in his Inferno, and boldly designates Rome as the Babylon of the Apocalypse, exclaiming, "Ah Constantine! to how much ill gave birth, Petrarch, who had seen, especially at Avignon, the horrible corruptions of the Papal court, pours upon it a torrent of invective.t * See Inferno, cxix. Purgatorio, xxxii. The following verses will give an idea of the energy with which Petrarch-ordinarily so gentle in the style of his composition — attacks the Roman see: "The fire of wrathful Heaven alight Base city! Thou from humble fare- "Foul nest of treason! is there aught "The while, within thy secret halls, Old men in seemly festivals With buxom girls in dance are going; And in thy midst old Beelzebub Eyes, through his glass, the motley club, The fire with sturdy bellows blowing." Quoted from Le Rime del Petrarcha, (ed. Lod. Castelvetro,) tom. i. p. 325; in Dr. McCries' Hist. of the Refor. in Italy, p. 27. The wonder indeed is, that Christianity could live in such a system at all, embarrassed by superstition, checked by bigotry, enfeebled by lust. But it certainly did, and this we regard as one of the proofs of its divine origin, its inherent, indestructible energy. Roman Catholicism, while embodying pagan elements, was ever superior to paganism, and in a barbarous age exerted over society some conservative and reformatory influence. Even Merle D'Aubigné says that "important services were rendered by Catholicism to the existing European nations, in the age of their first formation." + All nationalities had been dissolved in the destruction of the Roman empire, and chaos brooded over society. Christianity formed a centre to the whole, and the old Teutonic nations crystallized around it. Thence order sprung from confusion, and all the vital elements of modern society were developed. If the church, in consequence of her power, became corrupt, and oppressed her subjects, she did so to save them from the gulf of barbarism, into which, inevitably, they must have plunged. She was a severe and bigoted mother, but she preserved her children from fatal anarchy and absolute political destruction. This is what Bunsen (in Hippolytus) justly styles "the miracle of the last fifteen hundred years." See Appendix, note H. Hist. of the Reformation, vol. i, p. 8. Hence Ranke justly and strikingly remarks, "However defective the civilization we have delineated," (the combination of the spiritual and temporal elements, first in the Frankish empire, under Charlemagne, and then in the Germanic nations, Christianized and united under the Papal sway, both of which were thus preserved from destruction,) "it was necessary to the complete naturalization of Christianity in the West. It was no light thing to subdue the haughty spirits of the north, the nations under the dominion of ancestral superstitions, to the ideas of Christianity. It was necessary that the religious element should predominate for a time, in order that it might gain fast hold on the German mind. By this, at the same time, was effected the intimate blending of the Roman and Germanic elements. There is a community among the nations of modern times, which has always been regarded as the main basis of the general civilization, a community in church and state, in manners, customs, and literature. In order to produce this, it was necessary that the western nations should, for a time, form, as it were, a single state, temporal and spiritual.” By this means the institutions of the church were preserved from destruction amid the general transition and change, while the church lent * History of the Popes, vol. i. p. 40. its aid to the formation of national character and virtue. The period indeed was abnormal, and preparatory to something higher and better, now partially developed by the reformations and revolutions of modern times; but it was necessary, under God, to the production of that form of Christian civilization yet to triumph in all lands. It is for this reason that Macaulay speaks of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, as "the first of a long series of salutary revolutions," and adds, "It is true that the church had been deeply corrupted both by that superstition and that philosophy against which she had long contended, and over which she had at last triumphed. She had given a too easy admission to doctrines borrowed from the ancient schools, and to rites borrowed from the ancient temples. Roman policy and Gothic ignorance, Grecian ingenuity and Syrian asceticism, had contributed to deprave her. Yet she retained enough of the sublime theology and benevolent morality of her earlier days to elevate many intellects and to purify many hearts. Some things, also, which, at a later period, were justly regarded as among her chief blemishes, were in the seventh century, and long afterwards, among her chief merits. That the sacerdotal order should encroach on the duty of the chief magis trate, would, in our time, be a great evil. But that which in an age of good government is an evil, may in an age of grossly bad government be a blessing. It is better that mankind should be governed by wise laws well administered, and by an enlightened public piety, than by priestcraft, than by brute violence, by such a prelate as Dunstan than by such a warrior as Penda. A society sunk in ignorance, and ruled by mere physical force, has great reason to rejoice, when a class, of which the influence is intellectual and moral, rises to ascendency. Such a class will doubtless abuse its power; but mental power, even when abused, is still a nobler and better power than that which consists merely in corporeal strength. We read in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who, when at the height of greatness, were smitten with remorse, who abhorred the pleasures and dignities which they had purchased by guilt, who abdicated their crowns, and who sought to atone for their offences by cruel penances and incessant prayers. Those stories have drawn forth bitter expressions of contempt from some writers, who, while they boasted of liberality, were in truth as narrow minded as any monk of the dark ages, and whose habit was to apply to all events in the history of the world the standard received in the Parisian society of the eighteenth century. Yet |