HISTORICAL SKETCHES, 
 
 &c. &c.
 
 PRINTED BY 
 L. AND O. SKELEY, THAMES DITTON.
 
 t^z. ^^ //^r^^ /A '>^t^i^^*-^/ ^ 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCHES, 
 
 SPEECHES, 
 AND CHARACTERS." 
 
 ) 
 BY THE REV. GEORGE ' CROLY, L.L.D. 
 
 RECTOR OK ST. STEPHENS', WALBROOK, I.OXDOV. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY R. B. SEELEY AND W. BURNSIDE : 
 
 AND SOLD BY L. AND G. SEELEY, 
 
 FLEET STREET, LONDON. 
 
 MDCCCXLIL
 
 Da 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The papers contained in this volume were published 
 in various periodical works during successive years, 
 and now re-appear only at the suggestion of their 
 publishers, who consider that they may be of some 
 service to the cause of Church and State, for 
 which they were written. They were Conservative 
 before the name of Conservative was known ; 
 and were employed to point out the perils of 
 the Church, when those perils were only shaping 
 themselves into form. In the State, they regarded 
 as the one consummate danger — Democracy ; and 
 in the Church, as the essential object of all vigilance — 
 the power of Rome. It is altogether the reverse of a 
 gratification to the writer, that those conjectures have 
 since advanced, year by year, more towards certainty. 
 But nothing can be clearer, than that a new and dis- 
 turbing element has mingled with the Constitution; 
 or, that if a statesman of the last century could stand 
 
 ^ JL. O- 1_* ? J" J: - CJ
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 again among us, he would be not more ignorant of the 
 political personages of our day, than he would be as- 
 tonished and alarmed at that vast and gloomy ga- 
 thering of popular force, which, in its hour of fury, 
 must inevitably sweep away the State ; and which, 
 even in its present hour of suspense, chills and over- 
 shadows every prospect of the empire. 
 
 The characteristic of our era is an extravagant con- 
 ception of its own wisdom, and as extravagant a scorn 
 for the wisdom of the past ; a passion for novelty, made 
 still more hazardous by a contempt for experience. 
 This we have learned from France. Her ' Three 
 Days of July' spread their impulse, circle on circle, 
 widening through Europe. England, as the nearest, 
 felt it first and strongest, and it cost her a new 
 modelling of her Constitution. 
 
 A Cabinet, since called to power not less by the 
 public necessity, than by the public confidence, has 
 relieved us from the immediate dread of ruinous and 
 irreparable change; but the principle of peril remains: 
 armed associations have shown what ready instruments 
 can be found by conspiracy ; Republican theories, 
 openly avowed, have shown into what frenzy specu- 
 lation can inflame itself. The mechanical discoveries 
 which distinguish our time, seem to have lent their 
 spirit to the popular feelings ; all is to be sacrificed
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 to force and velocity ; irresistible strength and irre- 
 sistible speed in whirling the Masses along, are the 
 grand objects ; while it is willingly forgotten how 
 much the rapidity increases the danger, and how 
 slight an accident may turn the flying machine into 
 the means of comprehensive and remediless ruin. 
 
 The prospects of the Church unquestionably are of 
 a more cheering order. She has displayed an energy 
 and activity wholly unexpected by her assailants. Her 
 Diocesan Schools — her rapid erection of churches 
 in the newly-peopled districts of the land — and, above 
 all, her establishment of Colonial Bishoprics, incontes- 
 tibly the noblest and most comprehensive of her 
 measures, an illustrious cnterprize — of all her acts 
 since the Reformation, the most sacredly exhibiting 
 the energies of the Apostolic Age — have formed for 
 the Church a strength in England, and in Europe, 
 which, to survive all change, has only to be seconded 
 by the Nation. 
 
 The existence of the Establishment is essential to 
 the Constitution ; for it contains exactly that degree 
 of freedom, with exactly that degree of subordina- 
 tion, which educate a people for limited mon- 
 archy. 
 
 By the fixed nature of her property, the Church 
 gives the nation security for her conduct, and gives it.
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 besides, the important example of a clergy, neither 
 slaves to the populace, nor slaves to the government. 
 
 By the publicity of her Articles, she at once pre- 
 vents all misconception of her principles, and prohi- 
 bits all corruption of her doctrine. 
 
 By her Orders, she makes character and education 
 necessary to her priesthood. 
 
 By her Prelacy, she secures conscientious and manly 
 subordination in her clergy ; which, in its turn, is the 
 safest pledge for loyalty, morality, and unity among 
 her people. But her influence extends even beyond 
 her own borders : and, while the Church stands, her 
 example compels Schism to be comparatively learned 
 and decorous, and Superstition to be comparatively 
 tolerant and pure. 
 
 Her chief antagonists are Popery and Sectarianism, 
 though there is no equality between those perils. The 
 vigorous and active occupations of the English mind 
 are hostile to the mystical and solitary temperament 
 in which sects in all ages have found their natural 
 origin. Schism is seldom long-lived. A hundred 
 sects have risen and perished in Europe, since the 
 Reformation. Tiiey are shaped too much on the 
 fantasy of their founder, to survive him long ; they 
 linger for a while over his grave, and then follow him 
 to oblivion — earth to earth.
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 Strong only where the Church is weak, they dis- 
 appear before her ascending vigour, like vapours 
 rising in the dusk and chill, but no sooner touched 
 by the sun, than they evaporate by the course of 
 nature. The Church in our day needs waste but 
 little anxiety upon them. Her true hazard is from an 
 enemy of another nature. Sectarianism startles the 
 mind by its arrogance, or its sternness. But Popery 
 has attractions for every failing of man : it assimilates 
 with every strength of the passions, and every weak- 
 ness of the understanding ; and it assimilates in silence, 
 conquers noiselessly, and melts into the mind. What 
 are the perils of the casual blasts, that echo round 
 the battlements of the Church in her hour of slum- 
 ber, but are unheard and forgotten, as soon as her 
 dwellers awake and bestir themselves in the business 
 of the day ; compared with the moral malaria, that 
 creeps over the surface, without disfiguring the soil ; 
 glides through gate and loophole, unfelt and unseen ; 
 fills her chambers with gradual decay, and leaving the 
 whole noble edifice uninjured to the eye, yet leaves 
 it tenantless for ever ! 
 
 But the chief question is, the remedy. It is among 
 the first duties of the Christian, to think as kindly of 
 all men as he can, and to avoid all language that can 
 irritate personal feeling. And the more that he pur-
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 sues this conduct, the more he is doing the will of that 
 Supreme Beneficence, which desires, that " all shall 
 come to the knowledge of the truth." " The servant 
 of God must not strive," is an inspired command. 
 
 In this conviction, the writer of these pages, if he 
 possessed sufficient authority to make his advice 
 available, would say — that, admitting the zeal and 
 ability which have been displayed in the public con- 
 troversies, it may be doubted whether a simpler mode 
 may not be more effectual. Religious fallacy is 
 i so wide a field, that the antagonists may pursue 
 each other endlessly ; the popular triumph ends 
 only in personal resentment ; there is no power to 
 converge the combatants to the truth. 
 
 Luther, one of the most powerful controversial- 
 ists in the presence of an assembly, that the world 
 has ever known, seems never to have converted any 
 of the champions whom he so constantly defeated. 
 The providential solitude which gave him time for 
 the translation of the Scriptures, was the true season 
 of his triumphs ; as the publication of the Bible was 
 the true trumpet before which the ancient and armed 
 bulwarks of error fell, without the touch of man. 
 
 The first teachers of the Reformation had chiefly 
 begun, by inveighing against the practices of Rome ; 
 but they found that this produced only political
 
 PREFACE. X) 
 
 tumult and personal hostility. They abandoned * 
 invective ; simply preached the facts and doctrines 
 of Scripture ; and the people followed the Reformer, 
 Bedell tells us, that when in Ireland the Reformers 
 preached the Scripture alone, the people listened ; 
 but when they preached against the Mass, " there was 
 bloodshed." But we have a still higher authority, 
 that of the apostles. St. Peter and St. Paul could 
 not have passed through the Greek or Roman 
 cities, without being startled at the practices of the 
 national worship. Yet we scarcely find the mention 
 of them in their epistles. St. Paul writes from Ephe- 
 sus, the head-quarters of Asiatic idolatry ; from Co- 
 rinth, the supreme seat of Greek licentiousness ; 
 from Rome, where the air was thick with the fumes 
 of every strange worship of the earth, mingled with 
 gladiatorial blood ; yet, except in an occasional warn- 
 ing to the disciples, we can scarcely discover that he 
 lived in the midst of the most overwhelming s3'stem 
 of religious impurity ever witnessed by man. We '■ 
 certainly find no direct declamation against the 
 heathen altar, no bold exposure of the heathen 
 theatre (then all impurity) no lofty denouncement 
 of the still more debasing superstitions, the magic, 
 and the divination, which corrupted and darkened 
 the latter periods of the whole gentile mind. He j
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 more effectually assails practice by inculcating prin- 
 ciple ; instead of casting down the altar by force, he 
 beams upon it that sacred light which extinguishes 
 its fires. 
 
 An enthusiast would have blown the signal for 
 the assault, and with the same sound would have 
 stirred the defenders to sharpen their swords, and rush 
 to the field. But, he "preached righteousness, tem- 
 perance, and judgment to come," and heathenism 
 " trembled." Its tyranny passed away, and Christian- 
 ity ascended the universal throne. How much stronger 
 is the case, when the question is between Christians, 
 and the purpose is conversion. One of the most 
 cheering promises of our ultimate triumph is to be 
 found in the greater use which, year by year, is made 
 of the Scriptures in the preaching of the Protestant 
 clergy. The facts, as well as the doctrines, of Scrip- 
 ture, cannot be stated too clearly, and too constantly, 
 to the people. The principles, the habits, and the 
 hopes of the original leaders of Christianity, cannot 
 be too distinctly made the habitual knowledge of the 
 people. This is, 
 
 " The sword 
 Of Michael, from the armoury of God, 
 And given him, tempered so, that neither keen 
 Nor solid can resist that edge :" — 
 
 the only weapon that will not break, and that
 
 PREFACE. XI 11 
 
 cannot be wrested from our liands. With this 
 knowledge familiar to the mind, the sophistries of 
 Schism or Superstition will intuitively appear un- 
 natural and frivolous error ; they will be repulsed as 
 the mist is from polished steel, and instead of being 
 received as matter of disquisition, will be shrunk 
 from as matter of astonishment. But the gentleness 
 of the Gospel must accompany its power. 
 
 Let the truth be preached, yet with all avoidance of 
 offence; let all personal exacerbation be shunned; 
 let the preacher limit himself to the Gospel, and, 
 avoiding the hasty provocation of prejudice, or the 
 mixture of human passions with the doctrines of 
 peace, leave the rest to the Great Disposer of the 
 mind ; and Truth will prevail.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. England the Fortress of Christianity - 1 
 
 II. Politics and Projects of Russia - - 17 
 
 III. Providence - Characters of Pitt, Burke, 
 
 AND Nelson . . . . . 43 
 
 IV. Memoir of Louis Philippe, King of the 
 
 French -...-- 53 
 V. England and Europe, — Sketch of Can- 
 ning -------75 
 
 VI. The Church in Ireland - - - 89 
 
 VII. Speech, at the first anniversary of the 
 City of London Conservative Associ- 
 ation, IN 1836 - - - - 108 
 
 VIII. Speech, at the second Anniversary of 
 
 the City of London Association, 1837 120 
 IX. Memoir of Zuinglius, the Swiss Reformer 153 
 X. Character of Curran, and the eloquence 
 
 OF Ireland ----- 204 
 
 XI. Memoir of Luther . - - - 225 
 XII. Speech, at the City of London Conser- 
 vative Meeting, 1840 - - - 310 
 XIII. Character of Napoleon - - - 338
 
 I. 
 
 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OF 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Written in 1828. 
 There is the strongest reason to believe, that as 
 Judaea was chosen for the especial guardianship of 
 the original Revelation ; so was England chosen for 
 the especial guardianship of Christianity. 
 
 The original Revelation declared the one true 
 God ; Paganism was its corruption, by substituting 
 many false gods for the true. The second Revela- 
 tion, Christianity, declared the one true Mediator; 
 Popery was its corruption, by substituting many 
 false mediators for the true. Both Paganism and 
 Popery adopted the same visible sign of corruption, 
 the worship of images ! 
 
 The Jewish history reveals to us the conduct of 
 Providence with a people appointed to the express 
 
 B
 
 2 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 preservation of the fciith of God. There every 
 attempt to receive the surrounding idolatries into a 
 participation of the honours of the true worship, even 
 every idolatrous touch, was visited with punishment ; 
 and that punishment not left to the remote working 
 of the corruption, but immediate ; and, by its direct- 
 ness, evidently designed to make the nation feel the 
 high importance of the trust, and the final ruin that 
 must follow its betrayal. 
 
 A glance at the British history since the Reforma- 
 tion, will show with what undeniable closeness this 
 Providential system has been exemplified in England. 
 Every reign which attempted to bring back Popery, or 
 even to give it that share of power which could in any 
 degree prejudice Protestantism, has been marked by 
 signal calamity. It is a memorable circumstance, that 
 every reign of this Popish tendency has been followed 
 by one purely Protestant : and, as if to make the source 
 of the national peril plain to all eyes, those alternate 
 reigns have not offered a stronger contrast in their 
 religious principles than in their public fortunes. 
 Let the rank of England be what it might under the 
 Protestant Sovereign, it always went down under the 
 Popish. But let its loss of dignity, or of power, be 
 what it might under the Popish Sovereign, it always 
 recovered under the Protestant, and more than reco- 
 vered ; was distinguished by sudden success, public 
 renovation, and some remarkable increase of the 
 freedom or honour of the empire.
 
 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OF CHRTSTIAMTV. 3 
 
 Protestantism was first tiioroughly establislied in 
 England in the reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 Mary had left a dilapidated kingdom ; the nation 
 worn out by disaster and debt ; the national arms 
 disgraced; nothing in vigour but Popery. Elizabeth, 
 at twenty-five, found her first steps surrounded with 
 the most extraordinary embarrassments ; at home, 
 the whole strength of a party, including the chief 
 names of the kingdom, hostile to her succession and 
 religion : in Scotland, a rival title, supported by 
 France ; in Ireland, a perpetual rebellion, inflamed 
 by Rome ; on the Continent, the whole fury of Spain 
 roused against her by the double stimulant of am- 
 bition and bigotry, at a time when Spain commanded 
 almost the whole strength of Europe. 
 
 But the cause of Elizabeth was Protestantism : 
 and in that sign she conquered. She shivered the 
 Spanish sword ; she paralyzed the power of Rome ; 
 she gave freedom to the Dutch ; she fought the 
 battle of the French Protestants ; every e3'e of re- 
 ligious suffering throughout Europe was fixed on this 
 macfnanimous woman. At home, she elevated the 
 habits and the heart of her people. She even drained 
 off the bitter waters of religious feud, and sowed in 
 the vigorous soil, which they had so long made un- 
 wholesome, the seed of every principle and institution 
 that has since grown up into the strength of empire. 
 But her great work was the establishment of Pro- 
 testantism. Like the Jewish king, she found the ark 
 
 R 2
 
 4 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of God without a shelter ; and she built for it the 
 noblest temple in the world ; she consecrated her 
 country into its temple. 
 
 She died in the fulness of years and honour : the 
 great Queen of Protestantism throughout the nations : 
 in the memory of England her name and her reign 
 alike immortal. 
 
 James the First inherited the principles, with the 
 crown, of Ehzabeth. His first act was, to declare 
 his allegiance to Protestantism. From that moment 
 Popery lost all power against him. It tried faction, 
 and failed. It then tried conspiracy, and more than 
 failed. Its conspiracy gave birth to the most memo- 
 rable instance of national preservation, perhaps, in 
 the annals of Europe. The gunpowder plot would 
 have swept away the King, the Royal Family, and the 
 chief Nobles and Commoners of England, at a blow. 
 The secret was kept for a year and a half. It was 
 never betrayed, to the last. It was discovered by 
 neither treachery, nor repentance, and but on the 
 eve of execution. Yet its success must have been 
 national ruin. A popish Government was to have 
 been set up. The country, in its state of distrac- 
 tion and destitution, must have lain exposed to the 
 first invader. The consequences were incalculable. 
 The hand of God alone saved the throne and altar 
 of England. 
 
 Charles the First ascended a prosperous throne ; 
 England in peace, faction feeble or extinct ; the
 
 ENGLAND THE FOKTRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 5 
 
 nation animated by a new spirit of commerce and 
 vigorous adventure. No reign of an English King 
 ever opened a longer or more undisturbed view ot 
 prosperity. But Charles betrayed the sacred trust 
 of Protestantism. He formed a Popish alliance, 
 with the inevitable knowledge that it established a 
 Popish dynasty.* He lent himself to the intrigues of 
 the French Minister, stained with Protestant blood ; 
 for his first armament was a fleet against the Hugue- 
 nots. If not a friend to Popery, he was madly regardless 
 of its hazards to the Church and the Constitution. 
 
 Ill-fortune suddenly gathered round him. Dis- 
 tracted councils, popular feuds met by alternate 
 weakness and violence, the loss of the national respect, 
 finally deepening into civil bloodshed, were the 
 punishments of his neglect of Protestantism. The 
 late discovery of his error, and the solemn repentance 
 of his prison hours, painfully redeemed his memory. 
 
 Cromwell's was the sceptre of a broken kingdom, 
 lie found the fame and force of England crushed ; 
 
 * By the marriage compact with the Infanta, the Royal children were 
 to l)c educated by their mother until they were ten years old. But France, 
 determined on running no risk of their being Protestants, raised the term 
 to thirteen years. Even this was not enough ; Popery was afraid of 
 Protestant milk: and a clause was inserted that — the children should not 
 be suckled by Protestant nurses ! The object of those stipulations was so 
 apparent, that Charles must have looked to a Popish succession ; and the 
 stipulations were so perfectly sufficient for their purpose, that all his sons, 
 even to the last fragment of their line, were Roman Catholics. J)ven the 
 King's Protestantism was doubtful. Olivarez, the Spanish Minister, 
 openly declared that Charles, in treating for his marriage with the Infanta, 
 had pledged himself to turn Roman Catholic.
 
 6 ENGLAND THE FORTRp:SS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 utter humiliation abroad ; at home, the exhaustion 
 of the civil war ; new and arrogant faction, and old, 
 intractable partizanship, tearing the public strength 
 a sunder. 
 
 Cromwell was a murderer: yet, in the high de- 
 signs of Providence, the personal purity of the instru- 
 ment is not always regarded. The Jews were 
 punished for their idolatry by idolaters, and restored 
 by idolators. But, whatever was in the heart of the 
 Protector, the policy of his government was Pro- 
 testantism. His treasures and his arms were openly 
 devoted to the Protestant cause ; in France, in Italy, 
 throughout the world. He was the first who raised 
 a public fund for the relief of the Vaudois 
 Churches. He sternly repelled the advances which 
 Popery made to seduce him into the path of the 
 late King. 
 
 England was instantly lifted on her feet, as by 
 miracle. All her battles were victories; France and 
 Spain bowed before her. All her adventures were 
 conquests; she laid the foundation of her colonial 
 empire : and extended that still more illustrious com- 
 mercial empire, to which the only limits in either 
 space or time may be those of mankind. She rapidly 
 became the most conspicuous power of Europe ; 
 growing year by year in opulence, public knowledge, 
 and foreign renown : until Cromwell could almost 
 realize the splendid improbability, that, ' before he 
 died, he would make the name of an Englishman as
 
 ENGLAND THK KORTKESS OK CHRISTIANITY. 7 
 
 much feared and honoured as ever was that of an 
 ancient Roman.' 
 
 Charles the Second ascended an eminently pros- 
 perous throne. Abroad it held the foremost rank, 
 the fruit of the vigour of the Protectorate. At home, 
 all faction had been forgotten in the general joy of 
 the Restoration. 
 
 But Charles was a concealed Roman Catholic* 
 He attempted to introduce his religion ; the star of 
 England instantly darkened ; the country and the 
 king alike became the scorn of the foreign courts ; 
 the royal honour was scandalized by mercenary sub- 
 serviency to France ; the national arms were humi- 
 liated by a disastrous war with Holland ; the capital 
 was swept by the memorable inflictions of pestilence 
 and conflagration ! 
 
 James the Second still more openly violated the 
 national trust. He publicly became a Roman Catho- 
 lic. This filled the cup. The Stuarts were cast out, 
 they and their dynasty for ever ; that proud line of 
 kings was sentenced to wither down into a monk; and 
 that monk living on the alms of England, a stipend- 
 iary and an exile. 
 
 William was called to the throne by Protestant- 
 ism. He found it, as it was always found at the close 
 of a popish reign, surrounded by a host of difliculties ; 
 at home, the kingdom in u ferniont ; Popery, and its 
 
 * He had solemnly profcsbed Popery mi tiie eve ol the RestoratioiL
 
 8 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ally Jacobitism, girding themselves for battle ; fierce 
 disturbance in Scotland ; open war in Ireland, with 
 the late king at its head; abroad the French king 
 domineering over Europe, and threatening invasion. 
 In the scale of nations, England nothing ! 
 
 But the principle of William's government was 
 Protestantism ; he fought and legislated for it through 
 life ; and it was to him, as it had been to all before 
 him, strength and victory. He silenced Enghsh fac- 
 tion ; he crushed the Irish war ; he next attacked the 
 colossal strength of France on its own shore. This 
 was the direct collision, not so much of the two king- 
 doms, as of the two faiths ; the Protestant champion 
 stood in the field against the Popish persecutor. 
 Before that war closed, the fame of Louis was undone, 
 and England rose to the highest military name. In 
 a train of immortal victories, she defended Protest- 
 antism throughout Europe, drove the enemy to his 
 palace-gates, and, before she sheathed the sword, 
 broke the power of France for a hundred years. 
 
 The Brunswick line were called to the throne by 
 Protestantism. Their faith was their title. They 
 were honourable men, and they kept their oaths to 
 the religion of England. The country rose under 
 each of those Protestant kings to a still higher rank ; 
 every trivial reverse compensated by some magnifi- 
 cent addition of honour and power, until the throne 
 of England stood on a height from which it looked 
 down upon the world !
 
 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OK CIIRISTIANITV. 9 
 
 Yet, in our immediate memory, there was one 
 remarkable interruption of that progress ; which, if 
 the most total contrast to the periods preceding and 
 following can amount to proof, proves that every 
 introduction of Popery into the Legislature will be 
 visited as a national crime. 
 
 During the war with the French Republic, England 
 had gone on from triumph to triumph. The crimes 
 of the popish continent had delivered it over to be 
 scourged by France ; but the war of England was 
 naval: and in 1805, she consummated that war by 
 the greatest victory ever gained on the seas ; * at one 
 blow she extinguished the navies of France and 
 Spain ! The death of her great Statesman at length 
 opened the door to a new administration. f They 
 were men of acknowledged ability, some, of the 
 highest ; and all accustomed to public affairs. But 
 they came in under a pledge to the introduction of 
 popery, sooner or later, into the legislature. They 
 were emphatically ' The Roman Catholic Adminis- 
 tration.' 
 
 There never was in the memory of man so sudden 
 a change from triumph to disaster. Disgrace canie upon 
 them in every shape in which it could assail a govern- 
 ment ; in war, finance, and negotiation. All their 
 expeditions returned with shame. The British arms 
 were tarnished in the four quarters of the globe. J 
 
 * Trafalgar, Oct. 1805. t February, 1806. 
 
 * The retreat from Sweden, 18(17. — Egypt invaded and evacuated, 1807.
 
 10 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OF CIIRISTIANTITY. 
 
 And, as if to make the shame more conspicuous, they 
 were baffled even in that service, to which the national 
 feeling was most keenly alive ; and in which defeat 
 seemed impossible. England saw, with astonishment, 
 \\ev fleet disgraced before a barbarian without a ship 
 on the waters, and finally hunted out of his seas by 
 the fire from batteries crumbling under the discharge 
 of their own cannon. Those disasters did not amount 
 to National Calamity, but they were indicative. 
 They showed, that the tide had turned. 
 
 But the fair fame of the British empire was not to 
 be thus cheaply wasted away. The ministry must 
 perish ; already condemned by the voice of the 
 country, it was now to be its own executioner. It at 
 length made its promised attempt upon the constitu- 
 tion. A harmless measure * was proposed ; noto- 
 riously but a cover for the deeper insults that were 
 to follow. It was met with manly repulse ; and, in 
 the midst of public indignation, perished the popisl 
 ministry of one month and one year, f 
 
 Its successors came in on the express title of resist- 
 
 — AVhitclock sent out to Buenos Ayres, 1807. — Duckworth's repulse at 
 Constantinople, 1807. All those operations had originated in 1806, 
 excepting W'hitelock's, which was the final act of the ministry. 
 
 * The granting of commissions in the army. Mr. Perceval opposed 
 this, as only a pretext -, he said, ' It was not so much the individua 
 measure, to which he objected, as the system of which it formed a part, 
 and which was growing every day. From the arguments that he had 
 heard, a man might be almost led to suppose, that one religion was con- 
 sidered as good as anothor, and that the Reformation was only a measure 
 of political convenience.' 
 
 t March, 1807. 
 
 1
 
 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS Ol' CHRISTIANITY. 11 
 
 ance to popery ; they were emphatically ' The Pro- 
 testant Administration.' They had scarcely entered 
 on office, when the whole scene of disaster brightened; 
 and the deliverance of Europe was begun, with a 
 vigour that never relaxed, a combination of unex- 
 pected means and circumstances, an effective and 
 rapid renown ; of which, the very conjecture, but a 
 month before, would have been laughed at as a dream. 
 The scene, and the success, were equally extraordinary. 
 
 Of all countries, Spain, sluggish, accustomed to the 
 yoke of France, and with all its old energies melted 
 away in the vices of its government, was the last to 
 to which Europe could have looked for defiance of 
 the universal conqueror. But, if ever the battle was 
 fought by the shepherd's staff and sling against the 
 armed giant, it was then. England was now palpably 
 summoned to begin a new career of triumph. Irre- 
 sistible on one element, she was now to be led step by 
 step to the first place of glory on another ; and that 
 Protestant ministry saw, what no human foresight 
 could have hoped to see, Europe restored ; the mo- 
 narch of hermonarchs a prisoner in its hands; and 
 the mighty fabric of the French atheistic empire, so 
 long darkening and distending, like an endless dun- 
 geon, over the earth, suddenly scattered with all its 
 malignant pomps and ministers of evil into air. 
 
 It is impossible, to conceive that this regular inter- 
 change of punishment and preservation can liave been 
 without a cause, and without a purpose. Through
 
 l!2 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 almost three hundred years, through all varieties of 
 public circumstance, all changes of men, all shades 
 of general polity, we see one thing alone unchanged — 
 the regular connexion of national misfortune with 
 the introduction of popish influence, and of national 
 triumph with its exclusion. 
 
 Those remarks were originally published on the 
 eve of the year 1829. The Bill of that calamitous 
 year replaced the Roman Catholic in the ParHament, 
 from which he had been expelled a century before, 
 by the united necessities of religion, freedom, and 
 national safety. The whole experience of our Pro- 
 testant history had pronounced that evil must fol- 
 low. And it has followed. 
 
 From that hour all has been clouded. British 
 legislation has lost its stability. England has lost 
 alike her pre-eminence abroad, and her confidence at 
 home. Every great institution of the State has 
 tottered. Her Governments have arisen, and passed 
 away, like shadows. The Church in Ireland, bound 
 hand and foot, has been flung into the furnace, and 
 is disappearing from the eye. The Church in Eng- 
 land is haughtily threatened with her share of the 
 fiery trial. Every remonstrance of the nation is 
 insolently answered by pointing to rebellion, ready 
 to seize its arms in Ireland. Democracy is openly 
 proclaimed as a principle of the State. Popery is 
 triumphantly predicted as the universal religion. To
 
 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 13 
 
 guide and embody all ; a new shape of power has 
 started up in the Legislature ; — a new element at 
 once of control and confusion; a central faction, 
 which has both sides at its mercy ; holding the 
 country in contempt, while it fixes its heel on Cabi- 
 nets trembling for existence ; possessing all the in- 
 fluence of office without its responsibility ; and 
 engrossing unlimited patronage for the purposes of 
 unlimited domination. Yet these may be " but the 
 beginning of sorrows." 
 
 But, if England shall give way to Popery, she 
 sins against the most solemn warnings of Scripture : 
 We have the apostolic declaration, — " Let no man 
 deceive you by any means ; for that day shall not come, 
 except there come a falling away first, and that man of 
 SIN be revealed, the son of perdition ; — who opposeth 
 and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or 
 that is worshipped ; so that he, as God, sitteth in the 
 temple of God, showing himself that he is God. * 
 * * * And then, shall that Wicked one be 
 revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the 
 Spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the 
 brightness of his coming : even him, whose coming is 
 after the working of Satan, with all power, and 
 signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness 
 of unrighteousness in them that perish ; because 
 they received not the love of the truth, that they 
 might be saved." (2 Thess. ii.) This gives the por- 
 traiture of the great deluder of the European world
 
 14 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 in his external and imposing aspect. Another por- 
 traiture displays his internal evil : — 
 
 " Now, the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the 
 latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving 
 heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils. 
 Speaking lies in hypocrisy ; having their conscience 
 seared with a hot iron : forbidding to marry, and 
 commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath 
 created to be received with thanksgiving, of them 
 which believe and know the truth." Ending with 
 the solemn injunction to all teachers of Christianity, 
 " If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these 
 things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, 
 nourished up in the words of faith and of good 
 doctrine." (1 Tim. iv. 1.) 
 
 Finally, we have the denunciation of the prophet, 
 declaring the Divine judgments : — 
 
 " And I saw another angel come down from hea- 
 ven, having great power ; and the earth was lightened 
 with his glory. And he cried mightily, with a strong 
 voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, 
 and is become the habitation of devils ; the hold of 
 every foul spirit. And I heard another voice from 
 heaven, saying, Co7ne out of her, my people, that ye 
 he not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not 
 of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto 
 heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities." 
 (Rev. xviii.) 
 
 This language is not used to give offence to the
 
 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. l."* 
 
 Roman Catholic. His religion is reprobated, because 
 it is his undoing ; the veil that darkens his under- 
 standing ; the tyranny that chains his natural liberty 
 of choice; the fatal corruption of Christianity, that 
 shuts the Scriptures upon him, forces him away from 
 the worship of that Being, who is to be worshipped 
 alone in spirit and in truth ; and prostrates him at 
 the feet of priests and images of the Virgin, and the 
 whole host of false and unscriptural mediatorship. 
 But, for himself there can be but one feeling ; — a 
 feeling of the deepest anxiety, that he should 
 search the Scriptures ; and, coming to that search 
 without insolent self-will, or sullen prejudice, or the 
 haughty and negligent levity to which their wisdom 
 will never be disclosed, he should compare the gospel 
 of God with the doctrines of Rome. 
 
 But, whatever may be the lot of those to whom 
 error has been an inheritance, woe be to the man and 
 the people to whom it is an adoption. If England, 
 free above all other nations, sustained amidst the 
 trials which have covered Europe before her eyes 
 with burning and slaughter, and enlightened by the 
 fullest knowledge of Divine truth, shall refuse fidelity 
 to the compact by which those matchless privileges 
 have been given, her condenmation will not linger. 
 She has already made one step full of danger. She 
 has committed the capital error, of mistaking that for 
 a purely political question, which was a purely re- 
 ligious one. Her foot ah-eady hangs over the edge
 
 16 ENGLAND THE FORTRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of the precipice. It must be retracted, or her empire 
 is but a name. In the clouds and darkness which 
 seem to be deepening upon all human policy ; in the 
 gathering tumults of Europe, and the feverish dis- 
 contents at home, it may even be difficult to discern 
 where the power yet lives to erect the fallen majesty 
 of the Constitution once more. But there are 
 mighty means in sincerity. And, if no miracle was 
 ever wrought for the faithless and despairing ; the 
 country that will help itself — the generous, the 
 high-hearted, and the pure, will never be left desti- 
 tute of the help of heaven.
 
 II. 
 
 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 Written in 1829. 
 All the great convulsions of empire are moral thun- 
 derstorms. They arise from the bosom of the soil, 
 yet seem to come from sources beyond man ; they 
 fall with fearful violence upon the chosen spot of 
 devastation, but they clear the atmosphere for all 
 the rest ; they gather gloomily and long, but once in 
 motion, they move rapidly, and with irresistible 
 force, until their work is done. 
 
 When we shall have attained a more perfect 
 knowledge of the ways of providence, we shall per- 
 haps find that there are laws for these convulsions, 
 as there are for the fires and roarings of the storm. 
 They may even be periodical, though we have not 
 yet discovered their cycle. But no nation, at once 
 poor and virtuous, has ever undergone them. It is 
 power in the state, and opulence in the people, per- 
 verted into rapine in the one, and corruption in the 
 other, which make them dangerous to the earth. The 
 moral electricity accumulates, and must be dis- 
 
 c
 
 18 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 charged ; the elements are shaken, the bolt falls, 
 and the balance is restored. 
 
 The condition of the Ottoman empire has fixed 
 the eyes of Europe for the last hundred years. It 
 has frequently exhibited a feebleness which seemed 
 the immediate signal of ruin, and it has sometimes 
 developed a sudden strength which still more per- 
 plexed all speculation. Yet the process of decay 
 was regular. What were those sudden bursts, but 
 the struggles of the tiger, biting the spear which he 
 could not extract from his side. Mahmoud made 
 bold efforts for the national restoration, but his 
 vigour only hastened the catastrophe. Every step 
 which he took to raise his country, but brought it 
 nearer to the edge of that precipice on which it now 
 hangs. If Mahmoud should live long, he will be the 
 last of the sultans ; if he should die early, he will 
 only transfer that disastrous distinction to his son. 
 The independence of the Porte cannot survive the 
 next quarter of a century. There may still be an 
 Ottoman throne, for the jealousy of the great Euro- 
 pean powers will not easily suffer it to be absorbed 
 by any one of them ; but the throne will be that of 
 a viceroy, the sovereignty will be only a vassalage, 
 and even its existence will continue only until they 
 grow weary of watching each other, or turn their 
 mutual surveillance into a confederacy of general 
 plunder. But in this contest there will be two powers, 
 whose objects it will be impossible to reconcile.
 
 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. IJ) 
 
 Russia, vvhicli is too near, too powerful, and too 
 grasping, to relinquish the lion's share ; and England, 
 which is too high-principled to take any part in 
 spoil. Yet, whatever may be the struggle of Europe, 
 that of Turkey is at an end. The fate of the Sultan 
 is inevitable : he must go down ; the ruin of his 
 empire is as palpable, as if it were written on his 
 turban. 
 
 The grand question with mankind now is, what 
 result is to follow from this sudden and tremendous 
 shock to the pacific system of Europe ? The ques- 
 tion is vital to England in her domestic interests ; 
 for, by bringing Russia into the rank of a great 
 naval power, it brings her into direct contest with us 
 as rulers of the seas ; and it is no less essential in her 
 continental interests, for it threatens the overthrow 
 of that system, whose protectorship has been the 
 glory and the security of England. 
 
 The facts of Turkish ruin are unanswerable. The 
 sultan has found himself unable to resist the occupa- 
 tion of his territory, up to the gates of his capital. 
 He has saved that capital only by the entreaty of the 
 foreign ambassadors. He has not been able to send 
 cut a single soldier, since the passage of the Balkan, 
 to save his provinces from plunder. He has not been 
 able to defend himself from even his own disbanded 
 troops, and has been on the point of soliciting the aid 
 of his enemy, to keep the peace of Constantinople ! 
 He has not been able to make his soldiers take the 
 
 c 2
 
 20 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 field, nor to restrain them from keeping it at their 
 will, nor his pachas from scoffing at his surrender, and 
 from warring on their own account. The retreat of 
 the enemy has been as little influenced by the sultan 
 as their advance was impeded by his activity. And, it 
 is to be remembered, that this extraordinary torpor 
 cannot have proceeded from the personal character of 
 Mahmoud. His previous career was eminent for 
 that unexpected superiority to his age and country, 
 which made him eager to adopt the inventions of 
 European science and war. He was the most Euro- 
 pean of all Turks ; vigorous, sagacious, and unpre- 
 judiced ; Turkey had not seen such a sovereign for 
 a hundred years. 
 
 The true reasoning from those unquestionable 
 facts, is, not that Mahmoud had suddenly changed 
 his character, but that his means had sunk away ; 
 that the ground broke down under his feet, that the 
 whole fabric of Turkish power has for years stood 
 upon a vault, and that the first rush of a hostile force 
 beyond the mountains burst it in. The empire fell less 
 by the casualty of war, than by the course of nature. 
 To the Christian there is a loftier view than the 
 sepulchre of this fierce sovereignty ; he sees in the 
 wavings of the sword that laid it there, the uncon- 
 scious instrument of a power, which it is guilt lightly 
 to name, but which may be, at this crisis, commenc- 
 ing that superb and terrible course of mingled mercy 
 and retribution, which will yet lay a world in ruin.
 
 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 21 
 
 to raise it to a splendour beyond the imagination 
 of man. 
 
 But no part of providential wisdom precludes the 
 exercise of human means. The first public duty is, 
 to follow the light of our understandings ; and the 
 first dictate of those understandings is, to summon 
 the whole strength of our country to a vigorous, 
 determined, and principled repulsion of the general 
 enemy of Europe. 
 
 The sultan is virtually no more. The Ottoman 
 empire is practically cast out of its place as an Euro- 
 pean kingdom. The whole strength of Europe 
 could not raise it on its feet again. If it be suffered 
 to exist for a few years longer, they must be years 
 of helplessness, sustained only by the nursing of the 
 European cabinets. The breath of life is no more 
 in those fiery nostrils, that once blasted the conti- 
 nent. The corpse lies there : it may lie in state, but 
 it is beyond all the unguents of the earth ; it must 
 henceforth dissolve into its original dust and air. 
 
 Russia is paramount, and the continental powers 
 must prepare for desperate resistance, or abject sub- 
 mission. There is no alternative. Russia must be 
 extinguished, or must extend. As well might we 
 stop the fall of the lava, when it has once mounted 
 to the summit of the volcano ; it must rush on, by the 
 law of its creation, turning all the material ovey 
 which it rolls into the fuel of its flame. Every 
 nation which stoops to the will of the Russian cabinet
 
 22 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 must become a slave. And the first service de- 
 manded of it will be, to spend its blood in making 
 slaves of the surrounding nations. 
 
 By the treaty of Adrianople, Russia is in posses- 
 sion of the Euxine. There never was a gift more 
 comprehensive of empire. With the Euxine in 
 his power, it is no matter to the Czar under what 
 name Constantinople may be governed. The city is 
 his ; the monarch is his minister ; the people are his 
 people ; for he can at his will, burn down the Sera- 
 glio, cashier the sovereign, and exile the people. If it 
 be his will, he can even build a city on the Asiatic side 
 of the Bosphorus, which favoured by his patronage, 
 and sustained by his commerce, would drain away 
 every piastre from its European rival, and leave Con- 
 stantinople a ruin, within twenty years. 
 
 The possession of the Euxine was the only thing 
 wanting to make Russia one of the Mediterranean 
 powers ; and we all see how directly that extraordi- 
 nary possession gives her the means of being the 
 first of the Mediterranean powers. On this subject the 
 map might be enough ; but we shall give professional 
 authority. Captain Jones, R.N., in his late Russian 
 tour, thus speaks of the capabilities of the Euxine : 
 * Russia would have here a most excellent nursery 
 for seamen, as every necessary article for building 
 and rigging ships would soon spontaneously flow to 
 the banks of the great rivers, as well as to their 
 common port — the Liman.
 
 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 23 
 
 ' In point of fact, has not the practicabiUt)' of 
 this on the largest scale been already proved, by 
 the erection on the Black Sea of a military marine, 
 comprising ships of one hundred and ten guns, which 
 when brought to their lightest draught of water, will 
 swim deeper than the heaviest merchantmen ? 
 
 * Those ships of war, though brought down on 
 camels (wooden floats) from Cherson, Nicholief, &c., 
 as low as Kilbourin, have at the latter place been 
 always fitted for sea ; so that it is absurd to talk, as 
 is now commonly done, of those shoals forming an 
 insuperable objection to the Liman being applied to 
 the purposes of commerce. For, on the contrary, 
 the Liman presents ten times the advantages to 
 Russia, that the Lagunes of Venice ever did to that 
 commercial and haughty republic. In short, with- 
 out going into detail, were the commercial properties 
 of the Liman and its rivers properly understood, I 
 cannot see where the mercantile prosperity and en- 
 terprise of Russia need stop. 
 
 * Not only might she enjoy a most profitable trade 
 on the Black Sea, on that of Azof, and the Medi- 
 terranean ; but extend her commerce to every part of 
 the globe ! Instead of the sands at the mouth of the 
 Dnieper, and the reported dangerous navigation of 
 the Black Sea, proving obstacles, they would form 
 the best possible school for making hardy and ex- 
 perienced seamen, similar to our north-country sailors, 
 who arc acknowledged to be the best in the world,
 
 24 POLITICS AND PROJFX'TS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 because most of the ports are rendered difficult to 
 approach on account of bars and shoals, and the 
 whole navigation to London is one of the most dan- 
 gerous and difficult in existence, and consequently 
 calls forth all the energy and enterprise of which man 
 is capable. 
 
 * So that, in time, a numerous and hardy race of 
 seamen would be formed, merely by the trade on the 
 Black Sea and that of Azof* Those two seas present 
 an amazing extent of coast, when it is considered 
 that the former is 600 miles in length, and 330 broad 
 in the widest part, and 142 in the narrowest, while 
 the latter is 186 miles in length, and 90 in breadth. 
 
 * Both possess that which renders them an invalu- 
 able nursery for good seamen, namely, every des- 
 cription of coast, depth of water, and variety of 
 currents. It has been well observed, that the country 
 which possesses the greatest line of coast must ever 
 prove superior in point of seamen. Now, including 
 the 786 miles, the length of the Black Sea and that 
 of Azof, it must be remembered that the extent of 
 coast, without regarding sinuosities, is, at least, 1,600 
 miles. 
 
 * No other nation would ever be able to coynpete 
 with them, on account of the easy rate at which the 
 Russians could build, fit, and sail, their vessels ; the 
 empire producing, within itself, every necessary ar- 
 ticle for both building and equipping, at an extraor- 
 dinarily low price, and in the greatest abundance ;
 
 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 25 
 
 while the natives are accustomed to live on the hardest 
 fare. But should they become refined, still all or- 
 dinary provisions are extremely reasonable ; and tliere 
 is little doubt that Russian ships could be built and 
 navigated at nearly half the expense of any other 
 nation, particularly in the Black Sea. 
 
 * Indeed, when I survey the maritime resources of 
 this great empire, I cannot persuade myself that 
 Russia is not destined to become a great naval and 
 commercial power. However, from the existing 
 prejudices on the part of the natives to anything 
 connected with the sea, there cannot be a doubt that 
 much time will elapse before such a material change 
 can be produced in their habits, as to verify my pre- 
 diction. But, should the present or a future sovereign 
 be duly impressed with the importance of the sub- 
 ject, it is impossible to say hoivsooyi such an alteration 
 might be effected, particularly when we consider the 
 acknowledged docility of temper which all the common 
 natives possess.' 
 
 We are to recollect that this intelligent observer's 
 opinion was given before the Turkish war ; that the 
 weight of the Russian power is now directed to the 
 Mediterranean ; that a navy in the Black Sea is the 
 essential instrument of success ; and that the Sea of 
 Marmora may soon be only a place of exercise for the 
 fleets pouring from the great Russian dock-yard of 
 the Black Sea. 
 
 What has Russia actually gained in territory ? The
 
 26 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia are, at this 
 hour, in possession of her troops, raising forces to 
 be incorporated with those troops, paying their reve- 
 nues into the hands of her officers, and under a direct 
 process of separation from every former Turkish in- 
 terest by the ejection of every Turkish inhabitant 
 within the eighteen months to come. Nothing can 
 be more complete than this possession. The future 
 appointment of hospodars, will be merely the ap- 
 pointment of Russian viceroys. The two provinces 
 are larger than the whole of England ! 
 
 But their value is not to be measured even by their 
 size. The soil, neglected as it has been by the Turks, 
 is among the most fertile in the world. The popula- 
 tion, reduced to less than a million, is capable of 
 being raised to ten millions ! The mountains contain 
 mines of great value. It would be ridiculous to sup- 
 pose that those countries will ever be restored to more 
 than a nominal independence. We have no security 
 that even this nominal independence will not be 
 rapidly merged in declared sovereignty. The Crimea, 
 a few years ago, was suffered to boast of this nominal 
 independence, but its boasting was brief ; the Khan 
 was stripped of his sceptre, and glad to lay his calpac 
 at the feet of Catherine. The Tartars of the Kuban 
 were indulged with the same boast, and found it 
 equally short-lived. The treaty of Kainardgi, in 1734, 
 declared them unequivocally free, unanswerable to 
 any foreign power, and to be governed only by their
 
 rOLlTICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 27 
 
 hereditary chieftains of the race of Gengis. Their 
 freedom was scarcely conceded, when it was swept 
 away at a stroke of the pen. Those provinces will be 
 integral possessions of Russia, when she pleases, and 
 strong holds for her ambition in whatever line it may 
 spread through western Europe. For operations 
 against the weakest part of the Austrian empire they 
 form an incomparable base ; and they do more — they 
 command the Danube ; and, by the Danube, com- 
 mand a passage through the heart of Europe, whether 
 for trade or conquest, from Ratisbon to Constanti- 
 nople. 
 
 The mind grows exhausted and the hand weaiy in 
 following the stupendous extent of power which 
 Russia has already within her grasp, and the still 
 more stupendous extent which lies before her vision. 
 Her march into Asia Minor has given her a fixture 
 there which no retreat of her troops will nullify. 
 She already feels the boundless value of the acquisi- 
 tion, and is craftily negociating for the possession of 
 Trebizond. If she withdraw her demand now, she 
 will not be the less sure to gain her point in another 
 direction ; and her point is, the complete command 
 of the southern shore of the Black Sea, and with it 
 the complete command of a new route for the com- 
 merce of India and China with Europe. Erzeroum, 
 which is in Russian hands, de facto, and which will 
 soon follow the fate of Bucharest, has been for a long 
 period the centre of the principal traffic of northern
 
 28 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 Persia, the cities of the Caucasus, and Arabia, with 
 Constantinople. The Indian traffic of Russia has 
 hitherto been trifling, from the dangers of the desert, 
 and from the distance and expense of land-carriage. 
 But the possession of Trebizond, even without that 
 of Erzeroum, which, however, must be a dependent 
 on the former : inRussian hands, would instantly lay 
 open a route from India, requiring but the trivial 
 land-carriage of 400 miles ; from Moosul on the 
 Tigris, to Erzeroum, being but 250 miles, and from 
 Erzeroum to Trebizond being but 150. In a com- 
 mercial point of view, those positions would be of an 
 importance totally beyond calculation. They would 
 be, in fact, the keys to the whole trade of India 
 with Europe ; in other words, the keys to the wealth 
 of the world. But they would also be the keys to 
 the territorial possession of the finest regions of the 
 world — western and central Asia. A military esta- 
 blishment touching with its flanks the Tigris at 
 Moosul, and the Euxine at Trebizond, and sustained 
 by the supplies so easily furnished by the Russian 
 possession of the Euxine, would be irresistible by any 
 force from the Caucasus to the Himmaleh ; Persia, 
 Caubul, and the Affghaun territory, would be as 
 easy a prey as Georgia ; and the true spirit in which 
 Russia must be viewed, is that of a power essentially 
 military, and if adopting commerce with extraordi- 
 nary avidity, yet adopting it only as a means of 
 conquest.
 
 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 29 
 
 The founder of this measureless empire saw that, 
 without a fleet, his conquest must be limited to the 
 north, and that centuries might pass before Russia 
 became European. He instantly made the grand 
 experiment of a navy. He had but one sea, the 
 Baltic. His ports were shallow, hazardous, and what 
 was still more disheartening, a mass of ice for six 
 months in the year. But his nature was the 
 true one for erecting such an empire. It was alike 
 remarkable for daring enthusiasm and indefatigable 
 obstinacy. He fixed on a spot in the north of his 
 dominions, where the climate and the ground seemed 
 equally to forbid the habitation of man. But he 
 persevered. He turned the course of rivers — he 
 drove piles into the mighty swamp — he hewed down 
 forests — he tore up rocks — and on heaps of treasure 
 that might have purchased a new kingdom, and the 
 more fearful expenditure of a mass of human life that 
 might have won it by arms, he founded his new 
 capital of the world ! 
 
 The price was enormous, and it could have been 
 contemplated by no other mind than the remorseless 
 and barbarian grandeur of Peter's. But it laid the 
 foundation of an empire, which already exceeds, in 
 magnitude, all that the earth has ever seen of domin- 
 ion. The Roman empire, in its most palmy time, 
 the days of Trajan, extended but 3000 miles from east 
 to west, and 2000 from north to south. The Rus- 
 sian, at this hour of its comparative infancy, extends
 
 30 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 5,000 miles from east to west, and 3000 from north 
 to south. The Roman was the growth of eight 
 centuries, the Russian of one. If a vast portion of 
 its Asiatic territory is wildernesSj even this is all 
 capable of supporting life, and is interspersed with 
 tracts of great fertility, is intersected with chains of 
 metallic mountains, and is filled with rivers teeming 
 with human food, and capable of forming the finest 
 inland navigation in the world. 
 
 But central Russia contains a dense population, in 
 provinces productive of corn, wine, and oil. By the 
 seizure of the Crimea and of Poland, they have found 
 a permanent outlet for their products ; and they are 
 rapidly growing in opulence, productiveness and po- 
 pulation. The union of the Hospodariates with 
 Russia will more than double their value, by extend- 
 ing their outlets. And the Hospodariates will in- 
 fallibly be united to Russia, at the first moment that 
 she may think herself secure in the feebleness or the 
 corruption of the great countervailing kingdoms of 
 Europe. It will be no more than the continuance 
 of that policy, by which she has drawn, one by one, 
 into her vortex, every " independent" territory 
 subjected to her treacherous alliance : Georgia, Cour- 
 land, the Crimea, the Ukraine, and Poland. 
 
 The* Indian trade has been, in all ages, but another 
 name for the most sudden and extraordinary accumu- 
 lation of wealth in every nation which, by turns, 
 possessed its monopoly. Venice, Genoa, Lisbon,
 
 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 31 
 
 and Amsterdam, were only the successors of Bagdad, 
 Constantinople, Aleppo, and Alexandria, in gains 
 which, for the time, placed them at the head of com- 
 mercial cities. England alone has not derived from 
 India that opulence which the "golden Peninsula" 
 had always poured into the lap of the favoured na- 
 tion. But the reason is obvious. Dominion with us, 
 had superseded trade. We have expended, and nobly, 
 on our magnificent crown of India, the gold that we 
 might have carried away in tribute to our commercial 
 mastery. But, to Russia, the Indian trade would 
 be clear gain ; there would be no laborious and ex- 
 pensive voyage of 16,000 miles, liable to all the 
 chances of the ocean. The whole route from Surat 
 to the mouth of the Danube would be but 3000 
 miles, of which 2600 would be on the smooth Indian 
 seas, up the Persian Gulf and the Tigris ; a mere 
 canal carriage, with only the narrow interval between 
 the Tigris and the Euxine requiring land convey- 
 ance. The whole of the great northern route between 
 China, Japan, Upper Tartary, and Europe, must be 
 in possession of that power which is in possession of 
 the Volga and the Don. The European merchant, too, 
 will not look upon those extraordinary facilities with 
 indifference. He will either transfer his capital to 
 Russia, or connect himself with her trade. The dis- 
 tance between the Danube and the Rhine is nothing. 
 A canal might be cut in a year, that would join them. 
 The surveys for this canal have been already laid
 
 32 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 down. The project has been already stated among 
 the monied men of Europe. The expense is esti- 
 mated at httle more than half a million. And this 
 canal would give a direct and unbroken line of water 
 carriage from the tower of London to the gate of the 
 Seraglio. 
 
 For the general good of mankind, we should re- 
 joice in such a facility. But the first benefit, and 
 immeasurably the greatest, would be gained by 
 Russia ; and by Russia only for the power of more 
 extended subjugation. The man shuts his eyes on 
 history, and is neither politician nor patriot, who will 
 not see that the whole spirit of the court of St. 
 Petersburg has at all times been territorial aggrandise- 
 ment ; and that whether with a smiling face, and a 
 lip teeming with self-denial and moderation ; or with 
 the sword in her hand, and her lip pouring out hatred 
 and fury, she has incessantly urged her claims to 
 universal sovereignty. She has had " More, more," 
 graven upon her iron heart, and at this hour she 
 is prompted to broader and more reckless seizures, 
 by the success of her arms, the weakness of her oppo- 
 nents, the force of her position, and ths superstitions 
 of her people. There is something like an inevit- 
 able necessity of going forward, imposed upon her, 
 alike by her remaining barbarism, and her rapidly 
 acquired knowledge of the arts and the artifices of 
 civilized life. With Asiatic multitudes, and European 
 tactics moulding the wild and death-devoted myriads
 
 POLITICS AND PROJFX'TS OF lU'SSIA. 33 
 
 of a Gengiskhan, by the military system of a Na- 
 poleon ; with the still more singular mixture of the 
 deep submission of the Asiatic slave, and the fierce 
 freedom of the Tartar; foreign war, lavish of blood, 
 and perpetual in its thirst of conquest, seems scarce- 
 ly so much the vice of her government, as the tenure 
 of its existence. Let the Czar sheathe his sword 
 to-morrow, and the humane folly will find its reward 
 in the dagger. Let Russia stop in her career of 
 aggrandizement, and she will be plunged into instant 
 convulsion — the great tide which had been going 
 smoothly along, gradually covering kingdom after 
 kingdom, will be checked only to break and swell 
 into billows. The popular spirit would disdain the 
 pacific throne — the wild appanages to the sceptre 
 would forget their allegiance, when she laid up the 
 sword in the repositories of the state. The whole 
 new and frowning vassalage that even now bites its 
 chains, would feel them lifted from its neck, only to 
 beat them into the falchion and the spearhead again. 
 Let Russia disband her army, and abjure ambition ; 
 and from that hour she has parted with the living 
 principle of her fearful and unnatural supremacy : 
 the talisman is shattered in pieces, and her empire is 
 a dream. 
 
 But if Russia is to be resisted ; the question arises, 
 by whom ? Is England to be the sole antagonist, or 
 is there any capacity in the European powers, to forge 
 a chain strong enough to bind down her ambition? 
 
 I)
 
 34 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 The natural expedient is, of course, the latter. It is 
 scarcely to be doubted, that a combination of the great 
 European powers would be still able to constrain 
 Russia, as it tore down Napoleon. The ill success 
 of the early coalitions of the French war arose alone 
 from their imperfect combination, and their imperfect 
 combination from the criminal corruption of their 
 ministers, and the weak jealousy of their sovereigns. 
 
 It is remarkable, that Austria and Prussia never 
 combined but twice during the whole revolutionary 
 war. Once, at its commencement, under the Duke 
 of Brunswick, a combination distinguished for its 
 feebleness, and dissolved in a single campaign, pro- 
 bably by the French crown jewels ; and once at the 
 close, when, formed under more vigorous guidance, 
 and inspired with the necessity of extinguishing Na- 
 poleon, the new powers fought side by side, and, 
 with England in their van, trampled his unrighteous 
 and homicidal diadem into dust. 
 
 But the change of times has created formidable 
 changes in the constitution of Europe. Austria is 
 the first barrier. But of all the great powers, Aus- 
 tria is at once the weakest, and the most likely to fall 
 under Russian temptation. The partition of Poland 
 was an act, whose impolicy, in the Austrian view, 
 was as palpable, as its guilt was notorious. It loaded 
 Austria alike with a share in that guilty responsibility, 
 and brought her frontier into direct exposure to 
 Russia.
 
 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OP RUSSIA. 35 
 
 And yet the bribe for this heinous act, in which 
 crime and folly struggled for the mastery, was only 
 the wretched province of Gallicia. How are we to 
 be secure, that some equally wretched province of 
 Servia will not equally tempt the Austrian passion 
 for lording it over deserts? and that Prince Metter- 
 nich will not congratulate himself on the ultra-diplo- 
 matic dexterity, by which he thus, at once, averts a 
 Russian war, secures an additional territory, and 
 keeps himself in power ? 
 
 The tardiness of Austria is proverbial. Her ter- 
 ritory is an immense expanse of states thinly peopled ; 
 one half of them scarcely above barbarism ; and the 
 great majority either in direct discontent, as the 
 Hungarian provinces, or utterly careless who their 
 master may be ; as Croatia, Transylvania, and the 
 whole range of her south-eastern dominions. Italy, 
 her chief boast, is her first peril. The Italians, a 
 contemptible and vicious people, deserve the chain, 
 and will always be slaves, while society among them 
 continues the idle and profligate thing it is. This 
 great European haunt of the most grovelling super- 
 stition, and the most open licentiousness, its natural 
 and unfailing offspring — must be under the govern- 
 ment of the jailor and the hangman ; but Italy, from 
 the Alps to Calabria, hates the name of Austrian, 
 and the first foreign banner that waves to the winds 
 of the Appennine will be shouted after by Italy as a 
 deliverer. Yet the nervous eagerness of retention is 
 
 D 2
 
 36 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 as keen as tlie subtle and undying hatred of the 
 slave. And the threat of a Russian invasion of Italy, 
 a threat which a Mediterranean fleet w^ould alvi^ays 
 render ominous, must lay the Austrian cabinet at the 
 mercy of the Czar. 
 
 Prussia, the next hope, would be utterly unable to 
 make head alone against a Russian force pressing 
 on her from the Polish frontier ; and the question of 
 her preferring the hazards of war to the easy enjoy- 
 ment of the bribe which Russia could so easily offer, 
 and would so undoubtedly offer, is one which may 
 well perplex the politician. Of all the great Euro- 
 pean powers, Prussia is the most exposed to^'Russian 
 invasion. Her strength is wholly in her army, the 
 most expensive, artificial, and precarious of all de- 
 fences. We have already seen it vanish away, like 
 a mist, before the fierce brilliancy of Napoleon. It 
 perished in a day ; literally, between sunrise and 
 sunset the army of Prussia was a mass of confusion, 
 the kingdom at the feet of a conqueror, the king 
 crownless, and the nation captive. Prussia has no 
 mountains, where a bold peasantry might supply the 
 place of discipline by courage, and make nature fight 
 for them ; no great rivers for defence ; no ranges of 
 wild territory in which the steps of an invader might 
 be wearied by long pursuit ; no fierce and iron cli- 
 mate in which the clouds and snow might war against 
 the human presumption that dared to assault the 
 majesty of Winter in his own domain.
 
 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 37 
 
 All is open, brief, and level : the frontier strag- 
 gling and penetrable in every direction ; even the 
 population, at once too scattered to resist a vigorous 
 enemy, and too close to deprive him of their services. 
 In every war since the foundation of the kingdom, 
 even under the subtle and daring generalship of the 
 second Frederic, Prussia was never invaded, but to 
 be overrun. With this justified sense of peril on the 
 one side, and with the splendid donations which 
 Russia has it in her power to offer, on the other ; 
 there must be no trivial necessity to urge Prussia 
 against the immense preponderance of her gigantic 
 neighbour. 
 
 Family alliances, the recollection of the late war, 
 and the value of a continental support against Aus- 
 trian ambition, which has never forgotten the loss of 
 Silesia, have made Prussia for many years look to the 
 cabinet of St. Petersburg as her natural confederate. 
 Her bias is already in the strongest degree Russian. 
 We might discover this, even from the tone of the 
 Prussian journals during the Turkish war. Russia 
 was the theme of perpetual panegyric. Her defeats 
 were ' victories,' and her policy * consummate in 
 ability and vigour.' 
 
 But a tangible temptation is ready to be offered, 
 and it is one that once before won the Prussian 
 heart. Hanover, ;ind the mouths of the Elbe and 
 Ems, would give her manufacturing and comnier- 
 eial wealth, and Hanover would be the bribe. With
 
 38 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 Austria and Prussia thus at her control, as a barrier 
 ao-ainst France, (if France too were not drawn into the 
 snare by the easy promise of Egypt ;) Russia would 
 have leisure for her operations to secure the supre- 
 macy of the Mediterranean, and but one rival to 
 oppose — England. 
 
 If we shall be asked, what was to be done? we 
 answer, that the British cabinet ought two years ago 
 to have declared to Russia, that the first shot fired 
 against the Porte, was a declaration of war against 
 England. And the words should have been followed, 
 not by feeble applications to foreign courts, to 
 ask whether they would suffer England to speak her 
 mind ; but by the saihng of a fleet of twenty sail of 
 the line for the Black Sea, with orders to burn every 
 Russian establishment on its shore to the ground ; 
 and by the saihng of another fleet for the blockade of 
 the Baltic, and the burning of Cronstadt. The Czar 
 w^ould have instantly returned his sword into the 
 sheath ; while the healing and protecting sovereignty 
 of England would have been acknowledged as a bless- 
 ing to the world. 
 
 No empire of ancient or modern history, equals 
 Russia in the rapid, and yet steady, accumulation of 
 power. The chieftaincy of the Tartar tribes may have 
 rushed over deserts with a more impetuous speed, 
 but they left them the deserts which they found 
 them. Their capitals were but encampments ; their 
 career was as trackless as the wind: the day that
 
 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 30 
 
 laid tlie conqueror in tlie grave, entombed the 
 empire. 
 
 But the Russian conquests have been like the Ro- 
 man : where they have once advanced, they have never 
 receded. Every year has thus seen them acquiring 
 new substance. Even when they have been checked, 
 the check has only given them new solidity ; if the 
 lava was extinguished by the tide, it was only to be 
 turned into rock, and even that rock, only to form a 
 point of projection for another fiery overflow. 
 
 A slight recapitulation will show, with what a 
 remorseless spirit of aggrandisement, Russia has 
 toiled to fulfil her destiny. 
 
 In 1772, by the guilty partition of Poland, Russia 
 obtained the provinces, since called White Russia. 
 
 In 1793, at the second partition with Prussia, she 
 obtained one half of the remaining territory of 
 Poland, with 5,000,000 of souls. 
 
 In 1815, the duchy of Warsaw was erected into a 
 kingdom by the congress of Vienna, and has since 
 become a Russian province. 
 
 On the side of Sweden, within the last century, 
 she obtained Courland, Esthonia, Livonia, and in the 
 last war, Finland. 
 
 On the side of Turkey, since Peter the Great, to 
 the period of the French war in 1812, she obtained 
 possession of the shores of the Euxine, extending to 
 the mouth of the Danube, containing nearly 5000 
 square miles, with 1,902,000 souls.
 
 40 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 Tlie Tartar and Cossack conquests gave her 3,289,000 
 souls, with boundless territory in the north. 
 
 In central Asia, her advances have been not less 
 rapid, yet still more important. She has gained a 
 large portion of Armenia and Georgia ; with provinces 
 west of the Caspian, extending to the Araxes, and east 
 of the Caspian, extending to the Gulf of Balkan. 
 
 She has wrung from Turkey a treaty by which 
 the Sultan proposes to transfer to her what he did not 
 possess himself, the allegiance of the Circassians. 
 For this iniquitous conquest, Russia is now arming a 
 powerful force, and the contest is henceforth to be be- 
 tween disciphne and patriotism, the slaves of a despot, 
 and brave men fighting for their firesides. So little 
 is known of the Circassians, that no one can conjec- 
 ture the result of such a struggle, but every man can 
 know on which side the right lies, and every feeling 
 of humanity and justice must be on the side of the 
 brave defenders of their country. 
 
 But a question of still higher interest, and the chief 
 ground of our referring to the subject of Russian 
 power, is its final object; — the stimulus which it may 
 be appointed to give to the vast, stagnant world of 
 the east, — the awakening of which it may be the ap- 
 pointed instrument to the slumbering faculties of 
 mankind in the mighty regions of Mahometanisra. 
 
 It is unquestionable, that influences are moving in 
 that direction, of which no man has hitherto dreamed ; 
 that the darkness which closed over the Greek cm-
 
 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 41 
 
 pire in the fifteenth century, and whicli seemed to 
 grow only deeper and more lifeless, in the growing 
 illumination of Europe, is beginning to be shot 
 through with these gloamings of unexpected light 
 which portend the dawn. Whether the progress of 
 Russia is to level the road for the triumphal car of 
 civilization, and civilization itself to be only the 
 forerunner of the gospel, are lofty questions ; but 
 it is clear, that some mighty change is approaching, 
 whether by the hand of conquest, extinguishing 
 barbarism in its own blood, or by some other more 
 unselfish and animating agency ; whether by the gory 
 sword of Russia, or the golden sceptre of England ; 
 who shall reveal ? 
 
 Yet, upon this decision may turn the question of 
 universal peace or universal war ; of the descent of 
 Europe into the dungeon, or of its advance into un- 
 clouded day ; of the absorption of all its faculties into 
 the single brute element of military force, or their 
 brilliant and expansive developement into the con- 
 summate enjoyments, knowledge, and power over 
 nature, which were once intended for man. 
 
 But the fall of Russia too is fated. No nation 
 beginning as she has done, and persevering in the 
 principles which stamped her character in the cradle, 
 can finally escape the common justice of providence. 
 With man for her victim, craft for her policy, 
 and plunder for her ambition, she must be only 
 ripening ruin fur herself. No nation of the modern
 
 42 POLITICS AND PROJECTS OF RUSSIA. 
 
 world has so exclusively made rapine the principle 
 of her progress ; her downfall is therefore inevitable. 
 Yet it may be still remote. The Cain of nations, she 
 may be suffered to wander far, and wander long ; to 
 build the city and found the tribe : she may even be 
 guarded from the common indignation of man, but 
 it will be, by the mark on her forehead; and, pre- 
 served like the first homicide, like him she will 
 finally perish in the general ruin, which guilt, am- 
 bition and violence will have drawn down upon the 
 Infidel world.
 
 III. 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Written in 1828. 
 Nothing is more demonstrable, than that providence 
 acts by a system of general laws. Religion is 
 the final purpose of society ; and the law in this in- 
 stance is, that a false religion mutilates not only the 
 morals of the people, but the security of the state ; 
 that where the corruption of the altar has arrived at 
 its height, the ruin of the throne is at hand ; and 
 that ultimately the judgment which extinguishes the 
 corrupted religion, along with it extinguishes the 
 demoralized nation. 
 
 It will be fully admitted ; that a false religion may 
 be long endured, and a profligate nation may be slow 
 to perish ; because large room is left for the operation 
 of man's free agency, and the influence of divine know- 
 ledge. Even the violences of powerful empires may be 
 controlled into instruments of the divine hand. They 
 may be the tornadoes, suff'ered to slay and devastate, 
 while they clear the atmosphere : the fierce instincts of 
 the lion and the tiger, that sweep the forest of the lesser 
 and more molcstijig beasts of prey ; the inroad of the
 
 44 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 pestilence, that dispeoples the land of a degenerate 
 race, and leaves it open for a nobler posterity. But 
 the law is inevitable ; the false religion saps the state, 
 and the fortress built on the sand does not more surely 
 sink, however furnished with battlement and tower; 
 when some underground torrent has burst upon 
 the foundation; than the empire goes down before 
 the eye. Those may well be warnings to the thrones 
 of Europe ; but our present view is more with 
 reference to the singular preservation of our country, 
 than to its perils ; and more to the proud wisdom of 
 its religious principles, than to the frailty of nations, 
 unconsciously, yet hourly, building their own tombs. 
 Of the peculiar religious corruption of mankind 
 before the flood, we have no certain knowledge ; 
 but it is clear, that they had debased the origi- 
 nal idea of God ; and it is the natural operation 
 of the mind, to invent a substitute ; they must 
 have had a false rehgion. They and their false 
 religion perished together. The idolatry of Canaan 
 was next proscribed ; and with that idolatry the nation 
 perished. — The corruption of the Jewish covenant 
 next wrought its downfall ; and with it the na- 
 tion perished. — The fall of Roman Paganism was 
 next predicted by the Divine Spirit ; and with it the 
 wliole civil frame of the "Western Empire, then the 
 supreme seat of Paganism, perished in the midst of 
 boundless slaughter. — The corrupt religion of the 
 later Rome, the second shape of Paganism, shall per-
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 45 
 
 ish : and even from the historic analogy of the past, its 
 fall must involve a vast extent of sanguinary overthrow. 
 But prophecy is explicit; and all other language 
 is weak to its fiery breathings of the fierce and resist- 
 less judgment, that shall yet bury the Popedom from 
 the eye of man. 
 
 But it further declares, that the great visitation is 
 not to be limited to Europe ; that vengeance shall 
 spread ; and the brutish idolatries and hideous cruel- 
 ties of the Barbarian superstitions shall be wrapped 
 in the same cloud of wrath ; until the world, renova- 
 ted by some powerful elemental agency, is finally 
 prepared for a purer generation of man. 
 
 When those days of calamity are to come, is still 
 expressly hidden in the Divine councils ; but the fate 
 of our own country in the trial, may well exercise the 
 deepest feelings of human nature. She may be severely 
 tried ; it is scarcely conceivable that in so vast an 
 extent of suffering she should remain untouched ; 
 but it must be acknowledged at once as a high source 
 of national hope, and a confirmation of national prin- 
 ciple, that for the three hundred years since the 
 Reformation she has been sustained, almost by the 
 visible hand of Heaven. 
 
 Even, to take the evidence from our own day — in 
 the democratic tempest, which has yet scarcely cleared 
 off" the surface of Europe, England, of all nations, 
 stood in the most direct road of peril. In Revo- 
 lution, we had the natural faculties, the natural im-
 
 46 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 pulses, and even the hereditary powers, to have flung 
 even France behind ; a more democratic constitution, a 
 more democratic spirit, than any other monarchical 
 people ; a national character, more daring, disciplined, 
 and indefatigable ; a bolder and more numerous array 
 of the higher ranks on the popular side; means of 
 popular correspondence more rapid and more secure ; 
 means of public inflammation more prepared by the 
 general spirit of the people ; and above all, and con- 
 centrating all, the PRESS, an open and inexhaus- 
 tible armoury of weapons, old and new, which 
 no power of government could shut upon the 
 people, and where the sound of the insurrectionary 
 workman was ringing day and night. The assault 
 of the throne, and the triumph of faction, would 
 have found us no novices : we should have been 
 driven to no obscure search among the reliques 
 of the middle ages, like our neighbours, for the 
 Revolutionary costume. We had the whole picture- 
 gallery of subversion among our heir-looms, scarcely 
 a century old ; we had but to follow the fashions 
 of men, whose names were familiar as household 
 words. The desperate triumphs of the Great Re- 
 bellion were recorded before our eyes, — the blood 
 of the Republicans was running through our bosoms. 
 Yet from this unrivalled peril England was saved : 
 and more than saved ; raised to be successively 
 the refuge, the champion, and the leader, of Mon- 
 archy throughout the civilized world.
 
 THE FRENX'II REVOLUTION. 47 
 
 In the interpositions of Providence the fewness, 
 yet the grandeur, of the instruments is a distin- 
 guishing feature. 
 
 If this high evidence was ever given to a nation, 
 it was to England, in the French war of 1793. To 
 meet the four distinct aspects of the national peril, 
 four individuals were successively brought forward ; — 
 each possessing peculiar faculties ; — each applying 
 those faculties to a peculiar crisis; — each performing 
 a service which could confessedly have been per- 
 formed by no other of his contemporaries ; — each 
 forming a class hy himself; and each achieving a 
 fame which neither time nor rivalry can ever dimi- 
 nish in the memory of England. 
 
 In the commencement of this greatest of European 
 conflicts, a mighty mind stood at the head of English 
 affairs; William Pitt! a man fitted, beyond all his 
 predecessoi's, for his time ; possessed of all the qualities 
 essential to the first rank in the conduct of Empire, an 
 eloquence singularly various, vivid, and noble ; a forti- 
 tude of soul that nothing could shake or surprise ; a 
 vigour and copiousness of resource inexhaustible. 
 Yet he had a still higher ground of influence with 
 the nation, in his unsullied honour, and visible supe- 
 riority to all the selfish objects of public life ; in the 
 utter stainlessness of his heart and habits ; and in 
 the unquestioned purity of that zeal which burned 
 in his bosom, as on an altar, for the glory of 
 England. Tlie integrity of Pitt gave him a mas-
 
 48 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 tery over the national feelings, wliich could not have 
 been won by the most brilliant faculties alone. In 
 the strong financial measures, made necessary by the 
 new pressures of the time, and to which all the sen- 
 sitiveness of a commercial people was awake, the 
 nation would have trusted no other leader. But 
 they followed the great Minister with the most pro- 
 found reliance. They honoured his matchless un- 
 derstanding ; but they honoured still more the lofty 
 principle and pure love of country, which they felt 
 to be incapable of deception. 
 
 The British minister formed a class by himself. 
 He was the leader, not only of English council, but 
 of European. He stood on an elevation, to which 
 no man before him had ascended ; he fought the 
 battle of the world, until the moment when the 
 struggle was to be changed into victory. If he died in 
 the night of Europe, it was when the night was on 
 the verge of dawn. If it could ever be said of a pub- 
 lic man, that he concentrated in himself the genius 
 and the heart of an empire, and was at once the 
 spirit and the arm of a mighty people, Pitt was 
 that man ! 
 
 Another extraordinary intellect was next sum- 
 moned, for a separate purpose, scarcely less essential. 
 The Revolutionary influence had spread itself ex- 
 tensively through the country. A crowd of malig- 
 nant writers, from whose pens every drop that fell 
 was the venom of atheism and anarchy, were hourly
 
 TIIK FRENCH REVOLUTION. 49 
 
 labouring to pervert casual discontent into general re- 
 bellion. Success had made them insolent; and the 
 country was rapidly filled with almost open revolt. 
 Their connexion with France was palpable ; every 
 roar of the tempest in that troubled sky found a cor- 
 responding echo in our own ; we had the fetes, the 
 societies, and almost the frenzy of France ; every 
 burst of strange fire from the wild and bloody rites 
 which Republicanism had begun to celebrate, flashed 
 over our horizon ; every pageant of its fantastic and 
 merciless revelries found imitators ready to rival it on 
 our shore. 
 
 Burke arose ; his whole hfe had been an uncon- | 
 scions preparation for the moment. His early po- 
 litical connexions had taught him of what matter 
 Democracy was made. He had seen it, like Milton's 
 Sin, 
 
 " woman to the waist and fair, 
 
 But ending foul in many a scaly fold." 
 
 His parliamentary life had deeply acquainted him 
 with the hollowness and grimace, the selfish disinter- 
 estedness, and the profligate purity of faction ; and, 
 thus, armed in panoply, he took the field. 
 
 He moved among the whole multitude of querulous 
 and malignant authorship, a giant among pigmies : he 
 smote their Dagon in its own temple ; he left them 
 without a proselyte or a name. His eloquence, the 
 finest and most singular combination that the world 
 has ever seen, of magnificent fancy and profound phi- 
 losophy, if too deliberate and too curious in its 
 
 E
 
 50 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 developments, for the rapid demands of public 
 debate, here found the true use for which it had 
 been given — here found the true region of its beauty 
 and its power; shining and sweeping along at its 
 will, like the summer-cloud, alternately touched 
 with every glorious hue of heaven, and pouring 
 down the torrents and the thunders. No work 
 within human memory ever wrought an effect so 
 sudden, profound, and saving, as the volume on the 
 French Revolution. It instantly broke the Revo- 
 lutionary spell ; the national eyes were opened ; the 
 fictitious oracles, to which the people had listened as 
 to wisdom unanswerable, were struck dumb at the 
 coming of the true. The nobles, the populace, the 
 professions, the whole nation, from the cottage to 
 the throne, were awakened, as by the sound of a 
 trumpet ; and the same summons which awoke 
 them, filled their hearts with the patriot ardour that 
 in the day of battle made them invincible. Burke, 
 too, formed a class hy himself. As a public writer 
 he had no equal and no similar. Like Pitt, he was 
 alone. And like Pitt, when his appointed labour 
 was done, he died ! 
 
 England had now been prepared for war ; and had 
 been purified from disafiection. Her war was naval ; 
 and her fleets, commanded by a succession of brave 
 men, were constantly victorious. But the struggle 
 for life and death was still to come. A new and 
 tremendous antagonist — the most extraordinary man 
 of the last thousand years, appeared in the field.
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 51 
 
 France, relieved from the distractions of tlie demo- 
 cracy, and joining all the vigour of Republicanism to 
 all the massiveness of monarchy, flung herself into the 
 arms of Napoleon. His sagacity saw that England 
 was the true barrier against universal conquest ; and, 
 at the head of the fleets of Europe, he moved to bat- 
 tle for the dominion of the Seas ! 
 
 A man was now raised up, whose achievements 
 cast all earlier fame into the shade. In a profes- 
 sion of proverbial talent and heroism. Nelson 
 instantly transcended the noblest rivalry. His 
 valour and his genius were meteor-like ; they rose 
 above all, and threw a splendour upon all. His name 
 was synonymous with victory. He was the guid- 
 ing star of the fleets of England. Each of his 
 battles would have been a title to immortality ; but 
 his last exploit, in which the mere terror of his name 
 drove the enemy's fleet before him through half the 
 world, to be annihilated at Trafalgar ; had no parallel 
 in the history of arms. Nelson, too, formed a class 
 by himself. Emulation has never approached him. 
 He swept the enemy's last ship from the sea ; and, 
 like his two mighty compatriots, having done his 
 work of glory, he died ! 
 
 Within scarcely more than two years from the 
 deaths of Pitt and Nelson, another high intervention 
 was to come. The Spanish war let in light upon the 
 world. England, the conqueror of the seas, was now 
 called to be the leader of the armies of Europe. A 
 soldier now arose, born for this illustrious task. He, 
 
 F. 2
 
 52 THE FRF.NTIT RF.VOT.rTTOX. 
 
 too, lias formed a class by himself. Long without an 
 equal in the field, his last victory left him without a 
 competitor. Yet while Wellington survives, per- 
 sonal praise must be left to the gratitude of his 
 country and to the imperishable homage of the future. 
 But the praise of the country needs wait for no 
 epitaph. In our age, the fate of arms has been tried 
 on a scale so far transcending the old warfare of the 
 world ; the character of hostilities has been so much 
 more decisive, vigorous, and overwhelming ; the 
 chances of the field have so directly involved the 
 life and death of nations ; that all the past grows pale 
 to the present. If the martial renown of a great 
 people is to be measured by the difliculties overcome, 
 by the magnitude of the success, or the mighty name 
 of the vanquished ; it is no dishonour to the noblest 
 prowess of England in the days of our ancestry, 
 to give the palm to that generous national valour, and 
 exhaustless public fire, that heroic sympathy with 
 mankind, and lofty devotion to truth, liberty, and 
 religion, which have illustrated her in our own. 
 It can be no faithlessness to the glorious dead, to 
 place in the highest rank of living fame, that 
 soldiership, which stopped a torrent of conquest 
 swelled with the wreck of Europe ; redeemed king- 
 doms ; overthrew, from battlement to foundation, the 
 most powerful military dominion since the days of 
 Rome ; and in one consummate victory, hand to hand, 
 tore the sword from the grasp, and the diadem from 
 the brow, of NAtOLEON !
 
 IV. 
 
 THE KING OF THE FRENCH. 
 
 Written in 1830. 
 France now attracts the universal eye, and as a 
 great portion of her conduct must be determined by 
 the character of her chief, the history of Louis 
 Philippe has a peculiar interest at the present time. 
 
 Of all the countries of Europe, France has seldom- 
 est seen the succession to her throne disturbed by 
 war, conspiracy, or the influence of foreign powers. 
 Yet, since the tenth century she has been govern- 
 ed by seven dynasties : the Capet, the Valois, the 
 Orleans Valois, the Angouleme, the Bourbon, the 
 Napoleon, and the Orleans ; on an average, one 
 every century. 
 
 The death of Louis le Faineant, a profligate youth, 
 left Hugh Capet, who had been appointed his guar- 
 dian, master of the crown, in 987. Charles, duke of 
 Lorraine, the late king's uncle, disputed his right ; but 
 Capet's descent from Charlemagne, and his own intel- 
 ligence, moderation, and virtue, secured the affec- 
 tions of the people. His dynasty governed France 
 down to tlie fourteenth century, when, in 1328,
 
 54 LOUIS PHILIPPE. 
 
 Charles the Fourth, named t]ie Handsome, died, 
 leaving no male issue. 
 
 The Valois branch of the Capets now succeeded ; 
 a memorable event in French history, as the origin 
 of those dreadful w^ars with England, which devas- 
 tated France for almost a hundred and fifty years. 
 The right to the crown was claimed by Edward the 
 Third, in virtue of his descent by the female hne. 
 But the French pleaded the Salique law against him, 
 and the nobles chose Philip, the son of Charles de 
 Valois, brother of Philip the Fair, and uncle of 
 Charles the Handsome. In Charles the Eighth the 
 line failed, in 1498. 
 
 The Orleans branch ascended the throne, in the 
 person of Louis, Duke of Orleans, cousin of Louis 
 the Eleventh. He married a sister of the English 
 Henry the Eighth. In speaking of those various 
 branches as dynasties, of course we have not taken 
 the word in its general sense, of a long succession in 
 each, but merely as the change of a direct lineage. 
 
 The Angouleme branch succeeded in 1515. Francis 
 duke of Augoulcme, the famous Francis the First, the 
 rival of Charles the Fifth of Germany, ascending the 
 throne, by the death of Louis the Twelfth, without 
 issue. The death of Henry the Third, formerly duke 
 of Anjou, and king of Poland, the brother of Charles 
 the Ninth, (the atrocious author of the massacre of 
 St. Bartholomew,) left the crown to the Bourbon 
 branch.
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE. 55 
 
 In 1589, Henry of Bourbon, king of Navarre, (the 
 famous Henry the Fourth,) was called to the throne. 
 He was allied to the Capets, as ninth in descent from 
 St. Louis, and was at once a Valois by blood, and a 
 Bourbon by parentage. The death of the unfortu- 
 nate Louis the Sixteenth on the scaffokl, in 1793, 
 left France without a monarch, as she had left herself 
 without a throue. 
 
 In 1804, Napoleon, the First Consul, was made 
 Emperor, and retained his sovereignty till 1814, 
 when he abdicated for the first time ; but, returning, 
 was finally expelled in 1815. The Bourbons then 
 returned. The fatal ordonnances of the 27th of 
 July, 1830, overthrew them, and the Orleans branch 
 was again summoned to the throne, (August 7th,) 
 by the general acclamation of the people, and the 
 sanction of the Chamber of Deputies. 
 
 The history of the late duke of Orleans, the father 
 of the king, is one of solemn warning to the restless- 
 ness and folly of men of rank. It is given with 
 reluctance, and given with a full sense of the respect 
 due to the virtues of that son who has done so much 
 to redeem the name of his line. The duke had 
 fortune, high station, and extensive popularity ; 
 he had even personal acquirements and no trivial 
 ability. But he had a frenzied ambition ; a giddy, 
 reckless, and cruel desire of being the first, where 
 nature, fidelity, and honour would have kept him 
 the second. Yet it is remarkable that he lost his
 
 56 LOUIS PHILIPPE. 
 
 grand prize, the throne, by deficiency of vice ! He 
 was not prepared te exhibit the due proportion of 
 ferocity. He had not made up his mind to drink 
 blood, and roar blasphemies, with the true men of 
 the revolution. The Marats outran him in frenzy, 
 the Dantons in blasphemy, and the Robespierres in 
 massacre. Thus left behind in the popular race of the 
 "glorious days" of philosophy and the scaffold, the 
 unfortunate duke stood a solitary and forlorn figure, 
 for the scoff of the Republic — soon to be its victim. 
 
 The private scandals of French life must find ano- 
 ther detail than ours. But they had reached a dread- 
 ful extent in the time of the old court of France. 
 The queen's artless manners had given rise to suspi- 
 cions of more than levity, and in the infinite idleness 
 of Versailles, and the infinite malice of Paris, she 
 had been traduced without mercy. There is not the 
 slightest evidence, that she was deserving of the 
 slightest of those rumours. Her ease of manner 
 arose from an unstained heart, her familiarity was 
 innocence, and her open ridicule of the repulsive 
 formality of court etiquette, the natural result of 
 security of mind. But it is hazardous to stand in 
 opposition to the customs of a whole country. The 
 profligate countesses, to whom life had but one pro- 
 fligate purpose, exclaimed in all their coteries against 
 the ' indecorums * of the queen. The profligate 
 nobles conceived that even the highest rank of female 
 life was no more guarded by virtue, than that of the
 
 LOUIS I'llll.irPK. ."iT 
 
 brood of painted and gambling women of their own 
 circle. The profligate populace, always'rejoicing at the 
 opportunity of lowering their superiors'to the level of 
 their own vices, rejoiced at the probability of being 
 able to stigmatize a queen, who had the additional 
 unpopularity of being an Austrian, the director of 
 her weak husband, and the true and known pillar of 
 royalty in the councils of France. 
 
 From the year 1787, the Duke of Orleans had 
 placed himself in the foremost position, as leader of 
 the popular party. The quarrels of the parliament 
 of Paris with the court, had compelled the king to 
 do something more than eat, dream, and talk to his 
 confessor. In the famous sitting of November, 1787, 
 Orleans demanded, ' whether the meeting was for 
 deliberating on the state of the country, or merely 
 for registering the royal will ? ' The question was 
 bold ; the whole assembly of courtiers had never 
 heard such a sound before ; the poor king was all 
 astonishment ; and the duke received a ministerial 
 order to leave Paris, and go to Villers Coterets. 
 
 But what duke of the old regime, or what French- 
 man, of any, could bear exile from Paris ? Orleans 
 solicited his recal, and even solicited the queen to 
 obtain that recal. 
 
 The plot now began to thicken. The crown was 
 visibly slipping off the head of the unfortunate 
 Louis. The Jacobins (at first) were ready to put it 
 on the head of the duke. But his distinctions were
 
 58 LOUIS PHILIPPE. 
 
 to be of another kind. He was sent by the king 
 into exile, on pretence of a mission to England. On 
 his return, he found that the Jacobins had made up 
 their minds — ' There was to be no king in France.' 
 The duke was expelled from Versailles. 
 
 The infamous 6th of October, 1792, came ; and 
 the king, queen, and the royal children, were dragged 
 to Paris by a mob, who paraded the heads of the 
 gardes du corps on pikes before the royal carriage. 
 Lafayette was commander of the national guard of 
 forty thousand men. At the head of this force, he 
 ought to have stopped the mob of Paris from going 
 to Versailles to insult the constitutional king. But 
 this band of blood, drunkenness, and robbery, got the 
 start of him by six hours. He then followed them, 
 to rescue the king, and fortunately found that no- 
 thing had yet been done. The national guard were 
 quartered at night round the palace. Lafayette had 
 an audience of the king, and solemnly assured him that 
 he might retire to rest with the utmost security ; he 
 would answer for it, and would guarantee the royal 
 family against any attack by the mob. On this assur- 
 ance the king ordered the exterior posts of the 
 palace to be given up to the national guard, and went 
 to sleep. Next morning the mob burst their way 
 into the royal chambers, plundered the palace, stabbed 
 the gardes du corps, and took the unfortunate 
 monarch prisoner, to carry him as a felon to Paris. 
 Then Lafayette put himself at the head of the na-
 
 LOUIS I'HILII'PK. ;VJ 
 
 tionul guard again, and again followed the mob. All 
 this might have been mere negligence or mere folly, 
 but it was singularly disastrous in the end. 
 
 Titles were next extinguished ; and the proud 
 name of Orleans was sunk in the popular one of 
 Egalit^. " Citizen Equality " was now a plebeian 
 like the rest, the fellow of the citizen tinker and the 
 citizen cobbler. His rabble compeers soon gave him a 
 lesson in the rights of man. His estates followed 
 his titles. Some of his fiimily fled, and were glad to 
 fly. His eldest son, then a boy, entered the revolu- 
 tionary army. His own life was in perpetual hazard. 
 On the 21st of January, 1793, Louis the Sixteenth 
 was murdered on the scaffold. The duke w'as utterly 
 undone from that hour. No man's career ever gave 
 a more striking example of the miseries of ambition. 
 The people hated him, as a remnant of that aristocracy 
 on which they rejoiced to trample. The Jacobins, 
 that troop of assassins which seemed congregated for 
 the scourge of France, and the abhorrence of human 
 nature, received him in triumph, kept him as a tool, 
 and then cast him off as a victim. Robespierre, who 
 mastered all his rivals simply by supremacy in blood- 
 shed, at once marked him for the scaffold. 
 
 The malice of this master-fiend turned even his 
 sacrifices and services against this unhappy noble- 
 man — ' He has two sons in our army in Belgium ; 
 his influence is therefore dangerous. He has friends 
 among our generals — he must be watched. He ha?'
 
 GO LOUIS PHILIPPE. 
 
 called himself Egalite — he cannot be sincere, he must 
 wish to be a duke again ; his hypocrisy must be punish- 
 ed. He has revolted to the people — it must have been 
 with the idea of ascending a new throne. The republic 
 allows of no throne. He must be extinguished.' The 
 reasoning was irresistible, and the proud Philip of 
 Orleans was cast into the dungeons of Marseilles. Trial 
 rapidly followed ; he was declared guilty ; and death 
 overtook him at the hands of a tribunal of assassins. 
 He died firmly, as became a man of high name, and 
 still retaining the single virtue that saves the criminal 
 from utter contempt. The populace, for whose 
 plaudits he had sacrificed all things, rewarded him 
 by scoffs and hisses on his way to the scaffold. ' They 
 will applaud me yet,' said he, with a sudden sense 
 of the giddiness of popular opinion. Yet he was 
 mistaken. No man has since applauded him. No 
 hand has planted the laurel, nor even the cypress, on 
 his grave. 
 
 Louis-Philippe, the present king of the French, 
 was born on the 6th of October 1773, in the Palais 
 Royal, eldest son of the late duke, and of Louisa 
 Maria Adelaide, daughter of the Due de Bourbon 
 Penthievre, admiral of France. In infancy his title 
 was Due de Valois, but in 1782 he assumed that of 
 Due de Chartres, on the death of his grandfather, 
 the Duke of Orleans, from whom he had been called ; 
 his father's name being Louis Philippe Joseph. He 
 had two brothers, the Due de Montpensier, and the
 
 LOUIS PIIIMIM'K. 61 
 
 Conite dc Bcaujolais, who both died of consumption 
 about twenty years ago, and one sister, Adelaide 
 Eugene Louisa, Princess of Orleans, born in 1777. 
 
 The education of the Orleans family was for many 
 years in the hands of Madame de Genlis, well known 
 for her novels, her tracts on education, her scribbling 
 at the age of eighty, and her figuring in the coteries 
 of Paris. Her system of education was founded on 
 the fanciful absurdities of Rousseau ; and the young 
 duke was to be the new Emilius. A large part of this 
 was foolish ; yet some was practical, and all was better 
 than the wretched system of flattery, indolence and 
 vice, in which the children of the French nobles were 
 generally brought up. De Genlis removed the Or- 
 leans children from the pestilent habits of Paris to 
 the country, and there gave them the exercise, and in 
 a considerable degree, the habits and pursuits of the 
 peasantry. The boys were taught to live on simple 
 food, to run, swim, even to climb trees, and walk on 
 poles, for the purpose of accustoming them to help 
 themselves in any case of personal hazard. The re- 
 sults were, health, handsome proportions, and ac- 
 tivity ; but the countess taught them more, for in 
 her ideas of life she mingled, like all fools of both 
 sexes, the glories of political bustle ; and she took the 
 children to see the ruins of the Bastilc. Doubtless 
 every man of common sense on earth must have re- 
 joiced^ at the fall of an infernal prison, in which the 
 caprice of a minister, or the mistress of a minister, or
 
 62 LOUIS P}IILIPPE. 
 
 of a clerk in office, or the mistress of a clerk in office, 
 might shut up the most innocent man for life. The 
 Bastile could not exist in any country, without de- 
 grading the very nature of man, and making every 
 individual, writer or not writer, tremble at every 
 syllable he uttered. Still, it was a piece of indecorum 
 and insolence in the governess of infants to lead them 
 to a spectacle, which to their minds could recal 
 only riot and butchery, and which was at that mo- 
 ment a direct triumph over the unfortunate king and 
 relative of their father. But philosophy in rash 
 hands is the worst of follies, and at that hour all 
 France was philosophe. 
 
 But one display took place the year before, which 
 was exempt from those charges. Some of the French 
 convents were little more than schools for the young, 
 or asylums for the old ; but in others, horrible cru- 
 elties had been practised ; sometimes on monks and 
 nuns, naturally weary of their condition, or dis- 
 gusted with the power of their superiors ; sometimes 
 on state prisoners, unfortunate beings who had, for 
 something or for nothing, excited the suspicion of 
 some tyrant governor of their province. The con- 
 vent-prisons answered the double purpose of saving 
 the government the trouble of keeping those wretched 
 people in charge, and of securing them, till a misera- 
 ble death ended their sufferings ; for no prison was 
 so secure or so secret, as the vault of a convent. St. 
 Michael, in Normandy, was among those sullen
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE. C 
 
 o 
 
 safeguards ; and there was in one of its caverns, a 
 place of peculiar confinement for the unfortunates, 
 whose crimes were obnoxious to the tastes of royalty. 
 Public writers were especially criminal, and one of 
 the tenants of this dungeon had been the publisher of 
 a Dutch gazette ; who, owing no allegiance to Louis 
 XIV., and probably feeling no more admiration than 
 the royal libertine's own subjects felt for him, had 
 excited his displeasure by his paper. The publisher 
 was seized on, hurried off to the St. Michael, and in 
 the iron cage of this horrible dungeon he lay for 
 fifteen years ! Well may Englishmen bless the bold- 
 ness that rescued them from tender mercies like this ! 
 Well may they look with jealousy and indignation on 
 all attempts to bring them to this barbarous condi- 
 tion, and well may they deserve it if they suffer the 
 slightest inroad on the press, which is, after all, the 
 only sure guardian of their liberty, — surer and safer 
 than all the formal guards of laws, which may be 
 abrogated in an hour ; of legislatures, which may be 
 corrupted ; or of cabinets, which may dread the light, 
 for the old reason, of the darkness of their deeds ! 
 The French ministers naturally knew the friend of 
 freedom and the foe of tyranny, and they fastened 
 all the fangs and claws of power upon the press. 
 Nations have the example — let them be wise by the 
 
 warnnig. 
 
 In the first efforts of the French revolution, the 
 public mind was naturally turned on what had been
 
 G4' LOUIS IMIIIJITK. 
 
 especial horror for so many centuries ; and the secrets 
 of those dreadful places were dragged to light. Ham- 
 mer and hedge-stake in hand, the Norman peasantry 
 insisted on relieving the monks of St. Michael of the 
 honour of being prison-keepers to the king ; and the 
 dungeon was burst open for public inspection. Louis 
 XVI. was a mild-tempered creature, and the new 
 fashion at court was astonishment at the thickness of 
 prison-walls, the damp of dungeons, and the rusty so- 
 lidity of bolts and bars. The prisons now became a sort 
 of public curiosity ; and among the rest, St. Michael 
 was visited by the Count D'Artois, who was electri- 
 fied at the sight of the iron cage ! gave a general 
 command for its demolition, rode off, and left it as 
 he found it. But it seems as if fate had determined, 
 that the Duke of Orleans should always finish what 
 Charles X. had left undone. The young dHe of 
 Madame de Genlis not merely commanded its destruc- 
 tion, but stood by till it was completed. The nar- 
 rative of this transaction, which was the parent of 
 the fall of the Bastile, is still interesting. 
 
 * The prior, followed by the monks, two carpen- 
 ters, and the greater part of the prisoners, who, at 
 our request, were allowed to be present, accompanied 
 us to the spot containing this horrible cage. In order 
 to reach it, we were obliged to traverse caverns so 
 dark, that we had to use lighted flambeaux ; and 
 after having descended many steps, we reached the 
 cavern where stood this abominable cage, which was
 
 LOUIS Piiir.ii'i'E. 6") 
 
 extremely small, and placed on ground so damp, thai 
 we could see the ivater running tinder it ! 
 
 " I entered with a sentiment of horror and indig- 
 nation, mingled with the pleasant feeling, that, at 
 at least, thanks to my pupils, no unfortunate person 
 would in future have to reflect with bitterness within 
 its walls on his own calamities, and the cruelty of 
 men. The young duke, with the most touching ex- 
 pression, and with a force beyond his years, gave the 
 first blow with his axe to the cage (which was of 
 wood, strongly bound with iron.) After which the 
 carpenters cut down the door, and removed some of 
 the wood, I never witnessed any thing so interest- 
 ing as the transports, the acclamations, and the 
 applauses of the prisoners during the demolition. The 
 old Swiss porter alone shewed signs of grief, which 
 the prior explained, by saying, he regretted the cage, 
 because he made money by shewing it to strangers. 
 The duke immediately gave him ten louis ; saying, 
 that, for the future, instead of shewing the cage to 
 travellers, he should have to point out the place 
 where it stood, and that surely would be more agree- 
 able to them.'" So says Madame de Genlis, and the 
 anecdote does credit to the feelings and the under- 
 standing of her clever pupil. 
 
 There are other traits of good feeling told of him 
 at subsequent periods. When the decree of the 
 National Assembly put an end to the privileges of 
 eldership, the little Due de Chartre? turned round to
 
 (i(J LOUIS PIIII.IIM'R. 
 
 liis brother Montpensier, and declared " his delight 
 that there would be no longer ariy distinction between 
 them." Yet this was French, and, perhaps argued 
 rather too keen a sense of his previous superiority. 
 But the next anecdote is of the country of every 
 honest and high-minded man. At the age of seven- 
 teen he was sent for to Paris by his father, and an 
 establishment was given to him. His time of life 
 was a tempting one, and Paris was a tempting place, 
 for such a time. But the boy felt that he had still 
 something to learn, and he made regular visits, 
 as a pupil, to the family school in the country. He, 
 yet more to his honour, made the resolution of laying 
 by his pocket-money till he was of age, and appro- 
 priating it to charitable and pubhc purposes. 
 
 The Due de Chartres was now to mingle in the 
 stirring life of the world. The Jacobins were the 
 chief partizans of his father, and by that father's 
 command he became a member of the Jacobin Club. 
 But he was happily called from the contact of those 
 blasphemers and murderers, to scenes where his vir- 
 tues would not be so hazardous to himself. In 1790 
 he was sent to join his regiment, quartered in Ven- 
 dome. He found the populace slaying the priests, 
 and his first exploit was to save one of those unfor- 
 tunate men ; his next was to jump into the river to 
 rescue a custom-house officer from drowning. His 
 activity could not have exercised itself on two more 
 obnoxious classes. For the priest he got nothing.
 
 i.oi IS I'liii.ii'i'K. 07 
 
 but the city of Vendome gave him a civic crown for 
 the exciseman ! 
 
 In 1792, France offered the most irresistible warning 
 ever given to the world, of the evil spirit of a nation 
 trained by religious ignorance, and its perpetual 
 associate. Despotism ! It was in a blaze. Its only 
 creed an abolition of all belief in a soul, in the prin- 
 ciples of truth, honour, or morality, or in a God ; 
 its only law the will of a populace of cut-throats ; 
 and its only freedom the liberty to murder every- 
 body : — the delight of the legislature and the popu- 
 lace alike being the general clearance of the prisons, 
 the streets, and the houses, by the pike, the grape-shot, 
 and the guillotine; France declaring herself at war with 
 all the world, until all the world was compelled to make 
 war on France ; every day marked by a massacre 
 in Paris, or in the provinces ; a battle on the frontier, 
 or a new burst of horrible retaliatory rage in Vendue ; 
 The whole aspect of that immense country one cloud 
 of conflagration and slaughter ; France mangled in 
 every limb, — a whole nation bleeding at every pore. 
 
 The Due de Chartres served his first campaign, 
 under Biron in 1792, in the army of the north, 
 where he was in several general actions, and com- 
 manded a brigade of cavalry. Under Luckner and 
 Dumouriez he fought against the Prussian invasion, 
 and on the famous 6th of November, 1792, the day 
 of Gcmappe, he is said to have decided the battle. 
 The French had found the Austrian army strongly 
 
 F 2
 
 ()8 LOUIS I'MILIPPE. 
 
 intrenched on the heights of Gemappe. But Du- 
 moiiriez, as he afterwards declared, had no alterna- 
 tive but to attack them, for he had no bread; and 
 he gave one of his columns to the Due de Chartres, 
 who rushed upon the lines. The Austrians repulsed 
 the first charge, and drove back the column which 
 had led the centre attack. Dumouriez thought that 
 all was lost, and was galloping across the field in 
 utter perplexity, when he met an aide-de-camp sent 
 to give him news of victory. The Due de Char- 
 tres had rallied his young troops, put himself at the 
 head of a regiment, and moving forward, burst into 
 theAustrian lines. All was now confusion, the charge 
 decided the battle, and the battle decided the 
 fate of the Austrian dominion in Flanders. The 
 enemy lost upwards of six thousand in killed, 
 wounded, and prisoners, and Dumouriez instantly 
 overran the whole of Belgium. 
 
 But Dumouriez, that original and extraordinary 
 soldier, who first taught the French Republicans how 
 to fight, and whose genius was the only one that 
 might have anticipated the splendour of Napoleon's 
 triumphs, was himself soon forced to acknowledge 
 the uncertainty of military fortune. In February 
 1793, at the battle of Nerwinde, he was utterly de- 
 feated. With the Republic, misfortune was always 
 a crime, and the general was summoned to Paris to 
 give an account of himself. This was notoriously but 
 a summons to have his head cut off". He knew the
 
 LOUIS I'HIl.lI'l'K. 69 
 
 Republic, and he contrived to elude the command. 
 He next revolved the idea of overthrowing his 
 masters in their turn ; he was even said to have con- 
 ceived the idea of placing the Due de Chartres on the 
 throne. But he found that his army would not follow 
 him. Commissioners from Paris suddenly arrived 
 to seize the refractory general. By a last instance of 
 dexterity, he turned the tables on the commissioners, 
 cleverly seized them, sent them as an introduction 
 for himself to the Austrian camp, and galloped after 
 them, with the young duke at his side. The seizure 
 of those commissioners was of service to others than 
 himself, for they were afterwards exchanged for the 
 Dauphiness, the present Duchess of Angouleme, 
 then in prison in Paris. 
 
 The Duke had fled ; on the certain knowledge that 
 an order for his arrest had been issued in Paris. But 
 though a fugitive by necessity, he unhesitatingly refu- 
 sed to serve against France. The Prince of Coburg, 
 the Austrian general, offered him the command of a 
 division as lieutenant-general. This he declined; 
 and, proscribed by his country, separated from all 
 his usual means of income, and with nothing but 
 his education, his activity, and his honesty, he went 
 forth, to make his way through the world. 
 
 Such are the vicissitudes from which at times no 
 rank is exempted. But the Duke felt more than 
 the ordinary aggravations of a fall from the most 
 splendid fortune. Ho was in terror for every mem-
 
 70 LOU IS I'lllLlPPE. 
 
 ber of his iaiuil y. His father and his two brotliers were 
 in the dungeons of the committee of public safety ; 
 dungeons from wliich there was scarcely an instance 
 of liberation, and from which his father was taken 
 but to die. His mother and sister had fled from 
 France, and he had no intelligence of them, except 
 that they were separated. He was personally ob- 
 noxious to the emigrants, from his republican ser- 
 vices ; and the republicans would have seen him, only 
 to send him to the guillotine. In this emergency he 
 made his escape into Switzerland. It seems unfortu- 
 nate that he did not come to England, where he 
 would have been secure, and highly received. But 
 probably he might have been reluctant to meet the 
 multitude of emigrants here ; and, probably too, his 
 proud spirit would have been unwilling, either to 
 appear as a pensioner on the country, or to take the 
 humble means which he must have found necessary 
 for independence. 
 
 In Switzerland he had the satisfaction of finding 
 his sister, whom he placed in the convent of Brem- 
 garten. But, as soon as his presence was known, 
 he was persecuted, and obliged to fly to the Alps from 
 the pursuit of Robespierre. During four months 
 which he passed in this wild country, he and his valet 
 lived on thirty sous {Is. 3d.) a day. At length, even 
 this failed ; he was obliged to dismiss his valet, and 
 assuming the name of M. Corby, he offered himself 
 as teacher of mathematics at the college of the
 
 L0U18 I'llll.lI'l'K. 71 
 
 Grisons at Coire. There he subsisted ibr eighi 
 months. The deatli of Robespierre, iu 1794, made 
 this retirement unnecessary. He then received some 
 money from France, and hired a cottage in a Swiss 
 village. He next set out on a tour through the 
 north, and roved as far as Lajjland ! 
 
 In an account by Tvveddell, the traveller, of his 
 visit to the Duke, in Switzerland, he says : — 
 
 ' The Duke is at present determined to proceed to 
 North America, to enjoy that liberty for which he 
 has suflfered so much. There, in the midst of forests, 
 he will complete an education so auspiciously com- 
 menced by adversity. 1 doubt not that he will still 
 displciy that unall'ected magnanimity which has hith- 
 erto rendered him superior to good and to bad for- 
 tune. The same greatness of soul has marked him 
 throughout. A prince, at sixteen, without the least 
 touch of pride ; at seventeen, a general rallying his 
 division three times under the fire of Gemuppe ; a 
 professor of Geometry at twenty, as competent as if 
 he had devoted to it long years of study ; and in each 
 condition, iis if he had been born to fulfil its duties. 
 To conclude, 1 cannot give you a better idea of the 
 union of strength and moderation in his character, 
 than by a copy of a letter which he wrote a few days 
 ago to an American, who had offered him some waste 
 lands to clear. " I am heartily disposed to labour 
 for the acquisition of an independence. Misfortune 
 has smitten, but, thank God, it has not prostrated me.
 
 72 LOUIS PHILIPPE. 
 
 More tlian happy in my misfortunes, that youth pre- 
 vented the formation of liabits difficult to break 
 through, and that prosperity was snatched from 
 me before I could either use or abuse it.' 
 
 A new reason was soon added to this manly pro- 
 pensity to struggle for himself in the world. The 
 Directory of France, fearing the return of so popular 
 a branch of the royal family, had offered to liberate 
 his brothers on condition of his going to America. 
 He instantly embraced the proposal. The compact 
 was kept by the Directory, and the duke and his two 
 brothers, to whom he was strongly attached, met in 
 Philadelphia, in 1797. After a long tour through 
 the lakes and forests, he passed down the Mississippi, 
 and remained at the Havannah a year and a half, 
 waiting the king of Spain's permission, to return and 
 see his mother. But the permission never came. He 
 then visited the Duke of Kent at Halifax, and by his 
 advice sailed for England. Again he sailed for 
 Spain, but was not suffered to land. He returned 
 to England, and was introduced by the Count 
 D'Artois to Louis XVIII. He then took a house at 
 Twickenham ; where he lost his brother, the Due de 
 Montpensier, by a consumption. His brother, Beau- 
 jolais, was seized with the same disease, and the 
 duke took him to Malta for change of climate ; but, 
 there he, too, unfortunately died. 
 
 The history of this distinguished man almost 
 exceeds the wanderings of romance. \n 1809 he
 
 LOUIS PiiiLirPE. 73 
 
 went to Sicily, on a visit to the court. Leopold, the 
 king's second son, had entertained the idea of being 
 chosen head of the Spanish nation, in the absence of 
 their king ; and he sailed with the duke for Gibraltar ; 
 but the governor, justly conceiving that a Sicilian 
 prince was not the proper head for a free insurrec- 
 tion, refused to sufler the royal adventurer to land. 
 The design perished on the spot. 
 
 On his return to England he found his sister there, 
 and they sailed together to meet their mother, who had 
 escaped from Spain, and the French army, to Port Ma- 
 hon. With them he returned to Sicily, where he mar- 
 ried a daughter of the king, Ferdinand IV. in 1809. 
 He now remained four years in Sicily, in the midst of 
 hazard and insurrection. In 1810, the Spaniards 
 offered him a military command in Catalonia ; but 
 when he arrived there, he found that no command 
 was provided ; the English general probably thinking 
 that the duke's presence might be some impediment 
 to more national objects. He was even refused ad- 
 mission at Cadiz, and again returned to Sicily. 
 
 On the Bourbon restoration he came to Paris, and 
 was made colonel-general of hussars. On Napoleon's 
 landing, in March 1815, the Duke went to Lyons, to 
 act with the Count d'Artois ; but the troops revolted, 
 and he returned to Paris. He was then sent to 
 command in the north, but there too the troops 
 revolted — he instantly made his decision, gave up 
 the command lo Mortier, and honourably followed
 
 <4 LOL'18 1'1111,11'Pi;, 
 
 the king on his way into Belgium. In 1S16 he 
 returned with his family from England, and resided 
 in Paris, in a state of cool distance with the court, 
 but usefully employing his vast and accumulating 
 revenue, and wisely and gracefully patronizing public 
 works and literature. 
 
 The story of the celebrated days of July is not 
 now to be detailed. On the 29th the tri-coloured flag 
 was replaced on the Tuilleries— on the 31st the king 
 abdicated, and on the 17tli of August he arrived in 
 England. On the 7 th of August the Duke of Orleans 
 had been declared monarch, by the Chamber of 
 Deputies, by the style of ' Louis Philippe the First, 
 king of the French.' To this splendid elevation has 
 reached one of the most perilous, diversified, and 
 manly courses of life that history records. Every 
 man who loves personal honour, filial duty, and 
 patriotic wisdom, will be in favour of this elevation ; 
 and all will indulge the hope that this amiable and 
 able individual has come to the close of his vicissi- 
 tudes, and that no cloud may darken the brightness 
 of his proud and fortunate day.
 
 V. 
 
 ENGLAND AND EUROPE IN 1829. 
 
 Written in 1829. 
 England, by a course of valour exerted in a righ- 
 teous cause, l)y counsels manly and wise, by a 
 national spirit unequalled for the love of freedom, 
 for energy, and for generosity, and lastly and chiefly, 
 by the possession of the purest form of the purest 
 religion, stands at this hour in the foremost place of 
 the civilized world. 
 
 Where is her rival now to be found '. Russia, the 
 only power whose influence might have seemed to 
 menace her supremacy, has been taught in a single 
 campaign, the feebleness of an empire whose strength 
 is founded upon the brute force of armies. That she 
 has been taught this lesson, no lover of the peace of 
 Europe, or the true interests of mankind, can regret. 
 Wherever grasping and insolent ambition receives its 
 chastisement, a great good is done to the cause of 
 justice; and wherever the true weakness and fragility 
 of despotism can be contrasted with the intrinsic and 
 inexhaustible vigour of a government of freedom, 
 there luiman rights have made a progress, and the
 
 76 ExNGLAND AND ELROPE. 
 
 victory is gained for human nature. Whether the 
 next Russian campaign will be more successful than 
 that which has now closed in such signal disgrace to 
 the ostentatious and unjustifiable spirit of aggression, 
 which urged the emperor into the Turkish war ; or 
 whether the first campaign shall be the last, is of no 
 importance to the main question. The Russians 
 have been defeated, and that too under the most 
 humiliating circumstances, — not at the close of a long 
 struggle, where their troops' discipline and spirit 
 might be supposed to be equally broken down ; but 
 with the most completely equipped army that the 
 empire ever sent into the field ; with all the 
 advantages of discipline in the troops, and ex- 
 perience in the generals ; even with a national and 
 superstitious enthusiasm, to stimulate them to efforts 
 beyond the exploits of soldiership, and with the 
 whole temptation of the opulence of European and 
 Asiatic Turkey to reward their easy march over the 
 bodies of the enem3% 
 
 In this struggle too they had not to contend with 
 the organized and iron power of the great European 
 kingdoms ; Austrian discipline, French activity, and 
 British courage, were not to turn the bayonets of the 
 grenadier-army of " all the Russias." Nicholas was 
 to march against a rabble, almost entirely new to the 
 field, ill-equipped, ill-oflicered, and stubbornly ad- 
 verse to all adoption of the improvements of modern 
 war. The ])ersonal bravery of the Turk was ac-
 
 KN'(il.ANI) AM) HLKOPK. ( / 
 
 knowledged, but superior tactics make personal bra- 
 very in the enemy rather a snare, than an element 
 of success. Victory was secure ! 
 
 Yet three months of a campaign against half naked 
 barbarians and mouldering walls, were enough to 
 extinguish the pride of Russian ambition. The 
 veterans of the north fled before the peasantry of 
 Asia ; discipline gave way before brave disorder ; and 
 fifty thousand Russian corpses, three armies utterly 
 dismantled, enormous financial losses, and the tar- 
 nished military name, that Russia had expended her 
 blood for a century to purchase, are the monuments 
 of her Turkish war. 
 
 Russia is still a great empire, with great means of 
 good or evil. But the secret of her weak place has 
 been betrayed by herself. To invasion she may be 
 inexpugnable. She may present a barrier of ada- 
 mant in the severity of her climate, the barren im- 
 mensity of her dominions, and the sullen resistance 
 of her people ; but beyond her borders she is feeble ; 
 like her own north wind, her force is in her native 
 region : it decays in its descent into Europe, and 
 finally softens and sinks away. As a mcnacer of 
 England, we need have no substantial fear of Russia. 
 We may hear again of armed neutralities ; of 
 North-Sea Coalitions ; or of the IVIarch to India ; 
 those showy charlatanries with which the adroitness 
 of Catherine and Alexander contrived at once to 
 occupy the eyes of European statesmen, and conceal
 
 78 ENGI.AXn AND ECROPR. 
 
 the actual weakness of their empire ? We have 
 a chain upon the neck of Russia, which we shall 
 leave in the hands of the Turk ; and which, at the 
 first growlings from the northern den, we shall teach 
 him how to tighten. But peace with all, and peace 
 among all, is the golden rule of England. Every shot 
 fired in Europe, is a shot virtually fired against her; 
 and as injury to her would be injury to every corner 
 of the earth where man is above the beast of the 
 field : so is her supremacy the noblest promise and 
 pledge of strength, knowledge, and happiness, to the 
 circle of the globe. 
 
 This knowledge of the feebleness of Russia beyond 
 her own frontier, may be followed by lessons still 
 more important. It ought to furnish a great 
 warning of the actual weakness of the despotic 
 form of government. The leading cabinets may be 
 made awake to the living evidence, that the 
 rigid authority, to which they sacrifice the incal- 
 culable benefits of national freedom, is not worth 
 the price ; that while it is directly injurious to the 
 mighty nerve to be found in commerce, knowledge, 
 manly interprise, and that general magnitude and 
 force of the human mind, which can grow up only 
 where man is master of himself; the external power 
 of the nation is not the more exempt from the severest 
 casualties: that this hard and close bondage of a 
 nation, this forcing the national frame into perpetual 
 armour, is no preservative against defeat ; and that
 
 KN(iLAM) AND KIROPK. 79 
 
 the wisest plan would be to hang up this memorial of 
 the times of feudality and barbarism among the 
 reliques of years in the grave, beat the sword into 
 the ploughshare, and leave man to follow the open 
 and generous impulses of genius and nature. 
 
 All the other leading European states are now either 
 in close alliance with us, or too keenly busied with 
 their own difficulties, to dare the chance of English 
 war. France may have learned by the wisdom of 
 suffering, the infinite importance of peace with a 
 country to which all her coasts are open, yet which 
 is totally inaccessible to her arms ; whose fleets can, 
 at a word, sweep her commerce from the ocean, shut 
 up her ports, and cut off her intercourse with her 
 colonies ; and which, when the struggle comes 
 at last on the land, can show that the British 
 soldier is made of the same materials as the British 
 sailor. 
 
 Spain and Portugal ai'e too eagerly employed in 
 dissensions at home to think of hostilities. The monks 
 are the masters of both : the monks may hate the 
 freedom, the religion, and the knowledge of England ; 
 and desperately might they show their hate, if they 
 dared. But their daggers are for other breasts ; the 
 spirit of jacobinism keeps the spirit of monkery in 
 alarms too anxious for foreisrn mischief. One fiend 
 has been called up, to controul the malice of an- 
 other. They are fit antagonists, and will rend each 
 other with fang and talon, until their work is done,
 
 80 ENGLAND AND EUROPE. 
 
 and the Peninsula is sunk into the final degradation 
 of a wilderness scattered over with a few superstitious 
 slaves ; or startles the world by the' brief and bloody 
 supremacy of a jacobin empire. 
 
 Austria lies in that massive tranquillity which has 
 characterized the reign of the house of Hapsburg. 
 But of all the continental states, she is the most 
 essentially bound to the alliance of England ; by her 
 position in the midst of the great military powers ; 
 by the absence of any source of rival ambition ; and 
 by the habits of old connexion, and combined strug- 
 gle against Napoleon. She has all the strength of 
 passive power ; her military position is impregnable, 
 unless betrayed by negligence or imbecility ; her 
 troops are brave, and she can recruit her armies from 
 an immense extent of territory filled with a hardy 
 population. 
 
 There has not been a moment since the close of the 
 revolutionary war, when the politician would be 
 entitled to calculate more securely upon the general 
 peace of Europe. Even the late distui'bances of the 
 military states have only assisted this probability. 
 If the interval since the fall of Napoleon has been 
 long enough for a generation to start into public 
 life, who knew nothing of the miseries of war ; and 
 if, in every continental nation, there is a rapidly 
 rising tendency to recommence the scene, where- 
 on their fathers had suffered so deeply ; yet, 
 as if for the express purpose of checking this
 
 ENCfLAND AND EUROPE. 81 
 
 liazardous tendency, there is scarcely an European 
 nation which has not, witliin a short period, had a 
 trial of war^ not sufficient to draw their blood fatally, 
 yet more than enough to teach thciu the misery that 
 can he inflicted by the sword. 
 
 Yet we cannot forget the precarious nature of all 
 that depends upon human will. The principle of 
 aggrandizement is like the principle of Evil ; it never 
 sleeps, it never pauses, it is perpetually on the wing, 
 seeking on what throne it may stoop, and fill the 
 bosom of the sitter there with temptation. Cove- 
 tousness has been pronounced, on the highest autho- 
 rity, to be the idolatry of man. Aggrandizement is 
 the idolatry of thrones. Europe has seen, in the rise 
 and fall of the French empire, with what fearful cere- 
 monial the Moloch may be worshipped, even in an 
 age which calls itself enlightened ; what multitudes 
 must pass through the flame ; what blood of the 
 princely and the brave, and even of the helpless and 
 the young, must be poured out on that terrible altar. 
 Yet the moral of the consummation may be forgot- 
 ten. The blasting of the chief worshipper by the 
 flame which he himself had kindled, the tremend- 
 ous demand of blood for blood uttered against France, 
 may no sooner have passed away from the general 
 eye and ear; than some frenzied populace or furious 
 chieftain will rush to rebuild the altar, and fill it 
 with new and even more consuming fires. 
 
 Still there is that additional security against Euro- 
 
 G
 
 82 ENOLAXD AND EUROPE- 
 
 pean war, which is to be found in interior disturbance. 
 Insurrection is in the bowels of every kingdom of 
 Europe. The most formidable enemies of the Spanish 
 and Portuguese thrones are notoriously active within 
 their own realms; sometimes defying them in the 
 field, but perpetually menacing the royal authority. 
 In France, the spirit of disturbance lives, in the two- 
 fold shape of the Jacobin and the Jesuit ; and the 
 slightest relaxation of royal vigilance might let 
 loose civil war through the land. In Belgium, 
 one half of the pop^dation is suspicious of the 
 other, and the whole power of government is em- 
 ployed in restraining the mutual violences of super- 
 stition and fanaticism. In Prussia, the whole mili- 
 tary strength of the crown is not too strong for the 
 revolutionary opinions. Even in the heavy quietude 
 of the Austrian monarchy, jacobinism, and the repug- 
 nance of newly-conquered countries to a master of a 
 strange speech and soil, are felt to be demands on all 
 the suspicion of the cabinet ; the revolutionary im- 
 pulses of the north of Germany have made their way 
 even into the lazy provinces of the Danube ; the Hun- 
 garian nobility, too, molest Austria with their old 
 demands of privilege ; and the keeping of the Italian 
 conquests is a perpetual business of the prison and 
 the sabre. The Greek revolt plagues the Otto- 
 man with the common trouble of European thrones. 
 Polish disaffection, and even conspiracy to an enor- 
 mous extent in the Russian army, exercise the fears
 
 ENGLAND AND EUROPK. 8.3 
 
 of tlie Emperor, and tench him, if he is to be 
 taught by experience, the necessity of applying his 
 vigour to the correction of evils at home. Whether 
 those extraordinary tendencies to popular disturbance 
 are to be looked on as the 'ground swell,' the last 
 heavings of that tempest which wrecked so many 
 European thrones ; or as that ominous and instinc- 
 tive rising of the great deep of society, which portends 
 the final and tenfold storm ; its present operation must 
 be, to retard the hostilities of the monarchs of Europe, 
 to assist the efforts of England for general peace, and 
 to give her time to perfect those noble plans of 
 national and European amelioration, for which she 
 seems to have been raised by the especial hand of 
 heaven. 
 
 We have seen the singular concurrence of what 
 the world calls accident, in giving England a para- 
 mount influence abroad. We shall call it by a loftier 
 and more cheei'ing name ; and exult in the proof, that 
 to nations strenuous in well-doing, is extended the 
 same protection which has been promised to the 
 virtuous among men. By this high protection, 
 England, one of the smallest territories in Europe, 
 has been raised into an eminence never equalled by 
 the greatest ; has been made the sovereign of realms, 
 to which the mightiest of the European kingdoms 
 would be but a province ; has become the mother of 
 colonies which already assume the magnitude of em- 
 pires; has planted her arts, her laws, her literature, 
 
 G 2
 
 84 ENGLAND AND EUROPE. 
 
 and her religion, in the uttermost parts of the earth ; 
 and at this hour, even in the midst of the strifes 
 and jealousies of Europe, is appealed to as the great 
 arbiter, by whose will contending nations are to 
 abide ; the great Ally, whose friendship is to be safety, 
 as her hostility is to be subversion ; the irresistible 
 strength which is to overwhelm the insolence of the 
 triumphant, and the magnanimous protection which 
 is to give recovery to the undone. 
 
 But to look to the course of our domestic policy ; 
 we are persuaded that there too evil has been palpably 
 controlled into good, and that a proud and rapid pro- 
 gress of amelioration has been preparing, in the midst 
 of what seemed to be but a choice of calamities. 
 
 Scarcely more than two years ago, the nation was 
 in the hands of Lord liiverpool, a minister whose 
 policy was — to govern on any terms that might avoid a 
 collision of parties. Lord Liverpool's intentions were 
 sincere, but his habits of life had made the retention 
 of office a part of his being ; and for that retention, 
 he unconsciously sacrificed the spirit of the con- 
 stitution. The system of governing by a divided 
 cabinet was his favourite and fatal secret ; and the 
 confidence reposed in his moderation might have 
 made us regardless of the evils of his policy, until 
 the bulwarks of the national faith and freedom had 
 been irremediably broken away. A cabinet in which 
 no one leading measure could have been resolved on, 
 without parings-down of principle on both sides of
 
 ENGLAND AND EUROPE. 85 
 
 tlie council-table ; would have been at last trained 
 to the discovery, that all principles were the legi- 
 timate subject of barter. 
 
 Canning's rise to the premiership suddenly and irre- 
 sistibly showed the perniciousness of this folly. The 
 new minister had found the cabinet following its 
 separate styles of thinking on the Popish question ; 
 he resolved that they should try how far separate 
 styles of thinking could be adopted on all the 
 maxims of the constitution, and with a stroke of the 
 pen he made one half of the cabinet Whig ! The 
 nation cried out against the man, and the measure ; 
 and idly lamented the blindfold integrity of Lord 
 Liverpool. But his wily successor was playing the 
 involuntary patriot. He showed the true tendency 
 of the system ; by a cabinet in which, not merely no 
 act could pass without mutual concession, but no act 
 whatever could pass ! Those fellow-advisers for their 
 countr^^'s good, had but one principle in common, 
 that of keeping their situations in defiance of public 
 disdain. All the great questions were amicably flung 
 under the table ; all the mouths of council were pad- 
 locked by mutual consent ; the whole dexterity of this 
 amphibious cabinet was exhausted on accordant con- 
 trivances for doing nothing. The Romish Question, 
 the Test Act, the Corn Question, the Parliamentary 
 Reform, the Finance Question, all were alike buried 
 in the equivocal bosoms of this heteroclite ministry. 
 It was the deprecated power of George Canning that
 
 86 ENGLAND AND EUROPE. 
 
 did the state this service. It was he who shewed, to 
 demonstration, that a divided cabinet must degenerate 
 into a public nuisance. But his experiment was sud- 
 denly checked ; the involuntary patriot passed into 
 the tomb ; and it was left for others to mature public 
 men into that ripeness of conciliation, which disclaimed 
 the folly of standing at arm's length, when they might 
 approximate, and pick the nation's pocket toge- 
 ther. Peace be to his grave. His Hfe was of use, if 
 it gave us but one lesson, — never to trust the 
 professions of a man struggling his way up to 
 office ; and never to decide on the panegyric, until 
 it can be rectified by the epitaph, of a statesman. 
 Canning was one of those examples, not unfre- 
 quent in public life, of powers made useless by 
 the fault of their position. Under the guidance of 
 Pitt he was triumphant. He was a capital gene- 
 ral of division, but a bad commander-in-chief. He 
 had admirable quahties for parliament, brilliant 
 promptitude, dextrous ridicule, and wit at once pun- 
 gent and playful. His genius was diamond-like ; 
 wherever it turned it shone, wherever it caught the 
 light it sparkled : but, like the diamond, its light 
 was not its own. No stronger contrast could exist 
 than between his powers, and the bold and various 
 flashings of Fox, or the lofty and unwearied splendour 
 of Pitt. But his animation, his elegance, and the 
 occasional dignity of his conceptions in debate, made 
 liim the delight of the House. He found a subtle
 
 ENGLAND AND EUROPE. 87 
 
 and strong antagonist in Brougham. 13ut Canning's 
 polished shaits were unerring — it was the combat of" 
 Apollo and the Python. 
 
 An undefinable Cabinet followed, — a government 
 of invalids past their kibour, and recruits not come to 
 their age of service ; of minds long laid up in congenial 
 obscurity, and minds not arrived at years of dis- 
 cretion. Its activity consisted in a life of post-chaises 
 between London and Windsor, to inquire whether it 
 was in or out ; its deliberation in the peace-making of 
 two clerks ; and its title to the national gratitude in 
 the speedy discovery that it knew nothing about the 
 national business, and that it was high time for it to 
 withdraw. 
 
 The lesson of the divided cabinet had now been 
 fully given. The Duke of Wellington assumed the 
 premiership. Accustomed to the course of things, he 
 left the fools to expose their own folly, and the 
 knaves to out-wit themselves. The sudden unpopu- 
 larity of the tribe justified his expectations, almost 
 before they were pronounced. Let him not forget 
 the lesson wrought for his strength by the weakness 
 of his predecessors. Let him purify his cabinet, iind 
 the nation, already rejoicing, shall yet more rejoice, 
 in the casualties that prepared the way for the supre- 
 macy of a great minister. 
 
 The Duke comes into oiKce with memorable ad- 
 vantages. His entry is less the ordinary advance of 
 a minister to power, than of a national chief, forced
 
 88 ENGLAND AND EUROPE. 
 
 forward by the national exultation. His march is 
 triumphal, and his chariot-wheels have been dragged 
 along by the hands of the people. 
 
 Yet, what is the value of speculation on subjects 
 so fluctuating as the fate of ministers ? The average 
 duration of British Cabinets, since the beginning of 
 the reign of George the Third, has been exactly 
 three years and a half! And, by a curious singu- 
 larity, the boldest has always been the most suddenly 
 defeated, the strongest the most rapidly burst asun- 
 der, and the most brilliant the most totally extin- 
 guished. Is this contradiction of the course of nature 
 inherent in politics ? Is its soil a volcanic crust, able 
 to sustain nothing massive? Is public life but a 
 perpetual earthquake, where the solid and the stately 
 precipitate their own fall, and where nothing stands, 
 but the hovel, which sways to the shock, and whose 
 standing or falling is alike forgotten.
 
 VI. 
 
 THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 Written in 1830. 
 If the Irish Cluirch is to be overthrown, the Irish 
 state must follow it. If the influence which the Pro- 
 testant clergy exercise upon the civilization of the 
 country were to be withdrawn, three-fourths of Ire- 
 land would sink into barbarism ; if the connection 
 which their presence upholds between Irish feeling 
 and English government were to be dissolved, the 
 islands would be divided from that hour ; an instant 
 rebellion would break the bond ; followed by a revo- 
 lution, which would set up a tyranny ; and both fol- 
 lowed by a war, in which Ireland would be the field 
 of battle. 
 
 For what horrors must the mind be prepared, that 
 can contemplate such a struggle ! What utter de- 
 vastation of the present means and future powers of 
 Ireland must be wrought, between the mad rebellion 
 of the people and the angry vengeance of England ; 
 how tremendously must the evil be aggravated 
 by the interference of hostile Europe, an interference 
 which would inevitably be urged with all the subtlety
 
 90 THE CHLRCn IN IRELAND. 
 
 of Jesuitism, and all the fury of ambition ! The island 
 must be covered with ruin ; population must perish ; 
 production must be extinguished over the face of the 
 land ; and unless England should be crushed by the 
 united conspiracy, Ireland must be held to her 
 allegiance in all future time, only by the chain. 
 
 We feel no surprise that the church establish- 
 ment should be insulted by that multitude of dis- 
 puters, who habitually molest society. Fools will 
 argue though they cannot reason, and dictate though 
 they cannot learn. The haranguer is generally some 
 unlucky and obscure struggler in the lower walks of 
 some profession. One sees himself surpassed on all 
 sides, and salves his wounded vanity by his ignorant 
 slander. Another feels himself scorned in the 
 general intercourses of intelligent society, and tries 
 to revenge the scorn by a reptile hatred of all that 
 dignifies public and private life. The thwarted 
 hungcrer for office takes up the miserable common- 
 places of politics : and is the radical. The idle scio- 
 list, in the most repulsive ignorance of divine things, 
 takes up the miserable common-places against reli- 
 gion ; and is the infidel. Faction canvassing the 
 meanest sources of gain, is outrageous at the estab- 
 lished revenues of every institution alike in church 
 and state ; and as nothing but the utter subversion 
 of the country can give it a chance of plunder, it 
 clamours for that subversion, as the only hope of 
 safety to the land.
 
 THE CllUKCll IN IRELAND. 91 
 
 With men of this chiss, it is but waste of words, 
 to reason. Their vulgarity and virulence are beyond 
 all conviction; they must be left to their natural 
 career ; fortunate only if their poltroonery contents 
 them with poisoning the minds of fools, without 
 bringing themselves to the scaffold by the attempt 
 to realize their principles. But, to those who desire 
 to judge of things by their merits; the grounds 
 for advocating an establishment of religion are 
 as palpable as those for advocating a civil govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Christianity is a system of the highest truths, es- 
 sential to the highest purposes of man. It retains 
 the most disturbing feelings of our nature in the 
 path of duty : — It animates the noblest labours of 
 personal and public virtue : — It diffuses cheerfulness 
 through the deepest scenes of an anxious life : — 
 While ennobling the highest human nature by giving 
 it the noblest of all motives, the love and honour 
 of a being who comprehends within himself all 
 power, sanctity, and wisdom ; it raises the humblest 
 to the level of the loftiest, by that holy equality 
 which makes no distinction beyond the grave, but 
 the distinction of virtue. Superior to the world, 
 yet made for man, it girds us up for the most sublime 
 sacrifices in the cause of human nature, by display- 
 ing alike the secure happiness of a life employed 
 in the service of God ; the nothingness of those 
 honours which may be earned by successful crime ;
 
 92 THE CHURCH IN UUil.AXD. 
 
 and the solid splendour of that praise which comes 
 from the eternal source of glory. 
 
 But all knowledge requires a teacher, and all 
 knowledge that is to be permanent, must be sustained 
 by a succession of teachers. If religion is to be im- 
 pressed upon the people, it must be by men ap- 
 pointed and educated for the purpose of impressing 
 it. There must be a clergy. 
 
 But if the religion of a nation is to be a system 
 of principles, not a vague compilation of fugitive 
 theories, there must be some standard, some authen- 
 tic form of doctrine ; something beyond the rambling 
 fancy of eveiy enthusiast, who undertakes to lead 
 the popular mind. We must not see in the pulpit 
 of to-day a man who contradicts all that was said by 
 the man of yesterday, and is as sure to have his doc- 
 trine contradicted by the man of to-morrow. Thus 
 there must be a summai'y of belief : a liturgy, places 
 of worship, men appointed to preserve the decorum of 
 that worship, to sustain its offices, and to propagate 
 its truths ; or the whole falls to the ground. But, to 
 keep up this succession, there must be some settled 
 inducement for parents to devote their sons to the 
 church, some remuneration for the expense of train- 
 ing, and some security that the remuneration will 
 not fail, if the service be done. Thus, we must have 
 a clergy, colleges for their instruction, livings for 
 their support, and a permanent right in their pos- 
 sessions, protected by society.
 
 THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 93 
 
 If we would have our children initiated into Chris- 
 tianity by the-rite commanded by its Divine Teacher ; 
 or if we would make the union of the sexes the sacred 
 bond that it must be made, to avoid the most fatal 
 evils to the human race ; we must have baptisms and 
 marriages, and ministers to perform them both. If 
 we would offer the natural respect to the dead, whom 
 we honoured and loved in life ; or if we look upon 
 the body, which is yet to rise and be glorified, as 
 worthy of more consideration than the body of a wild 
 beast ; we must have ministers to perform the decent 
 ceremonial of the grave. But, for all those offices, 
 and for more than those, we must have a clergy. 
 
 But the outcry of the radical and the atheist is, 
 that the clergy have usurped too large a portion of 
 the property of the state; that their payment is inju- 
 rious to public prosperity ; and that the state has a 
 right to modify, diminish, or take away the pro- 
 perty altogether. Every one of those assertions is 
 provable to be a prejudice, a libel, or an absurdity. 
 
 In the first place — the revenues of the establishment 
 are not paid by the people. The title of the esta- 
 blishment to its revenues is older than that of any 
 other property in the empire. Those revenues were 
 not taken from any living man's estate, for they have 
 subsisted for ages previous to the existence of those 
 estates ; and they have existed by the most natural 
 and intelligible of all rights, the right of private own- 
 ership to dispose of its property. This right is more
 
 94 THE cTTUi^rn in Ireland. 
 
 sacred than the power of the nation to dispose of pro- 
 perty, because that process imph'es violence, or revo- 
 lution ; and what one revolution may do, another may 
 be entitled to undo. It is more sacred than the power 
 of kings to confer property, because that power may 
 often be the mere work of tyranny. Thus the right 
 of the church to its possessions is the most ancient, 
 simple, and solid of all ; — the right of the individual 
 who has acquired property, to dispose of it according 
 to his own good will. 
 
 The first edifice assigned for Christianity in Eng- 
 land was in Canterbury, the gift of Ethel bert, the 
 king of Kent, in the sixth century. As the people 
 were still heathens, the priests who had come with 
 Austin, travelled through Ethelbert's kingdom, 
 preaching Christianity. The first assemblages of the 
 converts were in cottages. When those assemblages 
 became too numerous for the cottages ; regular, though 
 rude places of worship, called prayer-houses, or 
 oratories, were appointed for the service. Still, the 
 service was only occasional; the preacher was an 
 itinerant missionary ; and the population was, in a 
 great measure, destitute of religious instruction. 
 
 But Christianity made rapid progress ; the Saxon 
 chieftains were successively led to listen to divine 
 truth, and they naturally desired to provide for the reli- 
 gious instruction of their vassals. Yet the oratories 
 were few and mean ; the mother church, or cathedral, 
 was distant ; and they erected churches on their own
 
 THE ClILKCll IX lUKLANl). 95 
 
 lands, and fixed a permanent minister of reliijion in 
 each church, for the perpetual maintenance of its 
 worship ; endowing liini generally with a portion of 
 land, and besides, in all instances, with that portion 
 of the products of the estate which we now call tithes. 
 This was the general condition of church property 
 before the conquest. 
 
 The Norman invasion extended the royal system of 
 granting land to the great officers and feudatories of 
 the crown ; and they, in their turn, repaid the services 
 of their chief retainers by minor grants. A great 
 number of those possessors, each desiring to have 
 for his vassals and tenantry the advantages of 
 church service, and the residence of a clergyman upon 
 his estate ; erected churches, and placed clergy upon 
 their property. Thus gradually arose the distribution 
 of livings and churches ; the boundaries of the estate 
 being in general the boundaries of the parish, and the 
 services of the priest being appropriated to the par- 
 ticular estate, and of course paid out of the proceeds 
 of the property settled for his maintenance by the 
 owner. It is impossible that any right can be more 
 natural or justifiable than that of a maintenance 
 derived in this manner. It was not forced from the 
 owner : it was not taken from either the property of 
 the public, nor of any unwilling individual. The 
 lord of the estate felt the necessity for having religious 
 service on his land ; to have that advantage he set 
 apart a regular salary for its provision ; and to continue
 
 96 THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 that advantage to his posterity, he made that provi- 
 sion permanent to all time. 
 
 That this was the origin of our tithes and glebes is 
 unquestionable. In a number of instances, the docu- 
 ments, under the seal of the feudal lord, are 
 extant ; in some establishing the payment of the 
 priest by his own authority ; in others joining the 
 seals of his immediate heirs, when they happened to 
 have any peculiar power over the disposal of the lands. 
 Selden's History of Tithes abounds with evidences of 
 this style of distribution. 
 
 The seizure of the church property by Henry VIII. 
 was the act of a notorious tyrant, and cannot justify 
 any interference with property of any kind. But even 
 that tyrannical seizure had a pretext, which can be 
 offered no longer. In the perpetual civil wars of 
 England, the parish clergy had been, in a great mea- 
 sure, driven to take refuge in the monasteries, which 
 were then places not only of great opulence, pro- 
 tected by the prevalent superstition of the time, and 
 under the powerful sanction of the papacy ; but were 
 in general places also of considerable strength. The 
 splendour, the luxury, the learned leisure, the popular 
 veneration, the easy and social existence, and the actual 
 personal safety of those communities, formed an ir- 
 resistible contrast with the seclusion, the narrow 
 means, the rude association, and the personal insecu- 
 rity of parochial life. The convent soon became the 
 permanent refuge of the parish priesthood. In re-
 
 THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 97 
 
 turn, they contributed their income to the support 
 of the convent. The titlies and glebe, in process of 
 a few generations, thus became the property of the 
 monastery ; the service of the parish churches being 
 almost wholly supplied by priests sent from the con- 
 ventual body, as its agents, and thence named 
 vicars ; for whose support a certain smaller portion 
 of the tithes was allotted, thence called vicarial : the 
 great tithes, with the glebe, or actual lands attached 
 to the priest's house, being retained by the monks. 
 This abuse grew excessive, in the long inter- 
 val between the Conquest and the Reformation. 
 The crusades, and the prodigal and profligate lives of 
 the great barons, — who expected, by a death-bed 
 legacy to the monks, to atone for a life of violence, — 
 augmented the convent-lands, until they were com- 
 puted to amount to a third of the island. An abuse 
 of this magnitude undoubtedly called for a remedy ; 
 and Henry's passion for plunder only took advantage 
 of a national evil. But his measure had the taint of 
 tyranny. It was sweeping, lawless, and fruitless. 
 The rightful property essential to the religious edu- 
 cation of the people, the funds for the poor, and the 
 lands of hospitals, were involved in the fate of the 
 ill-gotten gains of the convent. Yet the countr}^ was 
 but little enriched by the change ; for the church- 
 lands were given up to the retainers of the court ; 
 and that soil, which, under the monks, had been in 
 general carefully cultivated, and rendered productive 
 
 H
 
 98 THE CHURCH in Ireland. 
 
 by the knowledge of the only Englishmen who had 
 any valuable intercourse with foreign countries, was, 
 in a multitude of instances, left to the decay natural 
 in the hands of rude retainers, or giddy proprietors ; 
 indolent soldiers, or that frivolous generation to 
 whom the court was the centre of all preferment and 
 all pleasure. 
 
 Thus arose the " impropriate " livings in the hands 
 of laymen ; which are now actual estates. 
 
 Only a comparatively small portion of the old 
 livings were restored to the church. Still the right 
 to those livings was not derived from the king, nor 
 from the legislature. It w^as a recurrence to the 
 original title given by the owners ; a title older 
 than of any other species of property ; acknowledged in 
 every form by the ancient laws, and incapable of being 
 alienated by any thing but palpable injustice. So stands 
 at this hour the right of the Church of England. 
 
 All the arguments commonly used against church 
 property are fallacies. Thus it has been said, that 
 the people are taxed to pay for the support of the 
 clergy. This is a fallacy. The people are no more 
 taxed for the support of the priest, than they are for 
 the support of the Duke of Devonshire — both priest 
 and duke being supported by property, not taken 
 from the people, but allotted by individuals to whom 
 it belonged, and who might have disposed of it in any 
 other way whatever. This answers the outcry of all 
 the sectaries, who complain that they are taxed for a
 
 THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 9<J 
 
 church in which they do not believe. They might as 
 justly complain that they are taxed for a duke in 
 whom they do not beheve. But it is said that 
 tithes are a burden upon the landholder. This too, 
 is a fallacy. If the landholder be a tenant, they can 
 be no burden on him ; for he takes the land the 
 cheaper the more tithe it pays. If the landholder be 
 the proprietor of the estate, neither does he pay for 
 the clergy ; it being obvious, that whether he in- 
 herited or purchased the property, it came to him 
 with an allowance for the tithes ; the church in- 
 heritance being transmitted from an ancestor a thou- 
 sand years back ; (what living family can claim such an 
 ancestor) or the estate being sold to him with the ob- 
 vious reservation of the tithe ; for if the land had been 
 tithe free, the price would have been higher ; the only 
 difference to the purchaser being, that instead of 
 paying the whole value of the land in one sum, he 
 divides it between two persons, — the proprietor and 
 clergyman, each of them having a legal right ; but the 
 right of the latter being immeasurably superior in 
 antiquity. 
 
 Or, if it be said, that if the tithe fall upon neither 
 the farmer nor the landlord, it falls upon the pub» 
 lie in the shape of a tax of a tenth on provisions : — 
 this too is a fallacy. If the parson burned his tithe, 
 or suffered it to rot on the ground, there would be a 
 public loss of a tenth. But the parson sells it, oir 
 lives on it with his family. Thus the produce exists 
 
 Ji 2
 
 100 THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 and is converted to the public use ; with only this 
 difference, that instead of the whole produce of the 
 farm coming to market in the farmer's cart, a part of 
 it comes in the parson's. The amount in the market 
 is of course, the same ; and the price of provisions 
 is neither raised nor lowered, by there being two bun- 
 dles instead of one. 
 
 But it is said, — that tithes prevent agricultural im- 
 provements, by advancing a claim on every new object 
 of tillage. This is the only argument that has a show 
 of force ; and yet this too is a fallacy. If the farmer 
 lays out fifty pounds additional in any new culture, 
 the clergyman, who is undoubtedly entitled to his 
 share in the product of the land, may claim his tenth. 
 But, in the first place, the farmer has made his cal- 
 culations of profit with this knowledge : and in the 
 next, if he involve himself in any difficulty on the 
 point, the evil lies at his own door ; for nothing is more 
 easy, and, indeed, nothing is more common, than that 
 amicable agreement between the clergyman and the 
 farmer, by which a regular rent is paid, let the im- 
 provements for the time be what they may. But, 
 that the clergyman's means should rise with the 
 general opulence of the country is a manner of high 
 public policy ; for it is essential to the usefulness of a 
 clergy, that they should keep up their level with the 
 country ; and, that, while the people round them are 
 growing rich, they should not be growing poor. In 
 all countries, a pauper loses public respect, let the
 
 THE CHURCH IX IRELAND. 101 
 
 colour of his coat be what it may: and a beggared 
 clergy would be scorned as teachers, or perhaps, 
 in their weaker members, might be driven to uphold 
 their influence by the arts which sustained the men- 
 dicant orders ; or be even tempted into hostility to a 
 state which sank them below the less educated ranks, 
 and, like the struggling French vicars, look for an im- 
 provement of their condition in a general overthrow. 
 But so far as agricultural interests are concerned, the 
 law allows of a composition, for a period which 
 gives the most anxious improver more than time 
 enough to pursue his plans to the full extent of 
 speculation. 
 
 One of the most frequent sources of popular out- 
 cry against the establishment, is the assertion, that 
 though the church confessedly possesses a right to a 
 provision, yet that it has usurped more than the ori- 
 ginal grant ; that the tithes were originally divided 
 into four parts, of which but one was for the priest ; 
 the other three being severally, for the repairs of the 
 church, for the maintenance of the bishop, and for 
 the support of the poor. But this, too, is a fallacy ; 
 generated by confounding the transactions of the 
 Romish age of the church with others later by some 
 hundreds of years; and the transactions of the foreign 
 church with those of the English establishment. 
 
 The first revenues of Christianity were voluntary 
 contributions. The apostles sanctioned and directed 
 the laying up of a weekly sum in the hands of the
 
 102 THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 deacons, for the necessary expences of the church, 
 for the claims of charity, and for the support of the 
 preachers, who had in general abandoned all claims 
 to their heathen property, and in some instances had 
 given up productive professions. St. Paul constantly 
 insists on the right of the preachers to be main- 
 tained by the congregations ; though he refuses to 
 avail himself of it, from a wish to avoid burthening 
 the then persecuted churches. Our Lord in sending 
 forth the twelve apostles, (Matthew x.) expressly 
 declares their right to be subsisted by the persons to 
 whom they brought the gospel, forbidding them to 
 make any preparation for their own expenses ; " nei- 
 ther purse nor scrip ; for the labourer is worthy of 
 his hire." This mode of provision seems to have 
 prevailed during the whole time of the great persecu- 
 tions, or nearly two hundred and fifty years. But 
 the Church was no more intended to be fed by per- 
 petual charity, than by perpetual miracle. Even 
 among the children of Israel, when the tribes had 
 passed the desert, the manna ceased to fall. 
 
 These contributions were matters of good-will, and 
 proportioned to the means of the individual. They were 
 of various values; but as, according to the Levitical 
 law, a tenth was set apart for the priesthood, the early 
 Christians adopted the proportion, and the tenth of 
 their gains was generally given. This fund, originally 
 placed in the hands of the apostles, was subsequently 
 deposited with their successors the bishops, and thus
 
 THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 103 
 
 they became the regulators of the distribution. A 
 part was allotted to the priests who served the various 
 congregations, or travelled through the country ; a 
 part to the maintenance of the church buildings ; and 
 the residue to the support of the humbler portion of 
 the disciples, in case of infirmity, accident, or age ; 
 but the parts were generally unequal, and the whole 
 was regulated by the necessity of the case, and the 
 wisdom of the head of the diocese or congregation. 
 
 This arrangement seems to have ceased at a very 
 early period in England, and to have necessarily given 
 way to the regular endowment of the clergy ; the 
 contributions made in the churches being thencefor- 
 ward appropriated solely to the poor. But, among us, 
 the legal and national provision for the poor, in- 
 troduced by the 43d of Elizabeth, at length super- 
 seded this collection ; and it ceased, as contributions 
 for the clergy had ceased ; and for the same reason. 
 
 The last argument, and it is one which naturally 
 exhausts the controversy, is the wealth of the church. 
 We are told that, allowing the clergy to have a right 
 to a maintenance, they " can have no right to wallow 
 in the present enormity of church wealth." But the 
 whole statement is an assumption, and the argument 
 upon itmust therefore be a fallacy. The total amount oi 
 the public endowments of the Establishment is about 
 £1,628,095. Those form the obnoxious part, in the 
 opinion of our haranguers. The livings in private 
 patronage, which arc equivalent to personal estates.
 
 104 THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 and which those landholders, who harangue in the 
 loudest tone against the church, retain with all the 
 eagerness of private property — livings with which 
 they endow their sons and their connexions, or which 
 they sell, — amount to a much larger sum, viz. 
 £2,084,043.— The whole revenue being £3,872,133. 
 which, divided among 11 ,342 benefices, (the number 
 in England and Wales,) leaves only £300. a year as 
 the average of an English living ! 
 
 But trivial as this sum is for the support of a man 
 who must keep up a decent rank in society ; who in 
 most instances has a family ; and whose education has 
 on an average cost £800. a large deduction must still 
 be made for his actual official expenses. He must 
 keep his parsonage-house in repair ; in general he 
 must pay a considerable sum for previous build- 
 ings ; and there are many instances in which the ad- 
 vantage of having a house is counterbalanced by 
 the necessary expenses. It is computed, that, taking 
 the whole as a mere matter of pecuniary calculation, 
 a clergyman, before he can expect a living, ex- 
 pends in principal and interest, above £1100., which 
 about middle life would purchase an annuity of £90. 
 a year, thus leaving him but £210. as a recompense 
 for his clerical labour, his literature, the devotion of 
 his life to solitude, in nine instances out of ten ; and 
 all this, to gain an income below the average profits 
 of a country tailor, or grocer in a tolerable course of 
 trade.
 
 THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 105 
 
 The advowsons are the true burthen of the church ; 
 yet those are not the crime of the estabhshment; — but 
 the property of the country gentlemen, — ofthewhigs 
 as well as the tories, of the great reforming aristocrats, 
 and general patriotic and fox-hunting portion of the 
 legislature. We see those livings advertised in the 
 newspapers with as little ceremony as the advertise- 
 ment of an ox or an ass, and of course purchased 
 with as little ; the chief recommendation being, * that 
 the living lies in a sporting country and in the neigh- 
 bourhood of several packs of first-rate hounds.' Tlie 
 most valuable reform would be one which would res- 
 tore those advowsons wholly to the church ; the next 
 would be one which for ever prohibited their sale. 
 
 But the establishment cannot be charged with 
 those offences. They are the result of the rob- 
 bery of the church, not of her will ; and the only 
 remedy is to be looked for in the legislature. The 
 vulgar writei's who declare the church revenues to be 
 £8,000,000, make no distinction between the right- 
 ful revenues of the ecclesiastic and the usurped reve- 
 nues of the layman ; they throw the impropriate 
 tithes into the same mass with the church tithes, and 
 where nearly twice the value is grasped by the lay 
 descendants of the minions of Henry, they fling the 
 whole charge on the heads of the clergy. 
 
 The clergy are ill paid ; their emoluments are 
 below those of any other class of educated men in the 
 empire ; and the attempt cither to degrade them in
 
 106 THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 the public eye, or to rob them of their legitimate 
 rio-ht, would be one of the grossest offences against 
 law, and, as the offenders might soon discover, one of 
 the most formidable hazards in policy. None but 
 the knave or the fool can vilify a great system, 
 without which the British empire would speedily be 
 a republic, its religion a chaos of contending sects, 
 and its dominion a rope of sand. 
 
 But there are other considerations. We live in 
 a new time. Society is changing its aspect; its 
 physiognomy is no longer to be taken from the 
 higher orders ; it is formed by the multitude, and 
 that visage is a bold, a reckless, and an appalling one. 
 Physical force, for the first time in the annals of our 
 country, is developing itself ; whether to try the 
 strength of our institutions, or to confirm them by 
 the struggle. But our legislature, government, and 
 political safeguards of all descriptions, are already 
 and palpably beginning to feel the presence of a new 
 and formidable element of power. The throne, and 
 the noble and opulent orders are no longer the sole, 
 nor even the chief, objects of political interest; the 
 public eye is no more fixed on the gilded and high- 
 wrought pinnacles of society; but on the ground- 
 work, the strong, dark, and rugged material of the 
 foundation ; the iron and granite of the moral fabric, 
 materials of indispensable necessity and invaluable use, 
 but deeply requiring to be wrought by the hand of 
 wisdom.
 
 THE CHUKCil 1\ IRELAND. 107 
 
 If the popular strength is to become the national 
 safety, it must be taught temper and contentment, the 
 generous subordination, and the conscientious alle- 
 giance whicli religion alone can impress on the 
 substance of the national mind. To perform this 
 essential duty, the Church of England alone is 
 adequate. Its monarchical form renders it the na- 
 tural guardian of a constitution essentially monarch- 
 ical. The republicanism of all other forms renders 
 them hazardous allies, whenever the direct struggle of 
 the state shall be against revolution. Perhaps in 
 calmer times they may stand without grave public 
 injury, — like the walls of lava built round the villages 
 on Vesuvius, they may answer ordinary purposes in 
 ordinary times ; but when the mighty mass below 
 begins to heave, when the popular mind throws out 
 flame, and the great eruption roars, they must give 
 way ; like the lava walls, they must melt into their 
 congenial matter, and swell the torrent and the 
 flame.
 
 VII. 
 
 CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 April, 1836. 
 
 The City of London Conservative Association arose out of the 
 public alarm for the safety of the constitution in Church and 
 State, on the retirement of Sir Robert Peel's administration 
 in 1835. In the manly paper which it published as the 
 statement of its principles, it thus adverted to the Estab- 
 lishment : — 
 
 • Of the particular vote which led to the retirement of the 
 ministry, it may be affirmed that it is awfully calculated to 
 alarm the dearest feelings of the English people. The right 
 to appropriate ecclesiastical property to purposes other than 
 ecclesiastical, has by that vote been asserted. The majority 
 by which that vote was carried, consisted of Roman Catho- 
 lic members of the House of Commons. The oath by which 
 those members were supposed to be restrained from voting 
 has been found insufficient for its purpose : and the people 
 of England have now presented to them the spectacle of the 
 Roman Catholic section of the lower house of Parliament 
 disposing of the revenues of the Protestant Church. Can 
 this be said to be agreeable to the spirit of the constitution, 
 if that constitution be essentially Protestant ; if it has hither- 
 to been its distinguishing glory, that in all its parts it has
 
 CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES. WJ 
 
 upheld the Protestant faith, as the nursery of that pure re- 
 ligion in which the conscientious Dissenter and the member 
 of the Ciuirch of England are equally interested, as the true 
 guardian of the morals and liberties of the people of Eng- 
 land ? Can it be maintained, that the interests of the 
 Church were intended to be placed at the disposal, and under 
 the control, of Roman Catholic members of parliament ? ' 
 In 1836, at a period of peculiar public anxiety, the Association 
 celebrated its first anniversary by a dinner, in Covent Garden 
 Theatre, attended by about a thousand of the principal gen- 
 tlemen of the city, many noblemen, and other leading indi- 
 viduals connected with public life. The example was followed 
 throughout England ; and the spirit of the country was 
 strongly awakened. 
 
 In acknowledgment of the health of ' the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury and the Protestant clergy of the 
 empire,' the following observations were made : — 
 
 ' Mr. Chairman, as I have been called on to an- 
 swer this toast, I cannot hesitate to acknowledge the 
 honour. Of course, I do not think of standing here 
 as the representative of the church; but 1 must feel 
 gratified in a high degree at hearing the name of the 
 Establishment so strikingly given, and so ardently 
 received in the vast and magnificent assembly which 
 I see before me. I rejoice in the unanimous plau- 
 dits with which that name was welcomed, as an 
 evidence that the people of England retain all their 
 old sensibility to virtue, and all their old homage to 
 justice. I use the word justice advisedly ; for though 
 the Church of England loves to have the heart of the 
 nation, she is entitled to lay claim to its allegiance
 
 110 CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 on the strongest ground of obligation. I say it, with- 
 out fear of denial ; that to her Establishment Eng- 
 land is indebted at this hour for all that she possesses 
 of true prosperity, summed up in the possession of 
 pure liberty and solid empire. 
 
 ' The proof is of the most palpable order. It is 
 remarkable, that England is the only country of 
 Europe which has, or ever had, a perfectly free con- 
 stitution. The sublimest thinker of the ancient 
 world, in his dream of political perfection, imagined 
 a balanced government, and pronounced it a splendid 
 impossibility : The Platonic dream was realized in 
 the British constitution ! Nor was this failure of 
 liberty among other nations for want of many an 
 eager wish and many a daring struggle. The love 
 of freedom is an instinct. The image of heaven has 
 not so feebly vindicated itself in the heart of man, as 
 to have left him regardless of this great principle of 
 national elevation. All the countries of Europe, 
 from their earliest time, have longed for a constitu- 
 tion. All have successively laid the foundations ; 
 but then came unexpected evil ; republican rash- 
 ness, military violence, iron despotism, or sullen 
 superstition, tore up the foundations, or covered 
 them with a morass of ignorance and blood. Eng- 
 land alone both laid the foundations, and raised the 
 superstructure. 
 
 ' And what was the cause of this mighty differ- 
 ence ? It was this ; that she had laid the foundations
 
 CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES. 1 1 1 
 
 in pure religion ; and raised the superstructure with 
 the sacred ceremonial of truth, justice and piety ; 
 until, like the Jewish citadel, it arose, a temple and 
 a tower — the emblem of mingled strength and sanc- 
 tity ; to stand among, and above, all nations, the great, 
 the hallowed, the impregnable fortress for the oppressed 
 and fugitive religion and freedom of mankind. 
 
 * I express this the more directly, because we are 
 familiar with idle attempts to deprive the Refor- 
 mation of its claim to the patronage of British 
 liberty. But are w-e to be told that our liberties 
 owed their birth, to either the natural daring of the 
 public heart, or to the fostering care of Rome ? On 
 the latter point, common sense decides at once. The 
 civil freeman never can be fabricated out of the re- 
 ligious slave. On the former ; no man rejoices more 
 than myself in the high qualities of the native 
 character, in its manliness and dignity, in all the 
 noble appetencies and powers of a people made to 
 play a great part in the world. But, I ask, where 
 was the liberty of England before the Reformation ? 
 Are we to dig it from the grave of the Saxon dy- 
 nasty ? Are we to look for it in the dungeons of 
 the Norman ? are we to gather its fragments, like 
 the limbs of a trampled warrior, from the car- 
 nage of the York and Lancaster fields ? Or, if we 
 are to hear that the Great Charter was the w'ork of 
 times of spiritual slavery; must we attribute nothing 
 to the inevitable course of human nature — to the
 
 112 CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 swelling of the human heart against merciless chains — 
 to the strong recovery with which the innate prin- 
 ciple of freedom starts up under intolerable pressure 
 — to the returning sense in the bosom of the lowest 
 slave, that, broken as he is, he is still a man ? 
 
 Yet was this the boon of Popery ? Are we not to 
 remember, that the demand of the Great Charter no- 
 toriously arose out of the indignant feeling of the nobles 
 of England against the tyranny of Rome ; that it was 
 extorted from a monarch who had covered himself 
 with the last contempt, by suffering the diadem to 
 be trampled underfoot by the Papal legate — that the 
 immortal sentence, ' We shall not suffer the laws of 
 England to be subverted,' the ' Nolumus leges An- 
 glicB mutari,' which has passed into the inscription of 
 British liberty ; was the defiance of the barons to a 
 tyrannical effort to vitiate the Saxon law by the 
 Romish ? Are we not also to remember, that for de- 
 manding the Great Charter, the whole of the English 
 nobles, with their primate, were laid under anathema 
 by Rome. After this, let us hear no more of the 
 generation of freedom from tyranny. No ! The 
 cradle of human rights was never rocked in the cell 
 of the monk. The sounds of national justice were 
 never sent forth from the wheels and flames of the 
 inquisition. No, if we ask from Popery the eg^, we 
 are sure to be given the scorpion. From the begin- 
 ning of the world to the end, no such thing ever was 
 or ever will be found, as a Popish regenerator ; it is
 
 COXSKUVATIVK PKINf'll'I.ES. 113 
 
 an extravagance in conception, an impossibility in 
 nature, the last experiment of the most insolent 
 hypocrisy on the weakest credulity of man. 
 
 But am 1 not speaking of tilings as undeniable as 
 the sun at noon-day ; when I pronounce, that our 
 first actual possession of freedom, dates from our 
 actual possession of a Protestant establishment. Pro- 
 testantism had given us the true religion ; but the 
 Establishment gave us the startling splendour of 
 that light from heaven fitted to the organs of civil 
 society. Thus, unlike the German mysticism, or 
 the wild and volatile conversion of France, it gave 
 us ardour without enthusiasm, vigour without vio- 
 lence, and the noblest zeal untarnished by the 
 slightest breath of persecution. 
 
 Trivial as empire is in the comparison ; from 
 this period we are to reckon even the birth of British 
 empire. What had been the result of all our earlier 
 struggles for dominion ? Constantly warring, and 
 singularly triumphant, all liad been wasted valour 
 and fruitless glory ; even what we gained on the 
 continent by alliance we lost by war ; at the close of 
 a conflict of two hundred years, we had withdrawn 
 into our own bordei's, and even the last crumbling 
 memorial of British conquest, the fortress where 
 alone on earth the British flag waved over an enemy's 
 soil, was torn from our feebleness. But the Refor- 
 mation came ; and came with the donative of bound- 
 lessdominion in its hand. In that hourwas founded our 
 
 I
 
 114 CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 commercial, and our colonial, throne. Like the old 
 contest of the deities for Athens, the rival emblems 
 of power and peace started from the soil at the touch 
 of its sceptre : but, unlike the war-horse and the 
 olive of that fine fiction, the emblems here were con- 
 joined, and England inherited at once the salient 
 strength, and the rich tranquillity, of empire. 
 
 But the principle has undergone the test of both 
 adversity and prosperity. If a still stronger evidence 
 of the essential value of the established Church to 
 freedom could be demanded, it was given in the days 
 of the great rebellion of 1648. Then, when a con- 
 spiracy, laid solely in bitter schism and reckless am- 
 bition, had resolved on the overthrow of the monarchy, 
 what was the first object of assault ? The enemies 
 of the State had studied their tactics well ; they 
 knew what was the chief bulwark of the constitution, 
 and they instantly assailed the Church. The nation, 
 stunned and deceived, deserted its cause. There 
 was not then, as, thank God, there is now, a noble 
 array of loyalty and virtue rushing from the extre- 
 mities of the land round its walls. In the ignorance 
 and surprise of the time its identity with the con- 
 stitution was forgotten. The church was broken 
 down, and through that breach rebellion poured in, 
 and stormed the throne ! And is it to be forgotten, 
 that this foul and sanguinary conspiracy was in the 
 express name of Reform — that its sworn objects were 
 a purer liberty and a purer religion— and that its
 
 CONSERVATIVE IMUNCFPLES. 115 
 
 success trampled down both, and gave us in their 
 stead only a sullen tyranny, and a frenzied fanaticism ? 
 But look to the new example. When it was the 
 will of Providence to restore the constitution, what 
 was the leader in that most glorious and permanent 
 of all victories ? — the Established Church. Who was 
 the struggler and the champion in the revolution of 
 1688, while the statesman was silent, and the soldier 
 stood looking on ? It was the churchman, who 
 braved the tyranny and its tribunals. It was the 
 bishops, who went to the dungeon as the representa- 
 tives of British rights, and returned from it as the 
 restorers of the British constitution. And is it not 
 even from that championship that we are entitled to 
 date the more than reinstatement ; the new supre- 
 macy of the constitution ? That triumph shot a new 
 vigour into the frame of the moral and physical em- 
 pire. It had found the form lifeless, but the breath 
 it breathed into its nostrils was from heaven, and the 
 clay became a living soul. That triumph has had no 
 rival in the records of human fame, whether we 
 regard its means, its progress, or its consequences. 
 Without shedding a drop of gore, it swept all hos- 
 tility from the land — without shattering the throne, 
 it subverted a tyranny — without inflaming the peo- 
 ple to license, it filled the tiational heart with the 
 most glowing blood of freedom. If, then, such has 
 been the history — and we dare the hardiest scepticism 
 to deny that such it has been — what must be the 
 
 I 2
 
 \]6 CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 conclusion If civil freedom has been sti'ong, or 
 weak, in every age of England, in proportion to 
 the strength or weakness of the Established Church : 
 with what just scorn must we not listen to all cavils 
 against the independence and honour of the Estab- 
 lishment ? If we see the national grandeur rise with 
 its rise, and go down with its diminished glory ; what 
 blind philosophy must it not be, that doubts the 
 connection ; or asks for another cause of the imperial 
 tide, than that great repository of pure and solemn 
 influence, which reflects upon our darkness the lustres 
 of the skies. 
 
 But — to look upon the question in even the lowest 
 point, of practice. Break down the Church, and what 
 must be the consequence ? You will always have a 
 religion in some shape or other ; for it is one of 
 the exigencies of man, one of the strong necessities 
 of the human heart. But, instead of the manly, and 
 decorous, the learned, and loyal Church of England, 
 you will have either a base, sanguinary, and licen- 
 tious infidelity, or a wild, ignorant, and factious en- 
 thusiasm ; or embodying both, and domineering over 
 all, the cloud-enveloped and fire-fanged superstition 
 of Rome ! Or, strip the Church of its property, 
 that property which it holds by a more ancient title 
 than any other in the land ; and you commit not only 
 a fraud, but a folly. Beware of the curse of the 
 spoiler ! You must make the clergy either pensioners 
 or mendicants. Are you prepared to see the per-
 
 CONSKRVATIVE PRINCIPLES. 117 
 
 sonal inrtueuces and popular ability of 20,000 highly 
 educated men, enlisted, by the mere necessity of 
 bread, in the actual servitude of any administration 
 that is ever likely to rule your country ? Or, if you 
 cast them loose ; will your knowledge of the common 
 action of injury and despair upon the mind, save you 
 from the fear of seeing your country wrapped in the 
 perpetual flame of faction ? Do I hold forth this as a 
 menace from the Church ? By no means. The living 
 generation of your clergy will be submissive and true, 
 peaceful and loyal to the last. But when you shall 
 have driven them into exile or the grave ; you will 
 have another race to deal with, a new generation of 
 your own, begotten in convulsion, and shaped in 
 popular conflict ; a band of daring fanatics, or reckless 
 hypocrites, armed with weapons, before whose edge 
 no government could stand. Are you still unaware 
 of the measureless peril of a hostile priesthood ? 
 liook, then, to Ireland. See in her little Popish 
 church, of barely 2000 priests, how slender a shape of 
 wiliness and venom can strike its sting into the heart 
 of a mighty empire. See the finger of the parish 
 priest actually moving the whole machinery of the 
 proudest of all legislatures ! See his lips uttering the 
 voice that bows the coroneted heads of council as to 
 an oracle ! Hear him from his turf altar haughtily 
 commanding England to choose the alternative ; the 
 sacrifice of her constitution, or the separation of her 
 empire !
 
 1 18 CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 It is on those grounds that we require, in the name 
 of common justice, that we shall be molested no more 
 by the virulence of traffickers in faction. Let not 
 the Church have antagonists whose arts disgrace all 
 honourable hostility. If we must perish, let us pe- 
 rish in the day. 
 
 We fix the claim of the Church, not on indulgence, 
 but on right. We show her services. We prove, 
 that the constitution has grown with her growth, 
 and by her growth. But we call on you for more than 
 defence — we call on you for energy, for vigilance, 
 for fidelity to your Church, to your religion, and to 
 your country. We call on you to reject those con- 
 spirators alike against all religion and all liberty ; 
 who come, like the assassins of Caesar, with the peti- 
 tion in one hand, and the knife in the other. In 
 utter scorn of the rage of disappointed treason, we 
 call on you to take the only step that can restore 
 yourselves to honour, and the empire to peace. If 
 you suffer the Church to fall, in that hour you dig the 
 grave of the constitution. I know that the heart of 
 England is still sound, and the arm is still strong. 
 But you must extinguish the mission of tumult. 
 Your institutions must no longer be insulted by the 
 vagrancy of rebellion. 
 
 As the first security of the nation, you must sus- 
 tain the church. It is not while the clouds are 
 gathering over the horizon, and with the thunders 
 beginning to roll, that you can take down the con-
 
 CONSKFn^\TIVl^ I'KINCirLKS. 119 
 
 ductors of the lightniiig. Look to your toniing 
 struggle. It is not when the new possession of poli- 
 tical power is stimulating the old passion for reli- 
 gious supremacy ; and the rudest shape of physical 
 force is filled and inflamed with the subtlest spirit of 
 evil; that you safely turn away from that great teacher, 
 by which alone the demon can be rebuked. If all 
 acknowledge that infidelity and imposture have ad- 
 vanced their marcli over a large portion of Europe 
 even in our day ; what is our obvious duty, but to 
 strengthen the defence of the citadel ? It is not when 
 the assault is marshalling within sight of the battle- 
 ments, that we can dismiss the garrison to their 
 slumbers. Higher interests than even those of free- 
 dom and empire, may be at this hour staked on the 
 sacred vigour, solenui sincerity, and majestic faith 
 of England. While nations are darkening with the 
 shadow of the wings of the god of this world, toe are 
 called on to fight the battle of the God of truth. In 
 that cause we shall conquer, if we faint not. Armed 
 for the most illustrious interests of man, we have 
 only to persevere ; till the great, predicted consum- 
 mation comes, — till we see a power loftier than man 
 supersede all human exertion, assert the dignity of 
 heaven, and by one grand display of combined judg- 
 ment and mercy, at once seal the dungeon of the 
 rebel spirit, and proclaim to the earth an immortal 
 age of peace, prosperity, and triumphant religion.
 
 VIII. 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, AND 
 PROTESTANT SECURITIES. 
 
 In the year 1837, a Second Anniversary of the City of London 
 Conservative Association was held, in a pavihon erected for 
 the purpose. About 2000 persons attended the dinner ; 
 among whom were Lords Jermyn, Monson, Sandon, Rad- 
 stock, and Teignmouth, Sir Henry Hardinge, Sir Edward 
 Sugden, Sir Frederick Pollock, and many other gentlemen 
 of distinction. 
 
 On ' The health of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 and the Estabhshed Church of the United Kingdom,' 
 being given, it was acknowledged in the following 
 speech. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, — I am not so presumptuous, as to 
 suppose myself entitled to stand here as the represen- 
 tative of the Church ; but I have no hesitation in say- 
 ing that I should regard that church as most ungrate- 
 ful, were she not to acknowledge the debt which 
 she owes to the country. If she still exist, it is not 
 improbably due, under God, to great, spontaneous, 
 and patriotic meetings, like that which I now have 
 the honour to address. 
 
 Sir, since this time twelve months, the condition
 
 of the cliurch has been importantly changed. She 
 was then surrounded by dangers. She saw the 
 hand paraded by an itinerancy of sedition. She 
 saw a guilty league of the hypocrite and the 
 rebel openly proclaimed against her. She saw, — and 
 this was the most painful sight of all, — the country 
 looking on with a strange and distempered apathy. 
 It was then that this great association came forward. 
 The city of London declared its determination to 
 stand by the altar and the throne. That noble 
 determination was nobly answered. The thunders 
 of that voice, those protecting thunders, were echoed 
 round the whole horizon. Patriotism, truth, and 
 liberty were in the sound ; and ' Church and King ' 
 w'as the universal response of the empire. With this 
 acknowledgment, we cannot be insensible to the ser- 
 vices of the champions of the public cause in the 
 legislature ; to that manly and generous eloquence, 
 which ' wielded the fierce democracy ; ' or to that 
 dignified firmness, which made the Plouse of Lords 
 the citadel of the constitution. The peerage 
 of England have nobly justified their elevation. In 
 disdaining a spurious popularity, they have made 
 themselves supreme masters of the true. They have 
 already had their reward. They have augmented the 
 lustre of their coronets, by the very lightnings which 
 they conducted away from the head of their country. 
 But I desired to see a still superior power in 
 action. While 1 honoured the disciplined force of the
 
 122 ROMAN CATHOLIC I'LEDGES, 
 
 legislature, as the standing army of the constitution, 
 I felt that there was, in the calm, informal, sacred 
 sincerity of the nation, the great saving power. I 
 felt that victory was never more secure, than when 
 the spirit of the nation, like another Decius,— in the 
 hour of battle, leaving troops and tactics behind, and 
 covering itself only with the robe from the altar, 
 rushed unarmed into the ranks of its enemies. 
 
 But, though the danger has been stayed, we must 
 not believe that it has been extinguished. We have 
 a dreadful enemy to contend vi^ith ; — Popery. That 
 enemy has large views. It disregards alike local 
 defeats and local triumphs. It calculates by empires 
 and centuries. It disdains the petty partisanship of 
 Ireland, which it has long looked upon as a slave — 
 England, which it already counts upon as a province ; 
 and its legislature, which it has determined to make 
 a victim. 
 
 I shall never listen to any man calling the 
 church of England a profession ; it is a principle. 
 It is not a state contrivance for the support of a 
 peculiar class. It is a great institute of divine wis- 
 dom and mercy, for the formation of a people to the 
 noblest stature of virtue, knowledge, and freedom. 
 In the presence of the Searcher of hearts, I believe ; 
 that, in defending the established religion of Eng- 
 land, every man is defending the holiness of his own 
 fire-side, the liberty of his own conscience, and the 
 safety of his own being.
 
 AND I'KUTESTAM SlXl Ul 1 lES. l2o 
 
 The very principle of Popery is domination. If it 
 set its foot upon your cabinet, it is only that it may 
 set its foot upon your constitution. If it over- 
 top your constitution, it is only that it may overtop 
 your church. Its heel once upon your church, it 
 would have under it the whole Protestantism of 
 Christendom. It would have surmounted the only 
 obstacle that intercepts its view of universal sove- 
 reignty. With England Popish, it would stand on 
 that height from which it would have before it " all 
 the kingdoms of the world, and all the glory of 
 them." Would it, or would it not, exult in the 
 temptation .'* 
 
 But are we to be told " the catastrophe has not yet 
 come?" What, with the dagger at our throats, are 
 we to disbelieve in its point, because we do not feel 
 it already in our veins ? What, with the mine ac- 
 tually and boastfully laid in our presence, and the 
 match already waving in the hand, are we to doubt, 
 until it explodes ? When the great orator and 
 patriot of Greece was thus vexed by fools and neu- 
 trals, he exclaimed, ' What can be newer, than that 
 a barbarian from Macedon should domineer over 
 Greece ? ' What, exclaims the indignant Protestan- 
 tism of England, can be more astonishing and omi- 
 nous, than that a Popish faction should donuneer 
 over a British legislature ? What more astonishing 
 and ominous, tiian that the Chui-ch of Ireland should 
 be degraded from a temple into an aln»s-house ; and
 
 124 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 even that ahns-house, but for the generous interpo- 
 sition of your country, on the point of being turned 
 into a dungeon ? What more ominous, than to see 
 the Protestants of Ireland already anticipating exile, 
 and scattering themselves to the ends of the earth ? 
 What more ominous, than to see all the great leading 
 names of the senate excluded from the service of 
 the country ? To see the three first men of the em- 
 pire actually ostracised, and for the old reason of 
 faction — that they vi^ere the three first men. To see 
 the great orator and statesman of the House of Com- 
 mons, Sir Robert Peel, a man who must command a 
 majority in any otherassembly of the nation, labouring 
 night after night in vain. To see the great lawyer and 
 orator of the House of Lords, Lord Lyndhurst, at 
 whose glance the cabinet shrinks ; wasting in re- 
 monstrance those noble faculties which should 
 be employed in renovating the energies of his 
 country. To see the great Captain, the conqueror 
 of the conqueror of Europe, the man whose name, for 
 ages to come, will at once illustrate and shame our 
 generation — Wellington himself, a cipher in the 
 councils of the empire, whose diadem he has sur- 
 rounded with glory ! But, if there were one thing more 
 astonishing and ominous than all the rest, must it not 
 be to see whom we have in their room ? 
 
 Sir, I do not wish to speak in any instance with dis- 
 respect of any government appointed by the monarch. 
 I feel a due reverence for the acts of majesty. But I
 
 AND PROTESTANT SECURITIES. 1/i.') 
 
 speakof a government not appointed by the monarch — 
 the Romish governors of the government. I disdain 
 the fictions of politics; but the facts are before all eyes. 
 Is it not the fact; that in place of all the ability, wis- 
 dom, experience, and public character of the coun- 
 try, the state is governed at this moment by thirty 
 mutes? a deaf and dumb band, emasculated of every 
 faculty, but that of obedience to the nod of the chief 
 executioner ; and ready, at that nod, to bowstring 
 the constitution ! 
 
 On this subject I do not wish to speak with ridi- 
 cule. My feeling is one of indignant scorn, for the 
 arts which have betrayed such multitudes of the 
 generous people of Ireland into the violation of the 
 most solemn bonds that can be expressed in language. 
 
 ' Di quibus iniperium est animarum, umbrpeque silentes, 
 Et Chaos, et Phlegethon, 
 Sit mihi fas audita loqui.' 
 
 That conduct has already been stigmatised in Par- 
 liament by the blackest of all names. I shall not 
 now use that name, nor any other that can be personal. 
 I confine myself to the mere documents. I first 
 come to the successive, solemn, and authorized 
 pledges of the Roman Catholic body, previously to 
 the Act of Emancipation in 1829. 
 
 The Roman Catholic body originally assumed a 
 form in Ireland in the middle of the last century. 
 In the year 1757 they published a ' Declaration of
 
 126 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 the Catholics of Ireland,' framed by one of their 
 bishops, Dr O'KeefFe, and their principal laymen ; 
 which, amongst other principles, pronounced the fol- 
 lowing : — * In the face of our country, of all Europe, 
 and before God, we make this, our deliberate and 
 solemn declaration. It has been objected to us, that 
 we wish to subvert the present church establishment, 
 for the purpose of substituting a Catholic establish- 
 ment in its stead. Now we do hereby disclaim, dis- 
 avow, and solemnly abjure any sucb intention. And 
 further, if we shall be admitted into any share of the 
 Constitution, by our being restored to the rights of 
 the elective franchise, we are ready in the most so- 
 lemn manner to declare, that we will not exercise 
 that privilege to disturb and weaken the establish- 
 ment of the Protestant religion, or Protestant 
 government in this country.' 
 
 In 1792, the Roman Catholics presented a petition 
 to the Irish parliament, containing these words : 
 * We solemnly and conscientiously declare, that we 
 are satisfied with the present condition of our eccles- 
 iastical polity. With satisfaction we acquiesce in the 
 establishment of the national church. We neither 
 repine at its possessions, nor envy its dignities. We 
 are ready on this point, to give every assurance that 
 is binding upon man.' 
 
 In 1793, the oath taken by the Roman Catholics, 
 in conformity to the act of Parliament; contained the 
 following words : ' I do hereby disclaim, disavow.
 
 AND PROTESTANT SECURITIKS. 127 
 
 and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the 
 present church establishment, for the purpose of sub- 
 stituting a Catholic establishment in its stead. And 
 I do solemnly swear, that I will not exercise any 
 privilege to which I am, or may become, entitled, to 
 disturb or weaken the Protestant religion and Pro- 
 testant go\ernment in this kingdom.' By this oath 
 they obtained the elective franchise. 
 
 In 1805, their petition to the parliament of the 
 United Kingdom contained these words : ' Your pe- 
 titioners, most humbly state, that they have solemnly 
 and publicly taken the oaths by law prescribed to his 
 Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, as tests of political 
 and moral principles. Your petitioners beg leave to 
 represent, that, by those awful tests, they bind them- 
 selves, in the presence of the All-seeing Deity, whom 
 all classes of Christians adore, to be faithful, and bear 
 true allegiance to their most gracious sovereign, &c. 
 That they have disclaimed, disavowed, and solemnly 
 abjured every intention to subvert the present 
 church establishment, for the purpose of substituting 
 a Catholic establishment in its stead ; and that they 
 have, also, solemnly sworn that they will not exer- 
 cise any privilege to which they are, or may become, 
 entitled, to disturb or weaken the Protestant re- 
 ligion or Protestant government of Ireland.' This 
 was a petition for seats in Parliament. 
 
 In 1808, the petition of the Roman Catholics to 
 the British Parliament still more in detail pledged
 
 128 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 them to the original declaration ; — ' Your petitioners 
 most solemnly declare that they do not seek, or wish, 
 in any way to injure, or incroach upon, the rights, 
 privileges, possessions, or revenues, appertaining to 
 the bishops and clergy of the Protestant religion, as 
 by law established, or to the churches committed to 
 their charge, or any of them.' 
 
 Their petition of 1812 again renewed the pledge : 
 ' We have solemnly sworn, that we wall not exercise 
 any privilege to which we are, or may become en- 
 titled, to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion, 
 or Protestant government in Ireland. We can, with 
 perfect truth, assure this honourable house, that the 
 political and moral principles, asserted by these 
 solemn and special tests, are not merely in union with 
 our fixed principles, but expressly inculcated by the 
 religion which we profess. We can affirm, with per- 
 fect sincerity, that we have no latent views to realise, 
 no secret or sinister objects to attain.' 
 
 The petition of 1826, to parliament, thus expressed 
 itself: * Your petitioners seek not the destruction, 
 but the enjoyment of the constitution ; and, in the 
 pursuit of that desire, they do not, by any means, 
 * solicit,' ' or expect,' ' or wish,' that a single in- 
 dividual of their Protestant fellow-subjects should be 
 deprived of any right, privilege, liberty, or immunity, 
 of which he is at present possessed.' 
 
 The Irish Roman Catholic Association addressed 
 the people of England in the same year in these
 
 AN1> PKOTKSTANT SFX'URITIES. 121> 
 
 words : ' Far IVoiu nieclitating the overthrow or de- 
 struction of the Protestant government, and Protes- 
 tant establishment of the empire, we are ready to 
 swear, as we already do swear, to support,' &c. &c. 
 (Here follows the oath.) ' We are accused of in- 
 tending to overthrow the Church Establishment, 
 whilst we contribute to uphold its splendour and its 
 power.' 
 
 In the same year, the pastoral address of the Ro- 
 man Catholic archbishops and bishops of Ireland thus 
 reinforced the declaration, on the part of the clergy : 
 * The Catholics of Ireland disclaim, disavow, and 
 solemnly abjure, any intention to subvert the present 
 church establishment, for the purpose of substituting 
 a Catholic establishment in its stead : and, further, 
 they swear, that they will not exercise any privilege 
 to which they are, or may be, entitled, * to disturb 
 and weaken the Protestant religion and Protestant 
 government in Ireland.' The archbishops and bishops 
 add, ' emphatically, this full and authentic declara- 
 tion, we approve, subscribe, and publish,' &c. 
 
 The English Roman Catholic bishops published a 
 declaration, in the same year, containing these words : 
 " He who takes an oath is bound to observe it in the 
 obvious meaning of the words, or in the known mean- 
 ing of the person to whom it is sworn. British Ca- 
 tholics are charged with entertaining a pretended 
 right to the property of the established church in 
 Ireland. We consider such a charge to be totally 
 
 K
 
 130 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 witliout foundation : we declare that we entertain no 
 pretension to such a claim. We regard all the reve- 
 nues and temporalities of the church establishment 
 as the property of those on whom the}' are settled 
 by the laws of the land. We disclaim any right, 
 title, or pretension, with regard to the same." 
 
 Thus we have the whole Roman Catholic popula- 
 tion, and every part of it, successively pledging them- 
 selves, before God and man, to avoid all injur}-, of 
 whatever kind, to the established church — neither to 
 usurp its titles, nor diminish its property, nor break 
 down its constitution. The Romish clergy, the Ro- 
 mish Association, and the laity in general, were all 
 equally and solemnly bound by the strongest possible 
 forms of expression, to pay the Protestant tithes ; 
 and all those forms were concentred and consummated 
 in the Oath of security taken by their parliamentary 
 representatives on the passing of the emancipation 
 bill: — 
 
 " I do swear, that I will defend, to the utmost of 
 my power, the settlement of property within this 
 realm as established by the laws ; and I do hereby 
 disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjui-e any intention 
 to subvert the present church establishment as settled 
 by law within this realm ; and I do solemnly swear, 
 that I never will exercise any privilege to which I 
 am, or may become entitled, to disturb or weaken the 
 Protestant religion, or Protestant government, in the 
 United Kingdom."
 
 AND PROTRSTANT SFX'URITIES. l.']l 
 
 By this OATH every object that could be com- 
 prehended in an lionest ambition was put within 
 reach of the Roman Catholic. All the old barriers 
 were cast down ; parliament, the peerage, the profes- 
 sions. He was made free of all the departments of 
 ability and energy in general life. The church 
 alone was protected ; to whose inviolable security he 
 had voluntarily sworn and resworn with increasing 
 zeal through half a century of asseveration. 
 
 Could it be believed ; had we not been eye-wit- 
 nesses of the event ; that the church became, from 
 that instant, the principal and universal object of 
 Romish attack ? That even all the prizes of Romish 
 ambition were made contingent to the individual on 
 the virulence and daring of the attack ? That every 
 Romish beggar who wished to exchange his bank- 
 ruptcy for opulence ; every hopeless candidate for 
 parliament ; every struggling barrister ; every man 
 who coveted to live on government-bread, from a 
 chancellor down to a police-constable ; was expected 
 to give trial of his fitness for Romish patronage, by 
 his audacity against the church. The Romish boast 
 now is, that this system has triumphed ; that all 
 the offices of dignity or emolument in Ireland are 
 rapidly falling into Roman Catholic hands. But the 
 church still lingers in existence ; and this sight sours 
 the whole revel. " What avail all those things" to the 
 Haman, while the Mordecai, however in beggary and 
 nakedness, *' sitteth at the gate." 
 
 K 2
 
 13^ ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 What then has been the f ulfihnent of the universal 
 pledge ? An universal, ostentatious, and contemp- 
 tuous conspiracy to violate all its obligations? What 
 has been the history of Ireland, since 1829 ; but a 
 proclaimed war against the property of the church ? 
 What has been the purchased conciliation? — increas- 
 ed hostility. What the promised security of the 
 church ? — the refusal of tithes, the burning of parson- 
 age-houses, and the assassination of clergymen. 
 What the boasted national peace ? — a chain of con- 
 spiracy extending round the island, and waiting but 
 the first casualty of England, to become a chain of 
 flame? What has been the employment of the po- 
 pish press, but perpetual libels on the character of 
 the establishment ? What is its declared principle, 
 but that of a public demand for the overthrow of the 
 Irish establishment? The fact is not denied, it is 
 openly exulted in. " How glorious," exclaims one 
 of its most confidential and active leaders, in his 
 speech to his constituents, " that we put the Tories 
 out of office, by a resolution on the Irish church, and 
 the great principle of the secular appropriation of 
 church property " ! — (Mr. Shiel's speech at Thurles, 
 1835.) And on this single declaratory principle, it 
 pronounces that, not merely have the late ministry 
 been driven from office, but the present ministry have 
 been kept in. 
 
 " The Irish party," says the same speech, " met at 
 Lord Lichfield's. The result was, a complete am- 
 nesty — a most unqualified reconciliation. And I have
 
 AND PROTESTANT SECURITIES. 133 
 
 further to state, that the advice of Mr. O'Connell, 
 and some other members, was mainly instrumental 
 in bringing it about. Lord John Russell was called 
 to our head ; and we stood before Sir Robert Peel, 
 the most firm, the most united, the most concen- 
 trated body that ever appeared in opposition." 
 
 Thus, it is now as openly acknowledged, as it was 
 once bitterly denied ; that the actual exclusion of 
 Sir Robert Peel's cabinet was not for English inter- 
 ests, nor even for Whig principles — that it was 
 neither for England nor by English hands ; but that 
 it was by the Irish Roman Catholics in Parliament, 
 the representatives of the priesthood ; and the price 
 * appropriation ! ' That principle involved the 
 famishing of 2000 Protestant clergy. Who can 
 wonder at the rejoicings of the whole troop of rege- 
 nerators over so abundant a banquet of human 
 misery ? who can doubt the sudden ardour of the pa- 
 triotic glance, that saw before it so broad a vista of 
 the prison and the grave ? 
 
 The ministry were overwhelmed by the opposition 
 thus recruited ; and we have the equally open decla- 
 ration, that by this new force alone their successors 
 are since sustained. " I have," says the speech, " seen 
 the conduct of the ministry, for I have watched it 
 narrowly ; and I, for one, will co-operate with Da- 
 niel (yConneU, in lending my aid to support and 
 maintain it in the place it now holds." 
 
 Would not all this be pronounced the most con-
 
 134 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 temptuous of libels on an English cabinet ; if it were 
 not uttered by the hot sincerity of lips too proud of 
 their success to care how they stung the feelings of 
 any man ? Here the whole administration are buried 
 in the shadow of the Agitator. They may be suf- 
 fered to go through the routine of the day, but it is 
 only as substitutes and subsidiaries. He is the 
 Atlas ! 
 
 And this is an English cabinet ! With one of the 
 the popish orators to lead it in front, and another to 
 watch it in the rear; one to drag the animal by its 
 length^of ears, and another to scourge it behind on the 
 first symptom of deviation, — what is wanting to this 
 burlesque of ministerial independence, this peace at 
 peril of the whip, this handcuffed liberty, this mill- 
 horse freedom of will ? 
 
 Again ; let Englishmen remember the condition of 
 the compact', that it is " the secular appropriation of 
 the whole church property of Ireland" — in other 
 words, the confiscation of tlie entire income by which 
 exists the Protestant establishment, — not less the great 
 instrument of English connexion, than of religion, in 
 Ireland. On this sole principle, they are authenti- 
 cally told, that their government is fabricated ; that 
 for this sole purpose it is kept in existence by its 
 fabricators ; and that on the first hesitation to do the 
 whole will of those fabricators, the hand that has 
 plucked it up by the locks from its primitive ob- 
 scurity, and holds it there in contempt of the feelings
 
 AM) I'ROTESTANT SECUUlTIEiS. 135 
 
 of Englaiicl, will instantly let it go, and leave it to 
 perish by its own alacrity in sinking. 
 
 But the policy is rapidly becoming practical ; the 
 condition of the Irish Church is becoming more hazard- 
 ous by the hour; the peasantry, every man of whom 
 was pledged by the Roman Catholic body, lifty years 
 ago, to pay his tithes ; have been commanded not to 
 pay them ; their parliamentary representatives, every 
 man of wliom was additionally pledged by his solemn 
 oath to uphold the laws in this especial instaiice, 
 have never questioned the command. Do we find 
 any indignant remonstrance from their priesthood at 
 this violation of compact. Do we find their prelates 
 assembling to deprecate this breach of faith as a 
 scandal to their church, a dishonour to their religion, 
 and an absolute and inevitable disqualification for 
 their ever being trusted again .' 
 
 What, again, is the evidence of facts ? The Irish 
 papers give us the report of a late meeting, at which 
 an Archbishop presided, and at which. Resolutions to 
 the following purport were adopted : 
 
 " Resolved, That we deeply sympathise with our 
 I'aithful flocks, in the grief and mortification they 
 have experienced at the utter prostration of the hopes 
 which they entertained of the abolition of the tithe 
 system ; and that we should be undeserving of the 
 confidence which they have uniformly reposed in us, 
 if we did not participate in their feelings. 
 
 " Resolved, That as it was not by vague complaints,
 
 136 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 but by loud remonstrances, as well as by active exer- 
 tions, the Catholics of Ireland wrung tardy justice 
 from their enemies ; they ought still to persevere in 
 this legitimate and constitutional line of conduct, 
 which has been already so successful. 
 
 " Resolved, That in no country of ancient or 
 modern times, does history offer to our contempla- 
 tion grievances more unparalleled than those which 
 are embraced in the words, The Protestant establish- 
 ment of Ireland. 
 
 " Resolved, That to clear the ground of all the 
 encumbrance that retards the growth of justice in 
 this country, we shall petition the legislature to ap- 
 propriate the tithes and church-lands to national 
 purposes." 
 
 Is this chance, or principle ? 
 
 Hallam, the most laborious and accurate of modern 
 historians, and a declared Whig, thus records the 
 principles of popery, as to allegiance and oaths : — 
 
 " In the canon law, it is expressly declared, that 
 subjects otve no allegiance to an excommunicated 
 monarch, if, after admonition, he is not reconciled to 
 the church." 
 
 " Domino excommunicato manente, subditi fideli- 
 tatem non debent. Et si longo tempore in ea per- 
 stiterit, et monitus non pareat ecclesise, ab ejus 
 debito absolvuntur." (Decretal, lib. v. tit. 37. 
 cap. 13.) 
 
 *' The Rubric, on the deposition of 'Frederic II.
 
 ANI> PROTESTANT SECURITIES. V'M 
 
 in the council of Lyons, asserts, that *the Pope may 
 dethrone the emperor for legitimate causes.' Papa 
 imperatorem deponere potest ex causis legitimis. 
 (Lib. xi. tit. I.'3. cap. 2. Hallam, vol. ii. p. 288.)" 
 
 The historian proceeds: " two principles are laid 
 down in the Decretals — that an oath disadvantageous 
 to the church is not binding/ and, that one extorted 
 by force is of slight obligation, and may be annulled 
 by ecclesiastical authority. As the first of those 
 maxims gave the most unlimited privilege to the 
 popes, of breaking all faith of treaties ivhich thwarted 
 their interest or passion — a privilege which they con- 
 tinually exercised ; so the second was equally conve- 
 nient to princes weary of observing engagements 
 towards their subjects or neighbours. Thus, Ed- 
 ward L sought, at the hands of Clement V. a dispen- 
 sation from his oath to observe the great statute 
 against arbitrary taxation." 
 
 ' Juramentum contra utilitatem ecclesiasticam prae- 
 stitum non tenet. (Decretal, lib. xi. tit. 24, cap. 27. 
 Et Sext. lib. i. tit. 11, cap. 1.) A juramento per 
 metum extorto ecclesia solet absolvere, et ejus 
 transgressores, ut peccantes mortaliter, non punien- 
 tur. (Eod. lib. et tit. cap. 15.) ' The whole of this 
 title in the Decretals upon oaths, seems to have given 
 the first opening to the lax casuistry of succeeding 
 times.' (Hallam, vol. ii. pp. 296, 297.) He adds, 
 that ' it was in conformity with this sweeping prin- 
 ciple of ecclesiastical utility^ that Urban VL made
 
 138 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 the following solemn and general declaration against 
 keeping faith ivith heretics.' ' It being understood,' 
 says the pope, * that confederations of this order, 
 leagues and bonds, or conventions, made with here- 
 tics or schismatics of tliis kind, after they have become 
 such, are rash, illicit, and, in their nature, null, even 
 though they should have been made before the lapse 
 of the party into heresy or schism ; however they 
 may be confirmed by oath, or by faith pledged, or 
 corroborated by apostolic confirmation, or any other 
 confirmation whatever, after they have become schis- 
 matics, as aforesaid.' (Rymer, tit. 7. p. 352.) 
 
 Those things meet us in open day ; we have on 
 record * A petition of the Roman Catholic archbishop 
 and clergy of the archdiocese of Tuam, at visitation 
 assembled,' thus beginning : ' Your petitioners beg 
 leave to impress upon your honourable house, that 
 the Catholics of Ireland have loudly, repeatedly, and 
 unanimously proclaimed their detestation of the tithe 
 system, as fraught with injustice in principle and cru- 
 elty ; and that they should not be content until they 
 achieved its utter annihilation .' 
 
 What can be done with such men ? By what con- 
 ceivable obligation can they be bound ? We actually 
 had the words of their bishops in full contradiction 
 of every point of this petition. On the 7th of No- 
 vember, 1826, one of them in his deliberate evi- 
 dence, and on oath, before the Irish Education 
 Commissioners, thus spoke : ' As to the dignita-
 
 AND PROTESTANT SKCURITIES. l.'i'J 
 
 ries of the church, we never shall refuse to acknow- 
 ledge their titles, pre-eminence, civil jurisdiction, and 
 temporalities. They are possessions and titles which 
 we conceive the state can confer, and the state can 
 take away ; and, following the counsel of St. Paul 
 we shall never refuse to give " honour to whom 
 honour is due, tribute to whom tribute, and fear to 
 whom fear."' But this was before the Emancipation 
 Bill. 
 
 Is it possible to conceive that the men who said 
 this, could consider themselves authorised to take the 
 titles of the Protestant church, pronounce the tempo- 
 ralities altogether detestable, and call upon their 
 flock to join them in extinguishing the Establishment 
 at a blow, as an incumbrance to the nation ? 
 
 The highest names of the Romish clergy cannot 
 resist this calamity of their position. Dr. Murray, 
 who now calls himself Archbishop of Dublin, has, 
 within a few weeks (May 24,) sent his subscription to 
 the O'Connell fund, with a letter, expressly stating 
 his object to be political. * My dear Sir, the enemies 
 of religion will not, it seems, allow the clergy to stand 
 aloof the mere spectators of the struggle which is now 
 going on to obtain justice for Ireland.' The letter 
 proceeds to state, that the clergy have thus been 
 'forced to take a share in the just, but peaceful pro- 
 secution of the contest ; ' adding, ' that the refusal 
 of a large portion of the population to stain them- 
 selves with the guih of aposlacy, is put forward as a
 
 14'0 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 just and sufficient cause why the whole country 
 should be held in a state of political degradation.* 
 Will it be beheved, that this is the same Dr. Murray 
 who, in 1834, as president of a meeting of Roman 
 Catholic archbishops and bishops of Ireland, adopted, 
 among other resolutions of a similar tendency, the 
 following : — 
 
 •* Resolved, that we do pledge ourselves on our 
 return to our respective dioceses, to remind our 
 clergy of the instructions in our pastoral address of 
 the year 1831, and to recommend to them most ear- 
 nestly to avoid in future any allusion at their altars 
 to political subjects, and carefully to refrain from 
 connecting themselves with political clubs, acting as 
 chairman or secretary at political meetings, or moving 
 or seconding resolutions on such occasions ; in order 
 that we exhibit ourselves in all things in the charac- 
 ter of our sacred calling, as ministers of Christ, and 
 dispensers of the mysteries of God.' 
 
 Has this language been adopted in practice ? We 
 find the individual who published it as the rule of his 
 church, now leading the way as a subscriber to a 
 purpose notoriously political. We find the example 
 largely followed ; the Romish priesthood busy in all 
 the political movements of the hour ; active at elec- 
 tions ; haranging from their altars ; directing and 
 denouncing, with an indefatigable intrigue and a 
 daring violence, worthy of the most ambitious days 
 of popery.
 
 AND PROTESTANT SECURITIES. 141 
 
 We ask, wliat compact can be made with such 
 principles ? How can we negociate, where the only 
 vow kept is one of perpetual hostility ? We ask, what 
 additional grievances have the Roman Catholic body 
 suffered since 1829 ? What breach of that engage- 
 ment ? What restriction on their altars ? has not 
 almost every year been marked by the rash concession 
 of some new demand ? Or is there a stronger realiza- 
 tion in all political history of the boldest fiction of 
 the poet, than this rebel spirit, let loose from his 
 penal chains and darkness, only to spread new rebel- 
 lion ; more malignant at every advance into light and 
 air; and even when standing in the central spot of 
 freedom, and under the broadest sunshine of the 
 constitution, lifting up his voice only to tell it ' how 
 he hates its beams I ' 
 
 Nor is it possible for them to escape under the 
 vulgar subterfuge of parliamentary interpretation. 
 Without more than alluding to the opinions of the 
 framers of the bill, who describe the ' oath ' as a 
 ' principle, which must not be run counter to in any 
 manner whatever : ' — what is the language of their 
 most distinguished and eloquent advocate. Lord 
 Brougham ? In his speech of the 24th of April, 
 1826, he thus expressed his sense of the object and 
 obligation of the Roman Catholic oath of 1793, the 
 same with the present one : — 
 
 * What are the oaths now universally taken by the 
 Irish Catholics? they are the strongest that language
 
 142 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 can convey. 1 defy the wit of man to devise more 
 ample pledges of attachment to the establishment, as 
 a political institution. They are couched in the very 
 words which the most zealous Protestant would be 
 forward to use for the purpose of displaying, nay, 
 making a display, of his loyalty to the church. In 
 truth, they are the oaths invented by yourselves, as 
 sufficient to satisfy your anxiety for the church, to 
 disarm your fears for her security. They are the 
 oaths by which you intended to obtain all the 
 safeguards that swearing and declaring can give.' 
 In another portion of his speech, he says ' to the 
 Protestant church they pay, without a murmur, the 
 tithe of all they have, though to them it can by no 
 possibility afford any spiritual succour. They bind 
 themselves by oaths and solemn declarations to sup- 
 port both church and state ; and abjure, in the sight 
 of God and man, every feeling inconsistent with the 
 safety and interest of both.' 
 
 Not to multiply instances, another of their advo- 
 cutes, Dr. Lushington, in 1829 observed, in reference 
 to the present oath, when before parliament, ' No 
 man can doubt the meaning of the words, ' I will 
 defend, to the utmost of my power, the settlement 
 of property within the realm.' Those words include 
 ever)' description of property, not only as relates to 
 a court of law, but also in the common sense of 
 every man whatever. Tiierefore the. words are suffi- 
 cient to all intents and purposes.' And again, in the
 
 AND I'KOTKSTANT SECURITIES. 1 l.J 
 
 ik-batc of the 8lh of February, 1833, in answer to 
 the quibble of a member, who said that, in inter- 
 fering with the Protestant Church in Ireland, he 
 only meant interfering with its temporalities, Dr. 
 Lushington thus gave his distinct opinion, ' I think 
 that every Catholic member of Parliament, when he 
 enters the house, takes at the table an oath, the 
 words of which ought to make an impression, on his 
 mind, never to be shaken.' He then read the form 
 of the Roman Catholic oath to the house, and said, 
 ' Others may be more ingenious in scanning the ex- 
 tent of an oath, but I understand its plain meaning 
 to be, that the Catholic members shall not lend them- 
 selves to any attempt which will either weaken, sub- 
 vert, or destroy the Protestant church establishment." 
 I shall give but one example more ; it shews the per- 
 severance in this desperate system, for it is of so late 
 a date as the 24th of November, 1836; the re- 
 solutions of the Irish Association, passed on that 
 day. 
 
 ' Resolved, that it is incompatible with the princi- 
 ples of religious liberty, that any man should be 
 compelled to pay for the ordinances of a church with 
 which he is not joined in communion. 
 
 ' Secondly — Resolved, that, as under the present 
 appropriation of the tithe composition, a tribute is 
 levied from the whole nation for the uses of the 
 church of only one tenth portion of the community, 
 the people of Ireland are, therefore, justified in de-
 
 144 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES. 
 
 manding the total extinction of an assessment so ap- 
 plied. 
 
 ' Thirdly — Resolved, that, in our opinion, no set- 
 tlement of the tithe question can give satisfaction to 
 the people of Ireland, which is not founded on the 
 foregoing principles.' 
 
 Let those resolutions be placed side by side with 
 the Roman Catholic oath ! they were moved by 
 Mr. O'Connell ; declaring that he never rose with 
 greater pleasure in his life than for the purpose ! 
 
 If the Scriptures are true, which pronounce Satan 
 the father of lies and of liars, of what genealogy is 
 lan^uaffe like this ? In the name of common sense, 
 how long are we to suffer those intrigues ? In the 
 name of British freedom, how long are laws to be 
 made for Protestants by Popish legislators ? In the 
 insulted name of the God of truth and justice, how 
 long is our religion to be held at the mercy of a 
 system begotten in delusion, brought forth in iniquity, 
 and maintained by the fearless dissolution of every 
 tie that binds man to man ! So said not the heathen. 
 
 ' Sed mihi vel Tellus, optem, prius ima dehiscat, 
 Vel Pater Omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras, 
 Pallentes umbras Erebi, noctemque profundam, 
 Ante, Pudor, quara te violo, aut tua jura resolve' 
 
 But, one oath has been sworn, which will be pro- 
 foundly kept : the oath to the utter ruin of Protes- 
 tantism in the realm. The tragedy of the church in 
 Ireland is plainly but the rehearsal of the tragedy in
 
 AND PROTESTANT SECURITIES. ll."> 
 
 England and Scotland. There are two ways of des- 
 troying a church : by storm and by sap. But the 
 people of England could not be tried by the for- 
 mer ; they would not suffer persecution to go forth, 
 showering its fire-brands through their households. 
 The method by sap may be the more tardy, but it is 
 the more secure : it destroys the Church by the 
 peril of its property. This invention is not wholly 
 due to the papacy ; it is a leaf from the old 
 volume of paganism. Julian * the Apostate's was 
 the original genius, which discovered this mode 
 of slaying religion without the mark of blood. He 
 saw that martyrdom spread the church ; but he 
 knew that no man will educate his son for famine- 
 He acted on his principle : he suffered the scaffolds 
 to moulder, but lie seized the revenues. Thus, 
 
 * Julian, according to this principle, which even Gibbon pronounces 
 to have been ' prejjnant with mischief and oppression,' transferred to 
 the papan pontiffs the revenues granted to the Christian church by Con- 
 stantine and his sons. The system of clerical honours and immunities 
 was levelled to the ground ; money was prohibited to be left to the 
 church by will ; and the Christian priesthood were confounded with the 
 lowest class of the people. An additional blow was levelled at their 
 education. The Christians were prohibited from keeping schools, which 
 was a virtual prohibition of all education, for it was notorious that they 
 would not go to the schools of the pagan. Gibbon concludes by saying, 
 that ' Julian had reason to expect that, in the space of a few years, the 
 church would relapse into its primeval siinpUciii/, and that the theolo- 
 gians, who possessed an adequate share of the learning and eloquence of 
 the age, wotild be succeeded by a peneraiion of hUnd and iffnorant fana- 
 tics, incapable of defending the trxith of theii own principles, or of expos- 
 ing the various follies of poh/theism." Julian, after a reign of but twen- 
 tv-two months, fell in battle.
 
 146 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 the church and the living generation must have 
 gone down together to the grave. The invention 
 was matchless ; but the hand of God cut short the 
 inventor, and his legacy was left for the benefit of 
 Christians ! to come ! 
 
 The sources of religion are above human property. 
 But a permanent property is essential to a permanent 
 Church. Pauperize the clergy, and you expose them 
 to the ignorance, the passions, and the corruptions 
 of poverty. You do worse ; you shake their doctrine ; 
 for who can rely on the stability of doctrine, where 
 the preacher must look to popularity for bread. Mulct 
 the Church, and you degrade it into a dependent on 
 national caprice ; confiscate, and you ruin. Pure re- 
 ligion will pass away with it into other lands. It may 
 retain a show of existence here ; but cut off the roots, 
 and the fall of the stately tree is as sure, as if the 
 axe had severed the trunk. Insects and reptiles may 
 cling to it, and feed upon its decay : but all the nobler 
 tenants of its branches will be gone upon the 
 wing. 
 
 But what must be the national results ? The mis- 
 fortune of English opinion is, that long prosperity 
 has rendered it comparatively unconscious of danger. 
 A hundred and fifty years of security have made it 
 contemptuous of all menace. But is it not to be 
 remembered, that within the fifty years before, the 
 constitution was once wholly overthrown ; and once 
 saved only by the extraordinary chance of finding a
 
 AND l'H(JTESTANT SECURITIRS. 147 
 
 champion of liberty and religion in the house of the 
 tyrant and bigot, and a warrior in the feeblest state 
 of Europe ? 
 
 * Imperium iisdem artibus optime retinetur quibus 
 initio partum est.' The profound maxim of the 
 Roman politician is marked on the history of every 
 rising, and of every falling empire — ' The vigour 
 which attained, must sustain.' If the strength of 
 England is invincible, it is only so when on its guard 
 — the giant reposing in the arms of dalliance will 
 awake only to find himself sightless, shorn of his 
 strength, and a drudge and a scoff for life to the 
 bitterest of his enemies. 
 
 But " the character of the people will be our pro- 
 tection ! " History, even the history of the people of 
 England, corrects this error. Nothing is so fluctu- 
 ating as national character. In the conflicts of Eng- 
 land, from the Wars of the Roses, down to the ex- 
 pulsion of James the Second, it has taken every 
 contradictory hue ; it has been alternately daring 
 and submissive, bigoted and pious, rebellious and 
 loyal : — like the ocean, vast and resistless ; like the 
 ocean, reflecting in the calm all the lights and glories 
 of nature ; but like it, swaying before every gust, 
 and assuming at once the fury and the darkness of 
 the storm. 
 
 But, * thank God, we have lords ! ' — Every honour- 
 able bosom in England must echo the thanksgiving. 
 The peerage have nobly done their duty ; yet they 
 
 L 2
 
 148 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 are but men. " Put not your trust in princes," was the 
 language of one of the wisest of men, himself a prince. 
 The lords failed once ; they may fail again : every art 
 will be tried to shake, divide, and terrify them ; if 
 they give way but for an hour, all gives way along 
 with them. Is this to be the confidence of the 
 British empire ? 
 
 A year of popish supremacy would effect all that 
 popery ever desired — the total subversion of church 
 and state ; full vengeance on all that had repressed its 
 ambition ; exile, confiscation, and death, for its par- 
 ticular enemies ; ruin for Protestantism and the con- 
 stitution. 
 
 It is easy to register the progress of that triumph ; 
 we have only to trace its steps over the face of any 
 counti'y of modern Europe ; France, Germany, Spain, 
 the Netherlands. But the Irish Protestants would 
 inevitably be the first victims : they have been guilty of 
 three hundred years of loyalty ; of an unbroken adher- 
 ence to English connexion ; of fertilising and civilising 
 their portion of Ireland into the loveliness and quiet 
 of England itself ; of the pure forms of Christianity. 
 They must be prepared for the last extremity ; they 
 must either fight or fly ; they have sinned too deeply 
 to be forgiven. 
 
 But, with Ireland in popish hands, what could save 
 England ? The nation would be already divided ; the 
 papist would have only to affect a neutralit}^, and hold 
 back; to see the empire bleed to death by the abscision
 
 AND I'ROTESTANT SECURITIES. 149 
 
 of Ireland. Yet, will there be no temptation to more 
 daring measures ? Are we prepared to contemplate 
 the march of popery, under the civil banner of some 
 future cabinet erected by itself, and ready alike to 
 lead its triumphs as a traitor, aid them as a conspira- 
 tor, or follow them as a slave ? Plave we no fears of 
 the loose population of Ireland rolling on our shore ? 
 they could spare a million ! We have resisted the 
 world, but it was with the constitution on our side ; 
 what could be our resistance, with the constitu- 
 tion against us, our valour branded as treason, and 
 the scaffold before our eyes ? 
 
 Such are some of our dangers. Still, if we have 
 evils to meet, we have manly support in the sympa- 
 thies of all that is pure, even in the varied religious 
 bodies of the empire. The language of the honour- 
 able bai'onet (SirG. Sinclair) who has just addressed 
 you on the subject of the Scottish Church, shews 
 the feeling of that important body. We have it 
 further declared, in the published language of its first 
 official authority, its moderator — a divine whose 
 merits do honour to his church — that, if the establish- 
 ment in Scotland has taken a political turn, it has 
 been compelled by the necessities of the time. ' With 
 the exception,' says Dr. Macleod, ' of a very few in- 
 dividuals, all the clergy of the Church of Scotland 
 have ranged themselves on the conservative side of 
 politics, determined to resist the dangers that seem to 
 threaten their most valued institutions.'
 
 150 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES, 
 
 * Under the present aspect of public affairs, and 
 viewing with alarm the measures of government to- 
 wards our sister estabHshments, and their apathy to 
 the fearful destitution of religious instruction which 
 exists in our own land, we should deem it a derelic- 
 tion of duty to remain in a state of real or apparent 
 neutrality.'* 
 
 If you are deceived in this traffic of your religious 
 liberty against your fears, never was a people more 
 contemptuously deceived. Your enemies speak with 
 the plainness of sure ascendency. You 'conciliate,' and 
 call your concession a settlement. They laugh at your 
 conciliation as a sign of terror, and call your concession 
 an * instalment.' Every weapon that you lay at their 
 feet in sign of your zeal for peace, is openly added to 
 their armoury, in preparation for war. "With an 
 arrogance which, in other times, would have been 
 pronounced treason, they threaten to divide your 
 empire ; and if the menace is still unperformed, it is 
 checked only by the rising hope, that they will yet 
 have possession of the whole. 
 
 But if you may trifle with rights and religion, you 
 cannot concede men : the Protestants of Ireland will 
 not be conceded by you. They are the sons of 
 English freedom in its hardiest days ; and they re- 
 tain the hardihood of that noble ancestry, invigorated 
 and made vigilant by living perpetually in sight of 
 
 * Letter, Edinburgh, Maj- 31, 1837.
 
 AND PROTESTANT SECURITIES. 151 
 
 the popish border. Those you may crush, but you 
 cannot conciliate them away. It will not be a negoci- 
 ation ; it must be a slave-trade. 
 
 But one word more. The established clergy have 
 been charged with a fondness for obsolete abuses. 
 This is a calumny. There is no body of men in the 
 empire more willing to adopt, nay, to lead, the most 
 vigorous career of improvement. But they cannot 
 discover improvement in the violation of justice ; nor 
 will they bow down to robbery in the mask of re- 
 ligious reform. If the state, or the church, have in- 
 firmities, there are no men more desirous of seeing 
 them healed. But they would approach both with 
 the reverence due to the couch of a parent ; they 
 would not see them, like the bodies of criminals, flung 
 on the dissecting-table, to glut a savage curiosity, or 
 teach apprentice-statesmen how to mangle. There 
 are no men to whose uses, happiness, and natural 
 zeal for the great establishment of England, all na- 
 tional advance has a higher value. But they rightly 
 distrust and disdain all reform, whether religious or 
 political, generated of other parentage than truth and 
 honour. Whatever countenance the child may wear, 
 it will have the hereditary disease in its frame ; 
 ' Ignavi ex ignavis.' Constitution never grew out of 
 conspiracy. Reform, to be salutary, must be the 
 reverse of local, temporary, or subservient to party 
 objects. It must be principled ; it must be gradual ; 
 it must be as much above the little gra?.p of faction,
 
 152 ROMAN CATHOLIC PLEDGES. 
 
 as the sun is above the reach of man. Like that lu- 
 minary, it must be a work of the highest beneficence, 
 guided by the highest wisdom ; a great necessity of 
 moral nature, enlightening the darkness of the nation 
 without disturbance ; and, as it moves onward, calmly 
 shedding fertility and life into the bosom of the land. 
 It must not be a conflagration ; bursting on us at 
 midnight ; involving the helpless and the confiding in 
 hazard of life ; hailed only by the thief and the trai- 
 tor ; and leaving no vestige of its progress but in 
 its ruins.
 
 IX. 
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 The parting promise of our Lord to his Churcli, "Lo! 
 I am with you to the end of the world," has heen 
 unanswerably realized in the continued existence of 
 the Gospel. If it has sometimes been lost to the 
 general eye, it has always been restored ; like a 
 river plunging under ground, it has always continued 
 its course, and often met the light of day again with 
 additional force and volume. If it has abandoned its 
 old channel, it was only to find a new and broader 
 one, to fertilize an untried region, and reflect the 
 shapes and splendours of heaven in a nobler and more 
 tranquil expanse. It has never been absorbed ; and 
 even in its final days of difficulty, it shall sink, only 
 to rise again, and spread round the world. But a re- 
 markable characteristic of those revivals of the Gospel, 
 is, that they were in almost every instance by the in- 
 strumentahty of individuals. The great political move- 
 ments of mankind arc often as general as the movements
 
 154 2UINGL1US, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 of the ocean or the air ; a vast and unaccountable im- 
 pulse suddenly urges the whole. But the revivals of 
 religion in the East, in Italy, in Germany, in France, 
 and, in England, were nearly all personal, — while all 
 was in spiritual slavery, an individual started forth, 
 showing his broken chain ; while all was silence 
 throughout the world, a trumpet sounded, summoning 
 the soldiers of the faith to brace on their armour ; while 
 the voice of the prophet had been unknown for ages, 
 the voice was heard crying in the wilderness, that 
 the " hour was come," proclaiming repentance, and 
 preparing the multitude for the baptism of regene- 
 ration. 
 
 The apostles were commanded to go forth, not in 
 the strength of human powers, not relying upon 
 genius, eloquence, or authority, but in the strength 
 of religion; and they conquered, where the noblest 
 powers of man would have been in vain. 
 
 The command was given for all times, as well as 
 for the apostolic age. While it declared, that the 
 great work of God was not to owe its triumph to any 
 vanity of man ; it also declared, that simplicity, sinceri- 
 ty, and moral courage, qualities which may be found 
 in every rank of man, however divested of the more 
 showy gifts of nature or fortune, were appointed to 
 achieve the hallowed and immortal successes of the 
 gospel. No Christian can be suffered to shelter his 
 indolence under the pretext, that he has not the 
 brilliant faculties which influence the world. The
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 155 
 
 mightiest changes that the earth has ever seen, were 
 made by men whose only talents were love of truth, 
 love of man, and love of God. The life of the first 
 reformer of Switzerland is an illustrious example. 
 
 Ulric Zuingle,* better known by his Latinized 
 name of Zuinglius, was the son of a peasant in the 
 Swiss valley of Tokenburg. He was destined for the 
 church, and was sent successively to Basle, Berne, and 
 Vienna, where he acquired the meagre literature 
 usual in the fifteenth century; in the eighty-fourth 
 year of which, on the 1st of January, he was born. 
 After four years residence at Basle, he was ordained 
 by the bishop of Constance, on being chosen by the 
 burghers of Glaris as their pastor. From this epoch 
 commenced his religious knowledge. It occurred to 
 him, while yet in the darkness of popery ; that to be 
 master of the doctrines of Christianity, he ought to look 
 for them, in the first instance, not in the writings of 
 the doctors, or in the decrees of councils, but in the 
 scriptures themselves. He then began to study the 
 New Testament; and found, what all men will find who 
 study it in a sincere desire for the truth, and in an 
 earnest and humble supplication for wisdom ; that in 
 it was wisdom, not to be taught by man. 
 
 In this study he pursued a system essential to the 
 right perception of the scriptures. Not content with 
 reading the text, he laboured to investigate its diffi- 
 
 * Mvconiiis de vita Ziiinglii.
 
 156 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 culties ; he studied it in the original ; and with so 
 much diligence, that, to render its language familiar 
 to his memory, he wrote out the entire of St. Paul's 
 epistles, and crowded the margin of his manuscripts 
 with notes of his own, and observations from the Fa- 
 thers. As his knowledge grew, he was astonished to 
 find, that some of those doctrines of the Romish 
 Church, which he had conceived to be fixed as fate, 
 were not discoverable in the New Testament. To 
 clear up those perplexing doubts ; he peculiarly ex- 
 amined the texts on which the canon of the mass was 
 declared to be founded ; and by adopting the natural 
 rule, of making scripture its own interpreter, he con- 
 vinced himself of the feebleness of the foundation. 
 He now passed on from discovery to discovery. He 
 examined the writings of the primitive Fathers, the 
 immediate followers of the apostolic age ; and ascer- 
 tained, that they differed in a variety of points from 
 the doctrines of Rome. From the Fathers he passed 
 down to a general study of the later theologians, and 
 found in some, denounced by Rome as heretics, the 
 very opinions which he had been taught by his solitary 
 labour of the scriptures.* In the works of Bertram 
 on the Eucharist, he read opinions in the ninth cen- 
 tury opposed to those of the papacy. In Wickliffe's 
 writings he found fatal arguments against the invoca- 
 tion of saints, and conventual vows ; and in those of 
 
 * Hottinger. Hist. Eccl. J.(i.
 
 ZUINCiML.S, TlIK SWISS REFORMKR, 1.57 
 
 Huss the martyr, open and resistless reprobation of 
 the tyranny of the papal power, and tlic temporal 
 ambition of the Romish priesthood. To eyes once 
 opened by the book of all holiness and wisdom, the 
 delusion rapidly gave way on all sides. From the 
 doctrines of the Romish church he next turned to its 
 practice. 
 
 In unaccountable contrast with the inspired de- 
 nunciations, he saw the people bowing down to 
 images, and attributing the power of miracles to 
 pictures, statues, and fragments of the dead. 
 
 He saw the scriptures, on one hand, proclaiming 
 ONE Mediator, and him alone. He saw the papacy, 
 on the other, proclaiming hundreds and thousands, in 
 saints, statues, and bones. One Sacrifice, once offer- 
 ed for all, " without money and without price," was 
 the language of inspiration. A thousand, a million 
 sacrifices every day, and for any individual who pur- 
 chased them, was the practice of popery. " Be not 
 lords over God's heritage," were the dying words of the 
 apostle. * Be kings, conquerors, rulers of all na- 
 tions,' was the maxim of those who declared that 
 they held their sceptre in virtue of St. Peter's supre- 
 macy. *' The servant of the Lord must not strive," 
 said the scriptures. * The servant of the Lord must 
 strive, and hunt down, and chain, and massacre, those 
 who will not believe that he is the supreme deposi- 
 tory of the wisdom of God, the vicar of God on earth, 
 the spiritual Lord of mankind, the opener of the
 
 158 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 gates of heaven, the sentencer of eternal misery, to 
 whom he will,' was the dogma of Rome. 
 
 It is one of the most admirable features in the 
 character of Zuinglius, that nothing could urge him 
 into precipitancy. Those truths were irresistible, 
 yet he knew the hazard even to truth from rashness. 
 He had a double distrust, first of his own mind, next 
 of that of the multitude. He felt, that the eager- 
 ness to throw off prejudices has sometimes been itself 
 a prejudice ; and he determined to abstain from all 
 public declarations of his sentiments, until they were 
 unchangeable. To try them by every test, he kept 
 up a private theological correspondence with a large 
 circle of learned men ; but in his sermons he avoided 
 all dispute, and by a course which is perhaps, after 
 all, the true way to shake error from its strongholds,— 
 the simple preaching of the uncontradicted and essen- 
 tial doctrines of Christianity ; he gradually softened 
 the repugnance, and purified the corruption of the 
 public mind. In this course he continued for ten 
 years. 
 
 But his career was at length to receive a more 
 vigorous and defined direction. It would be pre- 
 sumptuous to decide, that providence always over- 
 rules the common chances of life in favour of its most 
 distinguished servants ; but the chief circumstances of 
 Zuinglius's life were among the most fortunate that 
 a preacher of the Gospel could have chosen. 
 
 The direction of the opulent and highly-privileged
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 159 
 
 abbey of Einsiedlen, in the canton of Schvveitz, had 
 been lately given to Theobald, Baron of Geroldsac ; 
 a man of noble birth, who, after receiving an edu- 
 cation more fitted for the noble and the soldier than 
 the churchman, had become a monk. He brought 
 with him from the world ideas superior to the clois- 
 ter, and one of his first purposes was, to make his 
 community entitled to literary distinction. Zuin- 
 glius's character for intelligence reached him, and he 
 ofiered the pastor of Glaris the preachership of the 
 convent. Its opportunities of knowledge and literary 
 association were so obvious, that Zuinglius accepted 
 the offer ; though the people of Glaris were so 
 much attached to him, that they kept their pulpit 
 open for two years, in the hope that he might change 
 his mind, and return. 
 
 At Einsiedlen, Zuinglius found all that was still 
 necessary to invigorate and accomplish his mind for 
 the great work which that lay before him. The library 
 contained the chief theological labours of the church, 
 with a large collection of the Fathers, and of the leading 
 restorers of learning in Germany. Among the monks 
 too were some active and zealous minds, whose names 
 are still distinguished among the Reformers ; and at 
 their head was a candid and high-spirited noble, who, 
 in an age of papal violence, had the manliness to 
 encourage their enquiries, the sincerity to follow 
 truth, and the singular intrepidity to reduce it to 
 practice. Zuinglius had no sooner proved, that it
 
 160 ZUTNCTJUS, TIIK SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 was unscriptural to believe in the pardon of sins for 
 money, than Geroldsac ordered the effacing of the 
 inscription over the Abbey gate, ' Here plenary re- 
 mission of all sins is to be obtained.' It was no sooner 
 proved to him that the worship of relics was unholy, 
 than he ordered the relics to be taken from the altars 
 and buried. Tlie nuns had hitherto read only the 
 Romish liturgy ; he ordered, that they should be sup- 
 pHed with the New Testament. Their vows had 
 hitherto been irrevocable ; he ordered that, while 
 all conventual license should be strictly restrained, 
 every nun should be at liberty to leave the walls, 
 and marry if she so willed. Under such a governor, 
 prudence alone was necessary to solid success, and 
 prudence was one of the finest qualities of Zuinglius. 
 In his two-fold office of preacher and confessor, a 
 rash or ambitious spirit might have had great means 
 of disturbing the general peace, by irritating pubhc 
 opinion. He wisely abstained from this hazardous 
 and fruitless course ; left the prominent superstitions 
 to be detected by the increasing intelligence of the 
 people, and holily laboured to convince them only of 
 righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. 
 Thus, without offending their prejudices, he en- 
 lightened their understandings ; and having disclosed 
 the pure and visible beauty of the truths of God, 
 safely left his hearers to condemn for themselves the 
 groundless doctrines, and tyrannical assumptions, of 
 Rome.
 
 ZUIXGLILS, THE SWISS ULFORMER. IGl 
 
 With the force of his strong and sincere mind 
 turned to the great subjects of Christianity, he must 
 have been in constant advance to a more vigorous 
 conviction of the errors of the Popish system ; and the 
 time must have arrived when that conviction would de- 
 clare itself. But the piety of Zuinglius was the direct 
 reverse of popular passion. It has been remarked, 
 by one who knew human nature well, that a " re- 
 former who seeks only improvement, applies to 
 the higher ranks ; but that he who seeks only inno- 
 vation, applies to the lower." By the course of so- 
 ciety, all beneficial reform must be transmitted from 
 the possessors of property, knowledge, and public ex- 
 perience ; for, with the educated the instrument must 
 be reason ; with the uneducated the instrument is 
 always violence. 
 
 The first appeals of the Swiss Reformer were to his 
 ecclesiastical superiors. His addresses to the Bishop 
 of Constance, and the Cardinal of Sion, pointed out 
 for their correction the errors which it was in their 
 power safely to extinguish ; but which could not, 
 without public danger, be left to be extinguished by 
 the people. 
 
 ' The revival of letters,' said some of those manly 
 documents, ' has lessened the popular credulity. The 
 people begin to blame the idleness of the monks, 
 the ignorance of the priesthood, and the misconduct 
 of the prelates.' 
 
 ' If care be not taken, the multitude will soon 
 
 M
 
 162 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 lose the only curb capable of restraining its passions, 
 and will go on from disorder to disorder.' 
 
 * A reformation ought to be begun immediately ; 
 but it ought to begin with superiors, and spread from 
 them to their inferiors. 
 
 ' If bishops were no longer seen to handle the 
 sword instead of the crozier ; and ecclesiastics of all 
 kinds to dissipate in scandalous debauchery the reve- 
 nues of their benefices ; then we might raise our 
 voices against the vices of the laity, without dread- 
 ing their recriminations. Yet a reform in manners 
 is impossible, unless you first get rid of those swarms 
 of pious idlers who feed at the expense of the 
 industrious citizen, and unless you abolish those 
 superstitious ceremonies and absurd dogmiis, equal- 
 ly calculated to shock the understanding of rea- 
 sonable men, and to alarm the piety of religious 
 ones.' 
 
 The Cardinal of Sion was a man of talents, who 
 had raised himself from obscurity into high political 
 influence with the court of Rome. The strength of 
 his understanding made him feel that his remonstrant 
 was in the right, and he promised to lay the statement 
 before the Pope. But the Cardinal was more a politi- 
 cian than a priest, and he soon shrank from offering so 
 obnoxious a topic to the stately and luxurious selfish- 
 ness of Leo X. The son of the Medici had more en- 
 grossing objects than the purification of the Church. 
 Those were, to aggrandize his family ; to strengthen
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 163 
 
 himself as a monarch by foreign alliances ; to distin- 
 guish his name as that of the Maecenas of the age ; 
 and adorning his city by monuments of the arts, in 
 St. Peter's to build a temple worthy of the pride 
 of a religion which claimed the supremacy of man- 
 kind. 
 
 But the period had now arrived, when profound 
 study, continued interchange of opinion with the 
 leading philosophers and divines of his country, and 
 holy convictions, matured during many years, had 
 fitted Zuinglius for the solemn and public commence- 
 ment of his work of immortality. 
 
 For this perilous effort, which required the hero- 
 ism of the age of the martyrs, the great Reformer 
 chose a prominent occasion.* The history of the 
 Convent of Einsiedlen was a striking compound of 
 the wild legends and fantastic miracles of the dark 
 ages. In the ninth century, a monk of noble family, 
 probably disturbed by some memory of the furious 
 excesses of his time, had determined to hide himself 
 from human eyes, in the most lonely depths of Switzer- 
 land. The spot which he chose was even then called 
 ' The Gloomy Forest.' Here he built a chapel and 
 a hermitage, and after a solitude of twenty-six years, 
 closed his career under the daggers of banditti. A 
 miracle was declared to sanctify his death. — Two 
 crows, his only associates in the wilderness, flew on 
 
 * Hartman Ann. 
 M 2
 
 164 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 the track of the murderers, screaming round them ; 
 until, in the market-place of Zurich, the popular sus- 
 picion was fixed on the criminals, and the crime was 
 finally confessed, and avenged. 
 
 Pious curiosity was now attracted to the forest ; 
 wealth followed curiosity, and a monastery rose on 
 the foundation of the hermitage. A further miracle 
 attested the good-will of the * Virgin,' to whom, and 
 to the * Martyrs of the Tlieban legion,' the establish- 
 ment was dedicated. — The Bishop of Constance, 
 with some of the neighbouring prelates, had arrived 
 to consecrate the convent ; when, in the night before 
 the ceremony, the bishop heard superhuman voices 
 chanting hymns in the church. His pious scruples 
 started at the guilt of adding superfluous consecra- 
 tion to that shrine which had been already declared 
 holy by celestial homage ; and he next day refused 
 to perform his function. He was, however, entreated 
 so perseveringly, that he approached the altar : but a 
 mysterious oracle pronounced in the ears of the ter- 
 rified prelate, and the wondering people, * Cessa, 
 cessa, frater ; divinitus capella consecrata est' — ' For- 
 bear, brother ; the chapel is divinely consecrated.' 
 The rebuked bishop shrank before the supreme 
 sanctification, and the multitude returned home, only 
 to come back with the fruits of sanctity that monk- 
 ism loves, to the altar thus conspicuously hallowed. 
 The robber-nobility and tyrant princes of the tenth 
 century, who had many an act of blood to atone,
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 165 
 
 came to wash away their crimes by giving a portion 
 of their pillage to the convent of Einsiedlen. In the 
 spirit of a time which always combined temporal 
 ambition with spiritual influence, the Abbot of this 
 opulent establishment soon disdained the humble 
 rank of a pastor, and demanded that of a sovereign. 
 Under Rodolf of Hapsburg, the founder of the Aus- 
 trian monarchy, the Abbot of Einsiedlen took his 
 place among the princes of the ' Holy Roman Empire.' 
 Where opulence and rank were thus fully obtained, 
 sanctity could not be far. An image of the Virgin 
 was soon discovered, more genuine than all the past, 
 more wonder-working, and more productive to the 
 sacred treasury. The glory of this wooden Empress 
 of the Heavens, this healer of diseases, and extractor 
 of money, beamed with undiminished radiance for 
 nearly half the duration of the empire of Rome ; and 
 even in the sixth century from her rising on the eyes 
 of the faithful, her splendours had scarcely approached 
 their setting. 
 
 Once in every seven years the consecration of the 
 chapel was solemnized with peculiar pomp. The event 
 itself had been fixed in the Papal history by a bull of 
 Leo the Eighth, and the details had been preserved 
 for posterity in a volume entitled, ' De Secretis Se- 
 cretorum.' It was there stated, to have been per- 
 formed ' according to the Romish ritual in such cases 
 made and provided ; the Saviour himself officiating ! 
 and being attended in the ceremony by a host of
 
 166 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 angels, evangelists, martyrs, and fathers.' To give 
 further evidence of which fact, says the record, our 
 Saviour concluded the ceremony by striking the fin- 
 gers of his right hand into a stone at the chapel- 
 door.' The marks were worshipped, kissed, and 
 prayed to by thousands of pilgrims, down even to the 
 year 1802, when the stone fell, and the holy marks 
 never recovered the disaster. 
 
 On the festival of this ' Consecration of the Angels,' 
 Zuinglius ascended the pulpit. The concourse was 
 immense, from the whole range of Switzerland, and 
 every ear was turned to catch the panegyric of the 
 * Mighty Mother' and the ' Host of glory' that had 
 descended to pour the oil of holiness on that chosen 
 spot of the world. But a mightier strength, that 
 was to break the power of the image, was there. 
 With the sincerity and the zeal of a new apostle to 
 the Gentiles, Zuinglius thundered on them : — 
 
 'Blind are ye,' exclaimed he, 'in seeking thus to 
 please the God of Earth and Heaven. Believe not 
 that the Eternal, He whom the heaven and the 
 heaven of heavens cannot contain, dwells especially 
 here. Whatever region of the world you may inha- 
 bit, there He is beside you ; He surrounds you, He 
 grants your praj^ers, if they deserve to be granted. 
 It is not by useless vows, by long pilgrimages, by 
 offerings to senseless images, that you can obtain the 
 favour of God — that you can resist temptation — re- 
 press guilty desires — shun injustice — relieve the un-
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 167 
 
 fortunate — or console the afflicted. These alone are 
 the works that please the Lord. 
 
 * Alas, alas ! I know our own crime. It is we, the 
 ministers of the altar — we who ought to be the salt 
 of the earth, who have plunged the ignorant and 
 credulous multitude into error. To accumulate 
 treasures for our avarice, we raised vain and worth- 
 less practices to the rank of good works, until the 
 people neglect the laws of God, and only think of 
 offering compensation for their crimes, instead of re- 
 nouncing them. What is their language ? Let us 
 indulge our desires — let us enrich ourselves with the 
 plunder of our neighbour — let us not fear to stain 
 our hands with blood and murder. When all is done, 
 we shall find easy expiation in the favour of the 
 Church ! 
 
 ' Madmen ! Can they think to obtain remission of 
 their lies, their impurities, their adulteries, their 
 murders, their treacheries, by a Litany to the Queen 
 of Heaven ? Is she to be the protectress of all 
 evil-doers ? Be deceived no longer, people of error ! 
 The God of Justice disdains to be moved by words 
 which, in the very utterance, the heart disowns. The 
 eternal Sovereign of truth and mercy forgives no 
 man his trespasses, w^ho does not forgive the tres- 
 passer against himself. You worship the saints. 
 Did those sons of God, at whose feet you fling your- 
 selves, enter into heaven by relying on the merits 
 of others? No — It was by walking in the path of the
 
 168 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 law of God, by fulfilling the will of the Most High, 
 by facing death, rather than deny their Lord and 
 Saviour. 
 
 ' What is the honour that you ought to pay those 
 saints ? Imitate the holiness of their lives — walk in 
 their footsteps — suffer yourselves to be turned aside 
 by neither seduction nor terrors. 
 
 ' But in the day of trouble put your trust in none 
 but God, who created the heaven and earth with a 
 word. 
 
 ' At the coming of death, invoke no name but 
 that of Christ Jesus, who bought you with his blood, 
 and who is the one and only Mediator between 
 God and Man ! ' 
 
 This discourse struck at all the pillars of Popery 
 at once ; absolution for money — pilgrimages — the 
 worship of the Virgin — and the intercession of the 
 saints. It was listened to in mingled astonishment, 
 wrath, and admiration. Its effect upon the priest- 
 hood was, to inflame in some instances the jealousy 
 which no prudence of the pastor could have stifled ; 
 yet of the monks, if some were indignant, many heard 
 in it only the doctrines which had been the subject of 
 long meditation among themselves ; in other in- 
 stances, the conviction was immediate and complete, 
 and pilgrims who had brought offerings to the shrine, 
 refused to join in what they had learned to be an act 
 of impiety, and took their offerings home. The 
 great majority were awakened to a sense of their
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 169 
 
 condition, and, from that hour, were prepared to 
 abjure the crimes and superstitions of Rome. But, 
 like the light that fell on St. Paul in his journey, 
 the fullest illumination descended on the preacher 
 himself. Others heard and acknowledged the voice 
 of heaven ; but it was to the preacher that the woi'ds 
 of God came with living power. From that day 
 forth, he was no longer the same man. His energy, 
 intrepidity, and defiance of the common obstacles 
 of Christianity in the popular prejudices and the 
 tyranny of the Popedom ; raised him thence- 
 forth to the highest rank of the champions of the 
 gospel. 
 
 The mind of this great man, deeply imbued with 
 Scriptural knowledge by his ten years' residence in 
 his pastorship of Claris, and further matured by his 
 three years' enjoyment of the literature of Einsiedlcn, 
 was now prepared for the sterner duties of a leader 
 of the Reformation. Tlirough the advice of Myco- 
 nius, a Greek professor in the school of Zurich, 
 whom he had known in the convent, Zuinglius was 
 chosen preacher in the Cathedral of Zurich, Dec. 4, 
 1518; a memorable time — one year from the com- 
 mencement of Luther's preaching at Wittenberg. 
 
 In his new office, the preacher lost no time in 
 giving evidence of his vigour. It had been the cus- 
 tom, to restrict the Scriptural teaching to the Domi- 
 nical lessons, portions of the text marked out for the 
 Sundays and Saints' days. Zuinglius declared that
 
 170 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 he would take the whole of the sacred volume, and 
 explain it in succession, so that the entire Scripture 
 miglit be made familiar to the people. He boldly 
 overruled the objections which were made to this 
 formidable innovation on the practices of the Roman- 
 ists; and on the 1st of January 1519, the first day 
 of his 35th year, he commenced his course of Scrip- 
 tural lectures. From various motives, he was attended 
 by a multitude of all ranks ; and he exercised the 
 functions of a teacher of the truth with the ardour 
 of a sacred servant, accountable to but one master. 
 In his exhortations, he rebuked the prevalent crimes 
 of all classes ; the partiality of the magistrates, 
 the violence, licentiousness, and intemperance of 
 the lower ranks; the national guilt in ambitiously 
 espousing the cause of sovereigns for aggrandise- 
 ment; and the old and peculiar crime of selling the 
 services of their armies to strangers. 
 
 He was fiercely threatened for this exposure ; but 
 his fortitude never relaxed ; and he persisted in the 
 plain and direct reprobation of every practice ob- 
 noxious to Scripture. He was now described alter- 
 nately as a partisan and a fanatic, as the prey of a mad 
 enthusiasm, and the accomplice of dangerous designs 
 against the state. But his sincerity, guided by his 
 prudence, gained the day ; and all men, distinguished 
 for honour and intelligence, were soon ranged on the 
 side of the hallowed and intrepid preacher of the 
 Cathedral.
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 171 
 
 A striking instance now occurred, to give hiui a 
 still stronger hold on the affections of his country. 
 
 Leo the Tenth,* in his eagerness to build St. 
 Peter's as a monument of his reign, had exhausted the 
 Papal treasury ; and demanding that it should be filled 
 up by the purses of the faithful ; he sent friars 
 on missions to sell the forgiveness of sins. Those 
 demands had been frequently made before, in the 
 failures of the Roman exchequer ; though they had in 
 general excited great opposition among the local 
 clergy. The Franciscan Bernardine Samson, the 
 missionary to Switzerland, now came on this un- 
 popular message; and his own conduct, though 
 personally adroit, was too strongly marked by the 
 Romish modes of raising money, not to increase the 
 unpopularity. Pie published a scale of absolutions 
 for the poor and the rich ; six sous being the easy 
 purchase of a soul of the former, while a crown was 
 the price of the higher worth, or deeper depravity, of 
 the latter. A nobleman of Berne is recorded to 
 have made a single sweeping bargain of the divine 
 grace for himself, his ancestors, and his vassals ! 
 
 The friar, by the authority of Leo, (an authority 
 claimed to this hour, and to the same extent) pub- 
 licly declared, that the power of the pope had no 
 limit in either heaven or earth — that at his disposal 
 was the blood of Christ and the martyrs — that he had 
 
 * Fra Paolo Storia del Concilio di Trento. L. 1 .
 
 172 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 a heavenly right to remit both sin and the penance 
 for sin — and that the sinner would be the heir of 
 divine grace, the ' moment his money rattled in the 
 missionary's box.' He proceeded, granting absolu- 
 tion alike to individuals and states, pardoning sins 
 alike past, present, and to come ; and selling bulls 
 authorizing their fortunate purchasers, if harassed 
 by a too strict confessor, to choose an easier one, 
 who should release them from vows, absolve them 
 from the obligation of oaths, and extinguish the 
 guilt of perjury. The habitual effrontery of those tax- 
 gatherers of the pope, had soon risen into a ludicrous 
 contempt for appearances. On a crowd of the com- 
 mon people pressing round this seller of the peace 
 of heaven, he was heard to cry out in the open 
 streets, " Let the rich come first, who are able to 
 buy the pardon of their sins. When they have been 
 settled with, then the poor may come.' 
 
 Zuinglius declared, in the face of papal ven- 
 geance, that this traffic was a crime ; and he suc- 
 ceeded in prevailing on his fellow-citizens to repel 
 the Franciscan. He did more; he successfully ap- 
 pealed against him to the deputies of the Thirteen 
 Cantons, who happened to be then assembled at 
 Zurich. The final result was, that the Franciscan 
 was driven out of Switzerland. 
 
 The history of the Reformation derives its value to 
 us, not more from its noble display of principle, than 
 from its instruction in the mode by which religion is to
 
 2UINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 173 
 
 be best recovered in a degenerate age. Thus we find, 
 that the study of the Scriptures was the light that 
 led the Reformers to knowledge ; and the knowledge 
 of the Scriptures was the great instrument by which 
 they broke the popish fetters from the public mind. 
 We see all the preachers devoting their whole 
 strength to making known the inspired word, and 
 that alone. The Reformer of Zurich, a man ac- 
 quainted with a vast range of the literature of his 
 day, yet brought into the pulpit only elucidations 
 of the Bible. * On my arrival at Zurich,' he says, 
 * 1 began to explain the gospel according to St. Mat- 
 thew. My next labour was the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles, in order to shew how the gospel had been dif- 
 fused. I then proceeded to St. Paul's First Epistle 
 to Timothy, which may be said to contain the rule 
 of life to a Christian, and clear up the errors intro- 
 duced into the doctrine of faith. I then interpreted 
 the Epistle to the Galatians ; which was followed by 
 the two Epistles of St. Peter, to prove to the de- 
 tractors of St. Paul, that the same spirit had ani- 
 mated both apostles. I then commenced the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews ; as making known, in its full extent, 
 the benefits of the mission of Christ. In all my dis- 
 courses, I avoided indirect modes of speech, artful 
 turns and captious arguments. It was only by the 
 most simple reasonings, that, in thus following the 
 teaching of our Lord Christ, I attempted to open 
 every man's eyes to his own disease.'
 
 174 ZriNGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 Zuinglius had been hitherto merely a local 
 preacher of the truth ; but he was now come into na- 
 tional collision with ecclesiastical power. His preach- 
 ing had begun to produce its natural effects, more 
 permanent, because less clamorous ; and more for- 
 midable to Popery, because wrought in the hearts 
 rather than borne on the lips of the people. About 
 the year 1522, it was observed with sudden suspicion 
 by the priests, that some of their flocks had given up 
 the practice of fasting in Lent, and, — which was the 
 unpardonable crime, — without the usual dispensation. 
 A heresy which thus struck at the power of Rome 
 must be extinguished ; the whip of persecution was in- 
 stantly brandished ; the culprits were summoned 
 before the magistrates, and were cast into prison. 
 The Swiss Reformer now came forward to defend his 
 principles. In a tract on the ' Observation of Lent,' 
 he laid down the unquestionable doctrines, — that with 
 God mercy is better than sacrifice, — that Christianity 
 has abolished all distinction of holy and unholy food, 
 and that the true fast is that from sin. He shewed 
 that Scripture and common sense alike left every one 
 at liberty to fast or not, as he found it desirable to 
 his pursuits, his health, or his Christian edification. 
 After throwing into merited contempt the idea that 
 one food is more acceptable to God than another, or 
 that the soul is the holier for the stomach's receiving 
 a fish rather than an egg, he founds his rule on the 
 necessities and circumstances of society. ' Let the
 
 2UINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 175 
 
 opulent fast if they will ; it may form a suitable 
 interruption to a life of habitual indulgence. But 
 the workmen in your manufactories, the labourers in 
 your fields, find in tlie hardships and privations of 
 their lives enough to mortify the flesh. The Romish 
 regulations for those fasts, were unknown to the 
 majority of those very Fathers by whom they are 
 said to be founded. They are still unknown to large 
 bodies of Christianity throughout the world. The 
 true purpose for which they were adopted, and for 
 which they are sustained, — is, by the payment for 
 dispensations, to raise a large revenue for the See of 
 Rome.' 
 
 The controversial war was now declared. Hugh 
 of Landenberg, Bishop of Constance, published a 
 rescript to his clergy, exhorting them to adhere with 
 increased fidelity to the ' Mother Church.' His letter, 
 addressed to the Council of Zurich at the same pe- 
 riod, peculiarly desired that they would not suffer the 
 ancient rites to be infringed. The Council, already 
 awakened to the truth, answered this letter by a re- 
 quest that the chief pastors of the diocese would have 
 a conference to examine into the causes of the dis- 
 sension. But Landenberg knew too well the peril of 
 the enquiry, and declined the examination. He next 
 wrote to the Chapter of the Catheckal, on whom the 
 preacher was of course dependent, complaining of 
 ' certain innovators, who, stimulated by the madness 
 of pride, pretended to reform the Church.' The
 
 116 ZriNGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 Bishop's language was in the form which the wrath 
 of Rome uses to this hour. ' Receive not as a re- 
 medy this detestable poison; perdition for salvation. 
 Reject opinions, which are condemned by the heads 
 of Christendom. Allow them not to be preached 
 among you, nor discussed, publicly or privately.' 
 
 Zuinglius had not been yet named, but he was 
 conscious that the blow was meant for him ; and he 
 demanded leave of his Chapter to state the grounds 
 of his opinion. The principle of the answer, with 
 which he refuted the charge of heresy, was, that 
 ' the Scriptures alone are the great authority to 
 Christians.' 
 
 * The word of God,' says this holy and high-minded 
 man, in one of those passages, whose truth is supe- 
 rior to all eloquence, ' has no need of human sanc- 
 tion. The Fathers of the Church did no more than 
 reject the spurious Gospels, the work of feigned or 
 unknown writers. Neither do we desire more, than 
 to purify religion of whatever is foreign to it, — to 
 deliver it from the captivity in which it is held by its 
 enemies, — to dig again those fountains of living 
 water, which those enemies have filled up.' 
 
 * In defence of human tradition you say, that the 
 writings of the first disciples of our Lord do not con- 
 tain all that is necessary to salvation. You quote the 
 text — " I have yet many things to say unto you, but 
 ye cannot bear them now," (John xiv. 12.) But here 
 our Lord speaks to the Apostles, and not to Aquinas,
 
 ZUINGLIL'S, Till-: SWISS REFORMER. 177 
 
 Scotus, Bartliolus, or Baldus, wliom you elevate to 
 the rank of supreme legislators. When Jesus says, 
 imnu'diately after, " Howbeit, when the Spirit of 
 truth is come, he will guide you into all truth" — it is 
 still the Apostles whom he is addressing, and not 
 men who should be called rather disciples of Aristotle 
 than of Christ. 
 
 * If those famous doctors have added to Scripture 
 doctrine that was deficient, it must then be acknow- 
 ledged, that our ancestors possessed it imperfect, — 
 that the Apostles transmitted it to us imperfect, and 
 that Jesus Christ the Son of God taught it to us im- 
 perfect. 
 
 * What blasphemy ! Yet do not they who make 
 human traditions equal or superior to the law of God, 
 or pretend that they are necessary to salvation, really 
 say this ? If men cannot be saved without certain 
 decrees of councils, neither the Apostles nor the 
 early Christians, who were ignorant of those decrees, 
 can be saved ! 
 
 * Observe to what these doctrines drive you. You 
 defend your ceremonies, as if they were essential to 
 religion. Yet religion exercised a much more ex- 
 tensive empire over the heart, when the reading of 
 pious books, prayer, and mutual exliortation, formed 
 the only worship of the faithful ! You accuse me of 
 overturning the state, because I openly censure the 
 vices of the clergy. No one respects more than I 
 do the ministers of religion, when they teach it in 
 
 N
 
 178 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 its purity, and practise it with simplicity ; but I can- 
 not suppress my indignation, when I see shepherds, 
 who by their couduct say to their flocks, * We are 
 the elect, you the profane. We are the enlightened, 
 you the ignorant. It is permitted to us to live in 
 idleness, you must eat your bread in the sweat of 
 your brow ; we may give ourselves up to all excesses 
 with impunity, while you must abstain from all sin !' 
 
 ' I shall now tell you what is the Christianity that 
 I profess. It commands men to obey the laws and 
 respect the magistrate, — to pay tribute where tribute 
 is due, — to be rivals only in beneficence, — to relieve 
 the poor, — to share the sorrows of our neighbour, — 
 and to regard all mankind as brethren. 
 
 ' It further requires the Christian to expect salva- 
 tion from God alone ; in Jesus Christ his son, our 
 Master and Saviour, who giveth eternal life to those 
 who believe on him. Such are the principles from 
 which, in the exercise of my ministry, I have never 
 departed.' 
 
 These expositions of doctrine have a value mea- 
 surelcssly beyond even their historical interest. They 
 give us the sincere impression of the scriptures, as 
 they stamp their immortal truths on the minds of 
 men newly awakened to a sense of religion. We 
 see how deeply and purely their wisdom speaks from 
 the beginning to every man who will fully bring his 
 heart to their study. In human science, the pro- 
 gress is gradual ; every succeeding generation dis-
 
 XllXCiLILS, THE SWISS KLFOUMKR. 17i) 
 
 cerns error in the midst of the brightest discoveries 
 of the past. But here truth is developed at once, — 
 the first generation acquires a knowledge not to be 
 surpassed by the remotest that is to be born. If 
 intellectual science rises, like the sun from the verge 
 of the earth, by light on light towards the meri- 
 dian, — spiritual science, like the light that heralded 
 the birth of the Messiah, bursts upon us at once 
 from the zenith, and fills the midnight with celestial 
 glory. 
 
 The papacy, until this period, had been content to 
 watch the proceedings of the Reformers with a jea- 
 lous eye. Leo the Tenth, busied with state intrigues, 
 fond of the lazy indulgence of the throne, and, like 
 all voluptuaries, disbelieving the power of any thing but 
 pleasure or ambition to stir the energies of man, had 
 listened with reluctance or disdain to the rumours 
 of religious change in the north. The accomplished 
 Italian, nurtured in the elegance of southern life, 
 and surrounded with the arts in their day of splen- 
 dour, looked with native and habitual scorn on the 
 barbarian Swiss and German. But the day of indo- 
 lence must at length be at an end ; and Leo, startled 
 by the stern remonstrances of the popish sovereigns, 
 and by the justified alarm of the popish priesthood, 
 was roused to final action. 
 
 In 1528, Luther's forty-one propositions were de- 
 clared heretical, and his writings ordered to be burnt; 
 while to himself was offered only the alternative of 
 
 N 2
 
 180 ZUINGLFUS, THE SAA'ISS REFORMER. 
 
 falsifying his doctrines, or being excommunicated. 
 This act of tyranny was followed, in the next year, 
 by the citation to the Diet of Worms ; where refusing 
 to appear, he was put under ban, and declared an 
 enemy to the empire, as ' a schismatic, a notorious 
 and obstinate heretic, and a gangrened foe to the 
 holy church." 
 
 The war which broke out between Charles the 
 Fifth and Francis the First, at the moment when the 
 sword seemed about to fall on the necks of the re- 
 formers; providentially put off the visitation, from the 
 day of weakness till the day of strength. But minor 
 persecutions by the hands of the prelates and local 
 authorities vexed the church of God; and in 1523, 
 Zuinglius had appeared before the council of his can- 
 ton, and demanded to be heard in public conference 
 in behalf of his doctrine, in presence of the deputies 
 of the Bishop of Constance. 
 
 Zuinglius now published his ' Seventy-six Ar- 
 ticles.' They and the controversy are memorable, 
 the former as being a masterly elucidation at once of 
 the Reformed and the Popish principles of the time ; 
 the latter as giving rise to a signal change in church 
 government. 
 
 The * Seventy-six Articles ' declared that — ' It 
 is an error, to assert that the gospel is nothing with- 
 out the approbation of the Church of Rome. — It is 
 an en'or, to esteem other instructions equally with 
 those of the gospel. — The cause of the divisions of
 
 ZUINGLIUS, TIJE SWISS REFORMER. J 81 
 
 the churcli lies in the traditions by vvhicli the priests 
 justify their riches, pomps and dignities. — The ob- 
 servances enjoined by men do not avail us to salva- 
 tion. — The mass is not the sacrifice of Christ. — The 
 power arrogated to themselves by the Pope and his 
 bishops is not founded on scripture. — The jurisdic- 
 tion claimed by the priesthood rightfully belongs to 
 the secular magistrates, to whom all believers ought 
 to submit themselves. — The law of God has not for- 
 bidden marriage to the clergy. — The celibacy of the 
 clergy is one great source of licentiousness — Con- 
 fession to a priest may be considered as an examina- 
 tion of the conscience, but is not an act which can 
 deserve absolution. — To give absolution for money 
 is to be guilty of simony. — Holy writ says nothing of 
 purgatory. God alone knows the judgment that he 
 reserves for the dead. Since he has not been pleased 
 to reveal it, we ought to refrain from presumptuous 
 conjectures. — No man should be molested for his 
 opinions. The magistrate should prohibit those 
 alone which threaten the public peace.' 
 
 The conference was attended by two hundred ec- 
 clesiastics, and a great multitude of other persons. 
 The Grand Vicar and the Intcndant of the Bishop of 
 Constance were present as his representatives, and 
 addressed the meeting. But the most pressing in- 
 stances of Zuinglius could not urge them to the 
 examination of his tenets ; they spoke in general 
 terms, and repeated the importance of avoiding all
 
 182 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 schism. The controversy was on the point of closing 
 in this inefficient manner : when a complaint was 
 tendered to the Council, of the arrest of a priest for 
 denying the invocation of the saints and the Virgin. 
 This act of violence excited loud remark, and the 
 Vicar, in vindicating the act of his superior, acci- 
 dentally said, that he himself had conferred with 
 the priest, and brought him to acknowledge his 
 heresy. Zuinglius, with equal boldness and saga- 
 city, started forward at this unwary acknowledge- 
 ment ; and demanded that the Vicar should state the 
 reasons which had so suddenly converted the priest. 
 The Grand Vicar now attempted to recover the false 
 step of suffering himself to be thus drawn into a detail 
 of his doctrine, and commenced a general harangue on 
 the danger of disturbing the decisions of the Church ; 
 Particular synods he declared to be unfit for settling 
 doctrines ; general councils were the only instru- 
 ments. ' The gift of interpreting the Scriptures,' 
 said he, ' is a precious one, which God does not 
 grant to ^dl. I do not boast of possessing it. I know 
 )io Hebrew, little Greek, and though I know enough 
 of Latin, yet I do not give myself out as an orator 
 in the language. Far be it from me to erect myself 
 into a judge in questions where salvation is con- 
 cerned ; those only a general council can decide, to 
 whose decisions I shall yield without murmuring.' 
 But his vigorous adversary insisted on his original 
 point. The Vicar and the Bishop's doctors answered
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 183 
 
 only by quotations from the Fathers, the canon of 
 the mass, the litanies, and appeals to the miracles 
 still wrought by the Romish saints. Such answers 
 Zuinglius threw into utter scorn. 
 
 * What kind of unerring guides,' exclaimed he, 
 * are those Fathers of the Church ? How often do 
 they disagree ? What are not the differences of 
 Jerome and Augustine, for example, on the most 
 important principles of Christianity ? Look to the 
 canon of the mass, is it not the composition of men, 
 of popes and bishops, who were any thing but in- 
 fallible ? The litanies of Gregory may prove that 
 saints were invoked in his day. But do they prove 
 that the invocation was grounded on Scripture ? If 
 we are to believe, that the miracles attributed to the 
 Virgin and the saints ever took place, who is to 
 prove that they occurred by their intercession ? ' 
 
 He concluded with this forcible and intrepid pero- 
 ration : — ' You demand my submission to the decisions 
 of your Church, on the plea, that it cannot err. 
 Now, if by the Church you mean the popes and their 
 cardinals, how dare you assert that it cannot err ? 
 Can you deny that among the popes there have been 
 several who lived in licentiousness, and surrendered 
 their minds to all the furies of ambition, hatred, and 
 revenge ? Men who to aggrandize their temporal 
 power, have not hesitated to stir the subject into 
 rebellion against his prince ? But how is it possible 
 for me to believe, that the Holy Spirit could have
 
 184 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMEK. 
 
 guided men whose conduct tlms seems to brave the 
 direct commands of Christ ? ' 
 
 * Or do you mean by the Church, the Councils ? 
 Can you forget how often those Councils have accused 
 each other of perfidy and heresy 1 There is indeed 
 one Church which cannot err, and that is guided by 
 the Holy Spirit. The members of that Church are 
 all true believers, united in the bonds of faith and 
 charity. But that church is visible only to the eyes 
 of its divine founder, who alone knoweth his own. 
 It has no pompous assemblages, it dictates no decrees, 
 like the monarchs of this world ; it possesses no tem- 
 poral sovereignty; it solicits neither honours nor 
 power ; it has one care, and but one, — to fulfil the 
 commands of its Lord ! ' 
 
 The Popish advocates had no answer to this manly 
 and scriptural appeal. And the Council recorded its 
 decision — ' That Zuinglius, having been neither con- 
 victed of heresy nor refuted, should continue to 
 preach the Gospel as before ; that the pastors of 
 Zurich should rest their discourses on the ivords of 
 Scripture alone ; and that both parties should abstain 
 from all personal reflections.' 
 
 The conference was now closed, and the great 
 question settled, which was to place the faith of 
 Switzerland on its hallowed foundation. But, in the 
 necessary ceremonial of publishing the decree, the 
 clergy were again convoked on the same evening' ; 
 and the Grand Vicar, anxious to recover his ground,
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 185 
 
 protested against the haste of the proceeding, and 
 offered to refer the question to the doctors of some 
 university ; answering the demand of making Scrip- 
 ture the sole standard, by saying, that its meanin" 
 was often so dubious, that a judge of Scripture itself 
 was necessary. Zuinglius again rose, and repelled 
 this thousand times overthrown subterfuge of Rome 
 with noble sincerity. 
 
 * Scripture,' exclaimed this great champion of the 
 truth, * explains itself, and has no need of a Romish 
 interpreter. If men understand it ill, it is because 
 they read it ill. It is always consistent with itself; 
 and the Spirit of God acts by it so strongly, that all 
 readers may find the truth there, provided they will 
 seek it with an humble and sincere heart. Thanks 
 to the invention of printing, the sacred books are 
 now within the reach of all Christians ; and I expect 
 the ecclesiastics here assembled to study them unre- 
 mittingly. They will there learn to preach Chris- 
 tianity, as it was transmitted to us by the evangelists 
 and apostles. 
 
 ' As to the Fathers, I do not blame their beinsf 
 read and quoted in the pulpit, provided it be where 
 they are conformable to Scripture, and provided they 
 are not considered as infallible authority.' 
 
 The effect of those conferences was irresistible. 
 If the multitude could understand nothing else, they 
 could understand that the doctrines which they had 
 never dreamed of controverting, were actually
 
 186 ZUINGLIUS, THE SAVISS REFORMER. 
 
 denied, nay, sternly reprobated, by individuals whom 
 they knew to be men of character, qualified by rank 
 and leisure for the inquiry, of acknowledged learn- 
 ing, and obvious ability. They heard general princi- 
 ples stated, which are like instincts in the heart of 
 man — the right of every human being to think for 
 himself — the utter improbability that the God of 
 justice and mercy would give a revelation of his will 
 to all men, which yet none but the priest was in- 
 titled to understand ; — the palpable absurdity of 
 supposing, that, while every man is a creature of 
 weakness, a body of a hundred, or a thousand, can 
 be incapable of error — the gross inconsistency of de- 
 ciding, that the gospel, one of whose glories and 
 characteristics was, that of being preached to the 
 poor ; should, in contradiction to the express words 
 of its giver, have been preached only to the priest ; — 
 or that, when God has given us faculties, and com- 
 manded us to live by their exercise here, he should 
 have shut up those faculties the moment they ven- 
 tured to contemplate the mighty truths by which we 
 are to live in the world to come ; — or that he should 
 put this eternal knowledge, which is our eternal 
 welfare, into the hands of the priest ; to be by him 
 given out in what portions he pleased ; — or that, 
 having commanded the Scriptures to be searched by 
 all men, he should yet contradict himself, and ordain 
 that the gospel should be at the mercy of a chosen 
 class, often not purer, nor wiser, nor more Christian,
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFOltMEU. 187 
 
 than others ; forbidding that the Scriptures should be 
 searched, and in the hands of every man. But, the 
 chains were now broken, the dunjjeon-doors opened by 
 a superior hand ; and the people, like the imprisoned 
 apostle, had now only to use their natural powers, 
 and follow. 
 
 Zuinglius had triumphed nobly, and the fruits 
 of his success were rich and rapid. He had 
 by this conference obtained the opportunity whidb 
 he so long desired ; that of declaring himself in the 
 presence of the great body of the clergy, and shewing 
 with what ease the truth could put down the false- 
 hood. His learned and holy habits had been long 
 known ; but the dignity, and the Christian mildness, 
 exhibited by him on this trying occasion, obtained 
 new public homage. The reformed were proud of 
 a leader who shewed, that neither in learning nor in 
 intrepidity he would fail them ; the wavering were 
 decided by his palpable superiority ; and even among 
 the most prejudiced parti zans of Rome, there were 
 those, who acknowledged the force of unexpected 
 truth, and turned to the study of the long-neglected 
 Scriptures. 
 
 But it had an additional advantage, of peculiar 
 importance to the considerate wisdom of the re- 
 former. It relieved his cause from the in)putation 
 of being the work of private influence, or personal 
 enthusiasm. He was no more to hurt his own feel- 
 ings, or those of others, by the appearance of stand-
 
 188 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORxMER. 
 
 ing forth, a cleric, to resist clerics. He was now 
 under the sanction of the state. His reform was 
 henceforth the work of regular authority. His church 
 was placed as he had always desired to see it, under 
 the secular power ; and the tyranny of Rome was 
 superseded by the mild majesty of the law. 
 
 It is characteristic of the reformer's wisdom, that 
 he had hitherto abstained from every practical attack 
 on the Romish worship ; obviously for the suffi- 
 cient reason, that on the one hand he might avoid 
 unnecessary offence to those who still adhered to 
 Rome, and on the other, he might not give a 
 cloak to the violence of the populace. In his col- 
 loquies he had, without hesitation, confuted the 
 leading doctrine of Rome, that the mass was an 
 actual sacrifice of Christ ; yet he had not assailed 
 the usual celebration of the ceremony. He had 
 expressly denied the doctrine of saint-worship, yet 
 he had not removed the images from their shrines. 
 He safely left this result to the course of time, and 
 to the truths inculcated by his powerful and indefati- 
 gable preaching. 
 
 The wisdom of this conduct was soon displayed, 
 by the unhappy effects of its opposite in others. 
 Some of the reformed at Zurich, imputing his for- 
 bearance to want of zeal, commenced an assault 
 upon image-worship. They began by publishing a 
 vehement pamphlet, which they called, ' Tlie Judg- 
 ment of God against images.' The effect soon
 
 ZUINCiLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 189 
 
 transpired in the shape of a mob riot, in which the 
 crucifix standing over the city gates was torn down. 
 The offenders were brought before the council, and 
 the matter was long debated. The question was 
 delicate ; for an acquittal would have involved Zu- 
 rich with the Roman Catholic Cantons, already 
 sufficiently jealous of its reformed spirit. Zuinglius 
 gave his opinion with his habitual manliness. He 
 declared that images were not to be made objects of 
 worship, they having been expressly prohibited by 
 the Jewish revelation, and the prohibition not having 
 been revoked by the second ; the accused, then, 
 could not be found guilty of sacrilege. But they de- 
 served sentence as culprits against the laws, for 'having 
 committed the act without magisterial authority.' 
 
 The council, to relieve themselves from this diffi- 
 culty, summoned the neighbouring theologians to 
 another conference. But no results followed, except 
 to the prisoners, who, in consideration of their con- 
 finement, were dismissed ; their leader, Hottinger, 
 being banished from the canton for two years. But 
 this was a sentence of death to the unfortunate exile. 
 He fatally fixed himself in one of the bigoted can- 
 tons, where his openness of speech again caused his 
 arrest. On being asked his doctrine on the adora- 
 tion of saints and images, he boldly pronounced such 
 worship contrary to the divine law. The senate of 
 Zurich interposed in vain ; Hottinger was condemned 
 to the axe. From the scaffold he addressed the de-
 
 190 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 puties of the cantons, entreating them to join with 
 Zurich, and to refrain from opposition to the reform, 
 for which he declared that he died with joy. He 
 then addressed the judges, for whom he prayed the 
 mercy of God, and the opening of their eyes to the 
 gospel. His last appeal was to the people, in woi'ds 
 which only Christianity could have taught, and which 
 expressed at once his charity, his courage, and his 
 doctrine : — ' If I have offended any one among you, 
 let him forgive me, as I have forgiven my enemies. 
 Pray to God to support my faith to the last moment ; 
 When I shall have undergone my punishment, your 
 prayers will be useless to me ! ' Thus died the first 
 Swiss martyr. 
 
 The image controversy was re\dved, through an 
 epistle of the Bishop of Constance vindicating images 
 — by a distinction between idols, ' which represented 
 false gods ; and the images of saints, who had been 
 since their death received into heaven.' — * The ho- 
 mage to whom, he pronounced, ' was so far from 
 criminal, that it nurtured piety.' 
 
 Zuinglius now, no longer on his own account, but 
 by command of the council, published a reply, of 
 which the following sentences are a portion. 
 
 * The law of Moses is express on the subject of 
 images. Its declarations on that point have not been 
 abolished by the gospel. 
 
 ' That law forbids not only the adoration of any 
 God but the Eternal; but it forbids the making of
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. I'Jl 
 
 the likeness of any thing in heaven, earth, or the wa- 
 ters under the earth ; and this prohibition extends to 
 images of all kinds used for worship. 
 
 ' The extravagant impieties of idolators, and the 
 abuses produced by image-worship among Christians, 
 sufficiently prove the wisdom of the law. He who 
 first placed the statue of a holy man in a temple, had 
 certainly no other intention than to offer him as an 
 object of admiration to the faithful. 
 
 ' But men did not stop there. The images were 
 soon surrounded with a pomp, which impressed the 
 imagination of the people ; they were transformed 
 into divinities, and honoured, as the pagans honoured 
 their gods. Their names were given to temples and 
 altars, and chapels were consecrated to them in woods, 
 fields, and mountains. How many men, in the hour 
 of trouble, instead of invoking the Omnipotent, call 
 upon men who have been dead for ages, whose vir- 
 tues have placed them in the mansions of the blessed, 
 but who can neither hear nor succour us ? How- 
 many Christians, instead of having recourse to the 
 mercy of the Redeemer, expect salvation from some 
 saint, the object of their superstitious devotion ? 
 
 ' There are even some who attribute supernatural 
 virtues to these images. To increase the veneration 
 for them, they are sometimes kept concealed, and 
 sometimes brought forth in pompous processions. 
 Men consult them to learn the future ; and to such a 
 degree is the credulity of the vulgar abused, that they
 
 192 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 are made to believe that those inanmiate images have 
 uttered words, shed tears, and given commands. 
 Look at the votive tablets that cover the walls of our 
 churches ; is there one that testifies the gratitude of 
 a Christian towards God, the dispenser of all good, 
 or Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world ? 
 
 ' No ; it is to men, whose condition on earth was 
 like our own, that they attribute the miraculous cure 
 of a disease, or unexpected succour in the hour of 
 danger, or a vdse resolution taken in some important 
 circumstances of life. Is this true piety ? No ; such 
 superstitious w^orship only serves to enrich those who 
 patronise it. 
 
 ' If you would honour the saints, honour them, 
 not by addressing prayers to them, which belong to 
 God alone, — not by lavishing upon them offerings of 
 which they have no need ; but by following their 
 example.' 
 
 This nervous and just appeal produced its solid 
 effect, in the determination of the council of the 
 Canton to reform the public worship. By a decree, 
 dated 1524, it enjoined the removal, by all individuals, 
 of those pictures and statues which had been con- 
 secrated by themselves or their forefathers. Two 
 magistrates visited the churches of Zurich, to see 
 that the order was put in force. The superstition of 
 the monks was still active, and it was declared that 
 the images would resist this desecration, and spon- 
 taneously return to their shrines. But the magis-
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THt: SWISS REFORMER. \[)3 
 
 trates proceeded in their work, and the credit of these 
 inactive images sank prodigiously. The dethroned 
 saints were Uiid up in a pubUc hall, in order to be 
 preserved. 
 
 But the prudence of the Reformer and the Coun- 
 cil was defeated by popular violence. It was loudly 
 pronounced, that things so capable of being again 
 made instruments of superstition should be destroyed. 
 The pictures were burnt, the images broken, and 
 thus some works of art were sacrificed, which the 
 more intelligent Reformers regretted; but whose 
 sacrifice involved a much heavier calamity, in the 
 offence and misrepresentation furnished by the act 
 to the Roman Catholic cantons. 
 
 Yet, for the time, the great reform proceeded effec- 
 tually, because guardedly. The relics were taken 
 from the churches, and interred secretly, to avoid 
 disturbing the remaining prejudices of the people. 
 The tolling of the bells for the dead, and in storms, 
 with other superstitious ceremonies, was discontinued. 
 The prohibition of images was not made a law 
 throughout the Canton ; it was more mildly de- 
 clared, that the matter should depend on the vote of 
 the people. Where the majority desired the removal, 
 the magistrates were authorized to carry it into effect. 
 The natural consequence followed ; the images dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 But a grand difficulty remained — the Mass. While 
 this pillar of the Romish worship stood, all true re- 
 
 o
 
 194 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 form was incomplete, Zuinglius, from the commence- 
 ment of his career at Zurich, had openly declared 
 himself against the continuance of a rite, which he 
 had ceaselessly proved to be in direct contradiction to 
 the letter and the spirit of the gospel. 
 
 Scripture pronounces that Christ died once, and 
 that his one sacrifice is sufficient for the sins of those 
 who in repentance and faith seek for pardon. 
 
 In direct opposition to this, Rome pronounces 
 that the Mass is an actual sacrifice ; that this sacrifice 
 may be offered every day, in every corner of the 
 earth at once, ten times, or ten million times a-day ; — 
 that it may be offered for money ; — that it may be 
 offered for the dead ; — that it may redeem from future 
 punishment men who never had a thought of repen- 
 tance ; — that the actual body and blood of Christ are 
 offered up ; — that they exist in what to the human 
 senses is but a wafer; — that the hundred or ten 
 thousand wafers are each the whole and complete 
 body and blood of Christ ; — that the priest can thus 
 make his Maker, and that the people are commanded 
 to worship as the Eternal God, what the priest him- 
 self will acknowledge to have been but flour and 
 water the moment before consecration ; and what to 
 the eye, the touch, and the taste, is but flour and 
 water still ! 
 
 Zuinglius denounced the whole of this inconceiv- 
 able delusion ; but, with his characteristic reluctance 
 to urge the public understanding, he desired to limit
 
 ZUINGLIUS, TlIK SWISS KKFORMER. 195 
 
 his first changes to some alterations in the canon of 
 the Mass ; allowing the priests to retain their vest- 
 ments, and tolerating whatever ceremonies were not 
 decidedly opposed to the spirit of religion. Circum- 
 stances induced the Council to delay even those 
 changes for a year. At the close of that period, the 
 rapid intelligence of the public mind had prepared it 
 for the more complete reform; and Zuinglius declared 
 the necessity of the entire abolition. Yet even then 
 no hasty zeal was suffered to interfere. The Mass 
 was still performed. The law was limited to taking 
 off the command, by which priests must solemnize 
 the rite, or laics be present at it. It was thus gra- 
 dually abandoned, until, in the year 1525, Zuinglius 
 was empowered by the public will to solemnize in its 
 place the Lord's Supper. 
 
 His reform now required but some civil additions ; 
 and they were effectually made. The chapter of his 
 cathedral, by his influence, acknowledged the para- 
 mount authority of the State, and the mendicant 
 orders were suppressed. But in these alterations, 
 so tempting to human cupidity ; the manliness, fore- 
 sight, and justice of the great Reformer, were worthy 
 of his religion. The property of the convents was 
 not plundered, nor even alienated to the secular pur- 
 poses of the state. It was kept together, and duly 
 directed, more wisely and usefully, to the objects of 
 public instruction in the Gospel and literature. The 
 infirm members, male and female, of those establish- 
 
 o 2
 
 196 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 ments, were retained in the possession of their cus- 
 tomary emoluments ; but at their deaths their bene- 
 fices and estates were devoted to the support of 
 professorships for general and gratuitous teaching. 
 
 The cells of a great adjoining abbey were turned 
 into a seminary for the education of young ecclesias- 
 tics; the nuns having been previously pensioned. 
 The Dominican convent was made an hospital. The 
 Augustine convent was given up to the reception of 
 the poor, and of destitute strangers travelling through 
 the Canton. The other convents were similarly em- 
 ployed. The revenues were in no instance embezzled 
 by the cupidity of the State, or of private persons. 
 The great Reformer had in this preservation to con- 
 tend with every bad passion of our nature, but he was 
 at once sincere and prudent ; and he accomplished his 
 work by putting the conventual property under the 
 care of a responsible administrator; thus saving it 
 from future plunder, and directing its employment 
 to objects of the highest public utility. 
 
 His next work was a system of public instruction. 
 He had driven out the ancient superstition ; his busi- 
 ness now was to prevent its return ; and this he knew 
 was to be most effectually done by teaching the people 
 to think for themselves. He revived the almost dead 
 school of Zurich, brought to it some able professors 
 of classical and Oriental literature, and established 
 public lectures, chiefly in the Scriptures, which he 
 justly placed at the head of all learning. He banished
 
 Zl'IN'OLIUS, TFIK SWISS RKFORMER. 1*)7 
 
 the old system of studying only the schoolmen, and 
 made it the principal duty of the theological teachers 
 to study the Bible in the original languages ; com- 
 paring them with the chief versions, illustrating them 
 by the commentaries of the Rabbins and Fathers ; 
 ascertaining the customs and traditions of Judea, 
 connected with the Scriptures ; and finally directing 
 this knowledge to the general Christian improvement 
 of the country. The theological lectures were given 
 in the cathedral which had so long echoed the gloomy 
 doctrines and wild reveries of monkery. The clergy 
 of the city, and the students in divinity, were enjoined 
 to attend them ; but the spontaneous will of the 
 people brought crowds of all classes ; a taste for lite- 
 rature was deeply rooted, and long after the great 
 Reformer had passed away, men of professions the 
 least connected with literature were to be found in 
 Zurich, distinguished for classical and theological 
 knowledge. 
 
 The career of Zuinglius was now about to close. 
 But it was still to be signalized by a triumph of the 
 faith. In 1527, some districts of Bern, the most 
 powerful of the Cantons, petitioned its senate for the 
 introduction of the system established at Zurich, and 
 for the suppression of the Mass. The senate were 
 divided, but the proposal was finally referred to a 
 council of the clergy of Bern, and the other states of 
 the league. Some of the Cantons objected to the 
 meeting, but it was at length held, and attended by
 
 198 ZUINGLIUS, THK SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 names still memorable in the history of Protestantism ; 
 Q^Lcolampadius, Pellican, Collinus, Bullinger, Capito, 
 and Bucer. On Zuinglius' arrival the sittings com- 
 menced. The Protestant doctrines were proposed in 
 the shape of" ten Theses; and they were so power-' 
 fully sustained by the learning and talent of the Re- 
 formers ; that, after eighteen debates, the great ma- 
 jority of the Bernese clergy signed their adherence to 
 them, as the true doctrines of the Gospel. 
 
 The ' Grand Council' of Bern then proceeded to 
 act upon the decision. It declared the Bishops of 
 Lausanne, Basle, Sion, and Constance, to be divested 
 of all rights in its territory ; ordered the priests to 
 teach nothing contradictory to the Theses; permitted 
 priests to marry, and monks and nuns to leave their 
 convents ; and appropriated the religious revenues to 
 lawful purposes : within four months Protestantism 
 was the religion of the whole Canton. But this tri- 
 umph was finally purchased by the death of the 
 great leader and light of Switzerland. The accession 
 of so powerful a state as Bern threw the Ro- 
 man Catholic Cantons into general alarm. A 
 league, prohibiting the preaching of the Reforma- 
 tion, was made between the five cantons of Lu- 
 cerne, Uri, Schweitz, Unterwalden, and Zug. 
 Protestant ministers were persecuted, and in some 
 instances put to death ; and alliances were formed 
 with the German princes hostile to Protestantism. 
 Civil discord inflames all the evil passions ; and the
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 199 
 
 remaining enemies of the Reformation in Zurich 
 and Bern laboured to represent the public distur- 
 bances as the \vork of Zuinglius. He suddenly ap- 
 peared before the senate, and tendered the resigna- 
 tion of his office. * I have,' said he, ' for eleven 
 years preached the Gospel to you in its purity ; as 
 became a faithful minister, I have spared neither ex- 
 hortations, nor reprimands, nor warnings ; and I have 
 declared to you on many occasions how great a mis- 
 fortune it would be to you, that you should suffer 
 yourselves to be again guided by those, whose ambi- 
 tion is their god. 
 
 ' You have made no account of my remonstrances ; 
 1 see introduced into the Council men destitute 
 of morality and religion, having nothing in view 
 but their own interest, enemies of the doctrine 
 of the Gospel, and zealous partizans of our adver- 
 saries. Those men are they who are now listened to. 
 As long as you act in this manner, what good can be 
 hoped for ? But since it is to me that the public 
 misfortunes are attributed, though none of my coun- 
 sels are followed, I demand my dismission, and will 
 go, and seek an asylum elsewhere.' 
 
 This act of noble self-denial was received by the 
 Council as it deserved. A deputation was sent, to 
 entreat him to rescind his resolution. But they ob- 
 jected political and personal grounds in vain. At 
 length they laid before him the unquestionable injury 
 that must be sustained by the Reformation, if it were
 
 200 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 thus to lose its principal champion in its chief seat, 
 Zurich. To this argument Zuinglius gave way, and 
 in three days after, appeared before the council, and 
 pledged himself to adhere till death to the cause of 
 his country. 
 
 But the persecutions of the Protestants had awak- 
 ened the fears and resentment of the Reformed Can- 
 tons ; and to enforce the treaty by which they were 
 to be protected, the Cantons of Zurich and Bern 
 determined to blockade the five Cantons. The 
 blockade was contrary to the advice of Zuinglius, who 
 deprecated it as involving the innocent with the 
 guilty. At length the five Cantons collected their 
 troops, and advanced towards Cappel, a point chosen 
 to prevent the junction of the Zurichers and Ber- 
 nese. Zurich was thrown into consternation ; and 
 when four thousand men were ordered to march, but 
 seven hundred were equipped to meet the enemy. 
 News now came that the division already posted at 
 Cappel was attacked by a superior force. The officer 
 in command of the Zurichers instantly marched to 
 sustain the post. It was the custom of the Swiss, 
 that their clergy should follow their troops to the 
 field, to administer the last consolations to the dying. 
 Zuinglius attended this detachment, but with a full 
 consciousness of the hazard. ' Our cause is good,' 
 said he to the friends who crowded anxiously around 
 him, as the troops marched out ; ' but it is ill de- 
 fended. Tt will cost my life, and that of a number
 
 ZUIXGLll S, THE SAVISS REFORMKR. 201 
 
 of excellent men, who would wish to restore religion 
 to its primitive simplicity. No matter; God will 
 not abandon his servants ; he will come to their as- 
 sistance when you think all lost. My confidence 
 rests upon him alone, and not upon men. 1 submit 
 myself to his will.' 
 
 Cappel is three leagues from Zurich. On the road, 
 the roaring of the cannon attacking the position of 
 the Zurichers, was heard. The march of the troops 
 was slow, from the height of Mount Albis, and the 
 weight of their armour. Zuinglius, agitated for the 
 fate of the post, urged the officers to push forward 
 at speed. ' Hasten,' he cried, ' or we shall be too 
 late. As for me, I will go and join my brethren. 
 I shall help to save them, or we shall die together.' 
 The little army, animated by his exhortation, rushed 
 forward, and at three in the afternoon came in sight 
 of the battle. The troops of the five Cantons were 
 eight thousand, an overwhelming superiority. After 
 some discharges of Cannon, they advanced to sur- 
 round the Zurichers, who amounted to but fifteen 
 hundred. The enemy were boldly repulsed for a 
 while, but their numbers enabled them to outflank 
 the Protestants, and then all was flight or slaughter. 
 
 Zuinglius fell almost at the first fire. He had ad- 
 vanced in front of his countrymen, and was exhorting 
 them to figliL for the cause of freedom, when a ball 
 struck him. He sank on the ground mortally 
 wounded, and in the charge of the enemy was tram-
 
 202 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 
 
 pled over without being distinguished. When the 
 tumult of the battle was past, his senses returned, 
 and raising himself from the ground, he crossed his 
 arms upon his breast, and remained with his eyes 
 fixed on heaven. Some of the enemy, who had lin- 
 gered behind, came up and asked him whether he 
 would have a confessor. His speech was gone, but 
 he shook his head in refusal. They then bade him 
 commend his soul to the Virgin. He refused again. 
 They were enraged by his repeated determination. 
 * Die then, obstinate heretic ! ' exclaimed one of 
 them, and drove his sword through his bosom. 
 
 The body was not recognized until the next day ; 
 and then it was exposed to the sight of the Roman 
 Catholic army, as the most consummate trophy. To 
 some it was a sight of admiration and sorrow, but to 
 the multitude a subject of savage revenge. In the 
 midst of shouts over the remains of this champion of 
 holiness and truth, the clamour rose, to ' burn the 
 heresiarch.' Some of the leaders would have re- 
 sisted, but the fury of the crowd was not to be res- 
 trained. They dragged the body to a pile, held a 
 mock trial over it, burned it, and scattered the ashes 
 to the winds.* 
 
 Thus perished a saint and a hero, at a time of 
 life, when he seemed to be only maturing for a more 
 extensive and vigorous career. He fell at the age 
 
 * Gualth. Apol. Zuinglii.
 
 ZUINGLIUS, THE SWISS REFORMER. 203 
 
 of forty-seven. But he had run his race well ; he 
 had sowed the seeds of virtue in a land barren before ; 
 he had poured light on a land of darkness, and his im- 
 mortal legacy to his country was wisdom, freedom, 
 and religion !
 
 X. 
 
 CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 
 
 John Philpot Curran was born on the 24th of July, 
 1750, at Newmarket, a town in the county of Cork 
 in Ireland. He was the son of respectable parents, — 
 his father being the seneschal of the Manor Court? 
 and possessing some knowledge of classical literature ; 
 and his mother, a person remarked in her neighbour- 
 hood for unusual ability. ' The only inheritance,' 
 their distinguished son said in after life, ' that I 
 could boast of from my poor father, was the very 
 scanty one of an unattractive face and person like 
 his own. And if the world has ever attributed to 
 me something more valuable than face or person, or 
 than earthly wealth, it was, that another and a 
 dearer parent gave her child a portion from the 
 treasure of her mind.' 
 
 In 1769, he entered the University of Dublin, 
 where he obtained a scholarship, and originally in- 
 tended to study for a fellowship, an effort requiring 
 a larger range of science and learning, than any other
 
 ClIAKACTKli OF CURRAN. '^O.J 
 
 Academic course of Europe ; but whose success, by 
 fixing him in the Chiu:ch, would have essentially for- 
 bidden the distinction, or at least the species of 
 distinction, which he afterwards so rapidly and con- 
 spicuously acquired. But his temper or his indo- 
 lence shrank from the preliminary labour, and he 
 chose the bar. In 1773 he came to England, and 
 entered the Middle Temple. After undergoing the 
 usual struggles of an unfriended barrister for seven 
 years, he obtained a seat in the Irish House of 
 Commons in 1783, a period of remarkable public 
 animation, and of not less remarkable public men in 
 both countries. Curran's abilities placed him in 
 the foremost ranks of opposition. He soon distanced 
 all his contemporaries .at the bar, in causes which 
 required the display of eloquence ; and in the un- 
 happy time of the popular troubles, he became the 
 chief advocate chosen by the insurrectionary leaders. 
 On the accession of his party to power, in 1806, 
 by the death of their great adversary, Pitt ; Curran 
 was appointed Master of the Rolls in Ireland, and a 
 privy councillor. Valuable as the appointment was, 
 he always expressed his chagrin, at what he always 
 regarded as a party neglect; and in 1814 sent in his 
 resignation. In 1817, he felt his health declining, 
 and was advised to try the effect of continental travel. 
 But he left Ireland, with a strong impression on 
 his mind, that ' he should never return.' The de- 
 pression increased, and he complained of a ' moun-
 
 20G CHARACTER OF CUURAN. 
 
 tain of lead upon his heart.' On the 8th of Octo- 
 ber, wliile still in London, he was attacked by apo- 
 plexy, and on the 14th of October 1817,he died in his 
 68th year. His last hours were so placid, that none 
 could mark the moment when he died. His remains 
 were laid in one of the vaults of Paddington Church. 
 Many anecdotes and characters of this distinguished 
 person appeared in the various publications of the day, 
 the following was sent, anonymously of course, to one 
 of the journals ; from which it was subsequently ex- 
 tracted, and published in the appendix to the very 
 graceful and interesting ' Life of Curran, by his son.' 
 In that appendix it is justly observed, that * the 
 writer was free from any political sympathy which 
 could betray him into exaggerated encomium.' 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 *' The public prints which announced the death of 
 the Rt. Hon. John Philpot Curran, a few days since, 
 gave many valuable tributes to the memory of that 
 celebrated person, but they have left much more 
 room than the present writer can expect to fill, for 
 the detail of his extraordinary powers. 
 
 From the period at which Curran emerged from 
 the first difficulties of an unfriended man, toiling 
 through a jealous profession, his history makes a 
 part of the annals of his country. Once upon the 
 surface, his light was always before the eye, it never
 
 CHARACTER OF CURRAN. ^07 
 
 sank and was never outshone. Yet, if office is success, 
 he was unsuccessful. This was his destiny, but it 
 might have been his choice, at least in his earlier 
 period. He had the reputation, and he cared little 
 for the robe ; he certainly was not without the re- 
 ward, which to a bold spirit, conscious of eminent 
 ability, might be more than equivalent to the reluc- 
 tant patronage of the throne. To his feelings, legal 
 distinctions might have been only a bounty on his 
 silence ; his limbs would have been fettered by the 
 ermine. But he had his compensation, in perpetual 
 popular honours ; in much respect from the higher 
 ranks of public life — much fear from the lower par- 
 tizans, — unquestioned admiration from all. In the 
 legislature he was the assailant whose lash was the 
 most dreaded, — in the Courts of law, the advocate 
 whose assistance was deemed the most essential ; in 
 his peculiar style of eloquence, he stood alone, and 
 shone alone. 
 
 On entering parliament he joined the ranks of 
 opposition, then consisting of men, with some 
 of whom he had been familiarized from early life, 
 others of them the chief names of his own pro- 
 fession, and the whole body exhibiting a dis- 
 tinguished superiority of talents over the Treasury- 
 bench. Curran embraced the cause with all the 
 ardour of strong feelings, powerful prejudices, 
 and brilliant imagination. The historical aspect 
 of Ireland was singularly calculated to lead such
 
 208 CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 
 
 a spirit astray. It was like one of those fine counte- 
 nances which we find in Italian pictures, where the 
 noblest expression of mind is tinctured with irrepres- 
 sible melancholy. Her history had been an unhappy 
 one. — Great talents and great opportunities continu- 
 ally thrown away. — Religion issuing in persecution, 
 loyalty in rebellion, the proudest fidelity only be- 
 traying to the dungeon, and the most chivalric gallan- 
 try perishing on the scaffold. Even when her do- 
 mestic feuds had exhausted themselves in the grave, 
 and the powerful interposition of England promised 
 to give the nation a breathing time of peace, a malig- 
 nant destiny seemed to turn that peace only into a 
 preparative for war. The well-intentioned policy of 
 the superior state, — for nothing but falsehood or igno- 
 rance can doubt the benevolent spirit of that noblest 
 of all countries, — was too limited to operate a thorough 
 purification, — strong enough to irritate, it was too 
 weak to reclaim : it was the application of the cautery 
 to a limb, when the whole frame was a gangrene. 
 
 At a later period, in the commencement of the cen- 
 tury, Ireland had undergone a revolution. But not 
 pacific, like that of England in 1688 ; not one of those 
 great beneficent changes which, like the ascent of the 
 sun to the tropic, divide the times of nations, and 
 announce the season of production. The Irish revo- 
 lution had the storm without the calm, and the rain 
 was blood. The people, by linking themselves to 
 the throne of James, a dastard and a monk, were
 
 CIIAKACTEK OF CURRAN. ^09 
 
 crushed in its lall ; and the precautionary nieasurea 
 essential to keep down the angry remnants of the 
 rebellion, were felt less as the natural result of 
 conquest, than as the revenge of a capricious and in- 
 sulting tyranny. The steady government of Wil- 
 liam should have been regarded as the most secure 
 provision for national peace, by extinguishing the last 
 hopes of the defeated dynasty — it stung the national 
 feelings, as the last, coldcontuniely of power. 
 
 Yet the effects of wisdom and steadiness in govern- 
 ment ai*e infallible ; like the influences of the air, how- 
 ever acting by invisible means, they ultimately show 
 themselves, by giving a new face to nature. Within 
 fifty years Ireland assumed another being ; a new 
 generation, with new habits, had succeeded to the old ; 
 the final extinction of the Stuarts, long the mere effi- 
 gies of royalty, suffered the people to turn their faces 
 to the legitimate throne ; and, covering the past dis- 
 content, like the bones of their ancestors, in the 
 sepulchre ; they ran their plough through the ground, 
 and gladly obliterated even the grave. 
 
 But faction has neither eyes nor ears for the truth ; 
 resolved not to be undeceived, it looked only to the 
 historical aspect, while it libelled the living one ; 
 and at the motnent when every faculty of the people 
 was receiving new vigour, commerce reviving in every 
 port, and agriculture spreading through every quarter 
 of the country ; when the professions were rapidly ac- 
 quiring celebrity ; and manufactures, that most reluc- 
 
 p
 
 JJIO CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 
 
 tantyet most unequivocal, proof of civil progress, were 
 making their first entrance on the soil ; the orators 
 of opposition were singing an universal dirge over Ire- 
 land — an imaginary corpse, in a tomb constructed 
 by their own hands. 
 
 But, — as if for the punishment of a people weak 
 enough to be cheated by the vulgar charlatanries of 
 faction, and ungrateful enough to close their eyes 
 against the singular bounties of Providence ; real 
 evil suddenly came. The American war broke out. 
 The northern portion of the island, inevitably connect- 
 ing its principles in government with its discipline in 
 religion, instantly took a strong interest in the strug- 
 gle. This was a perilous period for the coun- 
 try. Ireland was in the precise situation to be dan- 
 gerously tempted. She felt possessed of a strength, of 
 which she knew neither the limit nor the guidance. 
 She had started from a long sleep, like the giant re- 
 freshed with wine ; her natural powers doubly excited 
 by an elating, but dangerous, draught of privilege. 
 She had seen a hundred thousand volunteers in arms, 
 and virtually wielding her sceptre. To consummate 
 all ; her orators had filled her ears with perpetual 
 denunciations of English sovereignty ; appeals, bold, 
 brilliant, and inflammatory, to every passion which 
 lies undeveloped in the bosoms of an ardent people for 
 the benefit of political imposture, metaphoric wrongs, 
 real and substantial treason. 
 
 Yet it is the habitual folly of party orators 
 to forget that parliament is not the nation. Ac-
 
 CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 211 
 
 customed to feel triumph or defeat ouly iu the 
 echoes of the legislature, they gradually overlook 
 that vast assemblage of interests and feelings which 
 creates the legislature, and finally requires an ac- 
 count of its creature. The true statesman addresses 
 himself to the hearts of the people, and by them con- 
 trouls the obliquity of the representatives; the charla- 
 tan of statesmanship is content with the fluctuating 
 plaudits of the house, floats on majorities and minori- 
 ties, and finds himself at last left dry on shore. It is 
 impossible to regret that the Irish opposition made this 
 grand mistake ; for its motives were as selfish as its de- 
 clarations were lofty. This mistake saved the country. 
 The nation had grown weary of the opposition. 
 They were disgusted with seeing parliament turned into 
 a theatre, where a succession of candidates for salaries 
 followed in a succession of displays for hire ; — a race 
 of political pedlars, each coming with an assortment of 
 wares which no man wanted, and whose only true pur- 
 pose was to sell himself. They had rapidly discovered 
 the insufficiency of a tribe of empirics, each more pre- 
 suming than the one before, and each vaunting his 
 panacea, only to fill his pockets. But a whig opposition 
 is never thoroughly exposed, until it is in power. The 
 day of office came, and the country felt the full inso- 
 lence of a faction turned into a government. Another 
 change came — the whigs were driven from power, 
 and their fall was hailed with a general shout of the 
 nation. The very men who had harnessed them- 
 
 P 2
 
 212 CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 
 
 selves to their triumphal chariot, would now, still 
 more rejoicingly, have dragged them to the scaffold. 
 The country extinguished the last vestiges of an 
 administration, which it could not remember but as 
 a national stigma. — Like the Roman multitude ; not 
 content with dethroning the tyrant whom it once 
 worshipped, it broke down every image of whig supre- 
 macy, and flung the whole into the political Tiber. 
 
 But the period which raised Curran to his highest 
 eminence as an advocate, was of a darker hue. The 
 hazards of Ireland were not yet at an end. The 
 American revolution had grown calm, but it had given 
 the dangerous example of a people throwing off the 
 dominion of the mother country. The French revolu- 
 tion now suddenly burst out ; giving the example of a 
 populace throwing off the power of the oldest and 
 proudest of European despotisms. If the blaze, 
 three thousand miles across the Atlantic, had kindled 
 the partizanship of Ireland ; what was the peril, 
 when she saw close to her shores a conflagration 
 which, consuming the French throne, threatened to 
 cover Europe ? The power of the populace seemed 
 thenceforth immeasurable and irresistible. The ex- 
 periment was made without delay ; the northern 
 portion of the island was again called on, and it 
 answered the call. But the object was now of a 
 fiercer order, and it must be sustained by a wilder 
 force. It had once been reform ; it was now repub- 
 licanism. The sword was to be drawn, not for
 
 CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 213 
 
 fancied rights, but for actual sovereignty ; and once 
 drawn was never to be sheathed until it had dis- 
 membered the empire. For this guilty and compre- 
 hensive design nothing less than the whole strength 
 of the country must be employed. The population 
 of the west and south, the descendants of the abo- 
 riginal Irish, precipitate alike in their love and their 
 hate, habitually reckless of danger, and fdled with 
 recollections of native supremacy, offered a vast un- 
 tried body of strength ; all that was stately in the 
 ancient clanship had passed away, but the connexion 
 remained ; the superb barbarism and haughty chief- 
 taincy had mouldered into dust before the light and 
 air of British legislation ; but the sword of the pea- 
 sant was preserved unrusted, and the arm that was 
 to wield it was as sinewy as ever. The time was 
 favourable for this capacious plan of massacre. The 
 British government, with the French legions threat- 
 ening in its front, must be comparatively unpre- 
 pared for revolt in its rear. Party too embarrassed it at 
 home. It is only an hereditary charge on the charac- 
 ter of the whigs, that, never able to look beyond 
 office, they openly exulted in the difficulties of the 
 country, as increasing the difficulties of the minister; 
 that no public sense could wean them from petty in- 
 trigue ; and that even when the storm seemed louring 
 from every quarter of thehorizon, they trafficked with 
 the safety of the state ; as if the loss of Ireland would 
 be well compensated by a transfer of their worthless-
 
 J^14 CHARACTER OF CLRRAN. 
 
 ness to the cabinet. But when was whiggism ever 
 magnanimous ? when was it ever but the largest pro- 
 mise followed by the most meagre performance; 
 virtue in verbiage, patriotism longing for patron- 
 age, and self-denial grasping at salary. 
 
 The attempt to combine the north and south, 
 eventually ruined the conspiracy. Two religions 
 which could scarcely bear to look each other in the 
 face, could still less march side by side. The insurrec- 
 tion in the north threw away its arms, and the south- 
 ern revolt, thus left to struggle alone, was speedily 
 put down ; though with a melancholy havoc of the 
 country, and a still more melancholy sacrifice of the 
 deluded population. 
 
 In those allusions to a period which cannot be re- 
 membered without pain, there is no idea of impeach- 
 ing the general character of the people. Nature has 
 seldom gifted a nation with nobler qualities. The 
 crime be on the heads of those who deceived them. 
 Ireland wanted the experience which time has since 
 supplied to all nations. The world was to be older, 
 before it learned the inevitable end of the reform 
 which begins by blood. The French revolution had 
 not yet given its moral. It was still a lofty and 
 daring figure, with its deformities covered with its 
 armour ; the fiery warrior, not yet sunk into the 
 assassin. With the foundation of every throne shak- 
 ing at its first step on the soil, it was impossible 
 to refuse it at least the fearful homage which we pay 
 to resistless strength and triumphant ambition. It is
 
 (IIAKACTER OF CLRUAN. ^15 
 
 unquestionable that thegcneral delusion went further, 
 and that, to the ejes of the continent, it was still, 
 like the primal vision of the apocalypse, a splendid 
 shape, going forth " conquering and to conquer." 
 It had not yet, like that great emblem, darkened 
 down through its successive shapes of terror ; until it 
 moved against the world, " Death (m the pale horse," 
 followed by the unchained ministers of mischief, and 
 smiting with plague, famine, and the sword. 
 
 Eloquence sustained a memorable loss in Curran. 
 His mind had the originality of genius. If it be al- 
 lowed that instances of extravagance are to be found 
 in the ablest efforts of Irish oratory ; still the Irish 
 are an eloquent people ; perhaps of modern times the 
 most eloquent. England, great in every department of 
 mind, has, of necessity, produced great speakers. But 
 they have been debaters rather than orators ; their 
 power has been largely inspired by the demands of 
 their position. They have seldom come into the field 
 with an native and irresistible designation for the glo- 
 ries of eloquence. Born for other pursuits, but ca- 
 pable of all, they have been impelled to the discipline 
 by the duty. With almost the sole exception of Chat- 
 ham, their fame was less conquered than earned ; it was 
 founded upon that master-use and general force of 
 thought which grows by vigorous exertion, and the 
 habitual converse with great concerns. The labours of 
 the chief English statesmen resemble the labours of 
 the people. Leaving behind them proud memorials
 
 21G CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 
 
 of their prowess, they have all been stamped with 
 the evidence of human formation — massive, grand, 
 and full of utility, they still differ singularly from 
 the vivid eloquence of Ireland : the canal, the aque- 
 duct or the artificial hill, scarcely differ more from 
 the living cataracts, and towering and stormy pinna- 
 cles, of nature. 
 
 Conspicuous for self-command, for senatorial dig- 
 nity, and for that unwearied and majestic reasoning, 
 vyhich raised him to the highestrank in the first of legis- 
 lative assembhes, Pitt, ruling by his eloquence, placed 
 its strength in argument, elevation, and choice of lan- 
 guage. His rival. Fox, a man of extraordinary intel- 
 lect, made his chief impression by irregular, butpower- 
 ful, bursts of feeling. But the finest efforts of both 
 were occasional, and we look in vain in their recorded 
 speeches for those passages, over which the memory 
 hangs with long delight. All the attributes of " elo- 
 quence divine," if they were ever found combined 
 among men, belonged to another nation. 
 
 Burke, Sheridan, Grattan, and Curran, were Irish- 
 men ; all dissimilar in their styles, but all bearing the cha- 
 racteristics of their country ; four memorable men, like 
 Homer's chieftains, each with his day of undivided tri- 
 umph, and each coming into the field with a peculiar 
 splendour on his brow. Of those, Grattan was the latest 
 survivor, and perhaps in parliament the most power- 
 ful. Ui>attaining and obviously undesirous of attain- 
 ing the Asiatic and imperial gorgeousness of the great
 
 CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 217 
 
 champion of his native eUjqucnce, Burke ; lie had the 
 steely armour and polished and pointed weapons of 
 the Greek warrior. In the British House of Com- 
 mons he obtained boundless praise. Yet Grattan 
 was scarcely to be judged of here. In the romance 
 of a rich fancy, he dreamed, that he had given a con- 
 stitution to Ireland ; and that it was his duty to refuse 
 to be comforted over its grave. Like the exiles of 
 Jerusalem, he was reluctant to strike the string in 
 another land. But, until he died, he was the master 
 still. His early politics were local, and his mind had 
 been too long wasted on the services of party; but, 
 in the later period of his life, as a member of the 
 imperial parliament, he had a larger scope ; and, 
 though seldom exhibiting his powers, he proved that 
 they were magnificent. In the stormy questions which 
 renewed the war, none showed a greater breadth of 
 wing; and, in almost his last speech, one in which 
 he urged the declaration of hostilities against Napo- 
 leon, he left all rivalry far below ; he " sprang up- 
 wards like a pyramid of fire." 
 
 It was the fate of Curran never to have been a 
 member of the English legislature. His career in 
 the Irish parliament had but occasional claims to 
 distinction. Yet this result evidently arose from no 
 want of senatorial faculty. In the few instances 
 which excited his feelings, he was listened to with 
 unqualified delight. But his lot had been cast in 
 the courts of law, and his life was there. Parliament
 
 218 CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 
 
 was but a resting-place to him, after the labours of the 
 day; and he seldom spoke, but in the sport of the 
 moment, or the humorous disdain of his adversary ; he 
 left the heavy arms to the regular combatants, and 
 amused himself with light and hovering hostility. 
 Yet, his shaft was dreaded, and its subtlety was sure 
 to find its way, wherever there was a folly to be stung. 
 With such gifts, what might not Curran have been, 
 early removed from the party confusions, and perilous 
 objects which thickened the atmosphere of public life 
 in Ireland, into the enlarged prospects and noble and 
 healthful aspirations which elated the human spirit in 
 this country, then ascending to that imperial height 
 from which the world was to lie beneath her. In his 
 frequent expressions of a wish to abandon the Irish 
 bar ; a wish constantly thwarted by circumstances, 
 or perhaps still more by the strong affection which 
 he retained for his country ; may be found some solu- 
 tion for that occasional spleen of heart with which he 
 spoke of England. He must have often mentally 
 measured himself with her leading men. It was a 
 period of singular intellectual distinction, and no man 
 was more sensitive to fame. If we could enter into 
 the feelings of a caged falcon, while it sees its 
 fellows, of no brighter eye, or more rapid wing, 
 sweeping through the fields of air ; we might per- 
 haps have some image of a genius chained to a 
 province and a profession. The locality made the 
 grievance. Curran 's capabilities as an oi'ator were
 
 CHARACTER OK CUURAN. 219 
 
 of the highest order, but he always regarded them as 
 injured and obscured. His pathos, force, and fancy 
 were acknowledged with universal admiration, but 
 he felt that their effect was in its nature transitory ; 
 that it was the sparkUng of a flame on the ground ; 
 while Burke, Pitt, and Fox, were moving in their 
 courses above the eyes of the world, — great lights, re- 
 ceiving the homage of the empire, and placed in that 
 historic elevation from which they were never to fall. 
 It is as an advocate that Curran's true rank must be 
 estimated. And yet his published speeches give an 
 inadequate impression of his actual powers. It is 
 said, that those speeches can scarcely, in any instance, 
 be regarded as having undergone his revision. 
 And of all animated speakers, Curran was the most 
 difficult to follow by transcription. His language, 
 generally exuberant and figurative, in a remark- 
 able degree ; was sometimes compressed into a 
 pregnant pungency, which gave a sentence in a 
 word ; the word lost, the charm was undone. But 
 his manner could not be transcribed, and it was 
 created for his style. His hand, eye, and form, 
 were in perpetual speech. Abrupt as his appeals 
 sometimes seem, and broken as may be the links of 
 his rich illustrations ; nothing was abrupt to those who 
 could see him ; nothing was lost ; except when some 
 flash would burst out, of such sudden brilliancy, as to 
 leave them dazzled too strongly to follow the flashes 
 that shot after it with restless illumination.
 
 220 CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 
 
 Of his speeches, the greater number have been 
 impaired by the difficulty of the time, or the imme- 
 diate circumstances of their delivery. Some of the 
 most powerful have been totally lost. The period 
 itself v\^as fatal to their preservation. 
 
 When Erskine pleaded ; he stood in the midst of a 
 secure nation ; and pleaded, like a priest of the temple 
 of justice, with his hand on the altar of the consti- 
 tution, and all England waiting to treasure every de- 
 luding oracle that came from his lips. Curran pleaded 
 — not in a time when the public system was only so 
 far disturbed as to give additional interest to his elo- 
 quence, but in a time when the system was 
 threatened with instant dissolution ; when society 
 seemed to be falling in fragments round him ; when 
 the soil was already throwing up flames. Re- 
 bellion was in arms. He pleaded, not on the floor 
 of a shrine, but on a scaffold ; with no companions, 
 but the wretched and culpable beings who were to 
 be flung from it hour by hour ; and no hearers, but 
 the crowd, who rushed in desperate anxiety to that 
 spot of hurried execution ; and then rushed away, 
 eager to shake off" all remembrance of scenes which 
 had torn every heart among them. 
 
 It is this which puts his speeches beyond the cold 
 jurisdiction of the critic. He had neither time nor 
 thought for studying the marble graces of scholar- 
 ship. He was a being embarked in strong emer- 
 gency ; a man, and not a statue. He had the lives
 
 CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 221 
 
 of men in his hand ; and he was to address men, ol" 
 whom he must make himself master, or surrender 
 those lives to the executioner before the day was done. 
 In our more tranquil time, we can scarcely conceive 
 either the necessity or the exertion ; but both are 
 deeply impressed where they existed, monumental 
 memories in the unhappy mind of Ireland. 
 
 It is to be regretted, for the honour of his consisten- 
 cy, that Curranhad ever entered the House of Com- 
 mons. There he followed the course of faction, and 
 was a partizan ; at the bar he followed the course 
 of his duties and his feelings, and was a patriot. 
 The courage of the bar is a consideration of the first 
 importance, in a profession which stands as the natu- 
 ral bulwark between the excesses of power, and the 
 feebleness of the individual. Curran was eminently 
 and uniformly courageous. In defiance of all personal 
 hazard, — for in those days suspicion rapidly glanced 
 from the client to the advocate, — and against all re- 
 monstrance, he threw himself into the boldest posi- 
 tions of advocacy. Alternately stripping with a con- 
 temptuous hand the errors of government, and 
 resisting the dictation of the bench ; invoking the 
 parliamentary sense of character, and denouncing the 
 agents and prosecutions of the crown ; he was always 
 found in the vanguard, always utterly regardless of per- 
 sonal consequences, never repelled by the most hope- 
 less cause ; and, though conscious that every step 
 which he advanced in the service of his unfor-
 
 222 CHARACTER OF CUR RAN. 
 
 tunate country men, was carrying him further from 
 all official rank, and that he was forfeiting the ermine 
 for men who could bequeath to him nothing but their 
 shrouds ; he never refused to give the most forlorn 
 applicant to his genius, that chance for life which was 
 to be found in his splendid intrepidity. 
 
 In the minor order of trials, Curran was matchless. 
 His wild wit and eccentric allusions, his knowledge 
 of native habits, and his skill in throwing light on 
 the very spot where knavery imagined itself secure 
 of concealment, made him first of the first, in the 
 presence of an Irish jury. He was never more resist- 
 less, than when he seemed to give way to the volatile 
 and sportive spirit of the moment ; and never nearer 
 the detection of imposture than when he and the 
 impostor seemed to laugh together. It was then 
 that, suddenly turning on him, he tore off his dis- 
 guise, and in language moi-e searching than the 
 scourge, tortured the naked perjurer into truth. 
 
 It was by this mixture of apparently discordant 
 qualities, that his highest effects were produced. 
 In the opening of his cause ; from the wayward man- 
 ner in which he loitered over details, and the palpable 
 readiness to rest himself, wherever a jest could be 
 found ; it would have been impossible for a stranger 
 to anticipate the mass of daring conception, the keen 
 and stern energy, and above all, the fiery originality, 
 condensed under that careless brow. It was in this 
 originality that a large share of his triumph con-
 
 CHARACTER OF CURRAN. 2^.3 
 
 sisted. The course of other great public speakers 
 may in general be predicted from their outset ; but in 
 Curran's eloquence prediction was in vain. His mind, 
 always full, was always varying the direction of its 
 exuberance; — with all the beauty, it had all the 
 wildness, of a mountain stream, now bounding from 
 rock to rock, now winding its way through the thou- 
 sand obliquities of the landscape, but always reflecting 
 sunshine ; until it swells into strength, and thunders 
 down in the cataract. 
 
 Yet in our zeal for the memory of an orator, whose 
 fame is among the rights of his country to renown ; 
 we do not disguise the errors of his style. His 
 speeches exhibit occasional defects of taste, exam- 
 ples of distorted conception, and careless defiances of 
 classic elegance. But in the printed speeches of 
 what great master of oratory, living or dead, are 
 there to be found nobler contrasts to those passing 
 imperfections ? We are to remember of Curran, 
 that his were not the labours of the study, but the 
 sudden and vigorous impulse of public duty ; that 
 they were not carved with curious delicacy, not 
 gems to be deposited in museums, but masses 
 built up for the pillars and buttresses of a great 
 popular cause ; rapidly wrought to meet the emer- 
 gency ; bold and rough-hewn to stand the weather 
 and the tooth of time ; and that if, like the im- 
 mortal sculptures of the Parthenon, the touch of the 
 artist has given them surpassing beauty ; it is but so
 
 224 CHARACTER OF CURRAN, 
 
 much added to their primal purpose — tliat primal 
 purpose being strength, solidity, and the perpetual 
 support of the temple of our nobler Minerva, 
 the constitution. 
 
 The details of Curran's private life are for the 
 biographer. But, of that portion which lying be- 
 tween public effort and domestic privac}', forms the 
 chief ground of social character ; all who knew him 
 have spoken with panegyric. Few individuals, 
 possessed of such powers of sarcastic wit, could have 
 been more unwilling to use them ; and few whose 
 lives passed in continual public conflict, could have 
 had more personal friendships. He was fond of encou- 
 raging the rising talent of his profession, and gave 
 his advice and his praise liberally, wherever they 
 might kindle or direct a generous emulation. He 
 loved society, and though by his abilities and his 
 fame entitled to associate with the highest ranks of 
 birth and office, he evidently preferred the simple 
 intercourse of familiar friends. As a festive com- 
 panion he was vmequalled, " without a similar or 
 a second ; " and has left in the memory of his 
 associates, more of the happiest strokes of a fancy, 
 at once keen, classic, and sparkling, than any other 
 wit of his century. 
 
 Finis vitae ejus amicis tristis, extraneis etiam 
 ignotisque non sine cura fuit. 
 
 Quicquid ex Agricola amavimus, quicquid mirati 
 sumus, manet, mansurum est in animis hominum, in 
 aetcrnitatc temporum, fama rerum. — Tacit.
 
 XI. 
 
 LUTHER. 
 
 Of all the noble impulses which ever created, ani- 
 mated, and rewarded the whole dedication of the 
 mind of man, the noblest is, beyond all question, 
 that of the great religious reformer. The feelings 
 of the conqueror, the statesman, or the legislator, 
 proud and comprehensive as they are, entirely 
 sink in the comparison. Limited to a nation and an 
 age, theirnature, like their objects, is essentially tame 
 and transitory, to a class of feelings which belong 
 to higher worlds, and even whose humblest efforts 
 comprehend generations to the last hour of time. 
 What can the prizes of earth offer, equal to a sense of 
 the divine commission, of the apostleship of light, of 
 the summons and the power to work the mighty 
 miracle of giving eyes to the spiritually blind, of break- 
 ing the chain of the spiritual captive, of challenging 
 the great adversary of good in his stronghold, and 
 dragging him bound before man and angels ; the 
 prospect of glories, unborn of mortality; the fire of 
 aspirations, which vindicate their own high origin ; 
 
 Q
 
 226 LUTIIEH. 
 
 the filling of the heart with a tide of bold promptings 
 and magnificent deeds, as palpably the result of in- 
 fluence from above, as the swellings of the ocean are 
 ruled by the lights of heaven. 
 
 Even without alluding to the infinite superiority of 
 all that concerns the imperishable spirit ; the tri- 
 umphs of the religious reformer in a human view, 
 have a grandeur and an use, which place them in the 
 foremost rank of human things. Unshared, like 
 military fame, with inferior instruments, and un- 
 tinged with blood ; unpurchased, like the successes 
 of political life, by those humiliating compliances, which 
 form so large a portion of a public career ; and unem- 
 barrassed by the clouds and difficulties which beset 
 the most perfect work of legislation ; the religious 
 reformer not merely acts upon a larger scale, but 
 with a more fearless glance at both the past and 
 the future. From the nature of things, he ought 
 to be the boldest, the most secure, the most ele- 
 vated and triumphant in heart, of all mankind ; for, 
 his duty done, his responsibility ceases ; he is no 
 more answerable for the consequences, than the hus- 
 bandman is answerable for the harvest ; when he has 
 sown the divine seed, all is thenceforth the work of 
 elements above the control of man. His purpose, his 
 faculties, and his career, less resemble those of mor- 
 tality, than of one of those sons of light, who transmit 
 the divine will through creation: passive yet rejoicing, 
 obedient yet full of glorious energy ; moving unstained
 
 LLTIIEH. 227 
 
 through all the imperfections and impurities of sur- 
 rounding things ; whatever may be the trials which 
 meet it on its way, triumphant by the innate virtue 
 of its mission ; and in patience and in power, adminis- 
 tering its higli functions, until the glad hour of its 
 recal. 
 
 Of all mankind since the days of the apostles, the 
 individual who made the deepest impression on the 
 character of the liuman race, was the leader of the 
 German reformation. 
 
 The ways of providence are mysterious, but it 
 acts by ordinary means. It is cleai'ly a divine law, 
 that there shall be no waste of miracle ; for miracle 
 disturbs, to a certain degree, that human agency 
 which it is the obvious purpose of the divine govern- 
 ment to sustain in its vigour. Where the work can 
 be effected by man, it is done by man ; where it 
 partially transcends human powers, partial aid is 
 given ; the unmingled power of heaven is alone 
 displayed, where the faculties of its creatures are 
 palpably incapable of influencing the great design ; 
 wdiere man is the dust of the balance, unfelt in the 
 swaying of the mighty scales. 
 
 Where the object was human, the means have al- 
 ways been human. When an empire was to be founded, 
 a daring soldier was summoned to break down the bar- 
 riers of the surrounding realms, and crush resistance 
 with the sword. Even where the object was divine, 
 the assistance was given, up to the due point, and no 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 l-ITHER. 
 
 further. The apostles required the possession of 
 miraculous gifts, to ensure the public belief in their 
 mission; they required, above all, the gift of 
 tongues, to communicate the revelation to the ends 
 of the earth. Those gifts w^ere bestowed. But no 
 new miracle gave them the knowledge, which was 
 attainable by human means. And St. Paul, elo- 
 quent, accustomed to the business of life, trained 
 to the habits of Greece and Rome, and versed in the 
 learning and philosophy of the time, was chosen to 
 struggle with the courtiers, the populace, and the 
 philosophers of Greece and Rome. 
 
 What St. Paul was to the first century, Luther, 
 if with a less conspicuous commission, yet with a 
 scarcely less important effect, was to the sixteenth. 
 
 The apostolic age of Rome has yet had no rival in 
 external grandeur, internal vividness, or vast and per- 
 manent influence on the world. The magnificent 
 fabric of the Caesars, the most superb ever raised by 
 man, had reached its height. The arts of war and go- 
 vernment, the nobler embellishments of genius and 
 taste, volumes from which even modern refinement 
 still draws its finest delights, works of art that will 
 serve as models of excellence and beauty to the latest 
 hours of the world, the proudest developements of the 
 human mind in eloquence and philosophy, were the 
 external illustrations of the first age. 
 
 The moral empire was more magnificent still. The 
 dissonant habits, feelings, and prejudices of a host of
 
 LLTflER. 229 
 
 nations, separated by seas and deserts ; and yet more 
 widely separated by long hostility and barbarian pre- 
 judices, were controlled into one vast system of sub- 
 mission ; peace was planted in the heart of furious 
 connnunities, agriculture reclaimed the wilderness, 
 commerce covered the ocean, and peopled its shores. 
 Knowledge unforced, and thus the more productive 
 and the more secure, was gradually making its way 
 through the extremities of the great dominion ; an 
 intellectual fire, spreading, not with the hazardous 
 and startling fierceness of incendiarism, but with the 
 gentle and cheering growth of dawn, over every 
 people. 
 
 But the more wondrous characteristic still, was 
 Christianity ; the diflusion of a new knowledge, as 
 much more exalted, vivid, and essential, than all that 
 had ever been wrought by the faculties of man, as 
 the throne from which it descended was loftier than 
 the cradle and the tomb ; the transmission of new 
 powers over nature and mind ; the conquest of im- 
 mortality over the grave ; and the fight against that 
 mysterious and terrible strength in which the 
 rulers of darkness war against the human soul — 
 above all, transcendant in glory, the presence of 
 the Immanuel, Him whom it is guilt lightly to name, 
 that King of kings, whom " the heaven, and the heaven 
 of heavens cannot contain :" God the Son; descend- 
 ing on earth to take upon him our nature, and, by a 
 love surpassing all imagination, submitting to a death
 
 230 LUTHER. 
 
 of ignominy, that by his sacrifice we might be for- 
 given. 
 
 The sj)lcndours of that age must throw all which 
 follow, into utter eclipse. Yet the age of Luther and 
 the reformation bears such similitude, as the grandest 
 crisis of human events and human agency may bear 
 to the visible acting of providence. 
 
 The empire of Charles the Fifth, second only to 
 the Roman, was just consolidated. A singular pas- 
 sion for literature was spreading. Government was 
 gradually refining from the fierce turbulence of the 
 Gothic nations, and the headlong tyranny of the 
 feudal princes. The fine arts were springing into a 
 new existence. The power of the sword was on the 
 verge of sinking under the power of the mind. Com- 
 merce was uniting the ends of the earth by the ties 
 of mutual interest, stronger than the old fetters of 
 Rome. A new and singular science, diplomacy, was 
 rising, to fill up the place of the broken unity of 
 Roman dominion, and make remote nations feel 
 their importance to mutual security. A new world 
 was opened, to supply the exhausted ardour of 
 the European mind with the stimulus of discovery, 
 and, perhaps, with the not less important purpose of 
 supplying, in the precious metals, a new means of 
 that commercial spirit which was obviously destined 
 to be the regenerator of Europe. Force had been 
 the master, and the impulse of the ancient world. 
 Mutual interest was now to be the master, and the
 
 LUTIIRR. 231 
 
 impulse of a world appointed to a nobler and more 
 salutary career. To crown all, arose that art of arts, 
 by which a new lustre has been given to human 
 knowledge ; by which tiie wisdom of every age is 
 accumulated for the present, and transmitted to the 
 future ; by which a single voice, in whatever obscu- 
 rity, may speak to mankind, and make its wrong, 
 its wisdom, and its discovery, the feeling, the pos- 
 session, and the impulse of all ; — that only less than 
 miracle, the art of printing. 
 
 But in this expanse of imperial and intellectual 
 brightness, there was one lingering cloud, which 
 threatened again to overspread the whole. As paga- 
 nism in the Roman empire, had degraded the natural un- 
 derstanding of the people, and finally corrupted their 
 habits into utter ruin; superstition had assumed the 
 paramount influence in the rising European world ; 
 with the same seat, the same ambition, and still 
 deeper and more corrupting arts of supremacy. 
 
 To rescue Europe, one of those great instruments 
 which providence reserves, to awake or restore the 
 hopes of nations, was now summoned. 
 
 Martin Luther was born on the 10th day of No- 
 vember, 1483, at Eisleben, a small town in the 
 county of Mansfield, and electorate of Saxony. His 
 father, John Luther, was employed in the mines ; in 
 which he had raised himself, by his intelligence and 
 good conduct, to property and respectability, and 
 held the oflSce of a local magistrate.
 
 232 LUTHER. 
 
 At Eisleben, Luther was placed under the tuition 
 of a man of learning, George ^Emilius. At fourteen he 
 was sent to a school at Magdeburgh ; from which, 
 within a year, he was transferred to a superior 
 seminary at Eisenach, under the care of the Francis- 
 cans. Here the first evidences of his application and 
 ability were given in his school successes, his know- 
 ledge of the abstruse grammar of the day, and the 
 spirit and ease of his Latin versification.* 
 
 In 1502, this distinguished pupil was transferred 
 to the College of Erfurt; where he made himself 
 master of the Aristotelian logic, and of the more 
 valuable knowledge of the Latin classics, then be- 
 coming popular from the authority of Erasmus. 
 Greek and Hebrew were still comparatively un- 
 known ; the first professorship of Greek in the 
 University of Wittenburg was that of Melancthon, 
 sixteen years after. 
 
 In 1503, Luther took the degree of Master of Arts ; 
 and now, completed in all the science which univer- 
 sities could give, he was urged by his family to apply 
 himself to the study of the law, as the most direct 
 road to fortune. His mind had already pointed to theo- 
 logy, but he gave way to opinion, and began a reluc- 
 tant study of the Civilians. Accident alone deprived 
 the law of a man, whose eloquence and sagacity might 
 have conferred new honours on the profession; but 
 
 * Prsef. ad Seckend.
 
 LUTHER. 233 
 
 whose daring vigour and sacred sincerity of heart were 
 destined to achievements, before which all human 
 honours sink into nothing. 
 
 In 1504, Luther, walking in tlie fields one day with 
 Alexius, a young friend, was overtaken by a thun- 
 der storm ; and saw with horror his companion struck 
 dead at his side. At this frightful catastrophe, the 
 thought of the utter uncertainty of life, and of the 
 necessity of devoting it to preparation for the final 
 hour, smote him. It was the monastic age ; and piety 
 could conceive no higher form of service to God or 
 man than seclusion within conventual walls. On the 
 spot, he made a solemn vow, to abjure the world and 
 take the cowl. 
 
 The determination was communicated to his pa- 
 rents, and after some remonstrance against this sacri- 
 fice of emolument and distinction, was complied with. 
 But his younger relatives were still to be made ac- 
 quainted with his retirement from life. This was done 
 in a curiously characteristic manner. Luther, like 
 most of his countrymen, was attached to music ; and 
 he sang and performed with skill. He summoned his 
 friends to an evening entertainment ; gave them mu- 
 sic, and at the close declared to them his unchange- 
 able resolution, thenceforth, to bid farewell for ever 
 to the enjoyments of man. 
 
 In loOo, he became a member of the Augus- 
 tincs at Erfurt ; commencing his career with that 
 fulness of determination which formed so striking a
 
 284 LUTHER. 
 
 feature of his life. He sent back his lay habits to 
 his father's house, returned his Master of Arts' ring, 
 and declared his intention of changing his Christian 
 name to Augustine. He now not merely submitted to 
 the severe discipline which was prescribed by the rules, 
 however practically evaded by the members of the 
 religious orders ; but he courted their extreme rigour, 
 and soon became remarkable * for his mortifications, 
 his labours, his fasting, and hisprayer. He abandoned 
 all his previous studies, and took with him only 
 Virgil and Plautus ; the latter a singular choice, yet 
 which we cannot attribute to a love for its peculiar 
 style in the mind of a young ascetic who had so 
 sternly renounced the world. 
 
 But the personal drudgeries of the conventual life 
 were not less severe, and were even more humbling, 
 than its religious restrictions. Among other offices, 
 Luther was compelled to stand porter at the gate ; and 
 was sent through the town with a bag at his back to 
 beg for the convent. This constant succession of 
 mean labours, which at once deprived him of time for 
 study, and occupied it in pursuits exhausting and de- 
 grading, at length became too heavy for even the 
 buoyancy of his mind, and he sank into a state of 
 despondency, which rapidly influenced his religious 
 opinions. To find his way out of this labyrinth, he 
 applied to the head of the Augustines in Germany, 
 
 * Melanct. Pra-f.
 
 LUTHKR. 235 
 
 Staupitz, a man of sense and feeling. Staupitz re- 
 commended to tlie inquirer submission to the course 
 of his duty ; but enjoined on the prior of the convent 
 the more eflectual command, to relieve him from his 
 drudgeries, and give leisure for literature to a mind 
 which he already pronounced * likely to render dis- 
 tinguished services to religion. 
 
 Up to this period the Bible had never been in the 
 hands of Luther. Fragments of it were read in the 
 church service, but beyond those the wisdom of Reve- 
 lation was a dead letter. The Faculty of Theology 
 at Paris, had just branded itself to all succeeding 
 ages, by the declaration that ' Religion was undone, 
 if the study of Greek or Hebrew were permitted.' f 
 And the general opinion seems to have been compre- 
 hended in the speech attributed to a popular monk — 
 * They have invented a new language, which they call 
 Greek ; you nmst be on your guard against it. There 
 is in the hands of many a book which they call the 
 New Testament; it is a book full of daggers and 
 poison. As to the Hebrew, it is certain that whoever 
 learns it, immediately becomes a Jew.' 
 
 The year 1507 was a memorable epoch in the life 
 of this great servant of religion. In this year the Bible 
 first fell into his hands. He had already taken 
 orders ; when he found a neglected Latin copy of the 
 Scriptures lying in the library of the convent. Its 
 
 • Seckcndorf, p. If. t Villers on the Rcforaiation, p. 93.
 
 236 LUTHER. 
 
 subject instantly laid hold of his mind. The study 
 became at once fearful and delightful to him. De- 
 prived of all assistance in an inquiry which had been 
 hitherto closed on Christendom, he was driven to his 
 own resources ; and he suffered no text of the sacred 
 volume to escape him without the most eager eiffbrt 
 to ascertain its meaning. Like all men who thus 
 study Scripture; which will not give its holy wisdom 
 to the negligent, the hasty, or the proud ; he found 
 its difficulties rapidly clearing before him, his know- 
 ledge increasing, and his conviction of the profound 
 wisdom of inspiration, and the essential truth of 
 Christianity, growing more strongly into the sub- 
 stance of his mind. This result has been promised 
 to all, who will seek for the truth in prayer; — if there 
 be one exercise of the human heart and under- 
 standing on which the spirit of the Almighty pre- 
 eminently descends, it is the conscientious search into 
 the wisdom of the Bible. 
 
 But, mingled with those elevating sensations, were 
 others that belong to the feebleness of our mortal na- 
 ture. Luther's whole previous system of thinking 
 on religious subjects required to be swept away, be- 
 fore the foundation for his purified knowledge could 
 be laid. The strong discordance between his habitual 
 conceptions and the unearthly teaching of the inspired 
 word disturbed him, and there were periods when he 
 sank into such despondency, as to feel himself ready 
 to expire. The terrors of the divine justice, exempli-
 
 LUTHER. 2.'J7 
 
 fied in the punishment of the infidel antl the criminal, 
 pressed with painful strength on his imagination; 
 until he was urged, by this very conflict of mind, to 
 search more deeply into the grounds of the divine 
 mercy. He has been known to hurry away from a 
 dispute on doctrine, and, overpowered by the strug- 
 gles of his own heart, to fling himself on his bed in 
 an agony of supplication, repeating the soul-searching 
 words of the apostle : — " He hath concluded all in 
 unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all." 
 
 Those trials are well known in the history of con- 
 version; and if they do not occur with equal conflict 
 in all instances of the change from natural darkness to 
 divine knowledge, they yet have taken place in many 
 of the most powerful intellects, and holiest hearts, of 
 the Christian world. 
 
 Still, the first efforts of the awakened heart to relieve 
 itself from those throes of conscience, are often marked 
 by human fallibility. Luther, like thousands in his 
 circumstances, sought relief m the more rigid observ- 
 ance of personal mortification. Fasting was the great 
 conventual standard of virtue. Luther, when he was 
 to celebrate mass, now abstained from food between 
 midnight and noon. He sometimes even fasted for 
 three days together. This discipline, joined with 
 intense study, threw him into a violent illness. But 
 his illness was probably more of the mind than of the 
 body, for it was to the mind that the medicine was 
 applied. Even in the ignorance and corruption of
 
 238 LUTHER. 
 
 the conventual life, God had not left himself without 
 witness. — An old hrother of the Order, who attended 
 his sick-hed, discoursed with him on ' the remission 
 of sins,' and finally brought him to the great con- 
 viction, that ' Justification was of grace, by faith.' 
 
 In the Superior of the Augustines, too, Luther 
 found at once a protector and a guide ; Staupitz 
 commended his application to the Scriptures, and ad- 
 vised him to make himself an able ' textualis, et loca- 
 lis ;' a master of the leading doctrines, and quick at 
 the quotation of Scripture language. 
 
 To those acquirements of nature, nature had added 
 the important one of fluency in public speaking ; a 
 faculty neglected by the monks, but which he 
 cultivated by preaching for his brethren in the 
 churches of the surrounding villages. Thus furnished 
 with the knowledge, the will, and the active ability ; 
 his time at length came to be called into a service, 
 before which the glories of the world are a dream. 
 
 In the middle of the fifteenth century, the art of 
 printing had been discovered. Even before the close 
 of the century, the spirit of this wonder-working disco- 
 very had transpired, in an almost universal conviction 
 of the value of literature to the prosperity and honour 
 of nations. In 1495, the German Electors, in their 
 assembly at Worms, passed a resolution in favour of 
 the erection of universities in their several states. 
 Frederick, Elector of Saxony, a man whose temper 
 and wisdom well entitled him to the name of * the
 
 LUTIIEK. 239 
 
 Sage,' lost no time in acting on this auspicious reso- 
 lution, and he founded the far-famed University of 
 Wittemberg. Staupitz was applied to for the recom- 
 mendation of a scholar of his order, and he named 
 Luther, who was appointed to the professorship of 
 logic in 1508, at the age of twenty-five. 
 
 One of those signal circumstances now occurred 
 which impress their character on a life. Seven of 
 the Augustine convents in Saxony, having quarrelled 
 with the Vicar-general of the Order on discipline, 
 the question was referred, as usual, to Rome ; and 
 it is a striking evidence of the early and general re- 
 spect for Luther, that he was chosen as their delegate.* 
 Rome opened an overwhelming scene to the eyes 
 of the German scholar and divine. Li his convent 
 he had imagined, that in the central city of the church, 
 he should find himself in the supreme seat of Chris- 
 tian virtue. He found himself suddenly plunged into a 
 centre of Italian perfidy, religious indifference, and 
 glaring licentiousness. The spirit of Christianity had 
 been long extinguished, in the perpetual intrigues 
 of a court struggling to preserve its influence among 
 the armed rivalries of France, Germany, and Italy. 
 The decencies of religious ceremonial were forgotten 
 or perverted, in the insolent levity, or fantastic inno- 
 vations, of a clergy degenerated into political minions ; 
 and too necessary to the vices of their superiors, to be 
 in awe of their discipline. Individual life was a tissue 
 
 * Ulenberg, Vit. Luth. p. 9.
 
 '240 lA'nu'M. 
 
 of the most desperate excesses of profligacy and 
 blood. The restraints which have been since imposed 
 on popery by the presence of a pure rehgion, were 
 not then thought of, to tame and rebuke this audacity 
 of vice ; and Luther saw Rome in the full riot of the 
 grand corruption of Christianity, inflated by a thou- 
 sand years of power, fearless of change, and maddened 
 by those terrible delusions which Providence suffers to 
 thicken round the head and heart of the wilful rejec- 
 tors of its wisdom. 
 
 * I would not,' he often said afterwards, * have 
 missed, for a thousand florins, the lesson given to me 
 by my journey to Rome.' That lesson was destined 
 to work mighty consequences. 
 
 The profligate extension of the doctrine of Indul- 
 gences at length called forth the great Reformer. 
 
 From the year 1100, Indulgences had been among 
 the sources of papal revenue. To stimulate the Cru- 
 saders, Urban II. had granted the remission of all pe- 
 nances to those who should embark in the enterprises 
 for the recovery of the Holy Land. The next use of 
 Indulgences was for the support of the fanatical and 
 furious war against the Waldenses. But, to make Rome 
 the centre of unity to Christendom, and to collect 
 within it the chief personages of Europe, had long 
 been the policy of the papal court, with a view to 
 both power and revenue. In 1300, Boniface VIII. 
 proclaimed the Jubilee, a grand general meeting of 
 the subjects of the Romish faith at Rome, for a
 
 LUTHER. Si41 
 
 month — to be renewed every fifty years. To allure 
 the multitude, Indulgences were published to the 
 European world. The Jubilee was found so produc- 
 tive to the papal treasury, that the half century was 
 deemed too slow a return, and Urban VI. reduced 
 the years to thirty-three ; Paul II. went further still, 
 and reduced them to twenty-five. The Jubilee, 
 which returned in 1500, under Alexander VI. exhi- 
 bited all the rank offence of a vast carousal, adding to 
 its original corruption the daring scorn of virtue and 
 public feeling that grows from long impunity.* 
 
 The Indulgences, once the simple release of the 
 penitent from the censures or penances of the church, 
 had soon assumed the more important character of a 
 release from the guilt of human crimes, and the pre- 
 sumed sentence of Heaven. The merits of the Saints 
 had been reinforced by the merits of the Saviour ; and 
 the Pope, thus furnished with an unlimited stock of 
 applicable innocence, declared himself in a condition 
 to make the peace of every culprit, living or dead. 
 
 The election of Leo X. precipitated the crisis. 
 Leo, educated in the love of the Arts, a personal vo- 
 luptuary, of expensive habits, and of that epicurean 
 spirit which looked only to putting off the evil day, 
 had drawn deeply on the wealth of the Popedom. 
 To raise money became indispensable, and he 
 attempted it under the double pretext of the war 
 
 * Seek enilorf, page y. 
 R
 
 242 LUTHER. 
 
 against the Turks, and the building of St. Peter's. 
 Large sums were raised by the sale of Indulgences 
 throughout Europe, and the money was instantly ab- 
 sorbed by the expenditure of the court of Rome. In 
 the time of Zuinglius, we have seen the same process 
 adopted among the Swiss cantons. But the sum to 
 be extorted from Saxony was appropriated to the 
 payment of an early debt of Leo to his sister Mag- 
 dalen,* incurred when, in the time of Alexander VI. 
 he had fled to Genoa. The payment of this debt 
 was probably a matter of peculiar importance, for it 
 was through the influence of Magdalen's husband, 
 Francheschetto Cibo, an illegitimate son of Innocent 
 VIII., that he had been created a Cardinal at the age 
 of fourteen, and thus placed within sight of the papal 
 throne. Magdalen appointed, as her receivers, Ar- 
 cemboldi, a man remarkable for his extortion, and 
 Albert, Archbishop of Mentz and Magdeburg. 
 Albert delegated the office to Tetzel, a Dominican 
 monk, of singularly reprobate character, but whose 
 recklessness in the collection of this unpopular tribute 
 probably wiped away his sins, in the eyes of the 
 superior plunderers. 
 
 Tetzel was a Dominican, a member of that order 
 which had usurped the most extraordinary power 
 ever possessed by monks, the masters and agents of 
 the inquisition, the haughtiest opponents of all reli- 
 
 * Guicciardini.
 
 LUTHER. 243 
 
 gious reformation, and the most violent persecutors in 
 an age of religious tyranny. The new delegate was 
 known for his activity, his popular address, and his 
 contempt of principle. In his harangues on the efficacy 
 of indulgences he gave the most revolting license to his 
 tongue, and by alternate terror and temptation, 
 wrought strongly upon the popular feelings. Luther, 
 at this period, had been preparing lectures for his 
 class on the Scriptural grounds of repentance. Indul- 
 gences made a natural portion of the subject.* He 
 found himself ignorant of tlieir history ; he was thus 
 urged to examine their origin ; and the results of his 
 inquiry were speedily made known in his utter sur- 
 prise and scorn at the whole guilty pretension. 
 
 The course of his professional duty brought his 
 discoveries into action. Like the priests of his order 
 he regularly took his seat in the confessional. But 
 in the year 1517, when Tetzel's indulgences had 
 become popular, it was found that the purchasers 
 refused to undergo the ordained penances,f on the 
 ground that they were already remitted by the indul- 
 gence. Luther, in his disgust at this evasion of the 
 ancient discipline, refused to give them absolution. 
 They applied to Tetzel. The Dominican, zealous 
 for the credit of his commodity, and secure in the 
 protection of the Romish See, expressed the haugh- 
 tiest contempt for the interference of an obscure 
 
 * Luther, 1, 100. t Scckcnd, p. 17. 
 
 R 2
 
 244 LUTHER. 
 
 German monk; and followed up his scorn by the 
 more formidable threat of throwing Luther, and all 
 who adhered to him, into the prisons of the inquisi- 
 tion. As one of the commission charged with the 
 extirpation of heresy, he could have effected his 
 purpose at a word ; and to give evidence of his being 
 in earnest, Tetzel ordered a pile for the burning of 
 heretics to be raised ; an expressive emblem of the 
 peril of remonstrating with the delegate of the pope- 
 dom. 
 
 It is one of the idle rumours of later years, that 
 Luther's opposition arose from discontent at seeing 
 the sale of indulgences taken out of the hands of the 
 Augustines. But it is not clear, that those monks 
 had ever been employed in the sale in Germany. 
 The charge was not dreamt of in the Reformer's life- 
 time — it has been openly abandoned by the more 
 distinguished of the Romish historians — and, in ad- 
 dition, Luther was at this period a monk, a public 
 adherent of the popedom, and a personal admirer of 
 Leo, whose vices, at the distance of Germany, were 
 veiled in the splendours of his love of literature, his 
 munificence, and his rank as the head of Christendom. 
 
 The true cause of his hostility — the noble and 
 generous hostility of truth and virtue, to the most 
 corrupting means of the most corrupting delusion 
 that ever broke down the morals or the liberty of 
 man — was its palpable contradiction to Scripture. 
 Luther instantly applied himself to the proof. The
 
 LUTliER. 245 
 
 forms of his scholastic education still clung to him, 
 and he threw the question into the shape of a contro- 
 versy in the schools. He now published his celebrated 
 ** Ninety-five propositions," embracing the whole doc- 
 trine of penance, purgatory, and indulgences ; sus- 
 pended them on the church door in one of the 
 thoroughfares of Wittemberg, and challenged a pub- 
 lic disputation. The preamble of this paper was as 
 follows : 
 
 ' Amore et studio elucidandse veritatis, ha3C sub- 
 scripta Themata disputabuntur Wittembergiae, prae- 
 sidente R. P. Martino Luthero, Eremitano Augus- 
 tiniano, Artium et S. Theologiae Magistro, ejusdem 
 ibidem ordinario Lectore. 
 
 ' Quare petit, ut qui non possunt verbis praesentes 
 nobiscum disputare, agant id literis, absentes. 
 
 ' In nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Amen.' * 
 The challenge was not accepted, and he printed 
 his * Propositions.' This was virtually the first sound 
 of the Reformation. The public mind was now, for 
 the first time, turned to the great controversy. Lu- 
 ther's letter, sent at the same period to Albert, Arch- 
 bishop of Mentz, briefly contains the principles of 
 his doctrine. 
 
 ' I do not complain,' said he, ' so much of the 
 manner in which the Indulgences are published, 
 (which I have not witnessed,) as of the injuries which 
 
 * Luth. i. 51,
 
 246 LUTHER. 
 
 they must do to the multitude ; who beheve, that if 
 they purchase those pardons, they are secure of their 
 salvation, and safe from future punishment. The 
 souls intrusted to your care, are thus stimulated to 
 what will lead them to ruin, and how hard must be 
 the account which you will have to render to God for 
 all those ! From tliis cause I could be silent no 
 longer ; for no one can be certain of his salvation by 
 any gift conferred on him by a bishop. It is by the 
 GRACE OF God alone that salvation can be obtained ! 
 
 ' Works of piety and charity are infinitely better 
 than Indulgences, and yet they are not preached to 
 the people with so great pomp or zeal, nay, they are 
 supplanted by Indulgences. 
 
 ' The first and only duty of bishops, is to instruct 
 the people in the gospel and the love of Christ. Jesus 
 never commanded Indulgences to be published. What 
 horror, therefore, must that bishop experience, and 
 how great his danger, if he allow the sale of Indul- 
 gences to be substituted among his flock for the doc- 
 trines of revelation. Shall not Christ say to such 
 persons, ye strain at a gnat and swallow a camel ? 
 What can I do, most excellent prelate and illustrious 
 prince, but entreat you, by the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 to direct your attention to this subject, to destroy the 
 book which you have sanctioned by your arms,* and 
 impose on the preachers of Indulgences a very different 
 
 * Albert's insignia were on the title-page.
 
 LUTHER. 2-V7 
 
 way of recommending them, lest some one should 
 arise and confute both them and that book, to the 
 great reproach of your Highness. The consequences 
 of this 1 dread extremely, and I fear it must happen, 
 unless a speedy remedy be applied.' 
 
 This letter shewed equally that he had yet to learn 
 the insincere character of the Archbishop of Mag- 
 deburg, and to strengthen his own views into confi- 
 dence and system. But the time for both was at hand. 
 The Propositions produced so powerful an effect 
 on the public mind in Germany, that Tetzel found 
 himself compelled to stoop to the controversy. He 
 published two theses, comprehending the extraordinary 
 number of one hundred and fifty-six propositions ; 
 and in an assembly of three hundred monks com- 
 bated the obnoxious tenets. But, by taking the 
 Pope's infallibility as the groundwork of his proof, 
 he left the question as open as before ; his ground- 
 work was denied, and the disputation closed in his 
 burning Luther's book, and in seeing the students 
 of Wittemberg burn his in retaliation. 
 
 But the authority of the Pope was still resistless. 
 Ages of dominion ; the unhesitating homage of the 
 immense priesthood who lorded it over the public 
 mind of Europe ; and the popular ignorance, which 
 saw in the Pontiff the fountain of faith, of temporal 
 authority, and of supernatural power, had accumu- 
 lated a weight of sovereignty on the popedom, that 
 had never before been possessed by man. Among
 
 248 LUTHER. 
 
 the most striking proofs of this prescriptive power, 
 is Luther's own prostration before the Roman throne ; 
 while he assailed, with the most heroic vigour, 
 the offences of its subordinates. Of Leo, whose 
 personal character was hitherto undeveloped in the 
 north, and in whom he saw only the monarch of the 
 Church, Luther long spoke with submissive venera- 
 tion. 
 
 * But what can this most excellent person do alone 
 in so great a confusion ? ' is the language of some of 
 his letters on the church disturbances. ' One 
 who is worthy to have been Pontiff in better times, 
 or in whose pontificate the times ought to have be- 
 come better. In our age, we deserve only such 
 Popes as Julius the Second or Alexander the Sixth, 
 or some atrocious monsters similar to what the poets 
 have created; for even in Rome herself, nay, in 
 Rome more than anywhere else, good popes are held 
 in ridicule.' 
 
 Of his theses against the corruptions of the Church, 
 he had the same fears. He was eminently anxious, 
 tluit they should not be const;fued into any approach 
 towards shaking off his allegiance to his spiritual 
 sovereign. Startled at his own celebrity, he made 
 it the subject of frequent and sincere apologies to his 
 ecclesiastical superiors. In his letter, written in 1518, 
 to Jerome Scultetus, the Bishop of Brandenburg, 
 he thus humbly explains the necessity which urged 
 him to publication.
 
 MTIIRK. 249 
 
 * On the appearance of the new doctrine of Indul- 
 gences, not only my intimate friends, but many who 
 were unknown to me, requested by letters, and ver- 
 bally, my opinion. For some time I avoided any 
 open declaration, but at last the dispute became so 
 violent, that I was induced to go so far as even to 
 incur the danger of offending the Pope ! 
 
 ' But what could I do ? It was not in my own 
 power to determine anything upon the subject, and 
 I was afraid to contradict those whom I w'ished to 
 respect. They, however, argued so plausibly, in 
 attempting to prove what is false and vain ; that they 
 arrested my attention, and fairly involved me in the 
 controversy. That I might please both parties, I 
 judged it most expedient neither to assent to, nor dis- 
 sent from either, but, in the mean time, to reason 
 upon the subject, until the Church should determine 
 what our opinions ought to be ! I therefore pub- 
 lished a disputation, and invited all persons publicly 
 to declare their sentiments. As I knew several very 
 learned men, I requested them in private to open 
 their minds to me. I perceived that neither the doc- 
 tors of the church, nor the canonists, generally sup- 
 ported my opinions. There were only a few canonists 
 and scholastic doctors who seemed to approve, and 
 even those were not very hearty in their concurrence. 
 
 ' I gave a general challenge upon the subject of 
 indulgences, but no one appeared. I then perceived 
 that my published disputations were dispersed more
 
 250 LUTHER. 
 
 widely than I had wished, and were everywhere re- 
 ceived, not as matters of discussion, but of positive 
 affirmation. I was therefore compelled, contrary 
 to my hope and wish, to publish the arguments 
 for my Propositions, and thus expose my ignorance. 
 1 thought it better to incur the shame of being 
 deficient in knowledge, than to allow those to 
 remain in error, who took it for granted that my 
 Propositions were asserted as undoubted truths. Of 
 the accuracy of some of them I myself was doubtful 
 — of several I am still ignorant. Some persons deny 
 them — 1 assert none pertinaciously. I submit them 
 all to the Holy Church and the Pope.' 
 
 Yet even in these humble acknowledgments, 
 the firmness of Luther's love of the truth, let it 
 lead him where it would, is expressed with resistless 
 simplicity. 
 
 ' It is most just that I should lay at your feet what 
 I have been employed in. 1 not only give you leave 
 to blot out whatever you think fit, but I shall not be 
 concerned, if you should burn the whole. Not that 
 I stand in dread of the bulls and threats of those who, 
 not knowing what it is to doubt, wish to circulate 
 whatever they dream, as gospel. Their audacity, 
 joined to their ignorance, induced me not to give way 
 to my own fears. Had not the cause been one of so 
 great importance, no one should have known me 
 beyond my own corner. If the work be not of God, 
 I do not pretend that it should be mine. Let it come
 
 LUTHER. 251 
 
 to nothing, and be claimed by no one. I ought to 
 seek notliing else, than that I should not be the oc- 
 casion of error to any one.' 
 
 But the hazard of raising papal wrath, and the 
 tremendous consequences of that wrath, were too 
 well known by German examples, not to have been 
 contemplated by Luther. In an epistle to Staupitz, 
 as the head of his order, enclosing the printed de- 
 fence of the Propositions for the Pope's perusal, he 
 speaks in the spirit of one prepared for the last sacri- 
 fices. 
 
 ' I request that you will send these trifles of mine 
 to that most excellent pontiff, Leo the Tenth, that 
 they may serve to plead my cause at Rome. Not 
 that I wish you to be joined with me in the danger; 
 for it is my desire that those things may be done at 
 my own hazard. I expect that Christ, as judge, 
 will pronounce what is right by the mouth of the 
 Pope. To those of my friends who would alarm me 
 for the consequences, I have nothing else to say, 
 than what Reuchlin said, * He who is poor has no- 
 thing to fear ; he can lose nothing.' I possess no 
 property, neither do I desire any. There remains 
 to me only a frail body, harassed by continual illness, 
 and if they take away my life by open violence or 
 stratagem, they make me but little poorer. I am 
 satisfied with the possession of my Redeemer and 
 Propitiator, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom I shall 
 praise as long as I exist. If any one be unwilling
 
 5i52 T.UTIIER. 
 
 to join with me in these praises, what is that to me ? 
 Let him raise his voice after his own fashion. The 
 Lord Jesus will save me for ever.' 
 
 But he was soon forced again into the field. He 
 was told that the brethren of his order dissented from 
 some principles of his doctrine ; and he determined 
 to bring the matter to a decision. Having previously 
 published twenty-eight Propositions in Divinity, with 
 twelve Corollaries, against the Greek philosophy, 
 which it was the extraordinary habit of the time to 
 introduce into theological discussions ; he set out on 
 foot for Heidelbex'g, the place of the annual assembly 
 of the Augustinians. The result of the controversy 
 was triumphant. ' All the Wittemberg doctors,' 
 says his letter to one of his former teachers, ' nay, 
 the whole university, with the exception of one 
 licentiate, Sebastian, are now of my way of think- 
 ing ; and many ecclesiastics and respectable citizens 
 now unanimously say, that they had never heard nor 
 known Christ and the gospel before.' 
 
 But the most important share of the triumph was 
 the public adhesion of Martin Bucer, already famous 
 as a scholar, to the new doctrines. Bucer took 
 notes, applied for explanations to Luther, and pub- 
 lished an account of the controversy, respectful to 
 the opponent monks, but highly commendatory of 
 his teacher. 
 
 On his return from Rome, in 1500, Luther had 
 taken the degree of Doctor in Divinity. As Doctor,
 
 LUTHER. ii5i^ 
 
 he had obtained the right of teaching pubHcly as well 
 as privately ; and Frederick, the Elector, attended 
 some of his sermons, with whose force and simplicity 
 he was so much struck, that, on the preacher's de- 
 siring to devote himselfsolely to the study of divinity, 
 the Elector permitted him to vacate the chair of logic 
 for that of theology. The additional strength thus 
 given to his studies, and the additional influence to 
 his authority, were among the palpable sources of 
 the Reformation. 
 
 But the true struggle for religious and civil free- 
 dom was at hand : the conflict, from which Protes- 
 tantism, like a new creation, was to be summoned 
 by a spirit not less than that of the Supreme. The 
 papal exactions had exhausted the Romish vassals, 
 as the papal tyranny had disgusted their princes. A 
 feeling of scorn for the notorious ignorance of the 
 Romish ecclesiastics was rising in this age of restored 
 literature, to reinforce the civil discontent. The 
 proverbial duplicity of the Romish court, which had 
 made its friends doubtful — the wasteful luxury, which, 
 scandalizing the devout, drained the poor ; and the 
 restless ambition of a power, great only by the per- 
 petual quarrels of Europe, all combined to break up 
 the whole long train of evil influence by which kings 
 and people had been bowed at the Roman focJtstool. 
 
 To the mere historian nothing is more intricate 
 than those sudden changes of human feeling. To 
 the man who seeks for wisdom by the light of Provi-
 
 254 LUTHER. 
 
 dence, the cause is not seldom to be found in the divine 
 will to protect the progress of religion. In the furious 
 contests of the German princes, the alternate aliena- 
 tions and submissions of the empire, and the eager 
 intrigues which engrossed the court of Leo, the 
 young Reformation found its best shelter, — the storm 
 raged among the ancients of the forest, while the 
 lowly produce at their feet, more precious in the eye 
 of heaven than them all, was suffered to flourish, and 
 fill itself with healing virtue. In the shock of Italian 
 subtlety, kingly violence, and popular indignation, 
 the power of the priesthood was gradually unnerved. 
 Loftier interests than those of angry monks absorbed 
 the soldiers and statesmen of the time ; and Luther, 
 who a few years before, would have perished in the 
 flames of the Inquisition, passed unharmed, though 
 not unmolested, through life, and went down full of 
 years and honours to his grave. 
 
 A great political movement now urged the advance 
 of the Reformation. Selim the First, the son of Ba- 
 jazet, had reposed from the conquest of the Asiatic 
 pro\dnces, only to prepare an irresistible armament 
 for the seizure of the European.* A powerful fleet 
 was to be directed against Rhodes, the bulwark of 
 Christendom in the Mediterranean ; and an army, 
 composed of the invincible janizaries, was to march 
 on Hungary. The Italian States and the Imperial 
 
 * Guicciardini, 1. 1.3.
 
 LUTHER. 255 
 
 were thus menaced at once ; and Leo was too intent on 
 the increase of the papal influence, to suffer the peril to 
 lose any of its alarms through the weakness of his ap- 
 peals to the popular imagination. Prayers were ordered 
 to be put up for the safety of the civilized world; a 
 solemn exhortation was issued to all Christian princes 
 to concentrate their force against the terrible enemy 
 of all; and with the ostensible object of forming a 
 German league against the invader, Cardinal Thomas 
 de Vio di Gaet^, better known as Cajetan, was des- 
 patched to the Diet of Augsburg. The extinction of 
 Luther and his doctrine was unquestionably among 
 the chief purposes of his mission. 
 
 Cajetan's first proceeding was to conciliate Max- 
 imilian, who had openly declared his resentment 
 against Leo, and his disgust at the whole system of the 
 papal policy. * Had not Leo deceived me,' the em- 
 peror was heard to exclaim, ' he would have been 
 the only pope whom I could have called an honest 
 man.' * Cajetan proposed in the diet, as papal le- 
 gate, that a portion of the church revenues should be 
 placed at the Emperor's disposal for the Turkish war. 
 The result of this palatable concession immediately 
 appeared in an imperial letter, dated Augsburg, 
 August the 5th, declaring Luther's opinions * liere- 
 tical and damnable ; acknowledging the Pope's right 
 to judge of doctrine ; entreating Leo to extinguish 
 
 * Lechen, p. 43.
 
 25() LUTHER, 
 
 the new heresy, and pledging the imperial power to 
 observe the decision of Rome, and to compel its ob- 
 servance throughout the empire.' But the progress 
 of this negociation had already encouraged Leo to the 
 habitual violence of the papacy ; and on the 7th of 
 August, two days after the despatch of the impe- 
 rial letter, Luther was startled by a summons to 
 appear within sixty days at Rome. The fate of 
 those who had once fallen into the papal grasp was a 
 terrible omen. The dungeon for life, or the scaifold, 
 was before him ; and, as if to give double assurance 
 of his ruin, he found appointed as his judges, Prierio^ 
 and Ghinucci, bishop of Ascola, both public arraigners 
 of his doctrine. 
 
 In our age and country we fortunately can have no 
 conception of the justifiable terror that must once have 
 seized any man menaced by Rome. He had from 
 that moment no country ; to shelter him was to be 
 accursed ; to protect him was to draw down the po- 
 pular hatred, the public sword, and the indefatigable 
 revenge of an universal power. Luther's friends, and 
 every friend of religion and freedom throughout 
 Europe, trembled for the approaching sacrifice of this 
 great antagonist of mental slavery. 
 
 But his cause was in loftier hands than those of 
 man. Maximilian's anxiety to secure the throne, at 
 his death, to Charles, made the Elector of Saxony's 
 friendship of the highest importance to him. Luther, 
 as a subject of Saxony, had petitioned Frederic that
 
 LUTHER. 257 
 
 the commission for his trial should sit in Germany. 
 This was obtained ; and furnished by his sovereign 
 with letters to the senate and principal people of 
 Augsburg, and supplied, for his immediate wants, 
 from the Electoral purse, he arrived at Augsburg ; 
 in his own phrase, " pedestcr et pauper."* 
 
 His letter to Melancthon exhibits the manliness 
 and composure which religion had restored to his mind. 
 
 * There is nothing new going on here, unless that 
 this city is full of the rumour of my name, and that 
 every one is desirous of seeing Erostratus f the in- 
 cendiary. Continue to behave manfully, and to lead 
 the youth in the right path. I am willing to be 
 sacrificed for them and you, if it be God's will. I 
 choose rather to die, than recant what I have said, 
 and become the occasion of casting disrepute on the 
 most commendable studies. Italy is plunged in 
 Egyptian darkness ; all are ignorant of Christ, and 
 of the things that are Christ's, yet those are the men 
 who are to remain masters of our faith and morals.' 
 
 Still such was the unresisted authority of the papal 
 power, that Luther again shrank from the collision, 
 and shrank even after he had repelled Cajetan in 
 three several conferences, defying him to produce 
 scripture for his doctrine. Those conferences, which 
 were private, closed in a threat of Cajetan to send 
 his stubborn antagonist to Rome, and in Luther's 
 
 Luth. prief. t t Iil- Kphcsian \vlu» but Hie to the Tcin])lc of Diana, 
 
 S
 
 ^58 LUTHER. 
 
 writing a deprecatory letter, admitting that it was 
 his duty to have spoken with more reverence of the 
 Pope ; promising to let the doctrine of Indulgences 
 rest, if he should not be forced to the discussion, by the 
 Romish controversialists ; and desiring that the whole 
 controversy might be referred to Leo, for the settle- 
 ment of his general conduct and doctrine. Luther's 
 language, on this occasion, should be a lesson to those 
 who expose themselves to persecution. In all the 
 great conflicts of the faith, the most forward have 
 been generally the first to give way ; while the meek, 
 the humble, and the self-distrusting, have been the 
 firmest in extremity. Human presumption is often 
 flung into shame by the approach of the real trial. 
 The mighty providence that loves the meek and quiet 
 spirit, will not give the praise of martyrdom to hu- 
 man vanity. The true strength for the final struggle 
 is in the abjuration of our own, and the humble hope 
 in the strength to be administered alone by the 
 eternal source of fortitude and virtue. The agony 
 in Gethsemane may have been partially revealed for 
 this lesson ; the bloody sweat but an example of the 
 terror that may besiege the mind in the prospect of a 
 death of torture ; and the command ' to pray that 
 we may not be brought into trial,' but a result of the 
 divine knowledge, that though the spirit may be 
 willing to bear, the human nature is made to shrink ; 
 for the " flesh is weak," and not to be trusted in the 
 presence of desperate pain.
 
 LUTiircu. 259 
 
 But Lutliei's letter was an useless degradation. 
 Whether from the conviction that he had offended 
 the popedom beyond forgiveness, or from what seems 
 the actual knowledge of intended violence;* within 
 three days he mounted a horse provided by his friend 
 Staupitz, and before evening, was forty miles from 
 Augsburg. Staupitz, Lincius, and the prior of the 
 Carmelites, with whom Luther had lodged, wisely 
 fled a few days after. 
 
 His first work, on his return, was the publication 
 of his famous letter to the Elector, detailing the con- 
 ferences with Cajetan, and refuting the Dominican's 
 arguments. He had now fully ascertained that it 
 had been his adversary's intention to send him to 
 Rome ; and the pathetic close of his letter deeply 
 shews his resignation, and the sense of his danger. 
 
 * I am almost prepared to submit to the pains of 
 exile, for 1 perceive that my enemies have laid snares 
 for me on all sides ; nor do I know where I can live 
 in safety. What can I, a poor and humble monk, 
 expect ? or rather, what danger ought 1 not to dread, 
 since so illustrious a prince is exposed to threats, un- 
 less he send me to Rome, or banish me from his ter- 
 ritories? Wherefore, lest any injury should befal 
 your highness on my account, I am wiUing to forsake 
 my native country, and to go wherever a merciful 
 God shall be pleased to direct, leaving the issue to 
 
 his will. 
 
 * Act. Aug. Ap. Liitli. Ap. 
 S 2
 
 260 LUTHER. 
 
 * Therefore, most illustrious prince, I respectfully 
 bid you farewell, and take my leave, with infinite 
 thanks for all the favours that you have been pleased 
 to confer upon me. In whatever part of the world 
 I may be, I shall never be unmindful of your high- 
 ness, but shall pray sincerely and gratefully for your 
 happiness, and that of your family.' 
 
 Frederic's cautious habits had concealed from Lu- 
 ther the strong interest which he took in the safety 
 of this great ornament of his states. But the reso- 
 lution to protect him had been already adopted ; and 
 the Elector's answer to an insolent rescript of the 
 Legate, demanding that Luther should be banished 
 from Saxony, and sent to Rome, and declaring that 
 ' his pestilent heresy should not be suffered to exist,' 
 suddenly displayed the determination of a prince, re- 
 markable for his poHtic reluctance to all unnecessary 
 avowal of his opinions. 
 
 * Luther's appearance at Augsburg I consider as a 
 fulfilment of all that has been promised on my part. 
 Notwithstanding the assurances that you gave me of 
 allowing him to depart with tokens of your regard ; 
 a recantation, I hear, was required of him before the 
 subject was sufficiently discussed. 
 
 * Many learned men can see nothing impious, un- 
 christian, or heretical in Luther's doctrine ; and its 
 chief opponents appear to be among those who do 
 not understand it, or whose private interest stimu- 
 lates them to opposition.
 
 LUTHER. 2G1 
 
 ' I am always ready to do my duty as a Christian 
 prince ; and am therefore at a loss to conceive, why 
 there should be held out any such threats ; as that 
 the Court of Rome should follow up the cause ; that 
 Luther should be sent thither, or that he should be 
 banished from my principality. 
 
 * He has, hitherto, been convicted of no heresy, 
 and his banishment would be very injurious to the 
 University of Wittemberg. I enclose an answer 
 to the other parts of your letter, from Luther; whom 
 I do not consider in the light of a heretic, because 
 he has not been proved such, and because it is con- 
 sistent with justice that he should have a hearing.'* 
 
 This letter was decisive ; Cajetan could no longer 
 hope for the sacrifice of the great Reformer. He re- 
 turned to Rome, and found the fate of disappointed ne- 
 gotiators ; he was charged with precipitancy, where no 
 prudence could have insured success. The mortifi- 
 cation sank deep into the proud spirit of the Domi- 
 nican ; he gradually withdrew from public life, and 
 gave himself up to the nobler occupation of rivalling 
 the Reformers, in those attainments which had so 
 often put the ignorance of the Papal clergy to shame. 
 During the eleven years of his remaining life, he 
 distinguished himself by the study of the original 
 languages of Scripture, and still holds a rank among 
 the most learned of his order. 
 
 Miltit/, a Saxon and a layman, was next sent to 
 * Luth. i. r- 221.— Moid. L. i.— Scckcn. p. 53.
 
 262 LUTHER. 
 
 soften, what the sternness of the Romish prelate had 
 failed to break down. He invited Luther to a 
 friendly conversation at his friend Spalatin's house at 
 Altenburg, in January, 1512. The conference was 
 better followed by a supper, in which Luther's joy- 
 ous and open nature indulged itself in the conversa- 
 tion of his intelligent countryman, without overlook- 
 ing the true object of every mission from Rome. 
 His letter to his superior Staupitz gives a brief yet 
 characteristic account of the scene. ' Atque vesperi, 
 me accepto convivio, laetati sumus, et osculo mihi 
 dato, discessimus. — Ego sic me gessi, quasi has Ita- 
 litates et simulationes non intelligerem."* But the 
 papal power was still the great overshadowing influ- 
 ence of every mind of Europe, and no courage of 
 intellect was adequate to the idea of finally resisting 
 the authority, or doubting the sanctity, of the 
 * mighty mistress of the faith.' Luther still most 
 anxiously and sincerely drew the line between the 
 guilty agents, and the ' immaculate source of Romish 
 power.' In his letter of the 3d of March 1519 to 
 the Pope, he declares himself overwhelmed with re- 
 gret at the charge of disrespect to the See. 
 
 * It is those, most holy Father, whom I have re- 
 sisted, who have brought disrepute on the church. 
 Under the shelter of your name, and by the coarsest 
 pretexts, they have gratified a detestable avarice, 
 
 * Seckciul, p. fi^.
 
 LUTIIKR. 2G3 
 
 and put on tlie most revolting hypocrisy. Now they 
 proceed to thi'ow on nic tlie blame of" the mischief 
 that has happened; but 1 protest before God and 
 man, that I never did, nor at present do wish to 
 make any infringement on the power of the church 
 or your holiness ; confessing, in the fullest manner, 
 that nothing in heaven or earth is to be preferred to 
 it, except the power of Christ Jesus, who is Lord 
 of all.' 
 
 Nothing can be more idle, than those subsequent 
 charges of hypocrisy which were heaped upon the 
 writer of this letter. Luther's whole spirit was sinceri- 
 ty ; an extravagant homage to Rome, the first lesson 
 and the last in the lives of her subjects throughout 
 the earth ; with the secular priest the subject of all 
 teaching, and with the regular the very form on 
 which his doctrine, his order, and his existence, lived; 
 still chained the loftiest and the freest minds. The 
 superstition which enabled Rome to work its evils so 
 long undetected, hung over the genius, sagacity, 
 and independence of mankind with an oppressive 
 and bewildering depth, from which Europe was to 
 be relieved by no energy born of human nature. A 
 more resistless influence, descending from the throne 
 of Eternal Wisdom and Mercy, was alone to work 
 the miracle. 
 
 But the characters of the successive great leaders 
 of the Reformation finely tiisplayed that suitableness 
 of means, which perhaps forms one of the most ad-
 
 264) LUTIIEK. 
 
 mirable and unquestionable proofs of the acting of 
 Providence in the higher changes of nations. 
 
 The mind of Luther was matchlessly adapted for 
 the peculiar work that fell to his share. Magnani- 
 mous, boldj and contemptuous of all consequences to 
 himself, he lived and breathed only for the cause of 
 truth ; the impression of the moment absorbed his 
 whole ardent imagination ; and whether the heredi- 
 tary grandeur of the Popedom towered before his 
 eye, or he looked into that deep and ancient gulf of 
 tyranny and crime, from which its false supremacy 
 rose ; he was ready to proclaim to the world with 
 equal sincerity the reverence which over-shadowed 
 his spirit, and the stern reprobation which made him 
 shrink from the ' Mystery of Iniquity.' 
 
 No client of the Popedom has ever expressed 
 more willing or more eloquent submission; but no 
 convert from darkness to light, no slave of supersti- 
 tion awakened to Christianity, no blind Bartimeus 
 summoned from sitting by the road-side, and living 
 on the alms of knowledge, to the sudden glory of 
 intellectual day, and the still sublimer vision of the 
 God of Redemption; ever went forth with bolder 
 and more resistless strength and scorn against the 
 crowned and superb Pharisees and Sadducees of the 
 Popedom. The men who followed in the history of 
 this noblest of all Revolutions were chiefly of more 
 
 restrained and circumspect minds ; * if some of them 
 
 ■" Seckcnd, p. 63.
 
 LUTHER. 2G5 
 
 were Luther's superiors in the scholtirship of the 
 age, their attainments were exercised with less of 
 that headlong and unsparing vigour which so often 
 turns a controversialist into a personal enemy. 
 With the innocence and holiness of the primitive 
 times of Christianity, they mingled those more soft- 
 ened manners which were required by their contem- 
 poraries. Occasional instances of rashness are to be 
 found among the most accomplished of those extra- 
 ordinary men, but the uncalculating career of Lu- 
 ther's mind had no successor. Every failure, not 
 less than every exploit, in his progress, is to be attri- 
 buted to his eminent possession of the one grand quali- 
 ty, the sincerest heart of mankind. It urged him to 
 extremes; where others knelt, he prostrated himself; 
 where others withheld obedience, he started up into the 
 loftiest attitude of hostility. Such an arm was made 
 to strike the sword through the helmet of Popery, 
 when the armed giant stood in his ancient power, 
 defying the strength and hopes of nations. Other 
 means were required, when the armour was thrown 
 aside for the still more perilous coverture of subtlety 
 and hypocrisy ; when the hoary poisoner of kingly 
 minds, and the gloomy stirrer-up of popular passions, 
 was to be uncloaked and uncowled, and cast out 
 naked before the world. 
 
 But, if Luther's sincerity often plunged him into 
 difficulties which prudence would have easily avoided ; 
 we must not degrade so noble and so rare a quality,
 
 266 LUTHER. 
 
 by forgetting that it led him rapidly to the highest 
 of all truths, the knowledge of the Gospel. In all the 
 stubbornness of his prejudices, the natural result of the 
 temperament, we find a substantial knowledge of the 
 spirit of Christianity, that never was administered by 
 the unassisted human understanding. It is an insult 
 to religious honesty, to doubt that such will always 
 be its reward. The atheist, the deist, the general 
 wretched race of the scorners, are false to themselves, 
 when they tell us that they have been sincere in 
 their search for the truth. They never desired to 
 find it. Their only desire was to find some flaw, 
 some excuse for a metaphysic sneer, some pert op- 
 portunity for shewing that they were more sagacious, 
 satirical, and foreseeing, than the believers in the 
 wisdom of Heaven. They turned over the pages of 
 the Bible not to learn, but to insult ; to controvert 
 the historian, and put the prophet to shame. They 
 never approached it on their knees, with their heads 
 bowed, as before the oracles of the supreme Lord of 
 Wisdom, with the supplication on their lips, that the 
 weakness of their human intellect might be strength- 
 ened by tlie strength of the Divine ; that their 
 natural blindness might be washed away in the foun- 
 tain of that uncreated light which wells forth by the 
 throneof the Eternal ; that all the unworthy passion of 
 human applause might be purified ; and that, at 
 whatever sacrifice, they might be led into that 
 sacred and elevating knowledge which is better than
 
 LUTHER. 261 
 
 liic! itbcir ; loftier, iuuncasuvably luflicr, than its 
 haughtiest learning ; and happier, unspeakably 
 happier, than all the enjoyments that earth can 
 give. 
 
 If the infidels of the last age had thus sought the 
 truth, they would have found it; and the world would 
 have been spared the guilt and folly of the Voltaires 
 and Humes. If the champions and converts of 
 Popery at this moment would do this, Popery would 
 perish away, like stubble in the flame. If they will 
 not, their delusion will only gather thicker round 
 them, until it engenders a Revolution, to which all the 
 fury and all the havoc of the past were but the toss- 
 ings and spectres of a dream. 
 
 Luther's career had hitherto been comparatively 
 obscure. His struggles were against the arts and 
 violence of men seldom above his own rank, and whose 
 defeat could scarcely contribute to the honours of 
 the scholar and the theologian. But the discipline 
 was useful ; it compelled him to cultivate the powers 
 which were yet to grapple with kings and councils ; 
 it gave him that confidence in his own resources, 
 which the most powerful minds acquire only by use ; 
 and it trained him to that knowledge of human 
 nature, even under its aspects of craft and treachery, 
 which was essential to control the hasty confidence 
 and rash intrepidity, of one of the noblest but most 
 uncalculating hearts that ever beat in man. 
 
 One controversy he had still to suslain ; curious
 
 268 LUTHER. 
 
 from its resemblance to those which have signalised 
 the revival of conversion in our day ; while it char- 
 acterises the scholastic manners of its own. 
 
 Germany, since the age when she ceased to pour 
 out her armed hordes on the civilised world, has 
 teemed with a less warlike but scarcely less conten- 
 tious population, the hordes of scholarship. There 
 disputation erects her native throne, and the candi- 
 dateship for that uneasy and cheerless seat, is unceas- 
 ing and immeasurable. But no theme of literary 
 contest could have ever equalled the Reformation, in 
 its power over the whole heart of man. Superb no- 
 velty, the stirring wrath of the old opinions startled 
 by this new assailant, the fear of change, the hope 
 of political aggrandisement, the proud hostility of 
 Rome, doubly enraged by the shock of its temporal 
 crown, aud of its spiritual supremacy ; the more 
 solemn feelings kindled by the magnitude, and 
 majesty of the Scriptures, revealed after the conceal- 
 ment of ages ; were the impulses of the theme ; im- 
 pulses which comprehended every class of human sus- 
 ceptibility, and filled every class which they com- 
 prehended. 
 
 Among the learned men whom thisgreat controversy 
 stimulated, was Bodenstein ; better known by the 
 name of Carolostadius, which, according to the cus- 
 tom of the German literari, he had adopted from his 
 birth-place, Carolostad, in Franconia. He had 
 already attained considerable literary rank, and was
 
 LUTHER. 2G9 
 
 Archdeacon of the church of All Saints at Wittem- 
 berg, before his conversion by Luther.* 
 
 His zeal plunged into the centre of the battle ; 
 and, resolved to throw away none of his strength, he 
 struck his first blow at an antagonist of the highest 
 academic renown, Eckius, who, though but thirty 
 years old, had carried off the honours of no less than 
 eight universities. Pamphlets were written, and 
 retorted with equal asperity ; but this remote warfare 
 producing no result, it was determined on both sides 
 to bring the question to a public argument at 
 Leipsic. Higher authorities soon involved them- 
 selves in a contest, on whose fate the partisans of the 
 champions, with the usual exaggeration of party, 
 seem to have conceived that the Reformation itself 
 was to depend. 
 
 The Bishop of Mersburg, hearing that Luther had 
 been summoned, and dreading the results of any 
 struggle wdth this formidable reasoner, fixed an 
 interdict of the disputation on the door of the church 
 in which it was to be held. But Duke George, less 
 provident, and more sanguine, conceiving that the 
 Popish champion must be the victor, ordered the 
 interdict to be torn down. Still, the reasoning which 
 was to be suffered in a disputation, was not to be 
 suffered in a sermon ; and Luther was prohibited from 
 preaching in any church in Leipsic. But he had 
 
 Seckend. p. 72.
 
 270 LUTHER. 
 
 come to preach ; and there were few obstacles which 
 could finally resist the determined purpose of such a 
 man. He obtained leave, through the Prince of 
 Pomerania, to preach before a limited audience in 
 the castle. He availed himself of it with stern effect ; 
 and his sermon on this occasion is one of memorable 
 name, as an elucidation of his doctrines, and still 
 more memorable as the cause of his first decisive 
 breach with the papacy. 
 
 The form of this famous disputation displayed the 
 ancient pomp of the schools. The entrance of the 
 Reformers into Leipsic was triumphal. Carolstad, 
 in a chariot and alone, led the way. The Prince of 
 Pomerania came next, with Luther and Melancthon 
 at his side. A train of the students of Luther's 
 university, wearing armour ! followed ; and closed a 
 procession, emblematic of that singular mixture of 
 religion and the sword which was yet to convulse the 
 civilised world. 
 
 The assembly was worthy of this pomp, and com- 
 prehended all the leading individuals of the city and 
 province — the Duke's counsellors; the doctors and 
 graduates of the university ; the magistrates of Leip- 
 sic ; with a crowd of other important persons. The 
 argument was conducted with the solemnity of a 
 contest between the two faiths. Scribes were ap' 
 pointed to take down the discussion ; and the whole 
 ceremony was formally opened by an oration from 
 Moselanus, a scholar of distinguished name.
 
 LUTHER. 271 
 
 Yet this debate, ushered in with sucli I'onuidabK- 
 preparation, came to nothing. For, by a singuhirly 
 injudicious line of conduct, Carolostadius, instead of 
 forcing his antagonist to the testimony of Scripture, 
 and adhering to those great features of inspiration 
 which require only to be shown, to be acknowledged, 
 suffered himself to be led into the endless difficulties 
 of the doctrines of the ' divine purposes.' During 
 an entire week, which exhausted the patience of all 
 the hearers, the two disputants wasted their acute- 
 ness on the mysteries of ' Fate and Freewill ; ' 
 exhibited their learning in recriminations from the 
 Fathers, and sought for triumph in bewildering each 
 other in labyrinths wherein the human intellect was 
 never able to find the clue. The manlier minds 
 present saw the absurdity of both ; and even Me- 
 lancthon hazarded the declaration, that the argu- 
 ment gave him the most practical evidence of what 
 the ancients termed ' sophistry.' Eckius himself 
 grew wearied ; and summarily closed the struggle by 
 the bold manoeuvre of declaring that Carolostadius 
 had, without knowing it, come over to his opinion. 
 But the Popish champion had contemplated a nobler 
 antagonist. From the beginning, it was his ambition 
 to have disputed with Luther ; and before his argu- 
 ment with Carolostad, he had addressed Luther ; 
 enquiring whether the report were true, that he had 
 refused to join in the controversy ? The reply was, 
 * that he was disqualified from taking a part, without
 
 272 LUTHER. 
 
 the Duke's protection.' The protection was at 
 length obtained, and the controversy began, with a 
 vigour proportioned to the fame of the two leading 
 theologians of Germany. 
 
 Luther had published thirteen propositions, which 
 had been impugned by Eckius under as many heads, 
 comprehending the chief theorems of purgatory, 
 penitence, indulgences, &c. The pope's supremacy 
 was artfully adopted in the commencement of the 
 disputation by Eckius, with the double purpose of 
 conciliating the favours of the popedom, and of 
 embarrassing an adversary, who had always exhi- 
 bited a peculiar reluctance to declare against the 
 authority of Rome. The universal episcopacy of the 
 pope was equally allowed by both. But there was a 
 marked difference in the foundation — Eckius de- 
 claring that this episcopacy originated in divine autho- 
 rity ; Luther unhesitatingly pledging himself to the 
 proof that it was altogether human. The Fathers 
 were largely appealed to by the Romish advocate; but 
 the great Reformer was not to be baffled by false 
 quotation and oblique evidence, — the subtle secret of 
 Romish controversy in all ages : he took the volumes 
 into his own hands, and shewed the shadowy and 
 feeble grounds on which these venerable writers were 
 presumed to have authorised the Romish dominion. 
 But this toil of quotation threatened to be endless; 
 and after five days of enquiry, this part of the debate 
 was closed by mutual consent, and the question of
 
 lATlIKK. 273 
 
 purgatory was begun. Indulgences were the next 
 point ; and here Eckius unexpectedly, but fully, 
 joined his opponent in the ridicule of this most 
 offensive doctrine. The doctrine of repentance con- 
 cluded the debate, which, after eleven days of conti- 
 nued discussion, finally closed on the loth of July, 
 1519. 
 
 Yet the ceremonial was not closed by the cessa- 
 tion of the argument ; and as if to give a model of 
 the whole stateliness of controversy in those days, 
 the decision was referred to the two great authorities 
 of law and literature, the universities of Paris and 
 Erfurt, with the reserve of an appeal to the last 
 supreme authority, a general council.* 
 
 Our chief record of this famous debate is by Me- 
 
 lancthon, who speaks with liigh praise of the 
 
 ability displayed on all sides ; giving Carolstad the 
 
 merits of zeal and knowledge ; Eckius, of literature 
 
 and variety and promptness of argument ; and Luther, 
 
 of force, manliness, and learning. But if the testimony 
 
 of a brother reformer to Luther's triumph should be 
 
 doubted, we have unequivocal evidence in the facts 
 
 of its result; many of the students of Leipsic leaving 
 
 their university for that of Luther ; f and Eckius 
 
 immediately making a formal application to the 
 
 Elector Frederic, ' that his adversary's books should 
 
 be burnt.' The man who converts his hearers, and 
 
 * Luther, Op. vol. I. Sleid, lib. 1. Kottiner. de Pnedest, lib. 4. 
 t Seckend. p. 92.
 
 ^74 LUTHER. 
 
 drives his adversary into the folly of appealing to 
 violence, has gained all the victory that reason and 
 right can gain. 
 
 The opinion of the Universities was partially and 
 tardily given. Louvain and Cologne, strongholds of 
 Popish influence, decided against Luther. Paris, 
 where the Popedom was always less influential, took 
 two years to decide, and then evaded the question ; by 
 passing sentence merely on some theses from Luther's 
 volumes, without alluding to his name. Leipsic, best 
 acquainted with the controversy, yet probably 
 equally reluctant to offend the Popedom, and to re- 
 sist public opinion, came to no decision. 
 
 But the renowned leader of the Reformation was 
 to limit his struggles and his triumphs no more to 
 the subordinate ministers of superstition on the ob- 
 scure stage of a German province ; but to grapple 
 with the whole power of Rome, and, in the presence 
 of mankind, give it that overthrow from which it has 
 never recovered. 
 
 Miltitz, the dexterous and learned envoy of the 
 Papacy, had steadily pursued his purpose of bringing 
 Luther to the acknowledgment of the Papal au- 
 thority, in all matters human and divine. After 
 some negociation, he had induced the Augustine 
 monks to send a deputation to their brother, request- 
 ing him to make this acknowledgment by letter, as 
 the most authentic form. The request was complied 
 with, and the letter was prefixed to his ' Treatise of
 
 (.ITIIKK. til') 
 
 Christian Liberty,' — a brief description of tiie privi- 
 leges annexed to Christian feelings, under the two 
 heads, — * That the Christian is the freest of men, and 
 subject to none ; ' and, ' That the Christian is the 
 most ready to serve all, and be subject to all.* But 
 the letter is the more important document, and 
 sti'ongly expresses at once the writer's habitual 
 deference for the person of the Pope, and his grow- 
 ing contempt for the corruptions surrounding the 
 Papal throne. 
 
 ' By means of the impious flatterers of your Holi- 
 ness, who, without cause, are full of wrath against 
 me, I have been compelled to appeal from the See 
 of Rome to a General Council. But my affection 
 for your Holiness has never been alienated, though 
 I begin to despise and triumph over those who had 
 sought to terrify me by the majesty of your authority. 
 One thing, however, I cannot despise, and that is the 
 cause of my writing this letter, — I mean the blame 
 thrown on me for reflecting on your Holiness in 
 person.' 
 
 After contradicting this charge, he proceeds to 
 state the actual object of his writings : * 1 have in- 
 veighed sharply against unchristian doctrines ; and 
 reproved my adversaries severely, not for rudeness, 
 but impiety. 
 
 * So far from being ashamed of this, my purpose 
 is, to despise the judgment of men, and to persevere 
 in this vehemence of zeal, after the example of Christ. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 LUTHER. 
 
 The multitude of flatterers has rendered the ears of 
 our age so delicate, that as soon as we find that our 
 sentiments are not approved of, we immediately ex- 
 claim, that we are slandered ; and when we find our- 
 selves unable to resist truth, we accuse our adver- 
 saries of detraction. But, let me ask, of what use 
 were salt, if it were not pungent ? or of the point of 
 a sword, if it did not wound ? Cursed be the man 
 who doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully !' 
 
 He then boldly turns on the flagitiousness of the 
 agents and ministers of Rome. 
 
 ' I have resisted, and shall continue to resist, what 
 is called the court of Rome, as long as the spirit of 
 faith shall live in me. Neither your Holiness, nor 
 any one, will deny, that it is more corrupt than 
 Babylon or Sodom ; and sunk, as I understand, in 
 the most deplorable, desperate, and avowed impiety. 
 I lament that, under the sanction of your name, and 
 under the pretext of the good of the church, the 
 people of Christ should be made a laughing-stock.' 
 ' Not that I attempt impossibilities, or expect that 
 the endeavours of an individual can accomplish any 
 thing in opposition to so many flatterers in that 
 Babel. But I consider myself a debtor to my fellow 
 men, for whose welfare it behoves me to be solicitous ; 
 so that those Roman pests may at least destroy a 
 smaller number, and in a more humane manner. 
 During many years nothing has been poured on the 
 world, but monsters in body and mind, along with
 
 LUTlIEIi. -77 
 
 the worst examples of the worst actiujis.' * It is 
 elear as day, that the church of Rome, in former 
 ages the most holy of churches, has become a den of 
 thieves, a scene of prostitution, the kingdom of sin, 
 death, and hell. So that greater wickedness is not 
 to be conceived even under Antichrist himself.' 
 
 This was the manifesto of that memorable war in 
 which Luther was to lead the powers of European 
 knowledge, liberty, and religion, against the haughty 
 domination of the Popedom. It roused ,the whole 
 wrath of the Vatican. A German monk had dis- 
 played the superhuman audacity to assault the Su- 
 preme Lord of the faithful, the ' Vicar of Christ on 
 Earth ; ' the holder of the twofold sword of temporal 
 and spiritual empire ! The whole hierarchy was in 
 an uproar. An assembly of cardinals, canonists, and 
 theologians, was instantly summoned, and the thun- 
 ders which had awed so many monarchs, were to be 
 levelled at the head of the revolter. But the council 
 suddenly felt that the old activity of Romish ven- 
 geance could not now be let loose with the old suc- 
 cess ; their debates were long and perplexed ; and the 
 only point on which they agreed was the guilt of the 
 offender, which they pronounced to be impiety of 
 the most daring and glaring kind. Still, the theolo- 
 gians were retarded in their indignation by the 
 canonists ; who reasoned, that no notoriety of crime 
 ought to prevent a man from being heard in his own 
 defence. The rescript was eventually divided into
 
 218 LUTHER. 
 
 three heads. By the first, the doctrine was con- 
 demned ; by the second, the books were ordered to 
 be burnt ; and by the third, Luther was summoned 
 to appear in due season, to stand his trial in Rome. 
 No less than forty-one heresies were proclaimed as 
 the evil fruit of his labours ; and he was compared 
 with Porphyry, as an open antagonist to the truth of 
 the gospel. 
 
 But punishment of a more practical nature was 
 haughtily prepared for the criminal and his partisans ; 
 and the wrath of Rome had large and fierce variety of 
 vengeance. Luther, and all enlisted in his opinions, 
 were laid under ban. By this, they were in an instant 
 cut off from all rights, natural and acquired, pronoun- 
 ced guilty of high treason, incapjible of any legal act, 
 of property, freedom, or worship, infamous when they 
 lived, infamous when they died, and unfit for Christ- 
 ian burial. The name of the man, and the memory 
 of his revolt, were equally to be sunk in contemptuous 
 oblivion. His books were to be burnt. It was made 
 a crime to publish, to preach, or even to read his 
 works. The heresiarch himself was ordered to attend, 
 and take his trial at Rome, within two months ; and, 
 in case of disobedience, the civil and spiritual au- 
 thorities alike were commanded to seize him and his 
 adherents, and send them to Rome. 
 
 Those are the testimonies of history ; and from 
 those nothing but frenzy will disdain to be taught ; as 
 nothing b\it political delusion will dare to question
 
 LUTIIKK. 5^79 
 
 their practical vvainiug. We have licve the Papacy 
 speaking without fear tlic sentiments wliich fear only 
 can ever make it suppress, and which are to it as the 
 blood is to the heart, and the marrow to the bone. 
 Let the Papist who, aniony us, would boast of his 
 passion for general liberty, of his zeal for general 
 toleration, or of his faithful separation of the alle- 
 giance due to his own sovereign from the homage 
 paid to the head of his church, — read the Bull pub- 
 lished against Luther ; and ask himself, whether he 
 has not been the tool of a palpable and insolent im- 
 posture ? Let the friends of truth take this docu- 
 ment into their hands, and ask those who are still 
 undeceived, — whether human language can express a 
 sterner spirit of tyranny over the individual, a 
 haughtier usurpation over states, a more unhesitating 
 and remorseless determination to pursue to blood 
 and ruin every opinion that is not moulded into the 
 shape prescribed by Rome I 
 
 Luther's sole crime had been the attempt to think 
 for himself on points essential to the first interests of 
 man. He had before him the Scriptures, and he had 
 laboured to understand the great code by which he 
 was to be judged at the tribunal, not of man, but 
 of the Eternal. He had offered no human resistance 
 to the authority of his spiritual superiors. He had 
 merely examined the Bible for himself; as every man 
 is bound to do by the express command of inspira- 
 tion, and as every man obviously must do, who do-
 
 280 LUTHE14. 
 
 sires to attain that solid and heartfelt conviction of 
 its value, without which practical virtue is a phan- 
 tasy. He was no rebel, but an inquirer ; no preach- 
 er of insolent dogmatism and proud self-authority, but 
 a scholar and a reasoner ; no sceptic, but " ready to 
 give a reason of the faith that was in him." His per- 
 sonal character was touched by no impurity. He stood 
 open to the eyes of mankind, and defied them to dis- 
 cover a stain. Yet this man of learning, integrity, and 
 genius, was to be dragged through the whole course 
 of the deepest punishments reserved for the traitor 
 and the murderer ; consigned to the scaffold ; and 
 then, stript of every hope which Rome could strip 
 from the disembodied spirit, consigned in her furious 
 creed to eternal ruin ! 
 
 On earth his memory was to be obliterated, his la- 
 bours of genius and learning were to be destroyed, and 
 his dead body was to be deprived of those rites which 
 Rome had pronounced indispensable to the repose of 
 the soul. And, for the purposes of this atrocious 
 vengeance, the rights of all temporal sovereigns were 
 to be invaded. No matter to what king Luther was 
 the subject ; he was declared the subject of a still 
 superior king, whose dominion extended to every cor- 
 ner of the earth ; the laws of nations were to be 
 dust and air before the paramount law of Popery ; 
 neither innocence before the tribunals of his own 
 country, nor allegiance to his own sovereign, nor 
 the will of that sovereign himself, could be suf-
 
 LUTHER. 281 
 
 ferecl to stand between the slave and that toweriny- 
 and stupendous presumption, which, seating itself on 
 
 * the throne of God, made itself be worshipped as 
 God.' 
 
 The Bull was now to be published in Germany, and 
 Eckius, with the double activity of a beaten dispu- 
 tant, and of a candidate for preferment, undertook 
 the mission. His character had been long before 
 painted by the strong discrimination of Luther : 
 
 * Eckius is totally treacherous, and incapable of the 
 obligations of amity.' * At Rome, and in his private 
 correspondence, he continually boasted of his ser- 
 vices to the papacy, of his confidential intercourse 
 with the Pope, and of the light w'hich he had been the 
 first to throw on the * unpardonable guilt' of the new 
 opinions. Still in Germany he professed the strong 
 reluctance with which he had undertaken the publi- 
 cation of the Bull. But it is difficult for the most 
 acute treachery to be always on its guard ; some of 
 those wily letters fell into the hands of the reformers, 
 were published by Luther with notes, and Eckius 
 was shewn to be what he was, a traitor and a 
 tool. 
 
 A letter from the sagacious Miltitz is preserved, 
 which, stating the arrival of the popish missionary, 
 is curious, as a memorial of the times. f 
 
 * 1 found Eckius at Leipsic, very clamorous and 
 
 ♦ ' Totus iufidus est, et apcrte nipit aiukitix jura." + Seek. p. 1 !'•'.
 
 i382 LUTHER. 
 
 full of threats : 1 invited him to an entertainment, 
 and employed every means in my power to discover 
 what he proposed to do. After he had drunk 
 freely, he began to relate, in pompous terms, the 
 commission which he had received from Rome, and 
 the means by which he was to bring Luther to obe- 
 dience. He had caused the bull to be published in 
 Misnia on the 21st of September, at Mersburgon the 
 25th, and at Brandenburg on the 29th. He was in 
 the habit of displaying the Bull with great pomp. 
 He lodged with the public commissary, and Duke 
 George ordered the senate to present him with a 
 gilt cup, and a considerable sum of money. 
 
 ' But notwithstanding the Bull itself, and the 
 pledge of public safety given to him, some young men 
 of family affixed, on the 29th of September, in no 
 less than ten places, bills containing threats against 
 him. Terrified by those, he took refuge in the 
 monastery of St. Paul, and refused to be seen. He 
 complained to Caesar Pflugius, and obtained a man- 
 date from the rector of the university, enjoining the 
 young men to be quiet ; but all to no purpose. 
 
 * They have composed ballads on him, which they 
 sing through the streets, sending to the monastery 
 daily intimations of their hostility. More than one 
 hundred and fifty of the Wittemberg students are 
 here, who are very much incensed against him.' He 
 subsequently adds, that the startled missionary finally 
 fled by night to Fribourg.
 
 LUTHER. 283 
 
 This inauspicious commencement was never reco- 
 vered. Tiie power of reason was arrayed against 
 the violence of the papal anathema. The crimes of 
 the monkish orders, and the grossncss of manners, 
 even among the higher ranks of the popish clergy, 
 had long disgusted the people. When at last a 
 great reasoner arose, and demanded why those things 
 should be, and whether they were sanctioned by 
 Scripture ; the eyes and understandings of men fol- 
 lowed him with the eagerness of newly-awakened 
 faculties. The papal sceptre was from that hour the 
 staff of the magician no more — the day of darkness 
 and of the things of darkness was gone ; the true 
 prophet stood in the presence of the kings of the 
 earth against the pompous worker of delusions ; the 
 Reformation came, in its simplicity, but bearing the 
 connnission of God ; and as Moses put to shame the 
 spells of the Egyptians ; it extinguished the false 
 miracles of Rome, and led forth the people to a liberty 
 that could never have been achieved by man alone. 
 
 The public opinion now sustained the natural 
 disgust of tlie German sovereigns. The Elector of 
 Saxony declared himself wholly adverse to the pro- 
 mulgation of the bull in his territories. The Elector 
 of Brandenburg, and Albert of Mecklenburg, took 
 the public opportunity of their passing through Wit- 
 temberg, on the way to so important an exercise of 
 their functions as the emperor's coronation, to hold 
 a long and friendly conference whh Luther. II(^
 
 284 LUTHER. 
 
 received, from quarters of high rank, assurances of 
 protection, and offers of asylum, in case of his being 
 obliged to retire from Saxony. The people ex- 
 pressed their feelings by the most unmeasured 
 menaces against the agent employed to promulgate 
 the Bull. Even the high ecclesiastics and universities 
 shrank from the responsibility. The bishop of Bam- 
 berg sheltered himself under a verbal criticism, 
 from publishing it in his diocese. At Louvain» 
 though the heads of the university burned Luther's 
 books, a strong party of the students and people 
 insisted on burning a number of the works of his 
 opponents at the same time. At Mentz, the burn- 
 ers of his books were in hazard of their lives. At 
 Erfurt, the students tore the copy of the bull, and 
 flung it into the river ; * the rector of the university 
 publicly giving his sanction to their pulling down 
 every similar copy, and opposing Luther's enemies 
 by all the means in their power. The bishop of 
 Brandenburg dared not publish it. And even in the 
 immediate presence of the Romish See, in Venice 
 and Bologna, the doctrines of the Reformation were 
 felt and honoured. 
 
 Luther's letter on this formidable trial of his own 
 strength, and of the fidelity of his friends, exhibits a 
 loftiness and determination worthy of liis immortal 
 cause. It is addressed to Spalatin. 
 
 * Scult, Ann. Evang. 1520.
 
 LUTHKR. 285 
 
 ' The pope's bull has come at last. Eckius 
 brought it. We are writing here many things to the 
 pope concerning it. For my own part, I hold it in 
 contempt, and attack it as impious and false, like 
 Eckius in all things. Christ himself is evidently 
 condemned by it. No reason is assigned for sum- 
 moning me to a recantation, instead of a trial. They 
 are full of fury, blindness, and madness. They nei- 
 ther comprehend nor reflect on the consequences. 
 
 * I shall treat the pope's name with delicacy, and 
 conduct myself as if I considered it a false and forged 
 bull, though I believe it to be genuine. How 
 anxiously do I wish that the emperor had the cou- 
 rage to prove himself a man, and in defence of 
 Christ, attack those emissaries of Satan. 
 
 ' For my part, I do not regard my personal safety, 
 let the will of the Lord be done. 
 
 * Nor do I know what course should be taken by 
 the Elector ; and, perhaps, it may appear to him 
 more for my interest that he should suppress his 
 sentiments for a season. The bull is held in as 
 great contempt at Leipsic as Eckius himself. Let 
 us therefore be cautious, lest he acquire consequence 
 by our opposition, for, if left to himself, he must 
 fall. 
 
 * I send you a copy of the Bull, that you may see 
 what monsters there arc in Rome. If those men 
 are destined to rule us, neither the faith nor the 
 church have the least security. I rejoice that it has
 
 286 LUTHER. 
 
 fallen to my lot to suffer hardships for the best of 
 causes, but I am not worthy of such a trial. 1 am 
 now much more at liberty than before, being fully 
 persuaded that the pope is Antichrist, and that I 
 have discovered the seat of Satan. 
 
 • May God preserve his children from being de- 
 ceived by the pope's impious pretensions. Erasmus 
 tells me, that the emperor's court is crowded with 
 creatures, who are tyrants and beggars ; so that 
 nothing satisfactory is to be expected from Charles. 
 This needs not surprise us ; ' put not thy trust in 
 princes, nor in the sons of men, in whom there is no 
 
 stay. 
 
 The growing conviction that the papacy was Anti- 
 christ, not only lightened the burden of opposition 
 in Luther's conscience, but urged him to the public 
 disclosure of his discovery. In defiance of the old 
 anathemas pronounced against all appeal from the 
 pope to a general council, he boldly made that 
 appeal ; and in his protest on this occasion, launched 
 out into the strongest epithets of scorn. 
 
 * Leo X. in impia sua tyrannide induratus perse- 
 verat. — Iniquus, temerarius, tyrannicus judex. — Hge- 
 reticus et Apostata. — Antichristus, blasphemus, su- 
 perbus contemptor sanctae ecclesiae Dei.' * 
 
 Cologne, Louvain, and the Vatican, had burned 
 his books, and he now unhesitatingly retaliated the 
 
 * Luth. ii. 122.
 
 LUTIIKR. ^87 
 
 sentence of heresy. On his public notice of burning 
 the Romish decretals at Wittcmberg, a vast con- 
 course assembled, to witness this solemn and final 
 act of abjuration. On the 10th of December, 1519, 
 the population of the country and city, forming 
 themselves into regular divisions, marched to the 
 spot selected for the ceremony. A small funeral pile 
 was erected in the centre, and set on fire by one of 
 the chief members of the university. Luther then 
 advanced, bearing Gratian's Abridgment of the 
 Canon Law, which, with the Decretals, the Clemen- 
 tines and Extravagantes, and last, the Bull of Leo, 
 he cast into the flames, exclaiming, ' Because ye 
 have troubled the body of the Lord, therefore let 
 eternal fire trouble you.' He then moved to the 
 city, with the multitude silently marching behind 
 him. 
 
 This ceremony, and all ceremonies, would be tri- 
 vial, but for its meaning. In this point of view 
 nothing could be more important. The burning of 
 the Papal law was the open proclamation of endless 
 resistance to the popedom. The bridge was now 
 cut down between Luther and reconciliation. The 
 sword was drawn, and the scabbard was flung away 
 for ever. 
 
 To prevent all doubt of his motives and purposes, 
 Luther now published ' Reasons ' for the burning of 
 the books. In this work, he summoned his learned 
 countrymen to examine for themselves the body of
 
 288 LUTHER. 
 
 ]>apal law, divesting their minds of the prejudices 
 that had so long humbled mankind before the 
 Romish throne, and, scorning the mysteries in which 
 the popedom had laboured to involve Christianity. 
 Declaring the doctrines of the Canon law ' abomi- 
 nable and poisonous,' he proceeded to give his evi- 
 dence, in the shape of thirty Articles. His reproba- 
 tion of the guilty system is bold, eloquent, and 
 learned. He is sometimes so strongly wrought upon 
 by its arrogance, that he bursts into exclamation. 
 * Never have the popes vanquished, by either Scrip- 
 ture or argument, any one who has spoken or written 
 against them. Their alternative has been to excom- 
 municate, burn, and destroy, through kings, princes, 
 and the other slaves of the papacy.* 
 
 Well might a man of sense and virtue exclaim against 
 a code, which actually placed a human being in pos- 
 session of the homage of God. ' The pope,' says 
 the Canon law, ' is God upon earth, superior to 
 all belonging to heaven and earth, whether spiritual 
 or temporal. All things belong to the pope, and to 
 him no one shall dare to say, What doest thou ? ' * 
 
 The bull of 1520 had failed ; its only result being 
 to increase the strength of the Reformation. A still 
 more decisive measure was resolved on ; in January 
 1.521, a Bull was issued, executing the menace of the 
 former, and declaring Luther excommunicated. But 
 
 * Luth. ii. 122.
 
 LUTIIKR. USD 
 
 he defied the measure, as he had scorned the tlireat ; 
 and by his defiance rose into additional popuhir 
 respect. That any man in the centre of popish 
 Europe could have thus dared, and yet live, is among 
 the wonders of the time. But there is no study more 
 valuable to the christian, than to trace, through 
 the changes and chances of human action, the provi- 
 dence that protects the great agents of the divine 
 will. A few years earlier, and the reformer must 
 have been crushed by the popedom, then in un- 
 disturbed power ; but at that period Luther was 
 an obscure monk, busied in the ceremonial of his 
 cloister. A few years later, and he would have 
 found Charles the Fifth trampling down the Elec- 
 toral princes ; and would probably have perished in a 
 struggle, from which his high spirit disdained to 
 withdraw ; and whether he perished in the field, or 
 on the scaflfold, his death might have been a blow, all 
 but fatal to the Reformation. 
 
 But at this exact period, the popedom was com- 
 pelled to pause ; by the precariousness of its situation 
 between the angry powers of France and Germany. To 
 extinguish Luther was impossible, wdthout the active 
 interposition of Charles ; but all negotiation with 
 Germany was looked on with keen jealousy by 
 Francis, the sole protector of the papal states against 
 the imperial sword. Charles himself, scarcely more 
 than twenty years old, naturally shrank from invol- 
 ving his new dominions in the fury of civil war ; and, 
 
 u
 
 290 LUTIIKR. 
 
 though a bigot and a tyrant by nature, he had still 
 both the chain and the sword to forge, before he de- 
 clared himself the public antagonist of Protestantism. 
 
 liUther was now to stand for the faith in the pre- 
 sence of the most exalted tribunal of Europe — the 
 first assembly of the German princes held by the 
 emperor. He was summoned to attend in the city 
 of Worms. 
 
 The Elector Frederic, who seems to have at all 
 times singularly tempered his respect for authority 
 with a regard for Luther's safety, had previously 
 informed him of the summons, through his friend 
 Spalatin ; and asked, whether he would venture to 
 brave the influence of Rome? The reply was 
 heroic : 
 
 ' I shall not hesitate to go ; for I shall consider 
 the summons of the emperor as proceeding from the 
 will of God. 
 
 * If personal hurt be offered, a not unlikely thing, 
 I shall commend my cause to the God who delivered 
 the three children from tlie fiery furnace. Should it 
 not seem meet to God to preserve me, of what 
 moment is my life, compared with the life and suf- 
 ferings of Christ ? 
 
 ' It is not for me to determine, whether the 
 danger to the gospel be greater or less by my life or 
 death. The truth of God is a rock of offence, placed 
 for the rising and falling of many in Israel. 
 
 • My chief duty is, to pray that Charles may not
 
 LUTHER. 291 
 
 stain his government, at the outset, with my blood 
 or his own. Let me rather die by the hands of the 
 Romanists, lest he and all connected with him 
 should be involved in sorrow, by a guilty participa- 
 tion. You well remember what befel the Emperor 
 Sigismund, — after the murder of Huss nothing suc- 
 ceeded with him. He died without a son ; and 
 Lladislaus, his grandson, soon followed him to the 
 grave ; so that his name became extinct in a single 
 generation. Ilis wife Barbara was a disgrace to the 
 name of queen. 
 
 * But, if it be determined that I am to be deli- 
 vered, not only to the pope, but to the gentiles, let 
 the Lord's will be done. I have now told you my 
 mind fully. Your conjectures, as to me, are correct 
 in every thing, except in the chance of my flight or 
 recantation. I am unwilling to fly, but much more 
 unwilling to recant. May the Lord Jesus send me 
 support, for I can do nothing without putting in 
 hazard the piety and salvation of many persons.' 
 
 This admirable declaration, which combines, in 
 the highest degree, the fortitude of the man with the 
 resignation of the Christian, was followed by a letter 
 to the Elector ; relative to the safe-conduct which 
 Frederic had insisted on procuring for him, before 
 his attendance on the Imperial summons. 
 
 * As to myself, I am most ready to appear at the 
 Imperial Diet of Worms, before equitable, learned, 
 and good judges ; provided I obtain a sufficient secu- 
 
 U 2
 
 292 LD TITER. 
 
 rity and safe-conduct for both going and returning. 
 By God's help, I shall make it appear, to the con- 
 viction of all, that I have not been actuated by wil- 
 fulness nor by selfishness, but that whatever I have 
 taught, or written, has proceeded from my con- 
 science, and from an ardour for the salvation of the 
 Catholic Church, and the extirpation of the most 
 dangerous abuses and superstitions/ 
 
 The Emperor at last, on the 6th of March, issued 
 the summons for his appearance, within twenty-one 
 days ; guaranteeing his safety on his journey ; a gua- 
 rantee which was reinforced by the pledges of the 
 sovereigns through whose territories his road lay. 
 Its language shewed the importance to which the 
 Monk of Wittemberg had risen in the eyes of the 
 proudest government of the world. The Emperor's 
 rescript was addressed, 
 
 ' Carolus, Dei Gratia Romanorum Tmperator, Au- 
 gustus, &;c. &c. 
 
 * Honorabili nostro, dilccto, devoto, Doctori Mar- 
 tino Luthero,' &;c. &c. And to an attempt of the 
 Papal agents to censure him, by submitting his works 
 to the magistrates, the College of the Empire re- 
 plied, that no such measure could be taken until the 
 writer was present to make their defence. 
 
 Luther now commenced the most memorable of 
 his journeys ; and if the mind of a man, full of an 
 immortal cause, could have found room for a feeling 
 of human triumph, he might have felt singular exul-
 
 LUTHER. 2[)3 
 
 tation. He bore the national heart along with him. 
 Tlie most unusual marks of public homage were 
 ofTcred to him as he passed along; thousands and 
 tens of thousands revered and blessed him as the 
 visible instrument of Heaven in restoring them to its 
 knowledge; the crowd honoured his learning, purity, 
 and fortitude ; and even his most declared enemies 
 were forced to respect the powers of mind that were 
 already shaking the throne of tyranny and Rome. 
 
 The senate of Wittemberg provided him with a 
 conveyance. Along his road he received the highest 
 marks of public attention. At Erfurt the whole 
 population came out to meet him ; and there he 
 preached on ' Justification,' and on ' The Corrup- 
 tions of the Priesthood.' Instead of shrinking as he 
 approached the place of trial, his determination be- 
 came even more fixed. In his letter from Frankfort 
 to Spalatin, he says — 
 
 ' I have been indisposed ever since I left Eisenach, 
 and am not yet recovered. The mandate of Charles 
 was issued, I understand, to affright me ; but Christ 
 is alive, and I shall enter Worms in spite of the gates 
 of hell, and the powers of the air. I am resolved to 
 meet Satan, and to strike him with terror.' 
 
 His friends did not share his intrepidity. They 
 dreaded to see him in the hands of power. But 
 their letters produced no other result than the famous 
 exclamation, * To Worms I will go, if there were as 
 many devils there as tiles on the houses'.'
 
 291' LUTHER. 
 
 On the IGth of April, Luther entered this city of 
 his death or triumph. His entrance was striking and 
 solemn. Attired in his friar's cowl, and seated in an 
 open chariot, with the Imperial herald on horseback 
 leading the way, he was escorted by a procession of 
 Saxon nobles and the people. A multitude received 
 him at the door of his residence ; and the chief 
 strangers of rank in the city immediately waited on 
 him, from motives of respect or curiosity, to see one 
 who had so suddenly become the most remarkable 
 man of his time. 
 
 On the next day he was summoned to attend the 
 Diet. The crowd was now so great, that the streets 
 were rendered impassable ; and the only access to the 
 hall of the Diet was through gardens and private 
 houses. Every roof from which a view could be 
 obtained, was covered with spectators : the German 
 apathy was completely roused, and Luther was the 
 hope, the admiration, or the fear, of all. 
 
 At the Diet two questions were proposed to him 
 by the Official of the Archbishop of Treves : — 
 
 * Whether he avowed himself the author of the 
 books bearing his name V and * whether he was dis- 
 posed to retract, or persist in their contents?' 
 
 To the former, Luther at once answered in the 
 affirmative. To the latter, he demanded, as is pre- 
 sumed, by the advice of his counsel, * that time 
 should be given for his reply.' The meeting was 
 then adjourned ; many voices crying out to him, not
 
 LU TITER. 295 
 
 to be afraid of those who could * kill the body, but 
 not the soul.' 
 
 On his entering the hall next day, the 18th, he 
 was again questioned by the Official, as to his avowal 
 of the opinions contained in his volumes. Luther, 
 now called upon to give a reason of the faith that 
 was in him, gave it with the boldness of the great 
 Apostle, whom, in his redemption from personal 
 darkness, in his perils, in his labours, and in his 
 lofty and holy energy of soul, he so strongly resem- 
 bled. Like Paul, he stood before kings and high- 
 priests, before tyrants and bigots, and, like him, and 
 sustained by the hand which had sustained him, he 
 put tyranny and bigotry to shame. 
 
 His answer first adverted to the nature of his doc- 
 trines ; which he shewed to be deductions from the 
 plainest principles of Christianity. On the formid- 
 able topic of the Papacy, he boldly declared, that he 
 would be guilty of the deepest baseness, in disavow- 
 ing declarations so fully founded on the words of Scrip- 
 ture, and the notorious corruptions of the Romish 
 Church. He demanded, that his guilt should be 
 proved, or his innocence admitted. In the words of 
 our Lord — ' If I have spoken evil, bear witness of 
 the evil ; but if well, why smitest thou me ?' 
 
 The Official, who bore the ominous name of Ec- 
 kius, impatiently declared that Luther had not an- 
 swered his question ; and demanded whether he was 
 rcadv to recant ?
 
 296 LUTHER. 
 
 * I have only to say,' was the firm answer, ' that 
 unless I shall be convmced by Scripture, (for I can 
 put no faith in Popes and Councils, as it is evident 
 that they have frequently erred, and even contra- 
 dicted each other,) unless my conscience shall be 
 convinced by the word of God, I neither will nor can 
 recant ; since it is unworthy of an honest man to act 
 contrary to his own conviction. Here I stand ? it is 
 impossible for me to act otherwise ; — so help me 
 God!' 
 
 This boldness offended the young Emperor ; and, 
 on the next da}^ Charles evinced his impatience by 
 issuing an excommunication against the Monk who 
 had thus dared to brave the mightiest potentate of 
 Europe in his own council. But the rescript had 
 been too rashly launched, to strike a man already so 
 high an object of public honour and admiration. 
 The princes of the Empire felt no desire to give 
 effect to a document promulgated without their con- 
 sent. The multitude continued to increase round 
 the residence of Luther, and persons of the first 
 rank had no hesitation in visiting him, in defiance of 
 the excommunication. 
 
 In order to lessen the popular odium of this act of 
 unqualified tyranny, the excommunication was now 
 suspended for three days ; during which the Arch- 
 bishop of Treves attempted to subdue him by per- 
 suasion. The attempt failed, like all the rest; and 
 his final answer was: — ' I will not recant, unless I
 
 LUTIIEI{. 297 
 
 am convinced by Scripture, and by Scripture alone. 
 If this work be of men, as said Gamaliel, it will come 
 to nought; but, if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow 
 it.' The Archbishop now abandoned the contro- 
 versy ; the safe conduct for twenty-one days was 
 given, and Luther, accompanied by the Imperial 
 herald, set out for Wittemberg. 
 
 The arguments of Rome had been signally baffled 
 in these conferences ; but she had means in reserve 
 which had oftener achieved her victories. The part- 
 ing words of the Official pronounced, that ' the Em- 
 peror, the defender of the Catholic faith, was deter- 
 mined to do his duty ;' and the menace was realized 
 in an Imperial decree, of the following month, de- 
 claring Luther a schismatic and heretic, and placing 
 him under the ban of the Empire — a right being thus 
 given to all men to seize his person and property, 
 and those of his adherents. But the execution of 
 this decree was defeated by a circumstance strongly 
 displaying the regard of the Elector Frederic for his 
 illustrious subject. 
 
 The Imperial herald, who had escorted Luther as 
 far as Friedberg, had scarcely left him, when, as he 
 was travelling along the border of the Thuringian 
 forest, he was seized, near the village of Schweina, 
 by a party of horsemen in masks ; and thence hur- 
 ried back through the forest to the castle of Wart- 
 burg, an old residence of the Thuringian Landgraves, 
 among the mountains near Eisenach. This singu-
 
 298 LUTHER. 
 
 lar mode of securing the person, probably saved the 
 life, of the great Reformer. 
 
 Yet the solitude to which he was necessarily con- 
 demned, until some change should be wrought in the 
 Emperor, soon wearied the active spirit that had 
 been, for many years, moving among the busiest cir- 
 cles of men ; and Luther would have gladly run the 
 hazard of returning to Wittemberg. The monotony 
 of his seclusion, the change of his habits, and his 
 natural dislike to the appearance of a constraint, 
 which to the last had something of mystery which it 
 was difficult to solve ; might have been sufficient to 
 excite his impatience. But he had the higher mo- 
 tive, of dread lest his absence at this most critical 
 time of young Protestantism might either expose the 
 Church to hazard, or dishonour his cause by the ap- 
 pearance of having abandoned it for personal consi- 
 derations. The latter feeling seems to have peculiarly 
 oppressed him. He writes to Melancthon — 
 
 * For the glory of the Scriptures, and the consola- 
 tion of mankind, I would rather submit to a violent 
 death, than that you should think me languid in the 
 cause. Even though I should perish, the word of 
 of God shall not perish ; and you, I hope, like an- 
 other Elisha, would succeed Elijah. 
 
 *' If the Pope proceed to attack all who are of my 
 sentiments, Germany must be involved in tumult ; 
 and the sooner the attempt is made, the sooner will 
 he and his abettors be defeated.'
 
 LUTHER. 299 
 
 But this solitude was not unproductive. He oc- 
 cupied his time in study, and from the mountain- for- 
 tress of Wartburg sent forth a succession of powerful 
 performances, which he would probably never have 
 found leisure to produce in the whirl of active life. His 
 * Tract on Auricular Confession,' shewing the cor- 
 ruption of a custom of the primitive church into an 
 instrument of cupidity and avarice — his ' Notes on 
 the Gospels' — his ' Letter to the Students of Erfurt,' 
 on disrespect to the clergy — and his memorable work 
 on the guilt and folly of Monastic Vows, attest his 
 diligence ; while, from the utter obscurity of his 
 retreat, and the popular sympathy felt for the 
 sufferings of the man and the minister, they 
 descended with a vast increase of force among the 
 nation. 
 
 . At length news came from Wittemberg which 
 made him brave the chances of Imperial violence. 
 A professor of canon law had been appointed in the 
 university. Against this law, as the ancient ally of 
 the Popedom, Luther had waged the most determined 
 hostility ; and the appointment was too like a tri- 
 umph of the evil influence, to let him lie tranquilly 
 upon his pillow. He suddenly appeared at Wittem- 
 berg, ready to meet the chain or the stake, in ho- 
 nour of the truth. But there he gladly found that his 
 opinions had taken too firm root to be easily over- 
 powered ; and that they were even producing results 
 of the first practical good. His Augustinian brc-
 
 oOO LUTHER. 
 
 thren had already abolished private masses, one of 
 the most lucrative resources of the Romish ritual ; 
 and begging for the order, the monkish dress, and 
 the perpetuity of the monkish vows, were given up 
 at the same time. 
 
 A singular antagonist was now to increase Lu- 
 ther's celebrity. Henry VIII., jealous of fame in 
 every form, undertook the hazardous task of over- 
 whelming a man, against whom no adversary had 
 hitherto been able to stand. Henry's answer to the 
 book on ' The Babylonish Captivity of the Church,' 
 now remains only as one of the idle monuments of 
 an age of scholastic folly. But Rome, little suspect- 
 ing the temperament of the man on whom she 
 lavished her praise, received his ' Defence of the 
 Seven Sacraments' with grateful pomp. The volume 
 was accepted in full conclave, and the title of ' De- 
 fender of the Faith' was conferred, to swell for ever 
 the honours of the British diadem. The title was 
 scarcely given, when Henry's defiance turned the 
 short-sightedness of the great Infallible into the 
 laughter of the world. 
 
 Luther, strong in the strength of his cause, feared 
 no man. He answered the monarch even with less 
 ceremony than the monk. His reply is learned and 
 argumentative ; but, from what peculiar circumstance 
 we cannot now distinctly discover, his style is singu- 
 larly contemptuous. The controversial habits of the 
 age were harsh ; and Henry, unhesitating as he was
 
 LUTHER. .'301 
 
 in his epithets, must have been astonished at finding 
 himself so closely rivalled. 
 
 In this year Leo died, as was presumed, by 
 poison.* 
 
 On Luther's return to Wittemberg, he commenced 
 the great work that alone could give stability to his 
 cause — the translation of the Bible. The first efforts 
 of printing had been employed in the promulgation 
 of the Scriptures ; and Germany possessed transla- 
 tions of parts of the Bible so far back as the year 
 1477. But they were few, repulsive to the eye, and, 
 from their rudeness, scarcely less repulsive to the 
 understanding. Luther applied himself for a year to 
 the study of the original languages; and in 1522, 
 commenced his colossal work. His own account of 
 his purposes to Spalatin is brief, but clear. ' I trans- 
 lated not only John's Gospel, but the whole of the 
 New Testament in my Patmos. But ]\Iclancthon and 
 I have begun to revise the whole of it ; and it will, 
 by the blessing of God, do us credit. We sometimes 
 need your assistance to direct us to suitable modes of 
 expression ; prepare yourself, therefore ; but supply 
 us only with such words as are simple, and avoid all 
 that are confined in their use to the camp or the 
 court. We wish the work to be distinguished by the 
 simplicity of its style.'' 
 
 St. ^Matthew's Gospel was published first ; then 
 
 ♦ Ciacon. V. Pont. 1417.
 
 302 LUTHER. 
 
 St. Mark's ; then the Epistle to the Romans. Tlie 
 entire New Testament appeared so early as Septem- 
 ber 1522. To promote the circulation, the volume 
 was made as cheap as possible ; and the parts were 
 also published separately. Luther's still more ar- 
 duous labour, the translation of the Old Testament, 
 was next and instantly commenced. He thus writes, 
 on the 2nd of November, — ' In my translation of the 
 Old Testament I am only in Leviticus. It is incon- 
 ceivable how much writing letters, business, conver- 
 sation, and many other things, have interrupted my 
 progress. 1 am now determined to shut myself up 
 and use dispatch, so that the five books of Moses 
 may be sent to press by January. 
 
 * We shall print them separately. After that, we 
 shall proceed to the historical parts of Scripture, and 
 lastly, to the Prophets. The size and price render 
 it necessary to make those divisions in the publica- 
 tion.' 
 
 The Romish advocates were all in arms on the ap- 
 pearance of a work which has been always fatal to 
 the delusions of Rome ; but it was received with joy 
 by the people, and Luther exultingly saw it spread 
 to the borders of the land. This translation still 
 stands at the head of all the German versions. Its 
 simplicity, force, and dignity, have had no rivals ; 
 and like our own authorized version, it is appealed 
 to as the noblest example of the old national tongue. 
 
 The Reformation had now triumphed; but its sue-
 
 LUTHER. 303 
 
 cess brought with it the usual concomitants of worldly 
 fortune. Ambitious minds began to discover in it 
 the means of public distinction ; and the first serious 
 anxieties which Luther felt, were awakened by the 
 spirit of partizanship. Carolostadius had the weakness 
 of ambition; and intelligence had reached Wartburg, 
 that he was urging himself into a name by rash at- 
 tacks on public opinions and public worship. He had 
 even gone the length of exciting the populace to tear 
 down the images and ornaments in the Popish 
 churches ; an act which could only connect its authors 
 with riot, and which the progress of knowledge 
 would have soon effected without tumult. In a letter 
 to Longus, an ecclesiastic of Erfurt, Luther says : — 
 * I am not permitted to come to you ; nor is it 
 lawful to tempt God, and unnecessarily to court 
 dangers ; since here at "VVittemberg I must lay my 
 account with a, sufficient Jinmher ; I who have been 
 excommunicated by the Pope, put under the ban of 
 the empire, exposed to death on every side, pro- 
 tected by none but God.' A subsequent letter to the 
 Elector contains almost the language of a man who 
 contemplated martyrdom. ' I am of opinion that the 
 kindness or opposition of your Highness, and even 
 the hatred of the whole world, ought to be only 
 secondary considerations in the present peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of the Church. Your Highness is master 
 of my body and my destiny in this world ; but Christ 
 is the Lord of souls. The Gospel which I preach,
 
 304 LUTHER. 
 
 has its origin with God, and by God's grace neither 
 persecution nor death shall wrest it from me. Neither 
 cruelty nor terror shall extinguish this light.' * 
 
 The death of Leo X. had opened Rome to the 
 intrigues of all the cabinets of Europe. But Charles 
 was on the spot, his dominions surrounded the Roman 
 states ; he was lord of the opulence of the New 
 World, — and he prevailed. The tiara was placed on the 
 brow of his former tutor, Adrian, a monk of Utretcht, 
 created a cardinal so late as 1517, and one of the 
 extraordinary number of thirty-one, whom the late 
 Pope, alike the most indolent of men, and the most 
 headlong and profligate of politicians, had raised to 
 the hat in one day. 
 
 Adrian possessed such learning, and such Chris- 
 tianity, as were to be found in convents. And, wdth 
 equal sincerity and feebleness, he commenced the 
 purgation of his church. But, the task was too Her- 
 culean. The trade of ecclesiastical preferments had 
 long been the crying sin of Rome ; with the double 
 impoHcy of avarice and fear, she had laboured to 
 create an interest in the permanency of her estab- 
 lishment, by rendering it a resource for the high fami- 
 lies of her European empire. The more intelligent 
 or intrepid sons of the nobles were destined for the 
 prizes of the state and army. The more incapable 
 were pensioned on the easy opulence of the immense 
 
 * Secken. p. 57.
 
 LUTIIEK. 30o 
 
 benefices in tlie gift of Rome. The result was ine- 
 vitable; and contemporary writers exhaust every power 
 of language in describing the gross sensuality, the 
 shameless ignorance, and the intolerable usurpation, 
 flourishing under this flagrant system. The higher 
 Ecclesiastics were only more conspicuous examples in 
 the Church, of the vices which they had acquired in 
 their noble father's halls: the lower ranks of the clerics 
 naturally followed the standard set before them ; and 
 public ordinances were found necessary to prohibit 
 the priesthood from ' meddling in traffic, from fre- 
 quenting taverns,' (then the receptacles of every im- 
 purity,) and from indulging in the vices, by name, 
 to which those taverns offered the especial tempta- 
 tion. The new Pope, not improbably stimulated 
 by the general outcry for reform, published, as his 
 first measure, a ' Declaration,' a singular and self- 
 condemning document, which had chiefly the effect 
 of authenticating the whole of the charge. He began 
 with the tiara itself. 
 
 * Many abominable things,' said this important 
 paper, * have been committed in this holy Chair for 
 several years past, — abuses in spiritual things, — ex- 
 cesses in the mandates given, — in fine, every thing 
 changed for the worse. 
 
 ' No wonder that the sickness should descend from 
 the head to the members, from the high pontiffs to 
 the inferior prelates. In what relates to us, we 
 shall endeavour that our court, from which, perhaps, 
 
 X
 
 30(5 LUTHER. 
 
 all this evil has proceeded, shall undergo a speedy 
 reform. If corruption has of late flowed from it, 
 sound doctrine and reformation shall now proceed 
 from the same source. To this we shall account our- 
 selves the more obliged to attend, as the whole world 
 appears most ardently to desire such a reform. 
 
 ' I have accepted the Pontificate, that I might re- 
 form the spouse of Christ — assist the neglected and 
 oppressed — and appropriate to the learned and vir- 
 tuous the money which has of late been squandered 
 on grooms and stage-players.' * 
 
 This ecclesiastical confession of the vices of the 
 Papacy, was followed by a lay declaration scarcely 
 inferior in the rank of its authors, and altogether su- 
 perior in its practical effect — the long-celebrated 
 * Centum Gravamina,' or List of Grievances, drawn 
 up by the Diet of the German Princes, to be trans- 
 mitted to Rome. It contained a detail of the cor- 
 ruptions of the priesthood, and the church system, 
 which the princes declared that the iniquity and no- 
 toriety of the facts cilone compelled them to submit 
 to the Pontiff for their speedy reform ; concluding 
 by the suggestion of a general Council for the pur- 
 pose in Germany. This document becomes the more 
 unequivocal, by its proceeding from sovereigns still 
 attached to the Popish cause, — one of its sections 
 being a confirmation of the Edict of "Worms against 
 Luther, and another a demand that the preachers of 
 
 * Sloid, 1. 4.
 
 LUTHER. 307 
 
 the ' New Doctrine,' should be suspended from 
 their functions. 
 
 Yet those declarations were virtual pleadings on the 
 side of Christianity ; and Luther was not asleep 
 while Popery was thus unconsciously shearing the 
 locks in which the secret of its strength lay. He 
 translated Adrian's Rescript into German, and sent 
 it, illustrated by his own resistless remarks, to scatter 
 light through the world. 
 
 But we must hasten to the close of this great man's 
 triumphs. In 1545, he had reached his sixty- 
 second year, with a frame, never of peculiar strength, 
 and now much exhausted by perpetual labour, and 
 the numerous cares which hourly thickened round 
 the leader of the Reformation. His chief associates 
 had died before him, or were yielding to age. Zu- 
 inglius had perished in battle, and QEcolampadius 
 had died of grief for the loss of his admirable friend. 
 A painful complaint, probably the result of his 
 sedentary habits, had for several years tortured 
 Luther, and under its paroxysms he seems to have 
 sometimes abandoned the hope or the wish to live. 
 Yet, by temperance he continued to retain strength 
 of mind and frame, sufficient for the revision of his 
 numerous writings, and chiefly of his translation of 
 the Scriptures. 
 
 But in this year his complaint became more de- 
 cided, and his constitution, long racked by the stone, 
 began evidently to give way. Violent headaches, and 
 
 X 2
 
 308 LUTHER. 
 
 the decaying sight of one of his eyes, gave symp- 
 toms of an event w^hich must soon deprive Protestan- 
 tism of its first and ablest friend. But his course was 
 loftily completed. He had fought his fight ; he was 
 now to receive his crown. 
 
 He had taken a journey to Eisleben, his native 
 place, on the application of the Count of Mansfield, 
 to arbitrate a dispute relative to the mines. In full 
 consciousness of his own infirmities, he had under- 
 gone this harassing journey, as a promoter of peace. 
 
 * I write to you,' said he, in a letter to a friend, 
 a few days before he set out, ' though I am old, de- 
 crepit, inactive, languid, and now with but one eye. 
 
 ' When drawing to the brink of the grave ; I had 
 hopes of obtaining a reasonable share of rest ; but I 
 continue to be overpowered with writing, preaching, 
 and business, in the same manner as if I had not 
 discharged my part of those duties in the early period 
 of life.' 
 
 The journey was in the depth of a German winter ; 
 and by the overflowing of the river Issel, it was pro- 
 longed to five days. The effort was too much for his 
 feeble fraine ; and after various changes of his dis- 
 order during three weeks, Luther, on the 18th of 
 February, 1546, breathed the last breath of a life, 
 devoted to the most glorious duty that Providence 
 gives to man, — the promulgation of its own eternal 
 truths, in simplicity, in holiness, and in power. 
 
 The highest honours were paid to his memory.
 
 LUTIIEK. 309 
 
 His body, after lying in state in the principal church, 
 was escorted by the principal nobility of the Electo- 
 rate on horseback, and an immense concourse of the 
 people, on its way to Wittemberg. Wherever it 
 stopped, the population of the towns received it with 
 tears and prayers ; hymns were sung, and sermons 
 were delivered over the remains of their common father 
 in the faith. At Wittemberg, the whole university, 
 the magistracy, and the people, came out to meet the 
 procession ; and the funeral ceremony was begun with 
 an oration by Pomeranus, a celebrated divine, and 
 closed by a pathetic sermon fi-om Melancthon. His 
 picture was afterwards hung up in the hall of the 
 university. But the true and imperishable monu- 
 ment of Luther is, — the Reformation.
 
 XII. 
 
 SPEECH. 
 
 In acknowledging the Toast of ' Church and State,' given at 
 the Anniversary of the City of London Conservative Asso- 
 ciation, held in Merchant Tailors' Hall, March, 1840. 
 
 Mr. Chairman. — I regard this toast as the great 
 pledge of fidelity to the constitution ; and from the 
 manner in which it has been received, I am evi- 
 dently entitled to conclude that such also is the feel- 
 ing of this assembly, composed as it is of the chief 
 property, character, and loyalty of London. 
 
 Gentlemen — Your Chairman, in alluding to the 
 hazards of the country, especially remarked on those 
 which threaten the national religion. In this view 
 I perfectly agree with him. Whatever the foreign 
 perils of the country may be now, or in future, she 
 can have none so perilous as those which assault her 
 church. She has been engaged in many a severe 
 struggle, and it has only increased her strength ; she 
 has received many a malignant blow, and it has only
 
 SPEECH. 311 
 
 proved the solidity oflicr armour ; but the single evil 
 that she has ever to dread, is from within, the disease 
 of the lieart ; the drying up of that fount of her 
 life-blood, the possession of the purest form of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 Deprecating as I do, and as every man who is not 
 bewildered by national vanity must do, all conflicts 
 with foreign nations ; the triumphs of England in 
 the last and greatest of European wars prove that 
 her solitary strength has nothing to fear from the 
 world. I allude even to that war, only from its 
 evidence of the inexhaustible strength administered 
 by public principle. England, first opening her gates 
 to the fugitive hopes and rights of Europe ; then 
 issuing from them only to throw^ her shield over its 
 fallen thrones ; and finally returning, after the most 
 illustrious victories, satisfied with having broken the 
 chains of nations, affords the noblest instance of mag- 
 nanimity in the annals of Empire. I see alike in her 
 proud security, her triumphant strength, and her self- 
 denying benevolence, a monument raised to the 
 glory of our age, which mankind will never suffer to 
 perish. And I see on that monument, inscribed by 
 a more than human hand. National Religion. 
 
 There is no question clearer in its nature, than the 
 connexion of Church and State. The Establishment 
 has been called a ' Parliament Church,' and a ' Law 
 Church.' 1 shall not pause to object to the names. 
 1 respect the Legislature and the Law, and I cannot
 
 312 SPEECH. 
 
 discover humiliation in being protected by the one, 
 or conformable to the other. But if those names are 
 to imply, that the church is the creation of the state, 
 or the slave of the state, or that it is unable to exist 
 but by the state, we come to an issue at once. Those 
 conclusions I fearlessly deny. The propositions 
 which I hold, and which I challenge any man of 
 common sense and common knowledge to dispute, 
 are, that the Church is essential to the State — that the 
 Church can exist without the monarchy, though the 
 monarchy cannot exist without the Church, — and that 
 whatever the monarchy may offer in protection, the 
 Church more than repays in security. 
 
 On this topic, I waive all theological discussion, as 
 unsuited to the time and place ; and restrict myself 
 to considering the subject merely in its public action. 
 Who can doubt, that a Church may exist without the 
 State, be the form of that State what it will. The 
 Apostolical Church existed without a connexion with 
 the State. The episcopal Church of Scotland exists 
 without a connexion with the State. The American 
 episcopal Church exists without a connexion with the 
 State. The Church of England, inheriting its spirit, 
 its doctrines, and its orders, from a source higher 
 than human councils, would still exist, if the State 
 were under the heel of revolution to-morrow. The 
 unquestionable fact is, that the Church requires from 
 the State little more than what every institution, and 
 every individual requires from it, — the protection of
 
 Sl'KKCII. 313 
 
 its property ; and, in ample, and in incomparable 
 return, supplies the State with that hourly nutriment 
 of morals and religion, of private virtue and public 
 principle, without which the Constitution could not 
 survive an hour. 
 
 On this high subject, I make no allusion to present 
 times, or to things so shadowy and vanishing as the 
 acts of existing party. On such questions, we must 
 turn from the heated passions and narrow foresight of 
 the moment, to that great and calm teacher, who re- 
 bukes the follies of the living generation by wisdom 
 gathered from the grave. I appeal to history. 
 
 I take the two pre-eminent epochs of our constitu- 
 tional annals, the two antagonist revolutions of 1661 
 and 1688. I see them both producing liberty ; but 
 the one producing it after long travail, bringing it 
 to light in convulsion, and stamping its physiognomy 
 with the convulsion in which it was born : the other 
 shaping it, like our first ancestor, in finished beauty, 
 giving it dominion by an original charter, and esta- 
 blishing it on an unstained and unrivalled throne. 
 
 I have no desire to speak slightingly of that first 
 Revolution. It was the first crisis that developed the 
 true shape and muscular energy of the national charac- 
 ter. It exhibited great enterprize, great perseverance, 
 great conquest of difficulties. It was a natural stage 
 in the progress of an imperial people to empire. 
 Time and the monarchy had dissolved the chains by 
 which the baron bowed the serf (o the earth ; the
 
 314 SPEECH. 
 
 chains of the monarchy itself remained, and the people 
 were already too high-spirited, to be reconciled to 
 their weight by their gilding. I fully admit, that the 
 period was come for the cessation of arbitrary govern- 
 ment. England was to have a throne raised on no- 
 bler foundations than the broken spears and cloven 
 helms of feudalism. Like the Roman Capitol, founded 
 on the human head ; its permanency and its power 
 were to be sustained by the glowing blood and 
 immortal intellect of its people. 
 
 But, it is the justice of their right which aggravates 
 the injustice of their wrong. It is the splendour of 
 their march to freedom, which throws a condemning 
 light on the depth of their fall. It is the ease and 
 rapidity of their ascent above the highest level, 
 and almost above the highest view, of European 
 liberty, which warns us most strikingly against 
 evils, so powerful as to dash them from their height, 
 and leave the nation, plumeless and crushed, upon 
 the ground. 
 
 I date the whole national calamity from the as- 
 sault on the establishment. From the moment in 
 which the redress of political grievances was turned 
 into the plunder of the Church — from the moment 
 when the first sacrilegious hand was laid upon the 
 altar, the land was swept with a storm of retribution. 
 Till then, all had gone on with scarcely an impedi- 
 ment. Certainly, nothing had occurred in the shape 
 of serious evil. The various limitations of the prero-
 
 SPEIXII. 315 
 
 gative had been unavenged. The various encroach- 
 ments on the privileges of the aristocracy had pro- 
 duced no menaces of pubHc misfortune. There was 
 a general feeling that some change was essential to 
 the state : and the gentle nature of the King, though 
 irritated at the first sound of those popular blasts 
 which rushed so unexpectedly through the royal 
 chambers, yet was beginning gradually to discover, 
 that their roughness was compensated by the fresh 
 vigour which they gave to the national frame. But, 
 at that moment, the grasp was laid on the Establish- 
 ment, and all was ruin. 
 
 The Long Parliament, name of terrible memory, 
 assembled. The assault on the Establishment began. 
 " One of the earliest acts of the legislature was the 
 appointment of a * Committee of Religion,' consisting 
 of the whole house : this subsequently branched off 
 into various sub-committees, one of which took the 
 appellation of ' The Committee for providing Preach- 
 ing Ministers, and removing Scandalous Ones.' 
 (Nov. G, 1G40.) The practical effect of those com- 
 mittees was, to intimidate the clergy."* This blow was 
 followed by a rapid succession of injuries. The 
 Lord Keeper was ordered to leave the clergy out of 
 the commissioii of the peace. A motion was made 
 to deprive the bishops of their seats in the Lords. 
 Another was made to abolish bishops, deans, and 
 
 * Short's History of the Church of Enj;land, p. 467.
 
 316 SPEECH. 
 
 chapters. Finally, the bishops being obliged, by the 
 clamour thus raised against them, to " fly from the 
 House by stealth," they were eventually sent to the 
 Tower on a charge of high treason, and there de- 
 tained, until deprived of their votes ; as they, soon 
 after, were of their property. We have no time now 
 for detail. I can allude only to the consequences. 
 If the tree is to be judged of by its fruits, nothing 
 could be more criminal in the eyes of the Great 
 Disposer of men and nations, than those insults to 
 his Church. For nothing could have brought down 
 more instantaneous suffering. 
 
 The Parliament instantly lost even all appearance of 
 a legislature. It became a vast faction. All the grace, 
 wisdom, and dignity of national council were gone, 
 and the nation saw in it only an undisguised and 
 desperate conspiracy to overthrow all past power and 
 engross all future. The conduct of the Commons was 
 to be accounted for only by infatuation ; like that of 
 the Jewish kings, to whom a false prophet had been 
 sent. Sitting in the robes of legislators, they exhi- 
 bited the practices of banditti ; their only conception 
 of power, violence — their only conception of law, ra- 
 pine — their only conception of government, a licen- 
 tious impunity for plunder, passion, and revenge. 
 
 By a frenzy, without example, they now proceeded 
 to a general destruction of the State, without limit^ 
 rule, or end. Blow after blow, they broke down, 
 not merely those barriers, which might be obnoxious
 
 SPEECH. 317 
 
 to the ambition of a party, but every buttress and 
 defence essential to the being of society. Even the 
 peril of this general dissolution of things to them- 
 selves was wholly overlooked. They not merely car- 
 ried the royal ship out to sea, without compass or 
 ballast ; but, as the gale rose, they employed them- 
 selves in cutting away her masts, and opening her 
 planks, until all went down together. 
 
 They first tore down the king's ministry. They 
 threw the head of the government, Strafford, and 
 the head of the church. Laud, into dungeons ; the 
 Cabinet was instantly dissolved. Thus having stripped 
 the country of a government, they proceeded to find 
 its substitute in a tyranny. 
 
 ' A new jurisdiction,' says the historian, ' was 
 erected in the nation ; and before their tribunal, all 
 those trembled, who had before exulted in their credit 
 and authority.' * 
 
 Having crushed the government, they proceeded 
 to crush all inferior authority. They now assailed 
 the lords-lieutenants and deputy lieutenants of coun- 
 ties by a new charge, ' delinquency ; ' a charge, 
 of the true texture for the use of a tyrant, elastic 
 enough to close on the humblest, and to extend to 
 the greatest, — of all the instruments of power, the 
 most formidable, an undefined crime. 
 
 They next flung the ruins of the municipal govern- 
 
 * Hume. Charles I.
 
 318 SPEECH. 
 
 raent on the ruins of the administration ; and de- 
 clared all the sheriffs, and all employed by them in 
 levying the ship-money, delinquents I 
 
 * A very rigorous sentence,' observes the historian, 
 for the sheriffs had been doing no more than their 
 duty, to which they had been bound by their office, 
 and under severe penalties.' 
 
 They next seized on the officers of the customs, and 
 adding plunder to tyranny, forced them to purchase 
 their pardon by a payment of one hundred and fifty 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 They next resolved, ' that every man who had 
 concurred in the sentences of the courts of high 
 commission should be liable to the penalties of the 
 law : * a sweeping sentence which involved nearly 
 every man connected with public life. 
 
 * No minister of the king,' says the historian, ' no 
 member of the council, but found himself exposed 
 by this decision.' 
 
 They had extinguished the law, they had now only 
 to destroy its officers. They ordered the judges 
 who had given their votes against Hampden, to be 
 accused before the Peers. " All men saw with as- 
 tonishment the irresistible authority of their jurisdic- 
 tion." The fall of the throne was now in prospect, and 
 the assault was recommenced on its natural defender, 
 the Church. By a new ecclesiastical statute, the whole 
 bench of Bishops, and the most considerable of 
 the inferior clergy, found themselves exposed to the
 
 SPEECFI. .'} 1 9 
 
 imputation of ' delinquency.' * Thus,' says the^ his- 
 torian, in huiguage of that solemn warning which 
 ought never to pass from our memories, — ' the whole 
 sovereign power being transferred to the Commons ; 
 and the government being changed in a moment from 
 a monarchy to a pure democracy, the popular leaders 
 proceeded to consolidate their authority.' And what 
 was that consolidation? Regicide. By impeaching 
 the Church they had torn away the shield ; by im- 
 peaching the ministry, they had torn away the sword ; 
 and the monarchy now stood naked. Charles saw 
 the grave dug before his eyes ; he was spared only 
 until he saw his councillors and friends flung in ; and 
 then one fierce blow flung himself, where falsehood 
 and faction — where hypocritical rapine and sancti- 
 monious avarice — where licence under the name 
 of liberty, and thirst of power under the name of 
 patriotism, can trouble no more. In the language of 
 the great dramatist : 
 
 There he lay. 
 His silver skin laced with his golden blood, 
 His gashed stabs looking like a breach in nature 
 For niin's watchful entrance. 
 
 Who could refrain ? 
 That had a heart to love, and in that heart 
 Courage to make his love known ! 
 
 It is to the honour of England, that all were not 
 equally guilty ; that there were gallant men who 
 struggled in council and in the field, to avert the na- 
 tional crime. But, with the expulsion of the Bishops
 
 3;20 SPEECH. 
 
 from Parliament, the death-blow of the monarchy 
 had been given. From that hour faction had the 
 game in its own hands, and it was played with fierce 
 and contemptuous superiority. The civil war was 
 only a gloomier episode in this history of treason ; a 
 drainage of the national blood, that threw the nation 
 at the feet of its oppressors : The two years' struggle 
 was only a prouder pageant of royalty to an un- 
 timely tomb. 
 
 I now ask, who were the authors of this dreadful 
 catastrophe ? I ask, whether any revolution ever took 
 place in any country, in which rabble ignorance, or 
 rabble violence, had a less share ? I ask, whether it 
 was not of all revolutions, the most aristocratic ? 
 Whether, if the multitude poured in to share the 
 plunder, was it not the nobles and the gentry who 
 stormed the battlements ? 
 
 I touch on those topics with reluctance. I ac- 
 knowledge the respect due even to the errors of a 
 great people. It would be more satisfactory to my 
 feelings, with filial awe and averted face, to throw 
 the mantle over the nakedness of our common parent, 
 than to expose it, overcome by its new and dangerous 
 intoxication. But the lesson is one of the most 
 solemn portions of our national experience ; it 
 shews us man, and how little we can depend upon 
 man. 
 
 But are we to be told, that those deeds can never 
 be re-acted in England : that we are too enlightened.
 
 SPEECH. 321 
 
 too moral, too experienced, in the nineteenth century 
 for the extravagances of the seventeenth. 
 
 The Long Parliament exhibited among its members 
 the first gentlemen of England, some of the most 
 learned in the laws, many of the noblest descent, 
 and still more of the most heroic hearts. Were they, 
 like the leaders of the French Revolution, infi- 
 dels and atheists ? They were religious, some of 
 them even enthusiasts in religion. Were they in- 
 dividuals of feeble capacity, and narrow political 
 experience, the natural dupes of political delusion ? 
 Perhaps no assembly that England, or Europe, ever 
 saw, contained so many accomplished and powerful 
 minds. * Then was the time,' says Hume, * when genius 
 and capacity of all kinds, began to exert themselves, 
 and to be distinguished by the public' Every kind 
 of temper animating every kind of talent ; every man 
 seeing those objects placed before him which best 
 suited his faculties, and straining after them with 
 an effort which gave new vigour to those faculties ; 
 the sagacity of Pym, the ardour of St. John, tlie 
 daring impetuosity of HoUis, the chivalric valour of 
 Hampden, the brilliant excentricity of Vane, and 
 the profound subtlety, yet magnificent ambition of 
 the future master of them all — Cromwell. 
 
 If all revolutions develope unexpected ability ; if 
 the increased glow of the political horizon kindles 
 the soil beneath, and shows its hidden metals starting 
 to the surface in streams of fire ; still, we look in 
 
 Y
 
 322 SPEECH. 
 
 vain among the leaders of continental change, for the 
 character of the English republican. "We can no 
 more compare their levity, vice, and selfishness, with 
 the solemn and lofty sincerity of the man of the 
 commonwealth, than a firework with a fixed star. 
 
 But what was the conduct of the clergy in 
 those terrible times ? They unhesitatingly took the 
 side of the king, while that side w^as most unpopular, 
 disastrous, and even dangerous. They followed the 
 royal steps to the field, the prison, and the grave. 
 Who now doubts that their fidelity was virtue ; that 
 their simpHcity was true knowledge of the principles 
 of freedom ; that their faith led them to discover the 
 only path to national prosperity ? 
 
 In the spirit of that unhesitating loyalty, in which 
 the old Englishman left his dying command to his 
 sons, to ' stick to the crown, though they found it 
 hanging on a bush ; ' the clergy no sooner saw the 
 throne in danger, than, forgetting its early neglects, 
 they gathered to its support, adhered to it with a 
 sacred constancy, and perished by its side. Laud laid 
 down his head on the same scaifold with Charles. 
 
 We are now in a situation to form a judgment ; 
 we look from the height of two centuries ; we 
 stand at a distance of time sufficient to clear away 
 the vapours which rise from the heated soil of fac- 
 tion. All men now acknowledge, that the support of 
 monarchy was as much the support of the constitu- 
 tion in 1641, as it is in 1840. This is our loyalty ;
 
 SPEECH. Sii3 
 
 principled, unvarying, hereditary, and only strength- 
 ened by transmission and time. 
 
 Such is the practical answer of the church to its 
 calumniators; it does not rest its cause on living 
 testimony alone, it appeals to those who are now 
 beyond the follies or the fictions of the world. It 
 summons its evidence from the tribunal by which 
 all living character must be tried in its turn ; it calls 
 the confessor and the martyr, the statesman and the 
 soldier ; the men whose monuments, like those of the 
 prophets of Israel, we build only in condemnation of 
 ourselves, if we ai-e not made wiser by their pre- 
 cepts and their example. Its allegiance is not the 
 flattery of to-diiy, to be turned into the libel of to- 
 morrow ; not a party impulse, but a conscientious 
 conviction — not the flag of a flying camp, to be raised 
 or lowered from hour to hour ; but the standard of 
 England, raised on the tower of the constitution, and 
 never to be taken down, until all is ruined together. 
 
 England, then, had her lesson ; but, under what a 
 penalty ! The fall of the church was avenged by evils 
 as direct, as immediate, and as irresistible as ever 
 smote a nation. The punishment was judicial : the 
 crime instantly wrought its own punishment. Over- 
 throwing the great instrument of rational religion, 
 the people exposed themselves to the invasion of 
 religious frenzy. The space from which the Church 
 had been swept, was suddenly filled with the 
 wildest multitude of fanaticism. Even what remained 
 
 ^ 2
 
 324 SPEECH. 
 
 of the Establishment was converted into the means 
 of new mischiefs to the country ; the pulpits were 
 seized by low ignorance, the livings were engrossed 
 by low rapacity ; the parishes were ready-made 
 localities for safe hypocrisy and easy extortion. Like 
 the ruins of some great city, the broken vaults and 
 dismantled chambers of the Establishment became 
 the haunt of the mendicant and the madman, the 
 refuge of the outlaw, -and the den of the robber. 
 Sects of every monstrous form and squalid folly 
 covered the land, embittered the life of the people, 
 and perplexed public council ; until, in their rivalry 
 for power, abandoning even the pretext of liberty, 
 they carried a tyrant on their shoulders, through 
 public carnage ; and finished by bowing themselves 
 and their country to an usurped throne. 
 
 I demand, are we disposed to go through the same 
 round of revolution again ? Or, on what grounds are 
 we authorised to conclude, that such things may not 
 occur again ? Where is the impossibility ? Are we 
 of another nature than our fathers ? Are we more 
 fortified against political change, than the bold, firm, 
 and religious race of the primitive gentry of England? 
 Have later times taught us a loftier defiance of poli- 
 tical corruption, a graver political prudence, a more 
 indignant scorn of lucre, a more willing homage for 
 law, or a more reverent sense of religion ^ 
 
 Where is even the improbability. Relying largely 
 as I do, on the sober and manly portion of the
 
 SPliECH. S25 
 
 English mind ; I cannot disguise from myself the 
 strong similitude which our times bear to the politi- 
 cal physiognomy of the seventeenth century. I can- 
 not shut my eyes to those vast assemblages of the 
 armed populace, who inscribe their banners with 
 " Downfall to the Constitution." I cannot be deaf to 
 the loud and taunting proclamations by organized 
 sects, of their utter hostility to the whole frame of 
 society as based upon religion. 
 
 Those sights and sounds may subside, but it is only 
 for a season ; and it would be madness to think that 
 they will be extinguished by our indolent disdain. I 
 do not say, that the actors are yet full dix'ssed for their 
 parts, or that the curtain is yet ready to be raised. 
 But this I say ; that the stage is there, that the actors 
 are there too : and that if any one man of great 
 popular ability and great popular favouritism, were to 
 start forward on the boards ; we might find the cur- 
 tain springing up at once, and the whole wild and 
 sanguinary illusion of the political tragedy moving 
 before us in all its passions and in all its terrors. 
 
 I acknowledge my astonishment, that no such man 
 has yet appeared ; that we have hitherto seen no pro- 
 duce of democracy, but its virulence and its dulness ; 
 that among all the myriads who have been of late 
 years led or driven into the strife of politics, not one 
 has exhibited any commanding capacity. 1 confess 
 myself amazed, that their whole Conscription, un- 
 sparing as it has been, has not furnished them with
 
 326 SPEECH. 
 
 single conspicuous champion. This is even so con- 
 trary to the course of nature, that I should be almost 
 inclined to refer it to the protection of providence. 
 For never was there a time when a profligate man of 
 genius might commit more wide- wasting evil against 
 the constitution. With the chartist and the socialist 
 waiting for the signal, what would be the effect of a 
 radical Bolingbroke ? With the feverish millions of 
 popery, what would be the effect of a popish Charles 
 Fox ? It is fortunate for England and for Europe, 
 that nothing of that rank has appeared. We have 
 abundant imitations of the Clodius ; none of the 
 Catiline, or the Cromwell. 
 
 But we must not ' lay the flattering unction to our 
 souls,' that such will never come. The great incen- 
 diary may be among the multitude at this moment, 
 unconscious of his destination, until the torch is put 
 into his hand. Who saw Robespierre in the village 
 attorney ? Who saw Napoleon in the subaltern of 
 artillery ? Nature makes talents, but circumstance 
 makes character. Where the materials of conspi- 
 racy are suffered to lie strewn around, a spark 
 from the heel of the peasant will awake the explo- 
 sion. Nothing would surprise me less, than to see 
 starting from the radical ranks, some man of such 
 intellectual power, that all gave way before him ; 
 some new senatorial mind, some splendid malignity, 
 some lofty and desperate leader of council; compelling 
 into one mass all the rude, dark, angry elements of 
 tumult, and hurrying them against the cons-titution.
 
 SPEECH. 327 
 
 Our times might create such men. '* Where the 
 carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." 
 
 I do not predict that this convulsion must come. On 
 the contrary ; it is my earnest hope, that the country 
 will sustain the church, and thus provide for itself 
 the most unassailable security. But, if the church 
 should be enfeebled ; still more, despoiled ; I see no 
 limit to the extent, and no end to the existence of the 
 convulsion. We may retain the outward form of 
 society, but the heart will be torn out, and the blood 
 will circulate no more. We have once seen the mon- 
 archy in its shroud, are we impatient to try the 
 experiment of its dissolution in the grave ? 
 
 But, if I am to be told, that we are alarmed with- 
 out cause, that there is no intention of molesting the 
 church ; that the danger of the Estabhshment is only 
 the cry of pusillanimity, or party. How am I to 
 reconcile this with the knoivledge, that its spoil has 
 more than once in our day been made a notorious 
 stipulation ; that hatred to it is the badge of thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands, worthy of the darkness 
 in which they assemble : nay, that its utter ruin is the 
 bond, which has power to bring together and keep 
 together factions disdaining and hating each other ; 
 traitors, whose principles on all other points are wide 
 as the poles asunder ; that this one enmity is strong 
 enough to neutralize the mutual malice, combine the 
 instinctive repulsions, and march under one confede- 
 rate banner the fanatic, the infidel, and the slave of 
 superstition.
 
 328 SPEECH. 
 
 I insist on the argument — tliat the Estahlished 
 Church was a sacred gift to England ; that in its 
 possession she had the noblest means ever offered for 
 the civilization of a people, for the safety of an 
 empire, and the purity of a religion : that she was 
 accountable for its use, and punishable for its injury ; 
 and that the act of breaking down the church was 
 then, and would be now, avenged, as an insult to the 
 bounty of heaven. 
 
 I insist on the fact, — that the whole course of na- 
 tional evil flowed from the first demonstration of hos- 
 tility to the church. This was the cloud which 
 covered the rising sun of British freedom, and shook 
 from its skirts the thunder and the hail. The process 
 is clear, and it is consecutive ; — the first insult to the 
 church overthrew the government ; — the next over- 
 threw the monarchy — the last overthrew the realm. 
 
 It is notorious, that the bishops had scarcely been 
 driven from Parliament, when, as if a sudden host 
 of tormentors had burst up from the bosom of the 
 abyss, war raged in every shape of ruin. First blazed 
 the great Irish rebellion ; one of the most sudden 
 and sweeping explosions in the annals of conspiracy ; 
 a shock by which England saw her whole power in 
 the sister country lifted up from its foundations, and 
 shattered into a thousand fragments. 
 
 While her ears were yet full of the cries of Ire- 
 land, she heard the roar of civil flame round herself; 
 without the warning of a moment, she saw the confla-
 
 SPEPX'ii. 329 
 
 gration advancing on every side, and found all her in- 
 stitutions enveloped in the blaze. Even when the 
 havoc died through exhaustion, she saw it roused 
 again by a blast from the north ; a Scottish inva- 
 sion came, to swell the sufferings of the land. 
 
 But, was liberty gained after all? Was the blood 
 of the nation accepted as the purchase of a purer 
 constitution ? Was she enabled, by wading through 
 that tide of human wretchedness, to bring up from 
 among the wrecks of her throne, and the corpses of the 
 noblest of her sons, a newer charter ? Totally the re- 
 verse. Five pitched battles, the siege of her chief cities, 
 numberless conflicts, the desperate waste of gallant 
 life, produced nothing, produced worse than nothing. 
 Liberty perished on the field; and before the smoke of 
 battle had subsided, a tremendous shape had risen in 
 the darkness, and usurped its place. England sud- 
 denly found herself in the grasp of Despotism. A 
 mad rebellion had been retaliated by an iron tyranny. 
 To its astonishment, and to its shame, the nation 
 saw the throne of a mild monarch filled by a reckless 
 conspirator ; its visions of a fantastic freedom scat- 
 tered by awaking in the dungeon ; the altar, to which 
 it had summoned a dazzling creature of imagination, 
 tenanted by the frowning and contemptuous reality 
 of irresponsible power. 
 
 And yet, such was the national disgust for the 
 insults, the spoil, and the oppressions of the demo- 
 cracy, that the people felt relieved by the despotism.
 
 330 SPEECH. 
 
 Like men tossed on the ocean, they rejoiced in reach- 
 ing the most barren spot that could give rest to the 
 sole of their feet ; they embraced the sterile security 
 of the protectorate. Disgusted with the vanities of 
 their old idols, they left the Commons to their fate, 
 and took refuge in the colossal shadow of Cromwell. 
 
 And who shall blame them for the choice ? T say, 
 infinitely better one tyrant than ten thousand ; better 
 the stern justice of one proud and powerful mind, 
 than the mean arrogance and capricious mercies 
 of a cabal : better to trust in the sense of personal 
 dignity, than the avarice of rabble possession ; 
 better to lie down at once in the lion's den, where 
 the noble brute, at least, when he is satiated, will 
 spare; than be flung into a nest of snakes and scor- 
 pions, whose very nature it is to torment, and sting, 
 and kill. 
 
 But I call you to contemplate a more cheering topic ; 
 the contrast, in the revolution of 1688 ; the glorious 
 REVOLUTION, and well deserving of the name. If 
 history ever furnished a noble national example, ex- 
 pressly to substantiate a noble political theory, 
 she furnished it there. The contrast is total, and 
 the conclusion irresistible. In the time of Charles 
 the First, the people were the aggressors ; and the 
 prerogative was assailed through the church. In 
 the time of James the Second, the monarch was 
 the aggressor ; and the church was assailed through 
 the prerogative. The church had once stood second
 
 sPEiX'ii. 331 
 
 in danger, it now stood first. And be it remem- 
 bered, by those who are in the habit of charging 
 it with a slavish dependence, that it stood alone ! 
 The Commons, once so bokl, had long svmk into 
 such servility of panic, that when one manly member* 
 attempted to rouse them, by saying * He hoped 
 Englishmen were not to be frightened by a few hard 
 words,' they washed their hands of this formidable 
 criminality, by actually committing him to the Tower. 
 The peerage were equally overawed. When the 
 King's speech was read, proclaiming the ' Dispensing 
 power,' in other words, the demand of an authority 
 above all law ; all were thunderstruck, not a voice was 
 uttered ; until one man rose, and that man was Comp- 
 ton, Bishop of London. The constitution was already 
 in the grave. It was the church alone, which in the 
 strength of a mightier impulse, stood by that grave, 
 and bade the dead arise. It was that church too, 
 which in a further emergency of this great time, com- 
 pleted the work, released it from the bonds and 
 cearments still fettering its limbs, and bade it go 
 forth to the world, a pledge of the power that wrought 
 the miracle. 
 
 The controversy of the time was not, as in 1641, a 
 mingled question of political and ecclesiastical in- 
 terests. It was supremely a question of the 
 church ; for James had already extinguished the 
 
 * Coke of Derby.
 
 So2 SPEECH. 
 
 parliament. And the results were as strongly con- 
 trasted as the cause. Instead of the long and san- 
 guinary struggle of the Commonwealth, the church 
 now conquered without a blow, and the nation tri- 
 umphed without a convulsion. The whole was less like 
 the broken and insecure efforts of man than the influ- 
 ence of some of those vast physical agencies, which, 
 above human means, and beyond human control, bring 
 the seasons in their change ; or some of those magnifi- 
 cent ministers of providence who harmoniously guide 
 the sphere of mortal fates, and, invisible to mortal 
 eyes, ' ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm.' 
 Without injuring the slightest interest of individuals, 
 it changed the whole spirit of the monarchy ; without 
 enfeebling the throne, it gave a new strength to the 
 nation ; without disturbing the surface of society, it 
 poured light and heat into the depths ; and consti- 
 tuted, for a hundred years, the source of that regulated 
 freedom, which has itself constituted the source of our 
 whole national prosperity to this hour. We have the 
 decided testimony of Mackintosh, and all the leading 
 writers on our Legislation, that no country of ancient 
 or modern annals ever enjoyed a hundred years of 
 prosperity and progress, so rapid, and so unbroken, 
 as England, from the accession of William the 
 Third. And that progress is still but slightly in- 
 termitted. Without ambition, England has achieved 
 universal influence ; without war, she has gained 
 unbounded territory ; her commerce is the life of
 
 SPEECH. 333 
 
 all nations ; her liberty their hope ; her language is 
 extending through the borders of the world ; her 
 sceptre touches the antipodes. Continents have been 
 given to her redundant population. Christianity has 
 been confided to her imperial mission. Her gigantic 
 embrace, without an effort, goes round the globe. 
 
 But we must not now forget the courage of the 
 church, in the completeness of its original triumph- 
 It was a service of imminent danger. The power of 
 the throne at the crisis was immense. Besides the in- 
 fluence which at all times surrounds the diadem, James 
 had the whole body of that faith which he had es- 
 poused, ready for action in both kingdoms ; an army 
 encamped within an hour's march of the metropo- 
 lis, and a powerful force in Ireland ; the whole 
 Romish influence of Europe zealous in his cause ; 
 and the French king, its leading monarch, ready to 
 assist him with fleets and armies. With this vast 
 weight of physical force, he had also the moral force 
 that waits upon success. He had just put down the 
 insurrections of Monmouth and Argyle. The pea- 
 santry were terrified by the slaughters of the West 
 and North ; the nobility and chiefs of parties were 
 warned by the streaming scaffolds of Russell and 
 Sydney. With Jefferies for a judge, and Kirk for an 
 executioner, all seemed ready to fall the prey of a 
 vigilant, vindictive, and bigoted despotism. 
 
 Yet, it was in the face of this peril that the Church 
 stood for the truth, and the truth alone. Her cause
 
 334 SPEECH. 
 
 was unalloyed with avarice, or ambition. She entered 
 the field for rights above the world ; and, I solemn- 
 ly believe, she was aided from sources above the 
 world. Her standard was * Conscience,' and " in tliat 
 sign she conquered.' Never was there a conquest 
 more instant, more complete, or more unlike the 
 ordinary operation of human victory. With two 
 great contending faiths in the land, religious feud 
 sank at once ; with two rival kings at the head of 
 armies, not a life was sacrificed ; with two haughty 
 creeds, ' Right Divine' and ' Republicanism,' ready 
 for conflict, she modelled them both into a limited 
 monarchy ! The tyrant's strength dissolved before her 
 step ; armies melted away, councils broke up, parti- 
 zans shrank ; until the royal bigot, abandoned by all, 
 set the seal to his own ignominy, and the perpetual 
 exclusion of his race, by flying from the throne. 
 
 I have done : though the subject is still full of the 
 most important recollections. But the principle is 
 beyond all controversy. It is this — tliaton the safety 
 of the Church of England depends the safety of the 
 State of England. We have the unanswerable testi- 
 mony of two revolutions, each exercising the deepest 
 influence on its time ; the two grand modellers of 
 their ages. In the revolution of 1G41, the Church 
 assailed by the ruling power, and abandoned by the 
 people, sank ; and the monarchy, the constitution, 
 and the country, instantly sank along with it. In 
 the revolution of 1688, the Church, assailed by the
 
 SPEECH. S35 
 
 ruling power, but adhered to by the people, stood; and 
 standing, saved the monarchy, retrieved the constitu- 
 tion, and raised the country to a rank unknown before. 
 She conquered withouta blow. In the former instance, 
 liberty was lost ; buried in a sea of civil blood. In the 
 latter, liberty was won, without the loss of a single 
 drop of gore. In the former, the recovery of the coun- 
 try was slow, and her liberty required half a century, 
 to set it upon its feet. In the latter, the reco- 
 very of the country was instant, and her liberty shot 
 uj>wards on the wing. 
 
 The Church was victorious. But her victory was 
 wasted in no insolent indulgence of fortune. The 
 fanaticism of the Commonwealth had largely dis- 
 gusted the nation. Detected hypocrisy had made the 
 multitude careless, and the higher orders contemp- 
 tuous, of religion. England had become the head 
 quarters of infidelity. The church now applied herself 
 to heal this most fatal of all national diseases. The 
 labour cost her half a century, but it succeeded ; and 
 England became the fount of religious truth to 
 Europe. Could this noblest of all successes have 
 been achieved by any fluctuating, dependent, and un- 
 learned sectarianism ? or could it have been done by 
 less than the system, the independence, the learning, 
 and the public stability, of a national church ? It is 
 also memorable, and the fact is in the highest degree 
 instructive ; that this new triumph of the Church was 
 signalized by the most iniexampled triumph of the
 
 336 SPEECH. 
 
 State. Europe saw, at the precise period which left in- 
 fidelity at its dying gasp, a sudden splendour burst 
 round the arms of England ; the triumphs of Chatham 
 in the middle of the last century, astonished the world. 
 And that splendour grew. From that hour British 
 dominion received a new impulse. India, Canada, 
 and Australia were given into its hand. England 
 might still have her human difficulties ; she lost the 
 United States ; but, for the precarious sway of a rest- 
 less colony, she was proudly compensated by the 
 tranquil diadems of three empires. 
 
 The church took the lead then ; and she held it on, 
 and she holds it still. The last great struggle of 
 Europe, the French Revolution, was essentially a 
 struggle of principle. It was Infidelity in arms 
 against Religion. In that tremendous conflict, when 
 every form of worship on the continent fell in suc- 
 cession before the sword, and the enemy might 
 almost have cried out, in the words of the Assyrian 
 of old, " Have any of the gods of the nations deli- 
 vered out of our hand? Where are the gods of 
 Hamath, and of Arphad? Where are the gods of 
 Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah ?" * — the Church of 
 England was the strength of the people. Like ano- 
 ther Hezekiah laying the letter of the heathen on the 
 altar; her king was seen going at the head of his 
 nobles to the temple, bowing down before the 
 
 * 2 Kings xviii.
 
 I 
 
 sPKECii. 337 
 
 Supreme Disposer of kingdoms, and returning with 
 the promise of an illustrious security. 
 
 And what has been her conduct since, — has she 
 retrograded, — has her object been either the accumu- 
 lation of wealth, or the accumulation of power ? It 
 has been, to purify her discipline, to multiply her 
 benevolence, to extend education, and give additional 
 places of worship to her people — to reform the ex- 
 cesses of the rich, to preach the gospel to the poor, 
 and to be in charity with all. She has prospered, 
 and she is prospering more than ever, at this moment. 
 In her three-hundredth year she exhibits more than 
 the ardour of her youth ; she is sending her missions 
 through the world, she is building her bishoprics in 
 the remotest regions : — Spreading the gospel with the 
 speed and splendour of an angel's wing, the Church 
 of England is expanding into the Church of man- 
 kind.
 
 XIII. 
 
 NAPOLEON. 
 
 Written in 1841. 
 The body of Napoleon, brought from St. Helena by 
 the permission of the British Government, was car- 
 ried in a triumphal procession with great pomp 
 through Paris, and deposited in the Church of the 
 Invalides. (December 15, 1840.) 
 
 The honours which France has paid to the remains 
 of Napoleon, after the lapse of a quarter of a century 
 from his fallj naturally revive the memory of that 
 most singular and most dazzling character in Euro- 
 pean annals. He must be regarded as the most ex- 
 traordinary being who has appeared in government 
 since the Roman empire ; if we are to estimate in- 
 dividual eminence by splendid ability and superb 
 fortune. 
 
 The French Revolution was a perpetual demand, 
 and a perpetual trial, of all the prouder and more 
 perilous qualities of the human mind. It was a tri- 
 umphal chariot, which all men were alike invited to
 
 NAPOLEON. SSd 
 
 ascend ; but, whirled along by steeds of such fierce- 
 ness, that all who grasped the reins were dashed 
 successively to the ground. Napoleon was the 
 single exception. He reined them to the goal. 
 
 Almost from the moment of his appearing, he took, 
 and he preserved, the first rank. He stands, the first 
 man of Republican France, when all the old impedi- 
 ments to personal display had been equally levelled 
 before every man : the first soldier of his time, in the 
 midst of an universal struggle for military glory : the 
 most magnificent, lofty, and despotic of sovereigns, 
 in an age of kings ; and the sole founder of a throne 
 in Europe ; that throne itself raised on the ruins of 
 a Republic ; and that Republic covering the ruins of 
 a Monarchy. 
 
 Napoleon is not to find his rival in sovereigns sub- 
 duing only the savage clanships of early Europe, or 
 coming calmly to the possession of hereditary thrones. 
 Among all the great wielders of the sword, the 
 Charlemagnes, Frederics, and Catherines, he is su- 
 preme : he moves in an element above them all. The 
 beneficent and generous conquerors are of a higher 
 class than either. The deliverers of their country, 
 the assertors of the rights of nations, those illustrious 
 minds which, necessarily mingling in the tumults of 
 European conflict, yet fought and conquered only 
 for the protection of mankind — the Maurice, the 
 Gustavus Adolphus, the William the Third — belong 
 to another class of historic existence. They more 
 
 Z -2
 
 340 NAPOLEON. 
 
 resemble, in their purposes and tlieir power, those 
 guardian spirits of nations which, unstained them- 
 selves, perform the stern but saving commands of 
 Providence in our troubled world ; possessed of vast 
 means, gifted with great faculties, but wholly exert- 
 ing them at the summons of duty. The others are 
 like the creations of mythology — the Homeric deities, 
 beings of mighty strength and splendour, but in- 
 flamed by human passions and corrupted by human 
 crimes, prone to mingle in the conflicts of men, to 
 stoop from their golden heights for the feeble prizes 
 of mortal ambition, and waste their thunders on the 
 mortal field. 
 
 In his life, the matters important to posterity will be 
 the circumstances of his time, and the extraordinary 
 influence by which, after being carried along the cur- 
 rent of events for a period, he suddenly became master 
 of its course, and thenceforth ruled it according to his 
 will. Napoleon, born in 1769, and, educated for 
 the military service, had distinguished himself so 
 higlily at the seige of Toulon in 1793, when he was 
 but twenty-four, as to obtain the notice of the army 
 and the government. His next scene was Paris. 
 The attack of the armed populace on the Directory 
 compelled the trembling faction in power to shelter 
 themselves behind the soldiery. Napoleon was pointed 
 out by Barras. While the Directory were in instant 
 expectation of being dragged to the scaffold, still 
 wet with the blood of that embodying of Jacobinism,
 
 iNAPOLEON. 341 
 
 Robespierre ; Barras put the young Corsican at the 
 head of their troops, with the brief, but expressive 
 character — ' Here is an officer who is ready for any- 
 thing.' Tliat officer realized the promise ; swept 
 the armed Sections before his guns ; and the child of 
 the Revolution, like the Roman parricide, made his 
 first step to the throne, by treading on the body of his 
 parent. 
 
 But it is from 1796 that we must date his career 
 as a soldier. French Liberty had commenced by 
 cheating all mankind. It was swindling, on the 
 largest scale ever practised on the credulity of man. 
 With the loftiest maxims of human welfare continu- 
 ally on its lips, all its subtlety, — and it was boundless, 
 — was employed in the darkest means of disturbing 
 the reason, and envenoming the miseries of nations. 
 Nothing could be more successful than its evocation of 
 the fiend. Nothing could be more pompous in its 
 structure, or richer in its decorations, than the altar 
 which it erected to universal benevolence ; but the 
 incense on the altar was poison, and the flame was 
 kindled to blind, not to illumine. No jugglery of 
 heathenism was ever more false or foul than the 
 priestcraft of the solemn hierarchs, who ministered 
 in the white robes of philosophy at the shrine of 
 French freedom. In our day, the respect which 
 honourable minds desire to retain for human nature, 
 even in its lowest state, can scarcely sufler us to 
 conceive the utter falsehood, the atrocious malignity,
 
 342 NAPOLEON. 
 
 the simple, unalloyed wickedness which constituted 
 the spirit of the Revolution. But its especial charac- 
 ter was blood. Like its prototype, " it was a mur- 
 derer from the beginning." Even in its first hours, it 
 showed a thirst for slaughter, which stamped its 
 nature. The acclamations of Europe, which, struck 
 with its sudden vigour, its lofty protestations, and 
 the bold rapidity of its stride over the wrecks of 
 feudalism, had followed its early progress, soon died 
 away ; men could not wade after it so deep in gore. 
 Still it rushed on, flinging aside at every step some 
 portion of that Jesuitical mask which it first wore : 
 hourly rending away with a more contemptuous hand 
 some fragment of those ties which allied it to the 
 common family of nations ; until, at length, it 
 scaled the steps of the throne, tore down its un- 
 fortunate possessor, and with the guillotine for its 
 footstool, and the populace for its ministers, seated 
 itself in full supremacy of I'uin. 
 
 From this period it assumed a new form. It had 
 hitherto been a civil evil — the assassin and incendiary 
 of France — a frenzied liberty preying on the nation. 
 It was thenceforth to become an European tormentor ; 
 a tyranny threatening or trampling on all ^govern- 
 ments ; an iron domination, either crushing the 
 people of Europe into abject slavery, or dragging 
 them in chains to the field, to make slaves of others. 
 All had hitherto been delusion, the promise of uni- 
 versal peace and prosperity. Satan had worn the
 
 NAPOLEON. i34<3 
 
 garb of an angel of light. The deception had now 
 done its work, and the angel was the evil spirit again 
 in his supremacy, " a giant armed." 
 
 The limited Monarchy had first taken the shape of 
 the Republic — the Republic had assumed the dark- 
 ening features of the Democracy. The Democracy, 
 possessed of absolute power at home, now looked 
 for proselytism, to be repaid by plunder, abroad. 
 
 Then arose the Propaganda. — France declared war 
 against the world : found in her contagion a new 
 and cheaper element of war ; and dispatched her 
 lepers to spread their mortality. Revolutionary 
 doctrines made straight the way for revolutionary 
 conquests ; and when she poured forth her armies at 
 once over Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, 
 like streams of miasmata shooting from one centre ; 
 she found sovereigns and subjects equally enfeebled ; 
 Europe already at her feet ; its whole public strength 
 prostrate ; the whole frame of society sicklied and 
 subdued ; before a hand was raised to push it into 
 the grave. She sacked the Lazarhouse ! 
 
 Napoleon's conquest of Italy was the most brilliant 
 in the history of the Republic. The conqueror rose 
 instantly into fame. He threw a light upon the na- 
 tion, which reflected the lustre back upon himself, 
 and made him the most conspicuous soldier of his 
 country. Another change was to exhibit him the 
 most uncontrolled and uncontrollable sovereign. 
 
 Pride is the grand temptation of all the higher
 
 314 NAPOLEON. 
 
 order of human minds. The passion to seize power 
 is the passion of Republics ; to retain it, of Des- 
 potisms. Napoleon, the conqueror of Italy, had 
 already reached the summit of military renown. 
 But this elevation had only showed him that there 
 was a still loftier height to be attained. The diadem 
 glittered in his eye ; yet the republic lay, a great 
 chasm, between. To give time for filling it up, 
 he projected a design which exhibited at once the 
 ambition, the daring, and the recklessness, of his 
 genius. ' The expedition to Egypt,' said he, long 
 afterwards, ' was meant for the conquest of Syria, 
 Asia Minor, and Turkey in Europe. 1 would then 
 have marched to France.' He would have thrown 
 the wreck of the east on the west, and on both have 
 piled up his throne. Of all the dreams of human 
 ambition, this was the most boundless ; and if it is 
 ever to be achieved by man, it will be by the combined 
 sagacity and daring, the inexhaustible perseverance, 
 and burning ambition, of a spirit resembhng Napo- 
 leon, in all but his fall. Throughout his whole ca- 
 reer, from that hour, he retained the idea of ranging 
 man into two great divisions. ' The east,' said he^ 
 in his memorable conversation with Fox, ' is one 
 great family ! the west is another. Whoever sets the 
 nations of either at war, breeds dissension in a family. 
 All should be at peace with each other.' — All in the 
 slavery which he called peace, that all might submit 
 to the tyranny which he called empire. With Na-
 
 NAPOLEON. 345 
 
 poleon, alone of all sovereigns, perpetual conquest 
 was a principle. He declared, that war was essential 
 to the government of France ; and, for the first time 
 among nations, openly proclaimed the maxim ; not 
 yet forgotten in the restless mind of his country; 
 that power is the essential object of all policy ; and 
 territorial aggrandizement a justifiable cause of war. 
 Yet all was for himself. At the head of a world of 
 slaves, France was only to be the first slave. 
 
 Napoleon at the age of twenty-seven, had been 
 made Commander-in-Chief of the army of Italy. 
 Even then he had a prophetic sense of his triumphs. 
 ' In twelve months,' said he, ' I shall be either dead, 
 or an old General.' Within those twelve months he 
 fought the battles of Lodi, Castiglione, and Areola, 
 and was the first General of Europe. He followed 
 glory to Asia. 
 
 His absence in Asia only increased his power 
 in France. It gave him the romantic interest of 
 the Crusader ; until he was recalled to be the Sove- 
 reign. While he was fighting on the sands of Pales- 
 tine, the Russian had come, and Italy was conquered. 
 Suwarrow's tactics were a terrible novelty. He com- 
 bined the wild rush of the Tartar hordes with the 
 steady strength of European armies. For this tlie 
 French troops were unprepared. They found them- 
 selves outmarched when they attempted to manoeuvre, 
 and crushed when they ventured to stand. The de- 
 scriptions of Suwarrow's battles arc the description
 
 346 NAPOLEON. 
 
 of massacres, — the attack incessant, the execution ter- 
 rible, and the spirit of the opposing force utterly ex- 
 tinguished in the field. The battles in central Italy 
 were days of ceaseless slaughter. The single battle 
 of Novi utterly destroyed the army of Joubert ; the 
 rest of the campaign against Moreau and Macdonald 
 was a continued pursuit, with the sword perpetually 
 mowing down the flying battalions of France, until 
 they were driven over the Alps, and Italy was cleared 
 of every footstep of her invaders — nothing remaining 
 of them but the bones which whitened her mountains, 
 her morasses, the ramparts of her cities, and the banks 
 of her rivers. 
 
 The Italian campaigns of Napoleon were the most 
 refined application of military science ; those of Suwar- 
 row the fiery force of irresistible courage. Napoleon, 
 by the dexterity of his tactics, the variety of his ma- 
 noeuvres, the incessant activity of his movements, and 
 the intuitive skill with which he discovered the weak 
 points of his enemy, exhibited the most dazzling ex- 
 amples of European war. But Suwarrow's Italian bat- 
 tles were of a character altogether distinct, and alto- 
 gether superior. They were less scientific than start- 
 ling : assaults daring, desperate, and furious ; rather 
 bursts of vengeance than displays of soldiership ; less 
 a gallant struggle against a gallant enemy, than an 
 overwhelming and rapid retribution on a crowd of 
 armed criminals, whose time was come. The conquest, 
 on which Napoleon, with all his genius, was forced
 
 NAPOLEON. 347 
 
 to consume two years, was achieved by the great 
 Russian in a montli. If Napoleon afterwards re- 
 conquered it in a day, at Marengo, that day was lost 
 by Austrian confidence, as the country was abandoned 
 by Austrian timidity ; a mock negotiation accom- 
 plished what could not have been effected by the sword. 
 But the first Italian campaign of Suwarrow still re- 
 mains unrivalled — an evidence of the power which 
 may be inspired into a slow and formal national 
 force by a single original and daring mind. Russia, 
 neither before nor since, has produced such a leader 
 of men, and may never produce another Suwarrow. 
 
 In 1799, the terrors of France and the temptations 
 of sovereignty alike recalled Napoleon from Egypt. 
 On the 19th of November, he entered the hall where 
 the Councilof Ancients were assembled at St. Cloud; 
 and, after having fiercely defended himself from the 
 charge of intending to overthrow the republic, re- 
 tired to perform the same farce in the council of 
 Five Hundred. But there he was received with 
 uproar, as "a second Csesar, come to act the dicta- 
 tor." Some furious members of the assembly sprang 
 from their seats, rushed upon him, and the dagger 
 was at his throat ; when General Le Fcbvre tore him 
 away, and carried him out of the hall. Napoleon, 
 thus repelled, sent in a platoon of grenadiers with 
 bayonets fixed, to settle the controversy. The Pre- 
 sident, Lucien, whom a moment of indecision would 
 have sent, along with him, to the scaffold ; encouraged
 
 348 NAPOLKON. 
 
 by the sight of the troops, now rose, pronounced that 
 the members who had attempted to seize his brother 
 were "traitors, purchased by the gold of Pitt;" 
 the platoon of grenadiers silenced all reply, and 
 Lucien proposed a decree on the spot, — " That Gene- 
 ral Bonaparte, and all who had assisted him, deserved 
 well of their country — that the Directory was at an 
 end — and that the executive power should be placed 
 in the hands of three provisional consuls, Bonaparte, 
 Sieyes, and Roger Duces." Thus had Cromwell fin- 
 ished the democracy of England a century and a half 
 before. Napoleon soon after appointed himself First 
 Consul ; in the first instance for ten years ; then for 
 life; then Emperor — " Thane, Cawdor, Glamis, 
 thou hast it all :" the Macbeth of a mightier stage ! 
 
 Another change was to exhibit Napoleon in a new 
 rank, and Europe in new trials. From the field of 
 Marengo the First Consul took up his diadem ; and 
 its lustre was ominous to thrones. The European 
 governments were vast, but decrepit, accumulations 
 of power. They had many a hoary crime to answer 
 for. The partition of Poland, an act of enormous 
 guilt, had filled the cup of wrath ; and the fierce hand 
 of France was commissioned to hold it to their lips. 
 The world has never seen an infliction of unconscious 
 justice more sudden, or more condign. Austria was 
 the first attacked. In 1805, her armies, which had 
 so long and so gallantly fought the Republicans, 
 were suddenly swept before the French Emperor,
 
 NAl'OLEOX. 849 
 
 like the harvest before the scythe ; in three months, 
 she laid down her arms in Vienna! — In 180G, Prus- 
 sia, the land of soldiership, the camp of the Great 
 Frederick, which had baflled France, Austria, and 
 Russia for fifty years, was crushed in a day ! — In 
 1807, the Russian Emperor was hunted into his own 
 territories, and after the desperate battles of Eylau 
 and Friedland, was forced to sign the treaty of Tilsit, 
 a treaty which placed the virtual sceptre of the Con- 
 tinent in the hand of the conqueror. Three years 
 had prostrated Europe ! 
 
 But, from this moment higher objects were to be 
 accomplished. As the war of the Revolution was 
 the mightiest struggle of the modern world ; invol- 
 ving the highest interests, the greatest combinations 
 of power, the creation and fall of thrones, it was to 
 be made the source of a still more solemn lesson. As 
 the clouds of the early collision cleared off, a great 
 moral was to be seen emerging. The good and evil 
 principles were to become more distinct, until they 
 engrossed the field. The minor contests died away, 
 and the fate of nations was suspended on the issue of 
 the contest between France and England — between 
 France, seeking all things by force, and contemptuous 
 of all religion : and England, the protectress of 
 human right, the assertor of universal justice, and the 
 worshipper of the purest faith of Christianity. 
 
 If man can be taught a belief in Providence, by 
 the strongest proof that events can give ; he must be
 
 350 NAPOLEON. 
 
 tciuglit by the events of this great war. During a 
 quarter of a century of battle, with continual changes 
 of continental fortune, England never suffered any 
 one great casualty ; was never defeated in a pitched 
 battle ; never lost a fleet, a colony, a foot of territory. 
 From the period when the war became naval, with all 
 the world against her, she fought a succession of the 
 most glorious victories ; and when, after having closed 
 up the ocean against Napoleon, she was summoned, 
 in her habitual patronage of human rights, to protect 
 the rising independence of Spain ; she commenced a 
 career of soldiership, unshaken by a single defeat ; a 
 constancy of success to which Europe has no parallel ; 
 a great triumphal era of seven years — a march marked 
 only by trophies^ from the shores of Portugal to the 
 plains of the Netherlands, and finishing in the two- 
 fold capture of the enemy's capital, the extinction of 
 their empire, and the captivity of the Emperor him- 
 self, until his mortal career was closed. Thus lived, 
 and thus died Napoleon. 
 
 Never was there in human annals a more striking 
 lesson of the sleepless justice of heaven. Rising to 
 a sudden and unrivalled eminence, which more re- 
 minds us of the work of some magnificent imagination 
 than of the realities of the world ; ascending from the 
 tumults and darkness of the democracy, like Milton's 
 master-fiend ; and not unlike him in his intellect, his 
 universal power, and his fierce hostility to the peace 
 of man ; we see Napoleon, like the tempter, suddenly
 
 NAPOLEON. 3') I 
 
 doomed to i'ccl u still more powerful hand — to be 
 stricken in tlie moment of his proudest elevation — 
 to find himself the denizen of darkness and tlie 
 dungeon — 
 
 " His fulgent head. 
 And shape, star-bright, appeared ; 
 
 He stood, expecting 
 Their universal shout and high applause 
 To fill his ear ; when, contrary, he hears 
 On all sides, from innumerable tongues, 
 A dismal universal hiss, the sound 
 Of public scorn." Milton. 
 
 While he involved all his daring and brilliant confe- 
 derates in his fall ; he felt that the ruin was but 
 retribution. Napoleon was the only European sove- 
 reign on record whose personal overthrow brought 
 down the whole fabric of his empire — all whose 
 princedoms perished with himself — the only emperor 
 who died in fetters. 
 
 Those things are said, not in a spirit of vain glory, 
 but in deep humility and solemn reverence. The 
 triumphs of England belong to higher causes than the 
 sword of man. We look, for the lustre which shone 
 round her helmet in hours when all else in Europe 
 was dark, to a nobler region than is trodden by the 
 loftiest step of human ambition. But we arc not 
 thus taught merely to exult in the past ; we learn to 
 hope for the future. Having discovered the true 
 fount of all victory, we have but to keep the way 
 open to the spring, — to make war only in the spirit 
 of justice, and peace only in the spirit of sincerity.
 
 352 NAPOLEON. 
 
 France is still indignant ; her military pride writhes 
 at the memory of Waterloo. And yet, of all nations, 
 France has the amplest reason to rejoice in the 
 sword which swept Napoleon from the throne. His 
 nature was selfishness ; sometimes dark and malig- 
 nant, sometimes superb and regal ; sometimes the 
 slime and fang of the serpent, sometimes the bril- 
 liancy and bound — but the serpent still. And like 
 the serpent, his longer and closer connexion with 
 France would have only involved and crushed her the 
 more in the folds of a policy at once the most wily 
 and the most inextricable. His wars had already 
 cost her two millions of lives ; his trophies had been 
 gained, only to embitter defeat by their resumption ; 
 his victories had only pampered the national pride, 
 until they brought the Cossacks from their deserts to 
 parade the streets of Paris. In all his triumphs 
 over thrones, he did nothing for the people. Aggran- 
 dizing his family at the expense of Europe, he de- 
 graded France by a continued vassalage. If he gave 
 her provinces, he gave them exhausted by military 
 plunder ; and exhausted her revenue, to supply the 
 waste of their usurpation. If he conquered, every new 
 conquest added a link to the chain which fettered her 
 limbs. If Napoleon had remained in the Tuilieries 
 to this hour, France would have remained a slave ; 
 her land but a larger bastille; her people but a 
 conscription governed by gendarmes ; her laws a 
 theory ; and her sovereign a tyrant scoffing at the
 
 NAPOLEON. 353 
 
 name of freedom, and ruling by the scourge and the 
 sword. 
 
 France is a powerful, and ought to be a great 
 country. But Faction is her tempter ; and such it has 
 been from time immemorial. She had mobs, and 
 mob leaders, when her tribes had nothing to slay each 
 other for, but acorns ; and nothing to carry from the 
 field of battle, but scalps. Caesar, their conqueror, 
 said, two thousand years ago, ' The Gauls have a dis- 
 sension in every village.' The folly of her " three glo- 
 rious days of 1830,' was the folly of the jEdui and 
 Sequani, of the agueish dwellers in the swamp, and 
 the shivering savages of the naked hill. Europe de- 
 sires to see France intelligent and happy. For thus 
 alone can she fulfil her duties to general civilization. 
 But Europe will not suffer her to be a mother of ban- 
 ditti — the Bedouins of the West, ready to spring out 
 upon the peaceful traffic, and block up the common 
 highway, of nations. She desires to see the throne 
 of France fixed on a solid foundation ; even if that be 
 of the most dazzling materials, — marble, gold, or 
 adamant, — she will neither covet nor care ; she de- 
 mands only that it shall be firm. But she will not 
 suff*er a throne to increase its height ; which in a 
 moment may topple over, and crush its neighbours. 
 She will not suffer a great government to stand upon 
 a magazine of gunpowder, open for the touch of the 
 first ruffian to scatter the blazing fragments round 
 the world. 
 
 2 A
 
 354 NAPOLEON. 
 
 Louis Philippe has shown himself a great sovereign. 
 By his talents and by his firmness he has already 
 converted the jealousy of the ancient thrones into the 
 acknowledgment, that he was born for a throne. By 
 calming the rashness of his people, he has saved Eu- 
 rope from war, and France from extinction. But 
 the day of danger is not past. Jacobinism, like the 
 curse of the thorn and thistle — self-sown and self-cul- 
 tured, remains, to entangle the step, and exercise the 
 continual labour of Kings. 
 
 There are living men in France who stood round 
 the scaffold of Louis XVI. ; epicures in revolt, who 
 have not forgotten the luxurious days of Republican 
 supremacy ; if the bolder rebels have been sent head- 
 less to their ' place,' there are those, who, like the 
 Demons, that they might not be precipitated into 
 judgment, have been content to hide among the 
 swine. To the old actors in the great overthrow of 
 1793, the shout of the mob will always be a summons 
 to try their chance again. That the men of sense and 
 principle in France — that the noble families — that the 
 sons of those whose melancholy history was written 
 on the streaming steps of the guillotine, must depre- 
 cate the return of Democracy, may be well believed. 
 Yet, it is now fifty years since the day of regicide. A 
 new generation has been born. Li France nature is 
 always inverted ; the fools decide for the rational, the 
 young are the councillors of the old, the child is the 
 master of the man — wise without experience, intelli-
 
 NAPOLEON. 355 
 
 gent without thought, and learned without knowledge, 
 Lajeune France is always infallible. If a royal road 
 to learning was laughed at by the ancient sage ; the 
 republican road to freedom would have satisfied him 
 that the absurdities of human presumption are inex- 
 haustible. He would have seen a high-crowned hat 
 and black cravat instantly comprehending the whole 
 subUme of patriotism ; the ragged rabble of a profli- 
 gate capital turned into legislators by a flourish of 
 the pike ; and the little tools of little factions carried 
 to the summit of public council, with all their states- 
 manship acquired in penning epigrams, and all their 
 public services comprised in declaiming them. 
 
 But, unless France is incapable of being taught, 
 the double burial of Napoleon may bring before her 
 eyes a lesson against the desire of conquest, well 
 worth all the pageant. If she will pervert his tomb 
 into an altar of revolution, or light the torches of 
 European war at his funeral pile, she must only 
 bring upon the nation the vengeance which extin- 
 guished the man. But we should wish to regard 
 this striking and stately ceremonial as a pledge of 
 general conciliation ; a public acknowledgment that 
 war is a frenzy ; a calm and solemn committal of the 
 principle of conquest to the grave, with the reliques 
 of the conqueror. There let them sleep, and Earth 
 begin a new career. A quarter of a century has 
 been interposed; his generation has vanished; we 
 are already posterity ; and, passing the true sentence
 
 356 NAPOLEON. 
 
 on his errors and his ambition, we can do justice to 
 the loftiness of his genius, the grandeur of his concep- 
 tions, and even the fearful majesty of that march which 
 left such burning tracks on the soil of Europe. We 
 can now look upon his career, as we do on the thun- 
 der-storm, when it has descended to the horizon ; 
 when its roar is still, when the sun shines again, and 
 we gaze in delight and wonder at the gigantic shapes 
 and dazzling colours of its clouds, as they roll off the 
 face of heaven. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 L. AND G. SEELEY, PRINTERS, THAMES DITTON.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
 
 ^^ 27. C879H 
 
 3 1158 01285 5358 
 
 LITY 
 
 AA 000 677 352 7
 
 ;^n;^^H;:^J':?;SHInKll?Ht;!iJiinifjS^