 3. 
 
 C) Muir's picture of the youth of the Prophet is the most complete we 
 have.
 
 468 THE GEEEK CHUECH. 
 
 strewed with Christian dead, became a Moslem shrine. The 
 fate of Damascus has grown famous in prose and song. The 
 Seven Churches, the crowns of seven splendid cities, have sunk 
 into almost imdiscoverable ruin. Thyatira is lost, and Sardis 
 a bramblj waste ; and travelers search in vain on the lonely 
 sites for the mighty cathedrals once raised in honor of St. 
 John or the Holy Wisdom, and for some trace of that mag- 
 nificence that once marked the Eastern Church. (') The sword 
 of the Saracens swept over Egypt and Alexandria ; the great 
 see of Athanasius was reduced to a wretched shadow; the 
 Nile was cleared of its swarming monasteries ; and Africa, 
 Spain, and Sicily were readily taught to abandon the idols of 
 Rome for the invisible deity of Mecca, 
 
 The city of Constantinople, in this period of desolation, em- 
 braced all that was yet left of the Christianity of the East, un- 
 less, perhaps, a purer faith had sprung up beneath the iron 
 tread of Moslem tyranny, and the virtues of an age of mar- 
 tyrdom were revived among the obscure and forgotten frag- 
 ments of the churches of Asia or the Nile. But all the visi- 
 ble strength of the Eastern faith seemed shut up, with the 
 treasures of Greek art, within the walls of Constantinople. 
 Twice the vast hordes of ardent Saracens thronged around the 
 trembling city ; the shores of the Bosphorus were ravaged by 
 the children of the desert ; and it seemed probable that the 
 Sclaves of Russia and the Goths of Middle Europe must, with 
 the fall of the capital, be reduced to adopt the doctrines and 
 the Prophet of Mecca. But for the powerful walls of the 
 Christian citadel, and the foresight of Constantine, rather than 
 the valor of its trembling emperors and people, no human 
 arm could have stayed the march of that swarm of enthusiasts 
 who preached and fought for the conversion of the West ; 
 and a more successful crusade of the horsemen of Khorassan 
 and the emirs of Mecca would have planted the crescent on 
 the walls of Mentz or Worms. The trembling people guard- 
 ed their gates ; the Greek fire destroyed hosts of infidels ; the 
 
 (*) For the desolation of the Seven Churches see Burton, Arundel, and 
 Chandler.
 
 THE POPES AND THE EASTERN CHURCH. 469 
 
 Saracens melted away in the inclement winter ; and six centu- 
 ries passed, during which Christianity fixed itself in the heart 
 of Russia, and a Christian empire had civilized and conquer- 
 ed the Niebelungs and the Hungarians, the Batavian and the 
 Swede. The citadel of Constantine gave Christendom six 
 centuries of progress before it yielded to the shocks of time 
 and the rage of the Turks. 
 
 Of this period of comjiarative rest the most memorable 
 event was the final separation of the Greek from the Latin 
 Church and the deposition of the bishop of the West from an 
 equal station in the Christian hierarchy with the Patriarchs of 
 Antioch and Alexandria.(') To the faithful congregations of 
 the orthodox East the Latin pontiff is the Judas of the band 
 of bishops. He has been- deposed from his high place ; he 
 is an excommunicate and accursed ; the Patriarch of Moscow 
 has assumed the vacant seat created by his apostasy ; and a bit- 
 ter warfare has raged between the rival churches, in which 
 the praise of humanity or mercy can least be ascribed to that 
 of Eome. Often the cruel Popes labored to bring bloodshed 
 and disunion within the walls of Constantinople, aimed the 
 assassin's dagger at its emperors, encouraged the rage of the 
 crusaders, or smiled, while they trembled, at its fall. In a 
 later age the persecuting fury of the Church of Eome was 
 aimed against EuSsia and the Patriarch of Moscow. The 
 Poles were incited to become the champions of Catholicism. 
 For nearly a century the most fertile fields of Eussia were 
 desolated by the fierce missionaries of the AVest ; the monas- 
 teries were sacked, the orthodox bishops tortured into submis- 
 sion. Moscow perished in a memorable conflagration. The 
 Russian hierarchy were corrupted or intimidated. A usurper, 
 the tool of the Jesuits, reigned in the Holy City ; and amidst 
 the scenes of national ruin, in which they had so often tri- 
 umphed, the Popes seemed about to extend their spiritual em- 
 pire over regions that had never felt their sway. But the 
 
 (') Mosheim, i., p. 513; Gieseler, i., p. 503 ; John Jejunator assumes the 
 title of Universal Patriarch, 587 ; Gregory the Great thiuka the title im- 
 pions.
 
 470 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 Sclavic nation rose, led by its patriotic priests ; the Catliolics 
 were expelled with lieroic courage ; and Poland has suffered 
 in modern times for the cruel policy of the Jesuits and the 
 guilt of its ancestors. 
 
 The schism between the Eastern patriarchs and the Pope of 
 Rome sprung, no doubt, from early differences, from opposing 
 interests, and from varying traditions.(') In the first century 
 the mild Polycarp, who ruled, by superior sanctity, the Syrian 
 churches, opposed Anicetus, the presbyter or Bishop of Pome, 
 in his own city, and defended the usages of Ephesus. Anice- 
 tus modestly yielded, for he was, perhaps, a disciple of Paul ;('') 
 but as the Roman See grew rich and powerful, it was almost 
 the first of the early churches to fall into superstitious decay. 
 Its early popes, Zephyrinus, Callixtus, Victor, bear no honest 
 characters.(') Its episcopal chair became the object of in- 
 trigue and corrupt ambition. Pride came with moral decay, 
 and the fallen bishops of Rome hoped to hide their own spir- 
 itual degradation in a fabulous claim to the succession from 
 St. Peter. Conscious of their own crimes, they strove to exalt 
 the authority of the office they had won by fraud or violence, 
 and to dazzle the world by vain assumptions and idle display. 
 More honest, because more intelligent, the bishops of the East- 
 ern cities still preserved some traits of the earlier simplicity. 
 The two Gregorys, Basil, Meletius, and Chrysostom might do 
 credit to the church of a cultivated age ; but the Popes were 
 grossly ignorant, and the Latin See a centre of moral decay. 
 The jjen of the ascetic Jerome has left a vigorous sketch of 
 the growing vices of Rome. As the Latin prelates sunk low- 
 er in barbarous ignorance, their pretensions rose; but the 
 Eastern emperors treated them with little ceremony, exiled or 
 punished the Popes at will, and the Patriarch of Constanti- 
 nople declared himself the Universal Bishop. With the fall 
 of the chief centres of Christianity in the East under the as- 
 saults of the Saracens, the ambition of Rome revived. It 
 
 (') Mosheim, i., p. 513. 
 
 (") Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., v., p. 24. Eusebius calls kxxxGQins, presbyter. 
 
 (') Milmau, Lat, Christ.
 
 FHOTIUS AND HIS AGE. 471 
 
 aimed to subject or to destroy the Eastern Churcli, as it had 
 already eradicated its rivals from Gaul or Britain, persecuted 
 the Church of Scotland, and was to reduce cultivated Ireland 
 to a forlorn and bleeding waste. Doctrinal differences and 
 varying rites added lasting hostility to the war of ambition ; 
 and the Church of Rome, to the purer faith of Constantino- 
 ple, seemed lost in fatal heresy. It had added to the Nicene 
 Creed, from the decrees of a Sjianish council, the unauthor- 
 ized ^7io2'we.(') It refused to allow its clergy to marry, in di- 
 rect revolt from the well-known decision of Nice. Its abject 
 worship of images and the Host, its ignorance, its dependence 
 upon the Western barbarians, its pretension to a place above 
 all the other patriarchates in honor and power, naturally ex- 
 cited the disapprobation and the fear of its Eastern brethren ; 
 and at length Antioch and Alexandria, Jerusalem and Con- 
 stantinople, united in deposing forever from his place in the 
 Christian Church the heretical and ambitious Bishop of Rome., 
 The chief source of this remarkable separation, the founder 
 of the independence of Eastern thought, was Photius,(^) Pa- 
 triarch of Constantinople. Xo man of his period could rival 
 his various learning and his extensive acquaintance with the 
 Greek classics. His vast and careful library, or selections 
 from more than two hundred writers, passes over a boundless 
 field of philosophy and general literature, preserves the finest 
 passages of Herodotus or Plutarch, and indicates an intellect 
 avid, industrious, and refined. Photius, in literary activity, 
 was the Johnson, the Gibbon, of his century. As a layman he 
 had traveled to the cities of the Arabs, and had been employed 
 in high offices at the Byzantine court. In 858, the Patriarch 
 Ignatius was deposed by the Eni2:)eror Michael, and Photius 
 was raised to the first station in the Eastern Church. The 
 Romish See, eager to control the politics of Constantinople, as- 
 sumed the cause of Ignatius, deposed or excomnmnicated his 
 rival, and began its ceaseless war against a scholar and a think- 
 
 (') The procession from the Father and the Son first appears at the Coun- 
 cil of Toledo. See Gieseler, ii., p. 73. Its adoption by Protestant churches 
 was indiscreet. 
 
 C) Schnitzler, L'Erupire des Tsars.
 
 472 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 er whose severe pen and vigorous intellect were to deal it 
 blows that were never to lose their sting. In his famous en- 
 cyclical, Photius(') reviewed the errors of the Paj)al See, and 
 held np to the Christian Chnrch the heresies and the corrup- 
 tions of Rome. lie pointed oiit its interjjolated creed, its Jew- 
 ish tendency, its pascal lamb that was eaten by Pope and bish- 
 ops, its celibacy, and its countless crimes. His learning and 
 his logic confounded his dull opponents, nor was there any 
 one of the period who could meet his unequaled intellect in 
 the field of controversy. Yet the contest was long and doubt- 
 ful; the Eastern patriarchs sustained their brilliant leader; 
 the West sided with the Popes. Photius was driven into ex- 
 ile. Ignatius ruled in St. Sophia ; he died, and Photius was 
 again restored. Even the Pope was reconciled to his return ; 
 but a new emperor banished the scholar to a lonely monastery 
 in Armenia, where, perhaps, he died. Gleaming out an intel- 
 lectual prodigy in the dark age of general ignorance, Photius 
 has won no low place in the annals of mental progress. His 
 wide reading and his acute discjuisitions have not been lost to 
 posterity ; his bold and patriotic defense of the liberties of 
 the East saved from contempt the decisions of Nice, and re- 
 pelled from half the Christian world the later abuses of Rome. 
 It was the theory of the Greeks that there were five patri- 
 archates equal in power and authority, but that the capital 
 city of the empire must hold a titular precedence in rank. So 
 long as Rome remained the source of government, it had been 
 allowed the primacy ; when it sunk into neglect and ruin, it 
 was supplanted by the superior dignity of Constantinople.^ 
 But the severe strictures of Photius had now drawn the at- 
 tention of the Eastern Churches to the false doctrines and the 
 rising ambition of Rome. A century of discord was followed 
 by a final separation in 1054. The Roman legates boldly af- 
 
 (') The Jesuits (see Migne, Pat. Grace., 101, 4) still rage against Photius. 
 He is " callidus, hypoerita, ambitiosus, falsarius, tyrannus, attameu ingeuio 
 et ernditiono non earuit." 
 
 (') Mouravieft", p. 292. The Patriarch Jeremiah, in the midst of his hu- 
 miliation and exile, called himself Universal Patriarch — of the whole uui- 
 yerse ; but the claim involves uo infullibility,
 
 DECAY OF THE PATRIABCHATES. 473 
 
 fixed an excommunication of the Greek emperor and his ad- 
 herents to the altar of St. Sophia ; the patriarch, in rej^lj, pro- 
 nounced an anathema against the Pope. Alexandria, Anti- 
 och, and Jerusalem joined in the condemnation ; nor has Rome 
 ever again been admitted into the communion of the early 
 churches. Soon, under Ilildebrand, it seemed to grasp at 
 universal empire ; and the rude crusaders saw, admired, and 
 finally plundered the sacred treasures of St. Sophia. Yet the 
 Greeks would never relent in their hatred of Rome. Within 
 their crumbling walls, helpless before a savage foe, they cher- 
 ished to the last hour of their freedom their devotion to the 
 faith of Photius or of Constantine ; saw with abhorrence the 
 barbarous practices of the West ; nor, even when reduced to 
 a fearful slavery under the Turk, would hold any friendly in- 
 tercourse with the defamers of the Nicene Council.(') 
 
 Sadly indeed had the ISTicene patriarchates fallen from that 
 material splendor which had made them illustrious in the 
 reign of Constantine. A few feeble and down -trodden 
 Greeks represented the Church of Alexandria ; the trembling 
 Patriarch of Jerusalem was seldom safe at the sepulchre or 
 the cross ;(') Antioch had sunk into a Turkish town ;(') the 
 Syrian shore was strewed with the wrecks of convents and ca- 
 thedrals. The madmen of the crusades had nearly completed 
 the destruction of the Eastern Church ; and, in the utter ruin 
 of the city of Constantine, the last of the patriarchs had been 
 converted into a Turkish slave. A Greek population, indeed, 
 considerable in numbers, still gathered around desecrated St. 
 Sophia, or occupied the fertile fields of European Turkey, 
 but it was fast sinking into extreme ignorance, and the learn- 
 ing and the genius that had adorned the age of Photius or 
 Justinian seemed forever passed away. From the depth of 
 its abasement no human power could extricate the fallen 
 Church. Rome pursued its feeble rivals of Constantinople 
 
 (') Gieseler, ii., p., 227 (note): "Posuit Deus ecclesiam suara iu quinque 
 patriarchiis," etc. 
 
 (") William of Malmesbury, iv., p. 2 (1099), says the Saracens permitted 
 the patriarch to remain. 
 
 (^) The Patriarch of Antioch removed to Damascus. See Neale.
 
 474r THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 and Antiocli with menaces and dangerous intrigues ; it would 
 have rejoiced to sweep from the earth the four patriarchates 
 that had condemned its heresies, its follies, or its crimes; 
 and, from the time of the dull, mischievous Hildebrand, had 
 threatened an instant ruin to priests or people who might dare 
 to oppose its absolute rule of the earth. It seemed as if the 
 moment had come for the complete submission of all Chris- 
 tendom to the usurping Popes. The four patriarchs might 
 well fall down and worshij) their prosperous brother, whom 
 they had so boldly ejected from the apostolic family, but who 
 had now risen to rule over all Western Europe ; whose hands 
 were yet red with the blood of the Albigenses, the Yaudois, 
 the Hussites, and the Lollards ; whose symbol was death to 
 the heretic ; and who had resolved to drag at his spiritual tri- 
 umph the nations racked by the scourge and flame, kings ter- 
 rified by interdict or excommunication. 
 
 But there had grown up meantime a new centre of Orient- 
 al Christianity, inaccessible to the persecutions of Rome ; and 
 the seeds of progress, nurtured amidst the hot landscapes and 
 the golden clime of Syria and the South, had ripened in an 
 unknown land, where Herodotus had traced the wandering 
 Scythians, and the Greek dramatist had placed the scene of 
 his grandest fables. The Eastern Church seemed transplant- 
 ed without a change to the boundless wilderness of mediaeval 
 E.ussia.(') Monks and anchorites, more hardy and more ter- 
 rible in their asceticism than those who had swarmed around 
 Paul and Anthony in the Egyptian deserts, or had founded 
 the sacred fortresses of Mount Athos, had lived and prayed 
 amidst the Russian steppes, borne the fierce rigors of an arc- 
 tic climate, and met with joy the frozen horrors of the North- 
 ern seas. Moscow and Novgorod were belted with a chain of 
 massive convents, from whose lofty walls the conquering Tar- 
 tars had been repelled with shame. The bare islands of the 
 Arctic Ocean, where even the hardy Esquimaux had failed to 
 
 (') Curzon, Levant, p. 340, etc., describes the fortress monasteries of 
 Mount Athos; they are revived in the Holy Trinity of Moscow. See 
 Lowth, Kremlin. For Solovetsky, see Dixon's pleasant picture of that 
 ■wonderful community, flourishing in an arctic waste.
 
 B USSIAX J SCETICS. 475 
 
 find a habitation, were covered witli the rude huts of Russian 
 monks. Nor have the annals of asceticism any examples of 
 human endurance that can compare with the self -chosen pains 
 of Sergius, or Savatie, or Nikon. To their penance and their 
 toils the labors of Benedict were light, the discipline of Loy- 
 ola a life of indulgence. They fled to the lonely birch wood 
 or the frozen island. Hunger ; solitude ; the horrors of a cli- 
 mate where winter and night ruled for half the year, the sum- 
 mer burning, but not invigorating, the earth ; the plague of ^ 
 countless stinging insects, from whose assaults the wild beasts 
 fled in terror ; malaria and gloom — failed to check their devo- 
 tion or disturb their holy meditations. Lives of strange aus- 
 terity and patient faith have rolled on unrecorded in these 
 frightful retreats. The heroism of the squalid and savage 
 saint was often never recognized until his emaciated frame 
 was seen no more among men ;(') but over his poor remains, 
 now more valued than heaps of gems, his superstitious coun- 
 trymen would erect a magnificent convent, and kings and 
 prelates bring their treasures to his shrine. Labor was always 
 the duty of a Russian monk ; sometimes intense study was 
 joined to his devotions; and minds fortified by abstinence, 
 bodies hardened to superhuman endurance, natural capacities 
 enlarged by rigorous culture, have formed in the convent or 
 the hermitage many of the men who have proved most useful 
 to the progress of the Sclavonic race. 
 
 If the monasteries of Mount Atlios or Ararat were success- 
 fully copied in the Lauras of Moscow and Solovetsky, not less 
 carefully were the patriarchates and bishoprics, the rituals 
 and the cathedrals, of Antioch or Constantinople renewed in 
 the Russian steppes. At Kief, for three centuries the centre 
 of Russian Christendom, the bishop or metropolitan was usu- 
 ally borrowed or ordained from the court of the Caesars. At 
 Novgorod, and afterward at Moscow, arose a chain of curious 
 churches — low, covered with glittering and fantastic domes, 
 
 (') Sergius, Basil, the wild hermits mentioned by a series of travelers, 
 the founders of Solovetsky : the more recent hermits in Russia are more 
 Oriental than Western monks, are dervishes or Brahmin devotees.
 
 476 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 and sliining within with a rude imitation of St. Sophia. At 
 Moscow a patriarch was appointed,(') with the consent of the 
 four ancient patriarchates, to take the place of heretical 
 Kome. A priesthood, bearded, robed, and disciplined in the 
 Greek model, formed his missionaiy aid ; and the soft music, 
 the melodious ritual, and the classic processions and chants 
 that had won the hearts of the early Russians were swiftly 
 scattered through the countless congregations that sprung up 
 in the frozen North. The library of Photius and the sermons 
 of Chrysostom became familiar to the Russian priest, at least 
 in name. The manners, looks, dress, and carriage of the people 
 of Constantinople were transferred to the towns and cities of 
 Russia. The czars boasted a descent from the successors of 
 Constantine, and traced a lineage back to Philip and Alexan- 
 der, revived in their families the classic names, and ceased to 
 be altogether barbarous. Nor did the four Eastern patriarch- 
 ates see without exultation the rise of that vigorous power 
 whose devotion to the creed of Nice might prove a safe- 
 guard against the ambition of Rome, and in some distant hour 
 relieve Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem 
 from their bitter subjection to the Turk. Not seldom the 
 oppressed and trembling patriarchs from the South made 
 their way, in poverty and contempt, to the Russian court, and 
 were received with honor, emoluments, and signal veneration 
 by the rulers and the people. Through many a period of 
 danger the Russian patriarchate has extended a kindly aid to 
 its feebler brethren, has protected the Greek population of 
 Turkey, has shielded the Patriarch of Jerusalem from the 
 malice of his Latin rival, and rescued the Holy Places from 
 the sole custody of the Roman heretic; and one,('') perhaps 
 the ruling, cause of the Crimean war was the religious ques- 
 tion of the Holy Sepulchre and the keen affront offered by 
 the unscrupulous ruler of France, in the interest of the pa- 
 
 (') Mouravieff : in 1587. Jeremiah seems, at least, to have heen no im- 
 postor. See Mouravieff' 8 Appeudix, Dis. on Jeremiah. 
 
 (^) Kiuglake, Crimean War : " By causing a persistent, hostile use to be 
 made of the fleet," vol. i., p. 487. The French emperor fanned the quarrels 
 of the churches.
 
 RURIK. 4:77 
 
 pacy or of himself, to the Eastern Church. I^or can it be 
 doubted that the new Constantine who is to rescue the ancient 
 seats of Christianity from the rule of Islam will come from 
 the Korth, and that the five Eastern patriarchates, united and 
 vigorous, must once more taste an uninterrupted freedom. 
 
 A fair -haired Swede or Norseman — Kurik — in the year 
 862, when Alfred was about to rescue England from Dan- 
 ish barbarism, and when the empire of the great Charles 
 had dissolved into warring fragments, entered Russia at the 
 invitation of its Sclavonic tribes, and founded at Kief and 
 Novgorod the central fabric of the Russian power.(') With 
 flowing locks and stalwart forms, the hardy Norsemen ruled 
 with vigor, and brought comparative repose to the obedient 
 people ; but they were pagans, worshiping gods formed from 
 huge logs of wood, grotesquely carved and adorned with 
 gems.(') They had heard by report of the wonders of civili- 
 zation, of the splendid city to the southward on the shores of 
 the Euxine, rich with the treasures of commerce and of art ; 
 and more than once great fleets of the avaricious and inquisi- 
 tive barbarians had assailed the port and the walls of Con- 
 stantinople, confident in their own strength, and conscious, per- 
 haps, of the cowardice of the Greeks. Once the city would 
 have fallen had not the learned patriarch, Photius, worked a 
 miracle by touching the sea with the holy garments of the 
 Virgin. The sea rose in a violent storm, and dashed in pieces 
 the frail vessels of the barbarians. Later emperors were con- 
 tent to purchase their forbearance by lavish gifts. A friend- 
 ly intercourse was established between the Russians and the 
 Greeks ; and at length a royal convert, the Princess Olga, was 
 baptized, with imposing ceremonies, at Constantinople, re- 
 ceived the august name of Helena, the mother of Constantine, 
 and strove to win over her countrymen from the worship of 
 
 (') Karamsin gives from Nestor, Nikon, and the annalists his clear and 
 interesting narrative. See aoI. i., Sonrces de I'Hist. do Kiiss., Les Chro- 
 niques. The name of Rurik waa common iu Franco (p. 53) among its in- 
 vaders. 
 
 C*) Karamsin, vol. i., pp. 62, 99, describes the superstition, the ignorance 
 of the Sclaves.
 
 478 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 idols to the Nicene faith. She was unsuccessful ; yet the 
 name of Olga, the first Christian princess, is venerated and pre- 
 served in the reigning family of the czars. Her grandson, Vla- 
 dimir (988), founds the Russian Church. A rude and sim- 
 ple savage, cruel and terrible, his conversion to the faith of 
 Constantine is the dawn of Russian civilization, the chief event 
 in the history of Eastern progress. He heard, it is said, the 
 arguments of the envoys of various religions. The Mussul- 
 mans of the Yolga pressed him to believe in their Prophet, 
 the Western Christians in their Pope, the Jew in Moses, the 
 Greek philosophers in Attic culture. The ferocious ruler 
 listened, but sent an embassy to Constantinoj)le to observe the 
 manners and the faith of the city of the Csesars-^) Basil, the 
 emperor, and his acute patriarch prepared a religious spectacle 
 of rare magnificence to dazzle and convert their savage and 
 simple guests. It was a liigli festival. St. Sophia, magnifi- 
 cent in gold and mosaic, blazed with a thousand lights. The 
 Russian envoys were placed in a position whence, at a single 
 glance, they might survey the splendors of the noblest of 
 Christian churches, and a ritual that had been adorned by the 
 costly devices of ages. Accustomed only to the rude wor- 
 ship of their forest gods, the simple Sclaves were converted 
 by a splendid show that seemed the foretaste of Asgard or 
 of Paradise. The incense smoked, the chants resounded, the 
 patriarch, gleaming with gems and gold, entered the church ; 
 but when the long procession of acolytes and deacons, bearing 
 torches in their hands, and with white wings on their shoul- 
 ders, passed out of the sanctuary, and all the people fell on 
 their knees, shouting " Kyrie Eleison !" the Russians, supposing 
 the white-winged children to be angels, took their guides by 
 the hand and expressed their wonder and their awe. " Do you 
 not know," said the acute Greeks, " that the angels are sent 
 down from heaven to join in our services?" "We are con- 
 vinced !" cried the Russians. " Let us return home." The 
 
 (') Photins claimed the conversion of the Enssians. The Eussians assert 
 that St. Andrew visited Kiof; bnt the influence of saint or bishop was fee- 
 ble. See Schuitzler, L'Empire des Tsars, iii., p. 485.
 
 VLADIMIR CONVERTED. 479 
 
 pious or the impious fraud, and the matchless pageant of St. 
 Sophia, had converted a nation ; nor could the dull Justinian, 
 when he labored to perfect his favorite shrine, have conceived, 
 amidst all his exultation, that the magnificent dome and the 
 silver altar, the gleaming lights and graceful ritual, of his ca- 
 thedral would allure half the world to the faith of Nice. 
 
 Yladimir received the account of his envoys with some hes- 
 itation. He besieged the city of Kherson, in the Crimea, and 
 vowed that, should he succeed in taking it, he would be bap- 
 tized. The city yielded, torn and bleeding, to its savage foe ; 
 but still the slow convert hesitated. He sent an embassy to 
 the Emperor Basil, demanding his sister in marriage. He 
 promised, on that condition, to become a Christian. He threat- 
 ened that, if he were refused, he would lay Constantinople as 
 low as Kherson. Anne, sister of Basil, nurtured in the luxu- 
 ry of a Byzantine palace, was the victim led forth to grace the 
 rude lodge of the Sclavonic prince.(') Her sister already sat 
 upon the German throne. Anne, most effective of mission- 
 aries, bore Christianity to the wild tribes of the frozen North, 
 and with more fortitude or resignation, perhaps, than a Xavier 
 or a Boniface, gave her hand to her ferocious suitor, and saved 
 her country and her faith. Vladimir was baptized. He con- 
 verted the Russians by no inconclusive arguments. He or- 
 dered the whole population of Kief, his capital, to be im- 
 mersed in the swelling river, while the priests read prayers 
 upon the banks. The huge log of wood, Peroun, which had 
 for generations been the object of adoration to the savage 
 Russians, was dragged at the horse's tail over mount and vale, 
 was scourged by twelve mounted lictors,(°) and thrown into 
 the Dnieper ; and Vladimir the Great, the near connection of 
 the Christian emperors of Germany and of Constantinople, in 
 the close of the tenth century, strove to reform Russia, and 
 perhaps himself. It was that mournful epoch, the year 1000, 
 when all Catholic Europe, plunged in ignorance and general 
 
 C) Schnitzler, iii., p. 489. 
 
 C) Karamsin, i., p. 109, describes the god Peroun, " Dicu de la fondre — de 
 bois, avec nne tete d'arfiPiit ct des moustaches d'or." Yet Perouu might 
 compare favorably with a Bambino or a piece of the true cross.
 
 480 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 woe, was watching for the last hour of existence, when it was 
 believed that the heavens must soon melt in a general confla- 
 gration, and tlie earth perish in seas of fire. A wave of relig- 
 ious excitement passed over Germany and France ; pilgrims 
 flocked in unusual numbers to the Holy Sepulchre ; the altars 
 were tlironged with ceaseless worshipers ; and Russia, sharing 
 in the general revival, seems to have gladly welcomed the 
 Greek missionaries. Churches were built at Kief in imitation 
 of St. Sophia ; Byzantine bishops ruled in the royal city ; 
 and the docile, placable, imaginative Sclaves began to adopt 
 the manners of Constantinople, and share the virtues and vices 
 of the Greeks. 
 
 From the year 1000 — no ominous period to Eastern civili- 
 zation(') — Russia begins its career as a Christian nation ; was 
 the spiritual oifsjDring of the Byzantine Church ; received its 
 ordination from St. Sophia, its bishops from the schools of 
 Constantinople ; obtained an alphabet formed from the Greek, 
 read the Scriptures in the Sclavonic tongue ; was transformed 
 from utter barbarism to a softer culture, and learned the worth 
 of education. Five centuries pass on over the varying fort- 
 unes of the Russian Church ; the descendants of Rurik and 
 of Vladimir still rule over the Sclavonic race ; the feeble rays 
 of Constantinopolitan civilization extend themselves more and 
 more over the savage tribes. But the wide disasters that have 
 fallen upon Eastern Christianity seem once more to threaten 
 its extinction. For two centuries the vast hordes of Tartars, 
 from Genghis-Khan to Tamerlane, desolated the fairest fields 
 of Russia, and reduced almost to a savage wilderness the land , 
 that had seemed about to surpass Western Europe in civil and 
 religious progress. A few huge and battlemented monasteries 
 defied the rage of the invaders, and alone kept alive the faith 
 and the liberty of the Sclaves. In the midst of their humil- 
 iation, the Bishops of Moscow and Kief beheld the sudden 
 fall of the Holy City whence had come their earliest inspira- 
 
 (') In this year Gerbevt was Pope, and Enrope lost in ignorance. The 
 Pope seemed a sorcerer; the nobles and the kings could seldom read or 
 write.
 
 IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 481 
 
 tion. Constantinople sunk before the arms of Moliammed.(') 
 St. Sophia was desecrated by an alien worship. A common 
 ruin had ingulfed the five great Eastern patriarchates. Mean- 
 time their ambitious rival in the West had fixed its suprem- 
 acy over all the Euroj)ean powers, and was already exciting 
 Catholic Poland to crush the last elements of Russian free- 
 dom, to enforce the heresies of Rome upon Moscow or Nov- 
 gorod.(') 
 
 In the sixteenth century, torn by generations of discord and 
 of hostile ravages, Russia began once more to rise into greatness. 
 From 1533 to 1584, Ivan the Terrible, a barbarian more cruel 
 and more frightful in his rage than his ancestors Rurik and 
 Yladimir, ruled with success over the reviving nation, and in 
 his moments of sanity renewed the sources of Russian civiliza- 
 tion. He introduced the printing - press, opened a commerce 
 with England, advanced the progress of the Church. The 
 contemporary of Henry YIII. and Edward VI., of Elizabeth 
 — whose hand he is said to have demanded — of Charles V. 
 and Francis L, the name of Russia was now again familiar to 
 Western Europe, sullied by the horrible renown of Ivan, 
 who was reported to have surpassed the crimes and cruelties 
 of all the tyrants of the past. His early rule had been mark- 
 ed by piety and generous patriotism ; for thirteen years he 
 seemed a Christian hero, destined to adorn his age by generous 
 deeds. Then a cloud passed over his intellect ; he sunk into 
 gross vice and loathsome cruelty ; his nobles, his courtiers, and 
 his people perished wherever he came ; he blotted whole towns 
 from existence ; he covered the land with bloodshed. It was 
 his amusement to see hale and lusty monks torn to pieces by 
 wild beasts, to inspect his innocent victims as they writhed in 
 fearful tortures. Yet was his zeal for religion so ardent that 
 
 (') Von Hammer, Ges. Osmaii. R., i., p. 549, describes with vigor the fate 
 of St. Sophia and its worshipers. 
 
 (^) Hildebrand, among his wide pretensions, claimed Russia as belonging 
 to Rome. In their extravagant folly the Popes fancied that the earth 
 belonged to them as the vicegerents of Christ, and proceeded to exercise 
 their authority. The notion has been revived and fixed by the recent 
 council. The Popes gave Ireland to the English, and America to Spain. 
 
 31
 
 482 THE GBEEE CHURCH. 
 
 he often retired to a monastery for pious meditation, rang the 
 matin bell himself at three in the morning, and passed whole 
 days in prayer. Monster, fanatic, to whose crimes Henry 
 VIII. might seem merciful, or Charles Y. benevolent, Ivan the 
 Terrible ruled over his submissive people with a sway perfect 
 in its despotism. His people revered him with a strange in- 
 fatuation ; the assassin's dagger was never raised against him ; 
 and he died in old age, after a long and prosperous reign, and 
 was laid in the crypts of the Kremlin. 
 
 Moscow, on the banks of the beautiful Moskwa, the Holy 
 City of the Kussians, was now become the capital of an em- 
 pire vigorous and united; nor has any metropolis ever so 
 fixed the affections and the reverence of a whole people, or 
 become so perfectly the hallowed shrine of a national faith. 
 Not Ephesus was as dear to the languid Syrian, nor Constan- 
 tinople to the Greek.(') Holy Moscow, belted with convents, 
 crowned with the rich spiritual and material splendors of the 
 Kremlin, w^ith the tombs of the czars and the bones of the 
 saints, has become to the fanciful and ardent Russian a spot 
 consecrated in the annals of religion and of his country. Pil- 
 grims in yearly inundations have flocked to it from all the bor- 
 ders of a land where pilgrimages are yet a sacred duty ; the czar 
 and the serf, the Siberian and the Cossack, meet in the Church 
 of the Assumption, or lay their various offerings in the treas- 
 ury of the monks of the Holy Trinity. The traveler who pass- 
 es swiftly between the endless forests of the level country sees, 
 as he draws near and stands on the neighboring hills, a rich 
 and wonderful city, crowned with a glittering circle of cupo- 
 las, blue, red, green, or gold, and teeming everywhere with the 
 emblems of the Nicene faith. One strange building near the 
 Kremlin is the wildest that fancy ever conceived. Basil, a 
 
 (') "Our men say," writes Richard Chancellor, "that in bigness it" 
 (Moscow) " is as great as the City of London, with the snbnrbs thereof." 
 He notices the nine churches of the Kremlin ; the majesty of Ivan the 
 Terrible, his jewels, gold, his diadem, and his courtiers clad in cloth of 
 gold; the beauty of Moscow, the wooden houses of the Russians, their 
 Greek faith. He went to Russia in 1553. He describes their long fasts, 
 their service in tlicLr own tongue, their leavened bread at the communion.
 
 THE EBEMLIN. 483 
 
 hermit, naked and bound with an iron chain, winter or sum- 
 mer, wandered through the streets of Moscow. He alone 
 dared to rebuke the old emperor, Ivan the Terrible, for his 
 fearful crimes ; and when the hermit died, Ivan resolved to 
 build a cathedral over the tomb of the saint. It was one 
 madman doing honor to another ; and day after day the aged 
 tyrant sat in his tower on the Kremlin watching the strange 
 building rise like an exhalation ; the pagodas, cupolas, stair- 
 cases, pinnacles, blend in wild confusion, and his own mad 
 dreams shape themselves in stone. Justinian had built on in 
 dull imbecility ; Ivan in furious lunacy. At length the mad- 
 dest of architectural designs was finished, and the emperor 
 put out the eyes of his architect lest he might build another 
 cathedral as surpassingly fair as his own.(') 
 
 In the Kremlin centres the swelHng tide of Russian faith ; 
 in the Cathedral of Michael the Archangel lie ranged around 
 the walls the long succession of the buried czars until near 
 the period of Peter the Great ; in the chapel or church of the 
 Repose of the Yirgin, from Ivan the Terrible, the czars have 
 been crowned ; in its tower the Russian primates were elect- 
 ed. It is crowded with pictures hallowed by entrancing asso- 
 ciations to the imaginative people, and rich with relics dear to 
 the Russian and the Greek, Within the I^j'emlin a glitter of 
 enchantment seems to hang over the path of the visitor ; the 
 ground he treads is the holiest upon earth to countless pil- 
 grims ; on every side he sees the peasant casting himself on 
 the bare stones ; the priests employed in ceaseless adoration ; 
 palaces splendid with the decorations of ages, and gay church- 
 es stored with gems and gold, before whose priceless treasures 
 even the wealth of St. Sophia and of Constantinople might 
 seem only tolerable indigence ;('') nor anywhere has the gor- 
 
 (') Schnitzler, La Russie, La Pologne, etc., p. 63. It resembles " ces con- 
 cretions (le stalactites oil la nature imite I'art." Lowtli, Kremlin, has some 
 clear pictures. Spottiswoodo thinks Moscow more beautiful in winter, 
 covered with snow, than in summer, p. 245. 
 
 C) Dicey, A Month in Russia, 1866, gives a lively picture of Moscow. 
 " The wealth of Russia," he says, " would not suffice to buy the treasures 
 of the cathedral church at Moscow," p. 108.
 
 484 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 geous taste for glittering baubles and wasteful pomp, tlie lega- 
 cy of the Byzantine court, been so carefully appKed as within 
 the grotesque battlements of the Kremlin Hill. It resembles 
 one of the robber caves of the Arabian legend, where the 
 spoil of generations of plunderers was heaped up in masses of 
 uncounted wealth. Moscow spreads broad and prosperous 
 around its ancient fortress, the Constantinople of the North. 
 Sixty miles from the Holy City, in the midst of the wild and 
 endless forest, sprung up in the year 1338 the Monastery of 
 the Holy Trinity. When the Black Death was desolating the 
 human race, and the vices of men seemed about to bring their 
 own extirpation, the solemn refuge of meditative souls grew 
 into a vast assemblage of buildings ; its huge and lofty walls, 
 its wide circuit of churches and convents, its swarm of brave 
 as well as pious monks, defied the rage of the Tartar hordes ; 
 and from the battlements of the Holy Trinity saints and an- 
 chorites, bishops and deacons, summoned their countrymen to 
 the holy wars against pagan Cossack or Catholic Pole.(') Her- 
 mits more than once have saved Russia. Sergius, the Tell, 
 the Wallace of his country, was a wild anchorite, hiding in 
 impenetrable forests.^ ) At the battle of the Don (1380) his 
 prayers and the valor of his monks, clothed in steel, broke the 
 power of the Tartars. From the moat and the towers of the 
 Holy Trinity the Catholic Poles (1613) were beaten back in a 
 wild confusion of fighting monks and raging demons; nor, 
 had the convent of Sergius fallen — the last retreat of Russian 
 freedom — would the Pope and the Jesuits ever have released 
 from their grasp the sinking fabric of the Russian Church. 
 
 The sacred city became, in 1587, the seat of the fifth patri- 
 archate, and assumed, in the opinion of the East, the place 
 made vacant by the fall of the Roman See. Jeremiah, a 
 wandering patriarch from Constantinoj)le, consecrated his 
 brother Job of Moscow ; the Kremlin resounded with thanks- 
 
 (') Sohnitzler, La Russie, etc., p. 97 : " Le mouastfere fut un refuge pour 
 les vrais enfans de la patrie, et ses tresors soldSrent les d^feuseurs," etc. 
 
 ('■') Sergius is called the father of Russian mouasticisra. Mouravieff, 
 p. 63. He preferred to die, as he had lived, in poverty, and refused the re- 
 wards offered him for saving his country.
 
 BOEIS GODUXOFF. 485 
 
 giving ; the happy czar loaded the Greek prelate with gener- 
 ous gifts ; Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem welcomed the 
 new representative of the uSTicene hierarchy ; Eussia was fill- 
 ed with holy joy, and the Patriarch of Moscow ruled over 
 the Sclavonic Churcli.(') Yet never were the Eastern patri- 
 archates nearer their destruction ; and Eussia was now to pre- 
 pare for that final struggle with the Pope, the Jesuits, and the 
 Poles, from which she arose, at length, wounded and bleed- 
 ing, to a new career. In the close of the sixteenth century, 
 Theodore, the last of the descendants of Eurik, sat on the 
 throne of the czars. His mildness, his weakness, and his su- 
 perstition had left him little real authority. The bold, aspir- 
 ing, unscrupulous Boris Godunoff ruled in the name of his 
 master. Already Boris had stained his conscience with a 
 fearful crime, and had procured the assassination of Prince 
 Demetrius, the half-brother of Theodore, and the only heir to 
 the crown. Demetrius was eight years old when his mer- 
 ciless enemy removed him from his path. When the pious 
 Theodore died, childless, Boris Godunoff, who had so long 
 ruled the nation, was chosen czar of all the Eussias in his 
 place. Moscow rang with festivities.(') The Patriarch Job 
 was the devoted friend of Boris ; nor, in the moment of his 
 coronation and his triumph, could the usurper have ever 
 dreamed that the shade of his victim, the holy child Demetri- 
 us, the last of the race of Eurik, would fall ominously across 
 his upward way. 
 
 Eaised from a private station to an imperial crown, Boris 
 resolved to marry his two children among the royal fami- 
 lies of Europe. His son, Theodore, the heir of the Eussian 
 throne, was destined, he thought, to win a princess. His 
 daughter, Xenia, fair, graceful, with thick black hair and 
 sparkling eyes,Q he betrothed to Prince John of Denmark. 
 
 (') Mouravieff. 
 
 O Karamsiu, xi., pp. 50, 54. Boris begins to reiga 1598; Moscow re- 
 joices. 
 
 O " Boris cherchant pour sa fiUe un dponx digne d'elle, panni les princes 
 Europ^ens de sang royal," p. 54, In the year 1600 Boris was full of hope, 
 p. 123.
 
 486 TEE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 All was made ready for the wedding. The fair bride had 
 seen her husband at a distance, when suddenly Prince John 
 was seized with a mortal sickness, and died in the midst of 
 the gayeties of Moscow. Yet still Boris Godunoff, in the 
 year 1600, was at the height of his prosperity. His authority 
 was undisputed; his pious zeal conspicuous; he lived with 
 his family in the palace of the czars, and fought with suc- 
 cess at the head of his armies. One danger alone seemed to 
 threaten him : the Jesuits ruled at the court of Sigismund of 
 Poland, and, with that peculiar union of logic and of violence 
 which has marked so many of their assaults upon nations, 
 were winning over the Russian bishops to an alliance with 
 Eome, or urging the Poles to invade the heretical empire. 
 But what they most desired was to awaken civil discord 
 among the Russians, to divide the Church and the nation, and 
 to launch the immense force of Poland, then in its mature 
 strength, against the walls of Moscow.(') 
 
 Nor was it long before the opportunity they had looked for 
 came. A sudden check marred the career of the prosperous 
 Boris. He grew suspicious and tjTannical almost in a mo- 
 ment : the memory of Demetrius, his innocent victim, the in- 
 trigues of the Jesuits, and the reproaches of his people, may 
 have conspired to change him to a cruel tjTant. He im- 
 prisoned or put to death the noblest Russians, and no house 
 suffered more deeply than that of Romanoff, the founder of 
 the present hue of czars. To add to his dangers, a wet sum- 
 mer brought famine over Russia ; a pestilence followed ;('') 
 robbery and murders filled all the realm ; and brigands wan- 
 dered through the streets of Moscow. The keen Jesuits— 
 
 (') Karamsin, xi., p. 170, attributes tho success of Demetrius to the 
 Jesuits and the papal influence. And MouraviefF describes the mischiev- 
 ous labors of the Jesuit Possevin, tho spread of Romish influence from 
 Poland among the Russian bishops, the defection of many, the progress of 
 the Unia, or the party advocating submission to Rome. That the vrar of 
 the pretender was a religious one — an assault of Rome upon the Greek 
 Church — no one wiU deny. Of its cruel results to Russia and to Poland 
 all later history is fuU. 
 
 C) Karamsiu, xi., pp. 131, 132.
 
 THE FALSE DEMETRIUS. 487 
 
 such, at least, is the Russian narrative — now resolved to dis- 
 tract the suffering realm by a civil war, to destroy the lib- 
 erties of the Eussian Church, and plant the papal banner in 
 the heart of the Kremlin.(') There was a monk named Greg- 
 ory Otriepieff, whose character was vicious, but who was 
 quick and subtle; he had been a favorite of the Patriarch 
 Job, and had seen much of the royal family. One day he ex- 
 claimed, to the wonder of his fellow-monks, " I shall yet be 
 Czar at Moscow." He wandered from convent to convent ; 
 he fled to Poland, and there, at the house of a wealthy noble, 
 pretended sicknesss ; he sent for a confessor who was a Jes- 
 uit, and revealed his secret. He was, he said, the Prince De- 
 metrius, who was supposed to have been murdered by Boris 
 Godunoff, but who had escaped by a friendly exchange. 
 
 The secret was revealed by the incautious father. Sigis- 
 mund. King of Poland, was induced to patronize the impos- 
 tor ; the papal nuncio at "Warsaw and the Pope, Clement 
 VIIL, joined in the project, and Demetrius, or Gregory, was 
 acknowledged as the lawful monarch of all the Russias. He 
 was privately reconciled to the Romish Church by the Jesuit 
 fathers, and pledged himself to restore his empire, should he 
 regain it, to the papal faith. Gregory was of middle size, 
 graceful, his eyes blue, his hair auburn or red ; one of his legs 
 was shorter than the other; he had several marks upon his 
 person that it was claimed proved him to have been the true 
 Demetrius.^) His intellect was cpiick and cultivated, his air 
 noble and pleasing, his disposition generous, and his tempera- 
 ment sanguine. He had won the affections of Marina, the 
 
 (') Mouravieff, p. 147. Karamsin,xi., p. 160, calls the pretender " le fils 
 d'un pauvre geutilliommo de Galitcbe iu)mm<5 Jouri Otriepiefl"." Stliuitzler, 
 L'Empire des Tsars, p. 508, gives a clear and brief account of the Unia. 
 
 (') The question of the identity of Gregory with Demetrius is sometimes 
 revived. In the last century Professor Miiller is said to have argued 
 against it, yet doubted. See Coxo, Russia, App. It was noticed that the 
 great nobles went out to meet him ; that his mother received him ; that 
 she never openly disowned him, etc. But the Patriarch Job, who could 
 best detect the imposture, was his steady opponent. Karamsiu and Mou- 
 ravieflf do not doubt.
 
 488 TEE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 ambitious and haughty daughter of the Voivode of Sendomir, 
 whom he had promised to place on the throne of Moscow, and 
 lier father's wealth aided in providing the forces with which 
 he first invaded Russia. Never, indeed, was there a less promis- 
 ing undertaking. To enter a powerful empire, to assail a vigor- 
 ous and active prince, to defy a church endeared to the whole 
 nation, and plan the conversion by force of a hostile realm, 
 was a project so extravagant as could only be equaled in the 
 annals of fanaticism or of madness. Twice the undisciplined 
 forces led by Gregory and the Jesuits were defeated. The 
 Russian Church excommunicated him ; Boris seemed firmly 
 seated on his throne ; Moscow, in the midst of the national 
 calamities, shone with festivity ; and scarcely did it seem that 
 Gregory and Marina would ever occupy the palace of the 
 Kremlin, or papal priests defile the altars of the Annuncia- 
 tion. 
 
 It is impossible to unravel the dark intrigues of this singu- 
 lar story, yet suddenly, in the midst of his power, Boris died, 
 and the emissaries of Demetrius appear in the heart of the 
 capital. His proclamations were in every hand. The great 
 nobles assumed his cause, the people rose in his favor. The 
 young czar, Theodore, with his mother, was dragged from the 
 splendors of the Kremlin to perish by a horrible death ; and 
 soon, amidst a great throng of princes and boyars, Demetrius 
 entered the capital, accompanied by his Jesuit advisers, and 
 was hailed by his countrymen as the last of the house of Ru- 
 rik. One touching scene was arranged to strike the attention 
 of the multitude. The mother of the murdered Demetrius 
 was still alive, hidden in a convent, and known only as the 
 nun Martha. She was brought forth, by what influences can 
 never be known, to acknowledge Gregory as her son. They 
 met before all the people.(') They embraced with a profu- 
 sion of tears. The impostor led his pretended mother into a 
 tent near at hand, and there, after so many years of sepa- 
 ration, they indulged in a tender interview ; it was told in 
 
 (') Karamsin, xi., p. 191. Mouravieff, p. 151, says that the Martha testi- 
 fied silently to his person.
 
 MARINA. 489 
 
 Moscow, that the czarina at once knew and rejoiced over lier 
 long-lost son. 
 
 Marina, the proud Pole, with a throng of her countrymen, 
 hastened to the capital to share in the triumph of her hus- 
 band, and amidst a wild scene of revelry and strange rejoi- 
 cing(') Gregory and his wife were crowned in the Kremlin. 
 The impostor sat on a throne of gold ; Marina, at his side, on 
 one of silver; their splendor mocked the miseries of their 
 country. Moscow seemed now fallen into the hands of the 
 Poles and the Romanists; the papal priests desecrated the 
 churches of the Kremlin ; the Jesuits pressed their scheme of 
 reducing the Russian bishops to a submission to Rome ; the 
 impostor scoffed at the usages of the National Church, and 
 filled the high offices of the court with foreigners. A deep 
 discontent sprung up through all the unhappy realm; the 
 horrors of a foreign tyranny, the rule of the hated Jesuits and 
 Poles, the dissolute morals of the new czar, who wasted his 
 life in light amusements or fatal indulgence, roused the dis- 
 gust of the clergy and the people, and from the walls of the 
 convent of the Holy Trinity the Eastern Church still defied 
 the arts of Rome. The imposture of Gregory was every- 
 where proclaimed. A new insurrection was planned. One 
 night the tocsin sounded over the cupolas of Moscow ; the in- 
 surgents hastened to the palace, and Gregory, flying in terror 
 from room to room, at last threw himself from a window, and 
 fell, maimed and bleeding, on the pavement below. He was 
 put to death. Marina, the Poles, and the Jesuits were suffer- 
 ed to escape, and a new czar was chosen, whose reign soon 
 closed in general anarchy. All Russia was weighed down by 
 rebelHon, discord, famine, and boundless woe ; the ties of so- 
 ciety were torn asunder ; the flames of blazing villages, the 
 strife of rival factions, the desolation of the Russian Church, 
 marked the final fall of the dynasty of Rurik. 
 
 Touched neither by remorse nor compassion at the spec- 
 tacle of the frightful woes they had aided so largely in bring- 
 ing upon the miserable Russians, the Jesuits and the Poles, re- 
 
 (') Mouravieff, p. 151.
 
 490 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 joicing at tlie opportunity, resolved to win by violence what 
 tliey had vainly attempted by fraud, and, through new seas of 
 bloodshed and devastation, to destroy forever the stronghold 
 of the Nicene faith. Rome succeeded for a moment in fixing 
 its deadly fangs in the heart of the sister Church. Poland is 
 supposed to have attained under Sigismund III. the height of 
 its martial and intellectual glory ; its men of letters are reck- 
 oned in long lists of doubtful excellence, and Warsaw shone 
 with the faint radiance of a dawning civilization.(') Its hu- 
 manity, however, does not seem to have been conspicuous. 
 Sigismund made war upon perishing Russia. With a fine 
 army of thirty thousand men he crossed the border, took 
 Smolensk, reduced Livonia, and appeared before the walls of 
 Moscow. The capital yielded, and the hated standards of the 
 Poles, the heretical emblems of Romish supremacy, ruled over 
 the gay cupolas of the Kremlin. So low had the great empire 
 fallen, that a son of the Polish king was elected Czar of all 
 the Russias, and Moscow, the Holy City of Eastern Christen- 
 dom, had almost sunk into an appanage of hated Rome. Yet 
 still from the brick walls and tall towers of the Holy Trinity,^) 
 now become the last stronghold of the Eastern faith, while 
 the Swedes ravaged Russia in the north, and the Poles held 
 its fairest provinces, a brave monk proclaimed a deathless re- 
 sistance to the invaders. The vast wealth of the famous mon- 
 astery was applied to no useless aim. The Swedes for sixteen 
 months besieged in vain the holy fortress, and at length Mos- 
 cow was set on fire, and all excej)t the blackened Kremlin was 
 leveled with the ground. The Poles and the Jesuits fled 
 from the wild rage of Russian monks and a superstitious peo- 
 ple. The first of the Romanoffs was placed on the throne, 
 and, with shame and horror, Russia threw off the yoke of the 
 fallen Pope, which had for a moment defiled the Holy City of 
 the East, 
 
 (') Hist, de la Pologne, Chev6: "Sigismund (^tait attacb6 aiix J^suites. 
 II voyait avec plaisir quelle ardeur ils ddployaieut pour la conversion des 
 li^rdtiques," etc., ii., pp. 77, 87. Chev6 reckons up a list of more than a thou- 
 sand eminent Poles. 
 
 C') Mouravieff, p. 1G5.
 
 THE ROMANOFFS. 491 
 
 The son of a bishop, the representative of a mercantile 
 family, whose plain house is still preserved by their imperial 
 descendants at Moscow, Michael Romanoff became Czar of 
 Russia. His father, the Patriarch Philaret, a person of learn- 
 ing and of virtue, guided his councils. The country and its 
 Church slowly recovered from the dangerous wounds they had 
 received from the Jesuits and the Poles, yet the wide prov- 
 inces torn from Russia by Sigismund, the humiliating peace 
 with Poland (1613), the ravages of the Swedes, had checked 
 its progress or blighted its prosperity. The young czar was 
 forced to give up to Sigismund new territories, to be added to 
 the spiritual empire of the Pope. It is related of this period 
 that Russia, apparently shut out forever from European con- 
 quests,(^) began to spread its authority over the icy wastes of 
 Siberia. Yet, as the son of a priest had restored the peace of 
 his country, a wild, huge, stern, impulsive hermit renewed the 
 vigor of its Government and reformed its Church. Savage 
 and scholar, priest or executioner, the brutal Kikon ruled over 
 the court and the monasteries of Russia with signal power, 
 and the rites and the culture of Russian Christianity have re- 
 ceived their final molding from his rude yet original hand. 
 
 Of all the eminent names of the seventeenth century, that 
 of Nikon is least kno^vn to the West, yet most honored in the 
 East.(*) The gigantic reformer was seven feet in stature, his 
 frame stalwart and vigorous, his complexion ruddy, his eyes 
 blood-shot, his countenance severe and terrible. He was born 
 a peasant ; his huge frame was inured in childhood to hard- 
 ship and labor ; in his youth he met with a copy of the Script- 
 ures, and, seized with that strong religious impulse so common 
 to his country, he fled secretly from his father's house to hide 
 himself in the .recesses of a convent. Remorse, contrition, 
 hope, despair, such as a Bunyan or a Baxter may have felt or 
 described, had probably seized upon the iron nature of the huge 
 Sclave and driven him to silent meditation or secret prayer. 
 
 (')'Mouravieff, p. 181. From this period begins the spread of Russia to- 
 ward the East. • 
 C) Mouravieff, p. 193 ; Stanley.
 
 4:92 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 His father, however, succeeded in recalling him from his con- 
 vent to a more useful life. He was married, and became a 
 village priest, and for ten years Nikon seems to have perform- 
 ed with regularity his modest duties. But of all passions, 
 that for a monastic seclusion, an asceticism founded upon the 
 model of Paul or Anthony, seems to be the most powerful 
 to the Russian mind ; the unhappy, the destructive, and the 
 degrading taste for a monkish solitude or a hermit's cell, the 
 mental disease of Thibet or of the Middle Ages, ruled, and 
 still rules, in Russia with unabated power. Nor could Nikon 
 ever restrain the promptings of his powerful but disordered 
 intellect, and in every moment of disappointment or chagrin 
 he pined for the soothing privations of a stone pillow or an 
 eremite's cave. After ten years of labor as a village priest, he 
 persuaded his wife to enter a convent, and went himself (he 
 believed at the call of Heaven) into the wildest abodes of as- 
 ceticism. At Solovetsky, amidst the fierce waves of the Arc- 
 tic Sea, in the depth of unvarying winter for two-thirds of the 
 year, the gigantic recluse complained of the luxury of his 
 abode, pressed on into a sterner retreat ; and on a lonely island 
 of the Onega, swept by wild winds, corroded by frost, torn by 
 stinging insects, and fed or starved on the dole of pilgrims or 
 the coarse food of a peasant, the Russian reformer macerated 
 his powerful frame, poured forth his litanies, and lived for 
 many years, it is said, content.(') 
 
 Alexis, the fair and amiable, sat on the Russian throne, and 
 the annals of human friendships have few more curious rec- 
 ords than that of the close and intense intimacy that grew up 
 between the wild hermit of the White Sea islands and the 
 despot of the Russian realm. Nikon was drawn reluctantly, 
 with pain and dim foreboding, upon some convent business, 
 from his forest cell to Moscow. He met Alexis, and won a 
 control over his gentle intellect that seems to have contrib- 
 uted little to the happiness of either. The czar forced Nikon 
 to leave his island to rule in his councils and guide the Rus- 
 sian Church, He became bishop, patriarch. For six years 
 
 (') Mouravieff, p. 195.
 
 NIEOX. 493 
 
 Nikon ruled Russia, nor was Alexis often absent from his 
 side. In the magnificent robes of his ancient ritual, Xikon is 
 seen on many a canvas or panel in his favorite churches, his 
 huge form, his fierce countenance, indicating that powerful 
 hand with which he purged the convents or assailed the Poles. 
 Intellectually Nikon seems to have been scarcely less remark- 
 able than in his physical nature. His mind, purified by ab- 
 stinence and enlarged by silent thought, had, by some process 
 little conceivable, become stored with learning in his forest 
 home, and toiled upon .literary labors that might have em- 
 ployed the whole leisure of feebler intellects. His eloquence, 
 his voice — the cry of a giant — subdued his impassioned audi- 
 ences ; but it is as the reformer of the National Church that 
 he is either adored or loathed by his countrymen. For six 
 years he toiled to purify and elevate the rites, the liturgy, and 
 the manners of his barbarous clergy.(') He was sincere, with 
 a depth of truthfulness that Knox or Luther would have ad- 
 mitted ; he was passionate, sensitive, imperious, tyrannical, and 
 cruel almost as a Dominic or a Loyola. His janizaries roamed 
 through Moscow, and when they had found an erring monk 
 intoxicated, he was scourged and sent to prison. Nikon, it 
 was said, never forgave. He exposed the metropolitan of 
 Mira to be eaten alive by cannibals for smoking tobacco ; he 
 left three deacons, who had married twice, to die in chains ;(') 
 the prisons were filled with the clergy ; Siberia was peopled 
 by the unworthy ministers of the Church ; and, with no un- 
 characteristic cruelty, in the land of Ivan the Terrible or Pe- 
 ter the Great, Nikon enforced a Puritanic or a monkisli aus- 
 terity in every convent and every parish. 
 
 To his vast, ill-ordered, yet fanciful intellect, so imperfectly 
 fed with appropriate aliment, and eager for some advance in 
 knowledge, there rose up the splendid pageant of that early 
 church which had shone in fresh magnificence under Constan- 
 tine, or adorned St. Sophia in the jdIous reign of Justinian ; 
 
 (') Mouravieff; Stanley, p. 360 ; Macarius, ii., p. 227. 
 C) They were released at the request of Macarius of Alexandria. Mac, 
 ii., p. 364.
 
 494 TEE GREEK CHUECH. 
 
 and Nikon resolved, by a wide reform — an Oriental progress 
 — to soften the barbarism of his uncultivated clergy, and re- 
 vive in Moscow and Novgorod the ancient graces of the East- 
 ern rites. He sent to Mount Athos to gather from its pious 
 fortresses, untouched by the infidel, the purest and most taste- 
 ful of services, the true mode of giving the benediction with 
 three fingers instead of two, the fairest altar-cloths, and the 
 most authentic pictures. The most extravagant of modern 
 ritualists would have been satisfied with the care bestowed 
 by the barbarous patriarch upon robes and vestments, music 
 and genuflections. His printing-press at Moscow poured 
 forth his new ritual ; he corrected the Eussian Scriptures, and 
 improved the Sclavonic literature. His gigantic intellect, so 
 keen in its perception of minute faults, was engaged in end- 
 less labors. He generously fed the poor, founded hospitals 
 and convents, and built a magnificent patriarchal palace on 
 the Kremlin ; was insensible to mortal dangers, and ruled 
 Kussia with awful severity. Alexis, with bare head, listened 
 with fixed interest to the stern eloquence of his friend, stood 
 uncovered before him at the cathedral, and gave him the prec- 
 edence in spiritual rank ; and -Nikon, with the zeal, if not the 
 intelligence, of a Luther or a Calvin, conscious that he was 
 pursuing a perilous career, pressed on the work of reform. 
 
 Around him gathered the clouds of ruin: the nobles re- 
 solved to destroy the fierce and impassive monk, who had 
 risen from a peasant's hut to rule all Russia ; the priests re- 
 fused to alter one word of that venerable service that had sat- 
 isfied the tastes of their simple fathers. At last — most fatal 
 omen for Nikon — a coldness grew up between him and his 
 friend ; the fierce, impulsive, sensitive monk was wounded by 
 the neglect of the czar, and, in the anguish of disappointment, 
 of lost affection, and fading hoj^e, once more recalled the first 
 vision of his youth, the peaceful habitation of his manhood, 
 and sighed for his hermit's cell.(') 
 
 Fearful of approaching evil, wounded by the cruelty of 
 Alexis, who refused to see him, for the last time clothed in 
 
 C) Moi;ravieff; Stanley.
 
 NIKON'S FALL. 495 
 
 tlie magnificent robes of the Greek service, the patriarch cele- 
 brated the holy office in the cathedral of Moscow, and then, 
 elate with indignation, tore off his costly insignia, laid down 
 his patriarchal staff, and with his mighty voice, that echoed 
 through the crowded building, declared that he was no more 
 the head of the Eussian Church.(') Amidst the tears and the 
 terror of the faithful people, who strove by various arts to 
 confine him in the cathedral, to imprison him in their arms, 
 Nikon left the splendid patriarchal palace and his royal cir- 
 cle to hide in rage and gloom amidst the solitude of a forest. 
 Not very far from the Holy City, in a pleasant wood, he had 
 planned a monastery and a cathedral in imitation of that 
 which enshrines the Holy Sepulchre ; and in its chancel rose 
 five lofty seats, to enthrone the five eminent patriarchs, of 
 whom he was at one moment the most powerful. But, in his 
 disgrace, he took refuge in a tower behind the convent. His 
 cell was so narrow as scarcely to admit his gigantic form. 
 His bed was a ledge of stone. His dress, no longer glittering 
 with the insignia of office, was coarse and rude ; he labored 
 among the workmen, no unskillful mason, in completing his 
 convent ; he wi*ote in his cell his annals of Ilussia.(^) Yet 
 humility was never a virtue of the savage anchorite ; he still 
 heaped curses upon his enemies, and once he stole from his 
 retreat to Moscow, hoping to revive the lost friendship of 
 Alexis. He was repulsed. His enemies pursued him to his 
 retreat ; and on a solemn day, in the patriarchal palace, assem- 
 bled a remarkable synod of Eastern bishops to try and depose 
 Nikon for contumacy and fancied crimes. Alexis, like Con- 
 stantine at Nice, presided in the council, and wept incessantly 
 over the sorrows of his former friend. Yet the feeble ruler 
 did not venture to save him.(^) He was condemned, degraded 
 from his office, and in the dead of winter, when the fierce frost 
 ruled over the Russian steppes, was hurried, thinly clad and 
 
 (') 1658, the close of his six years' rnle. Mouravicff, p. 263. 
 
 (^) Monravieff, p. 223. Nikon, says the historian, was morbid, gloomy, 
 quick to take an affront. 
 
 (') Mouravicff, p. 227. His six years' rule vras the most brilliant period 
 of the reigu of Alexis.
 
 496 THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 torn witli wild emotions, a prisoner to a lonely convent on 
 the White Sea. Many years passed on ; Nikon was forgot- 
 ten ; Alexis died ; his successor permitted the prisoner to be 
 removed to the more genial clime of his favorite convent of 
 the ]S'ew Jerusalem ; and touched by a mortal illness, bowed 
 down by old age and shame, the monk set out on his last jour- 
 ney. His huge form was carried on a sledge to the Volga ; 
 he floated on a barge down the rapid river ; the monks and 
 the peasants thronged around him to kiss his hands or his 
 garments; and as he a]3proached the well-known shore he 
 had only strength to receive the last rites of religion, to cross 
 his hands upon his breast, and with one great* sigh left the 
 world in peace. 
 
 Nikon renewed the Russian Church. He was no Luther, 
 teaching progress ; nor a Wesley, breaking down the priestly 
 caste ; nor a savage Dominic, founding an Inquisition : the 
 vices or the virtues of Western reformers he never shared. 
 But he brought into the national service the sweet music of 
 Greece, the rich dress, the rare pictures of Mount Athos ; he 
 improved the ritual ; he revived the memories of Constanti- 
 nople and St. Sopliia.(') He roused his barbarous countrymen 
 to a fresh study of their own annals, brought to the minds of 
 monks and priests the picture of the great patriarchates of 
 the East, lost in poverty and humiliation, and pointed them to 
 their brethren of the South. But Nikon's reforms produced 
 a great schism in the National Church. A large body of the 
 people refused to accept his new books, looked with horror 
 upon his innovations, and clung to the usages of their fathers. 
 They are known as the Starovers, or Old Believers. They ab- 
 hor the name and memory of Nikon(') the Reformer. He is 
 the false prophet of the Apocalypse, and all his followers are 
 Antichrist, and lost. No Starover will eat from the same dish 
 with a Nikonian, or bathe in the same water. The Old Be- 
 liever never smokes tobacco, will eat no potatoes — ^the devil's 
 
 (') MouraviefF; Stanley. 
 
 (^) Kohl. Dixou and the travelers give various notices of the Eussiau 
 sects ; but little unity seems to exist in the faith of the people.
 
 PETER THE GREAT. 491 
 
 food — or worship the pictures of recent artists. He clings to 
 the past with barbarous obstinacy, and many millions of these 
 austere conservatives, frowned upon by rulers and scorned by 
 priests, still inhabit the southern provinces, and even have 
 their churches at Moscow. 
 
 A resral Nikon, Peter the Great, is the next reformer of the 
 Kussian Church. He broke down the power of the great 
 monasteries, deprived them of their revenues, reduced them to 
 weakness ; he changed the constitution of the Church, and in 
 the place of a single patriarch ruling at Moscow, placed the 
 control of all ecclesiastical affairs in a Holy Synod. (') There 
 is no longer a patriarch of Moscow. The Holy Synod or 
 Council takes the place of the earlier prelate, and has been ad- 
 mitted by Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Constantinople 
 to an equality with the patriarchal office. The huge, stern, 
 cruel Peter, hated by every Old Believer as the Antichrist 
 and the Nikon of his age, crushed with rigorous hand the 
 power of the clergy, and sanctioned the music, the robes, the 
 improved books, the endless rites, suggested by the reforming 
 monk. The modern Eussian Church is the church of Nikon, 
 and the wild hermit of the arctic forest has left the trace of 
 his original hand upon the Christianity of the East. Yet the 
 Greek Church still repeats the magnificence and the stately 
 ceremonies of St. Sophia. There are no images ; but countless 
 pictures of saints and deities crowd the walls of the Kremlin 
 or of St. Isaac's ; and at Moscow the picture of the Iberian 
 Mother visits its patients»in state, like the Bambino at Ilome.(') 
 In every house, in every room, there is a picture with a candle 
 burning before it, and no faithful churchman passes it without 
 a bow. In the cathedral no organ or clashing band startles 
 the pillared nave with wild bursts of labored harmony ; but 
 
 (') A laborious but wearisome effort, by the Rev. C. Tondini, to allure the 
 Greek Church back to the arms of Roman infallibility, objects that the 
 patriarchs have no temporal power ; but it is probable that they will pre- 
 fer spiritual to temporal progress. See his Assault on the Patriarchates, 
 p. 165 : a feeble argument. 
 
 (') Lowth, Around the Kremlin, has a lively description of the deep de- 
 votion shown by all classes to the Iberian Mother. 
 
 32
 
 498 THE GREEK CHUECH. 
 
 a clioir of singers, trained to tlie highest excellence, breathe 
 forth the ancient melodies of Greece ; or some Russian basso, 
 it is said the most powerful of human voices, shouts forth the 
 anathemas against the heretics, and terrifies his hearers with 
 musical indignation. The traditions of a simpler ritual still 
 linger, and sometimes a rude, ill-cultivated, but zealous layman 
 reads, in faltering accents, from the clerical desk the story of 
 the Passion, the scene in Getlisemane.(') 
 
 Tlie taste for a monkish life, which has received fatal 
 wounds in Western Europe, still rules in modern Russia. 
 The convents swarm in countless numbers from the Black 
 Sea to the Arctic. It is a common conclusion for a mer- 
 chant's or a banker's career to build a hermitage and lay the 
 foundations of a monastery. The black clergy, as they are 
 called — a host of hermits, friars, monks, ascetics — live in ab- 
 stracted ignorance, and withdraw from society the faculties 
 and the intellects that should be given to the common bene- 
 fit ; and the principle of selfish isolation is illustrated in the 
 Russian convent with a general prevalence unknown to mod- 
 ern times. Paul and Anthony, the two Egyptian fanatics, are 
 still the guides of millions, and Russia teems with anchorites 
 and wild ascetics. Far out on the frozen waters of the White 
 Sea, on a cluster of islands to whose clime lona might seem a 
 balmy haven of summer rest, stands Solovetsky, the most pros- 
 perous, the chief, perhaps, of modern monasteries.(°) In the 
 dawn of the fifteenth century St. Savatie penetrated to the 
 lonely scene, where even the hardy Lapps refused to dwell, 
 carved a rude cross from a fallen pine, and made his hermit- 
 age on the icy shores of Solovetsky. The island has become 
 a city of meditative souls. A huge fortress encircles its chief 
 convents. White churches, crowned by green cupolas and 
 golden crosses, shine upon it^ hills. In the bright, short sum- 
 mer, when the clear Arctic Sea sweeps gently around the holy 
 
 (') Kr)bl, p. 166, hears a scarred soldier read iu a church on Easter-eve 
 with tonching effect. 
 
 C^) Dixon's animated account of Solovetsky (see Free Russia) abounds 
 iu interesting i)articnlar3, of which I have been enabled to notice only a 
 few.
 
 SOLOVETSKY. 499 
 
 island, throngs of pilgrims wander to the shrine of St. Savatie, 
 bathe in the sacred lake, and taste the consecrated bread. No 
 woman is permitted to dwell on the hallowed soil. For the 
 brief period of summer she may come, for a single day, under 
 careful restraints, to win the benefits of the arctic pilgrimage ; 
 but no sooner does the first snow whiten the poor herbage of 
 the island than the privilege ceases. Then not even the Em- 
 press of all the Russias would be suffered to intrude within 
 the abode of celibacy. The monks of Solovetsky are indus- 
 trious ; their workshops produce a variety of useful articles ; 
 neatness, good order, and precise devotion mark the singular 
 community ; its churches gleam with rich ornaments, and are 
 stored with the gifts of the pious ; and, locked in the impene- 
 trable security of a frozen sea, the followers of Anthony and 
 Savatie dream out their dull and useless lives, defy the rigors 
 of an arctic clime, and chant the litanies of Chrysostoni or 
 Basil. 
 
 Such is an imperfect sketch of that imperishable Church 
 that grew up on the rich shores of Syria, under the genial 
 guidance of the Beloved Apostle, and has fixed its firm foun- 
 dations in the heart of the most progressive of modern empires. 
 It may be hoped that the genial influence of an enlightened 
 reform may pass over its faithful but uncultivated followers ; 
 that its superstitions may be softened, its lingering traits of 
 harshness be removed ; that its humanity, which has been so 
 lately proved in the liberation of millions of serfs, may lead 
 it to a general toleration ; that its cumbrous ritual may be 
 restored to the simplicity of a Scriptural age ; that Antioch 
 and Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Moscow, may 
 share the advancing tide of progress,(^) and renew the moral 
 
 Q) Dixon, p. 79. The monks excel in bread-making, are tanners, weavers, 
 etc. The convents resound with the hum of labor. They have proved 
 that successful industry repels the influence of climate. 
 
 {^) The East will probably owe its new progress to the vigor of the ex- 
 communicated Photius, yet the fury of the Popes against the founder of 
 the Eastern Church is beyond expression. Hadriau II. assails him : " Pho- 
 tic invasori, Photio sieculari et forensi, Pliotio neophyto et tyranno, Pliotio 
 schismatico et damuato, Photio mceche et parricido." — 2Iif/m; Gnvc. Pat.,
 
 500 THE GEEEK CHURCH. 
 
 vigor, the clear common-sense, the love for man, the bound- 
 less self-devotion, of the fishermen of Galilee. 
 
 It would seem not unnatural that Asia should draw its hu- 
 manity and its education from the Church of Ephesus and the 
 East : on the Syrian shore, philosophy and religion may revive 
 together ; and if the Russian czars shall make knowledge the 
 foundation of their new progress, they will at least carry some 
 of the best fruits of Greek civilization to the banks of the 
 Oxus and the Amoor. 
 
 101, p. 11. Nor is there any one so execrated by the fanatics as the accom- 
 plished scholar of the ninth century — the intellectual parent of the empire 
 of the czars.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Ablabius, 165. 
 Achilli, 404. 
 Adrian IV., 419. 
 
 his bull, 438. 
 Agelius, 165. 
 Agnes of Meran, 43. 
 Agrippa 11., 319. 
 Albi, 364. 
 
 Albigenses, 363, 364. 
 Alexander III., his bull, 439. 
 Alexis, Czar, 493. 
 Alpine Church, 165. 
 Angrogna, Valley of, 212, 238. 
 Anna Van der Hove, 132. 
 Anne, sister of the Emperor Basil, 479. 
 Antichrist, 211. 
 Antonia, Castle of, 307. 
 Aragon, 401. 
 Arian controversy, 19. 
 Ariosto, 72. 
 Arius, 151, 152, 458. 
 Armagh, Cathedral of, 452. 
 
 University, 453. 
 Arnaud, Henry, 199, 235. 
 Athanasius, 152, 458, 460. 
 Athens, Church of, 336. 
 Athesis, 188. 
 Auto-da-fe^ 382. 
 
 B. 
 
 Babylon, 118. 
 Balloon, the first, 395. 
 
 Balsllle, the, 233. 
 
 Balthazar Gerard, 130. 
 
 Barbes, the, 201, 211. 
 
 Bards, Irish, 424. 
 
 Barnabas, 330. 
 
 Basil the Great, 159. 
 
 Basle, Council of, 183. 
 
 Bastile, 367. 
 
 Bells consecrated, 441. 
 
 Bible, 255, 256. 
 
 Bishops of Rome, 9, 15, 23. 
 
 Bishops, pride of, 21. 
 
 Bobadilla, 109. 
 
 Bohemia, 178. 
 
 Borgias, the, 52, 54. 
 
 Boris Goduuoff, 485, 486, 488. 
 
 Bossuet, 283, 285. 
 
 Bostaquet, Dumont de, 287, 289. 
 
 Brehon laws, 441. 
 
 C. 
 
 C^SAREA, 339. 
 
 Galas, Jean, 294. 
 Calvin, 210, 260. 
 Campion, 128. 
 Caraffa, 113. 
 
 Cardinal Inquisitors, 113. 
 Cashel, Council of, 435. 
 Castelfranco, Lord of, 286. 
 Castelluzo, cave of, 225. 
 Catacombs, the, 14, 16. 
 Cathari, the, 155, 165, 173. 
 Catherine de' Medici, 262.
 
 502 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Catherine de' Medici, her character, 263. 
 
 policy, 270. 
 Catinat, 236. 
 Caumont, Baron de, 291. 
 Celts emigrate, 451. 
 Cervantes, 101. 
 Chalcedon, 116. 
 Charlemagne, 32, 173. 
 Charles Albert, 242. 
 Charles Emanuel, 214. 
 Charles V., 91, 189. 
 Charles IX., 270. 
 Chatelet, dungeons of, 261. 
 Children, Crusade of, 174. 
 Christians, dispersed, 323. 
 
 flight of, 354. 
 
 new, in Spain, 369. 
 Church of Jerusalem, 300, 318. 
 Clement VII., 253. 
 Coligny, 271. 
 College of France, 249. 
 Colporteurs, 258. 
 Columba, 415, 416, 454. 
 Cong, Monastery of, 441. 
 Conquest of Ireland, 409. 
 Conscience, liberty of, 240. 
 Constance, Council of, 175. 
 
 its proceedings and decrees, 177. 
 Constantine the Great, 17. 
 
 establishes Christianity, 145. 
 
 at Nice, 148. 
 
 his faults, 149. 
 
 remorse, 149. 
 
 opens the synod, 152. 
 
 an Arian, 153. 
 
 persecutes Athanasius, 154. 
 Constantinople, 458. 
 
 its treasures, 459. 
 
 an Arian city, 460. 
 
 saves Europe, 468, 
 
 falls, 480. 
 
 creed of, 160. 
 Convents, 172. 
 Cordova, 402. 
 Council, Apostolic, 331. 
 Council of Trent, 189. 
 
 its influence, 187. 
 
 Council of Trent meets, 188. 
 
 dissolves, 193. 
 Council, the second, 155. 
 Councils, the third and fourth, 162. 
 
 the fifth, 168. 
 
 the sixth, 169. 
 Crispus, 149. 
 Cromwell defends the Vaudois, 223. 
 
 cruelty in Ireland, 450. 
 Crusade against the Albigenses, 49. 
 Cyril of Alexandria, 162. 
 
 assails Nestorius, 163. 
 
 in danger, 166. 
 Cyril of Jerusalem, 159. 
 
 D'Albret, Jeanne, 267, 271. 
 
 Damasus, Pope, 20, 161. 
 
 Dark Ages, 170. 
 
 D'Azeglio, 242. 
 
 De Broglie, 155. 
 
 De Laval, Charlotte, 269. 
 
 De Lunz, PhiHppa, 261. 
 
 De Parat, 236. 
 
 De Pareilles, 235. 
 
 Del Monte, 188. 
 
 Demetrius, the false, 487. 
 
 Descartes, 292. 
 
 "Desert, Church in the," in France, 
 
 293. 
 Deza, second Inquisitor, 374. 
 
 his victims, 374. 
 Diana de Poitiers, 262. 
 Diet of Worms, 91. 
 Diocletian, 17. 
 Dioscorus, 167. 
 Dolet, 258. 
 Dominic, 50. 
 
 his miracles, 358. 
 
 Inquisition, 359. 
 
 severity, 361. 
 
 and the Inquisition, 358. 
 Don Carlo t'i Sesso, 386. 
 Donald, King of Ulster, 444. 
 Dragonnades, 286, 
 Du Ferier, 190.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 503 
 
 Dublin besieged, 429, 4ol. 
 Dungeons of Inquisition, 378. 
 
 E. 
 
 EcK, 88. 
 
 Eisenach, 93. 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 447. 
 England, danger of, 39Y. 
 Ephesus, 166. 
 
 its appearance, 332. 
 Eugenius IV., 184. 
 Europe, in first century, 300. 
 Eusebius of Csesarea, 148. 
 Eutyches, 166. 
 Eymeric, code of, 376. 
 
 F. 
 
 Famine in Judea, 230. 
 
 Farel, 250. 
 
 Felix, 339. 
 
 Festus, 339. 
 
 Feudalism, 169. 
 
 Fitz-Stephen, 423. 
 
 Flechier, 285. 
 
 France under interdict, 44. 
 
 Francis of Assisi, 50. 
 
 Francis I., his character, 247. 
 
 dies, 263. 
 Francis II., 266. 
 
 G. 
 
 Galilee, 315. 
 
 ravaged, 347. 
 Galileo, his youth, 390. 
 
 discoveries, 391. 
 
 condemned, 393. 
 
 dialogues, 393. 
 
 sentenced, 394. 
 
 death, 394. 
 Galley-slaves, 290. 
 Galilean Church, its fall, 298. 
 Garnet, his trial, 134. 
 Gastaldo, order of, 220. 
 Geneva, 228. 
 
 Geneva, its generosity, 287. 
 Geraldines in Ireland, 432. 
 Germans invade France, 407. 
 Germany, in 1517, 83. 
 Gerson at Constance, 180. 
 Ghent, 284. 
 
 Gilly, Dr., visits the Vaudois, 241. 
 Giovanni de' Medici (Leo X.), 62. 
 " Glorious Return, The," 229, 230. 
 Goa, Inquisition at, 103. 
 Greek Church, the, 455. 
 
 separates from the Latin, 469. 
 
 its advance, 499, 500. 
 Gregory the Great, 24. 
 
 his ritual, 27. 
 
 spreads monasticism, 171. 
 Gregory II., 31. 
 Gregory Xazianzen, 156. 
 
 his sermons, 157. 
 
 enemies, 157. 
 
 made bishop, 159. 
 
 severity, 159. 
 Gregory IX., 366. 
 Gresham, Sir Thomas, 257. 
 Guinevert, 233. 
 Guises, the, 266. 
 Gunpowder Plot, 129, 136. 
 
 H. 
 
 HEGESiPPrs, 356. 
 
 Henry II. of England, 410. 
 
 his character, 433. 
 
 at Dublin, 434. 
 
 lavish generosity, 436. 
 
 his death, 438. 
 Henry IIL of France, 129. 
 Henry IV., emperor, 38. 
 Henry IV. of France, 399. 
 
 marries Margaret, 270. 
 Heresies, strange, 1 50. 
 Hildebrand, 83, 41,171. 
 Holy City, the, 305. 
 Holy Houses, 377. 
 Holy OfRcc, 408. 
 Holy Synod, Russian, 497. 
 Holy Trinity, Monastery of the, 484.
 
 504 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Honorius, 169. 
 
 his heresy, 169. 
 Hosius of Cordova, 152. 
 Huber, 291. 
 Huguenots, the, 247. 
 
 first appear, 248. 
 
 their honesty, 252. 
 
 persecuted, 253. 
 
 rise in revolt, 269. 
 
 flight, 286. 
 
 still in peril, 299. 
 Huss, John, his fame, 1*78. 
 
 at Constance, 180. 
 
 imprisoned, 181. 
 
 his trial, 182. 
 
 is burned, 183. 
 Hypatia, her death, 163. 
 
 Image- vi'ORSHiP, 29, 191. 
 
 Indulgences, 79. 
 
 Ingeburga, 43. 
 
 Innocent III., 41, 47, 51. 
 
 Innocent VIII., 205. 
 
 Inquisition, Dominic and the, 839. 
 
 Inquisition, Roman, 388, 403. 
 
 its prisons, 404. 
 
 in 1850,406. 
 Inquisition, Spanish, 370. 
 
 its rules, etc., 376. 
 
 its dungeons, 379. 
 lona, its missionaries, 415. 
 
 ravaged by the Danes, 417. 
 
 described, 454. 
 Ireland, Concpiest of, 409. 
 
 described, 411. 
 
 its people, 412. 
 
 bards, 412. 
 , St. Patrick, 413. 
 
 schools, 414. 
 Irish Church, its origin, 418. 
 
 hated by Rome, 418. 
 
 destroyed, 420. 
 Irish revolt, 445. 
 
 defy the Pope, 446. 
 
 devoted to Rome now, 450. 
 
 Irish indiscretion, 451. 
 Isabella Rosello, 106. 
 Italy, Reformers of, 387. 
 Ivan the Terrible, 481. 
 
 James, brother of the Lord, 245, 304. 
 
 James II., 451. 
 
 Janavel, Joshua, 228. 
 
 Jerome burned at Constance, 178, 183. 
 
 Jerome, St., 21, 171. 
 
 Jerusalem, Church of, 300. 
 
 Jerusalem, City of, 302. 
 
 its madness, 337. 
 
 sufferings, 848. 
 
 destroyed, 353, 354. 
 
 its lasting influence, 356. 
 Jesuits, Loyola and the, 99. 
 Jesuits, their missions, 126. 
 
 literature, 127. 
 
 decay, 139. 
 
 Pombal, 139. 
 
 order abolished, 141. 
 
 revived, 142. 
 
 persecute the Vaudois, 215. 
 
 persecute the Huguenots, 290. 
 
 excite the Irish to rebel, 448. 
 
 intrigues in Russia, 487. 
 Jews despised by the Romans, 303. 
 
 their zeal, 316. 
 
 fate of, 353. 
 Jews in Spain, 368. 
 
 persecuted, 370. 
 
 banished, 371. 
 
 flight, 373. 
 Job, Russian patriarch, 484. 
 John, King of England, 45. 
 
 opposes the Pope, 46. 
 
 submits, 46. 
 
 conduct in Ireland, 442. 
 John, St., his humility, 314. 
 John XXIII., Pope, deposed, 176. 
 Josephus, commander, 347. 
 
 a traitor, 347. 
 Jovius, historian, 71. 
 Julius II. dies, 56.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 505 
 
 Julius III., 188. 
 Justiuian, 168. 
 
 builds St. Sophia, 462. 
 
 his ardor, 463. 
 
 dedicates St. Sophia, 463. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kedron, 30*7. 
 Kremlin, the, 483. 
 
 Laborie, 210. 
 Lainez, 109, 190. 
 Languedoc, 362. 
 Lefevre, Peter, 119. 
 Leger, historian, 198. 
 Leo and Luther, 56. 
 Leo the Great, 167. 
 Leo X., 61. 
 
 his reign, 69. 
 
 luxury, 73. 
 
 extravagance, 77. 
 
 purgatory, 78. 
 
 Golden Age, 90. 
 
 death, 98. 
 Le Tellier, 282. 
 Liberius, Pope, an Arian, 154. 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, 66. 
 Lorenzo, Leo's nephew, 73. 
 Lollard, 202. 
 Lorraine, Cardinal of, 190. 
 
 his cruelty, 266. 
 Louis XIV. a persecutor, 283. 
 Louis Philippe persecutes, 298. 
 Louvre, the, 248. 
 Loyola, Ignatius, 99. 
 
 his reading, 102. 
 
 a beggar, 103. 
 
 at Paris, 107. 
 
 his ignorance, 108. 
 
 his faith, 117. 
 
 death, 143. 
 Lucerna, vale of, 198. 
 
 set free, 239. 
 Luther a peasant's son, 63. 
 
 Luther awakened, 85. 
 
 in danger, 85. 
 
 at Leipsic, 89. 
 
 his hvrun, 93. 
 
 at Worms, 99. 
 
 quick sale of his works, 257. 
 Lyons, " Good men " of, 48. 
 
 M. 
 
 Macmorrocgh, Dermot, 409. 
 
 in Ireland, 421. 
 
 treachery, 422. 
 
 cruelty, 423. 
 Magicians, 396. 
 Maintenon, Madame de, 282. 
 Manreza, Cave of, 103. 
 Marguerite of France, 249. 
 Mariana defends regicide, 127. 
 Marina marries Demeti-ius. 489. 
 Marolles a galley-slave, 291. 
 Marot, Clement, 248. 
 Marseilles, 362. 
 Martyrdom, age of, 13. 
 Mary, Bloody, 189. 
 
 her cruelt)', 195. 
 Mary Queen of Scots, 193. 
 Mary, Virgin, her home, 324. 
 Massillon, 283. 
 Matilda, Countess, 37. 
 Meaux, 250, 265. 
 Mecca, 467. 
 
 Medici, Cardinal de', 61. 
 Medici, the, 62. 
 Melanchthon, 88. 
 Melitius, 159. 
 Michael Angelo, 72. 
 Milton, 194, 223. 
 Modena, 389. 
 
 Moderator of the Vaudois, 245. 
 Mohammed a reformer, 467. 
 Monastic system, 170. 
 Monophysites, the, 168. 
 Monothelites, the, 169. 
 Moors, the, driven from Spain, 376. 
 Moriali, Mount, o07. 
 Moscow, 474.
 
 506 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Moscow, its patriarch, 476. 
 
 burned, 490. 
 Mount Athos, 475. 
 
 liberality of the monks, 487. 
 
 N. 
 
 Napoleon I., 241. 
 
 Nazanzcn, Gregory. See Gregory Nazian- 
 
 zen. 
 Nectarius, 147. 
 Nero, 12. 
 Nestorians, 166. 
 Nicfca, Council at, 144. 
 Nicene Creed, 167. 
 Nikon, 491. 
 
 his character, 492. 
 
 reforms, 494. 
 
 severity, 495. 
 
 death, 496. 
 
 influence, 496. 
 Niraes, massacre at, 297. 
 Normans sack Rome, 40. 
 
 in Ireland, 423. 
 Novatians, 165. 
 Novgorod, 474. 
 Nurembei'g, 84. 
 
 0. 
 
 Obedience (in Jesuitism), its results, 
 
 105. 
 O'Briens, the, 445. 
 O'Connor, Roderic, 430. 
 
 his conduct, 441. 
 
 death, 441. 
 Olga, Princess, 478. 
 Olives, Mount of, 807. 
 Orange, William I. of, 190. 
 O'Toole, Laurence, 427. 
 
 P. 
 
 Paganism at Rome, 20. 
 Pale, the English, 436. 
 Palissy, the potter, 249, 261, 254. 
 Paphuutius, 147. 
 
 Parsons, 128. 
 Pascal, his power, 137. 
 Paschal, 208. 
 Passover, the last, 349. 
 Patriarchates, fall of, 473. 
 Patriarchs, the five, 472. 
 Paul III., 110. 
 
 undecided. 111. 
 Paul IV., 269. 
 Paul, St., education, 827. 
 
 at Antioch, 330. 
 
 at Ephesus, 332. 
 
 at Athens, 337. 
 
 in the temple, 837. 
 
 voyage to Rome, 339. 
 
 at Rome, 341. 
 Pella, Church at, 355. 
 Pepin, 31. 
 
 Perouse, Vale of, 198. 
 Peter, St., in prison, 822. 
 
 character, 818. 
 
 was he at Rome ? 348. 
 Pilate, letter of, 319. 
 Pius IV., 190. 
 
 Pius IX. revives the Inquisition, 405. 
 Philip Augustus, 43. 
 Philip II., 398. 
 Philip IV., 885. 
 Photius, his learning, 471. 
 Politian, 66. 
 Popes, power of, 10. 
 
 corrupt, 17. 
 
 election of, 57, 60. 
 
 three rival, 175. 
 
 persecutors, 203. 
 Port Royal, 136. 
 Pra del Tor, Castle of, 213, 240. 
 Pre' aux Clercs, 262. 
 Printers and Popes, 251. 
 Printing forbidden, 255. 
 Prudentius, 13. 
 
 R. 
 
 Rabelais, 255. 
 Raboteau, the Misses, 287. 
 Raffaello, 71.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 507 
 
 Reformation, 184, 207, 357. See LutJwr. 
 
 in Spain, 381. 
 Reformers, humane, 116. 
 Richelieu, 282. 
 Rodoret, 234. 
 Roman cities, 301. 
 Roman empire, 22, 301. 
 Romanoff, house of, 491. 
 Romans besiege Jerusalem, 390. 
 Rome, pagan, 10. 
 
 corruptions of, 11. 
 
 conquered, 162. 
 
 Bible at, 185. 
 
 captured, 408. 
 Rousseau, 292. 
 Rurik, 474. 
 Russia, its origin, 474. 
 
 Saint Louis, 367. 
 
 Saintes, town of, 251. 
 
 Salbertrans, Battle of, 231. 
 
 Salmeron, 190. 
 
 San Martino, vale of, 198, 204. 
 
 Santa Maria, Church of, 388. 
 
 Saracens, 169,466. 
 
 Savonarola, 67, 379. 
 
 Savoy, Duke of, 219. 
 
 Saxony, Elector of, 81. 
 
 Seven Churches, the, 457. 
 
 Seville, 402. 
 
 Sicarii at Jerusalem, 316. 
 
 Sigismund, Emperor, 176, 182. 
 
 Sigismund of Poland, cruelty to Russia, 
 
 487. 
 Silverius, Pope, 23. 
 Simon, 349. 
 Simeon, 354. 
 
 Solovetsky, Monastery of, 498. 
 Sorbonne condemns printing, 258. 
 Sorcerers, 396. 
 Spain, decay of, 401. 
 Spaniards, 368. 
 
 "Spiritual Exercises," the, 103. 
 St. Sophia, Church of, 464. 
 Starovers, or Old BeUevers, 476. 
 
 Stephen, first martyr, 322. 
 Stephens, Robert, printer, 258. 
 Strongbow, 426. 
 Sturm, 92. 
 
 Tara, Council at, 424. 
 Temporal power, 32. 
 Tetzel, 79. 
 
 Theodore, Czar, 485. 
 Theodosius II., 164. 
 Theodosius the Great, 158. 
 Tiraboschi, 395. 
 
 Titus, his true character, 348, 353. 
 Toledo, Cardinal, 114. 
 Torquemada, 370. 
 Toulouse, Inquisition at, 364. 
 Trent, Council of, 116. 
 
 opens, 188. 
 
 decrees, 191. 
 
 labors, 192. 
 
 close, 194. 
 Trinity, Count of, 211. 
 Turin persecutes the Vaudois, 218. 
 
 pities and honors the Vaudois, 240. 
 
 celebration at, 245. 
 
 U. 
 
 Ulster, massacre of, 449. 
 Urban II., 173. 
 
 Vasst, 268. 
 Vaudois, the, 198. 
 
 purity of, 205. 
 
 exiles, 220. 
 
 martyrs, 221. 
 
 expulsion, 226. 
 
 return, 227. 
 
 set free (1848), 242. 
 
 valleys illuminated, 242. 
 Venice, 109. 
 Vespasian, 348. 
 Victor Amadeus II., 200.
 
 508 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Victor Amadcus II., anecdote of, 200. 
 Victor Amadeus IV., 239. 
 Vigilius, Pope, 23, 168. 
 Vladimir, 479. 
 Voltaire, 296. 
 
 W. 
 
 Warrior caste, 185, 199. 
 
 Waterford, 427. 
 
 William I. of Orange, 130. 
 
 William I. of Orange at home, 131. 
 
 death, 131. 
 Wittenberg, 82. 
 Worms, 93. 
 
 X. 
 
 Xavier, Francis, 124. 
 
 his success, 125. 
 
 death, 125. 
 Ximenes, 375. 
 
 THE END.
 
 STANDAED HISTOEICAL WORKS, 
 
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