before its strength had been consolidated, they must, as it would appear to all human judgment, have swept it from the face of the earth. As it was, nothing short of general extermination could destroy it. It survived the havoc of those dreadful visitations: but strange and wonderful were the appearances with which it emerged out of the chaos. From the very midst of the ruins, a portentous form was seen to arise, such as the world had never looked upon; an apparition habited in the robes of priesthood, and surrounded by attributes of majesty; holding in one hand the rod of worldly power, and in the other the flaming sword, which turned every way, to guard the citadel of spiritual dominion. For ages together did this stupendous phantom continue to spread out before the astonished gaze of mankind, till its feet seemed to rest upon the earth, while its head was towering among the stars.

And where, it may be asked, was the power that called up this mysterious shape of sovereignty? In truth, the mighty enchanters which summoned it into the realms of light, were no other than the corrupt passions, and the clamorous necessities of man. The passions of man called aloud for indulgence, his calamities for succour and protection; and both these purposes could be answered by nothing but an empire, which should combine the spiritual with the secular dominion, and bring the powers of the world into league with the allurements and the terrors of superstition. The Papacy is not to be contemplated as a mighty scheme of imposture and despotism, constructed conformably to a fixed and regular design, and gradually completed according to a system, con

veyed from one generation of deceivers to another. The passions and the wants of a licentious and semibarbarous world, invited the master-builders to raise up the fabric of spiritual supremacy; while the confusion and anarchy of the West, deprived of the protection of the Imperial presence, demanded the establishment of the temporal dominion. And thus it was, that the chambers of seduction, and the battlements of strength and pride, rose up together, and formed, between them, a structure more strange, more fantastic, and, at the same time, more vast and menacing, than could ever have been projected, in the wildest mood of ambition, by the invention or the sagacity of man.

Never, perhaps, since the world began, was there a power, which seemed to unite within itself so many elements of weakness, as the Papacy. The sovereigns were usually aged men, when they ascended the chair of St. Peter, and consequently their reigns were brief. Every pontiff was an insulated individual, united by no ties of kindred to those who went before, or to those who followed after. The elective conclave was a scene of eternal rivalry, intrigue, and conflict. And yet did this rope of sand, as it must have appeared to ordinary eyes, coalesce into such an union of strength and flexibility, that it was able to twine itself round the mightiest of mankind, to bind kings, as it were, with chains, and nobles with fetters of iron. The rod of the arch-magician became a serpent, and the serpent grew into a voluminous monster, which entangled and crushed the monarchs of the forest in its folds. It is impossible, according to any scheme of merely human philosophy, to account for this exam

ple of strength made perfect in weakness, otherwise than by supposing, that the secret of the papal force lay in the public mind and will of Christian Europe. It is altogether incredible, that so much feebleness should have put forth such prodigies of might, if it had not derived its main resources from the exigencies and the defects of the whole social system, during the period of its predominance. The pontifical power and supremacy formed, in fact, a sort of universal sanctuary against the savage turbulence and coarse despotism, of the middle ages. It was, if possible, a still more alluring refuge against the furies and the scorpions of an accusing conscience. It enslaved the judgment, but it gave a licence to the passions: and what tyranny is there to which man will not submit, if it does but offer him protection against external violence and internal remorse? if it guards him against lawless and brutal force from without, and relieves him from the horrors of a spiritual conflict within ?

That the papal system frequently conferred the blessings of protection on the helpless and the lowly, in times of frightful anarchy and turbulence, it would be most ungracious and absurd to question. It was itself a most gigantic abuse; but then it had the merit of frequently controlling other abuses and enormities, which might, between them, have torn the whole structure of society in pieces. It was, in some sort, like the rod of Aaron, which swallowed up the rods of the enchanters. Who has not heard of the truce of God, which afforded to the inoffensive and the feeble, four nights out of the seven in which they might sleep in peace? Who does not now perceive, that the

chair of St. Peter formed an august tribunal, which often rebuked and curbed the brutal rapine, and merciless oppression, of barons and of princes? It may, indeed, be no pleasing spectacle to see the potentates of the earth at the bridle or the stirrup of a churchman; or to behold emperors waiting barefoot at the gates of his palace. But, although our indignation may, even now, be kindled by the very recollection of those days, when "the kings of the earth were of one mind, to give their power and their strength unto the beast," our emotions may well be mitigated by the thought, that, in those wretched times, the people were eaten up, as it were bread, by them that called themselves the excellent and the illustrious of the earth: and that, humanly speaking, nothing less powerful than the authority of the vicegerent of God, may have been sufficient to save the world from the horrors and oppressions of perpetual barbarism. Again, it is an astounding thing to behold all Europe precipitating herself into the East, and draining out her life-blood and her treasure, at the call of an imperious hierarchy, on the preaching of a fanatical monk. But then, it should be remembered, that, according to all human calculation, nothing but this upheaving of the resources and energies of Christendom, could have rolled back the flood, which the fury of Mohammed had let loose upon the Eastern world; and which, if not arrested, might have swept religion and humanity from the regions of the West.

All these are considerations, which may reasonably satisfy us, that the thoughts of God towards the children of men, were not wholly thoughts of evil, when he permitted the mystery of iniquity to grow up into

such colossal grandeur. We cannot, without violence to our judgment, or our faith, shut out from our minds the notion of some especial providential agency and interference, shaping and regulating the growth and the formation of this gigantic spiritual empire. There, surely, is something grand and awful in the spectacle of a mental supremacy, controlling the mutinous elements of society, during the wildest periods of barbarism, and often potently interfering to prevent their rushing into ruinous and exterminating conflict. And then, too, it should never be forgotten, that the same power was, in effect, the sole guardian of intelligence, the sole protector and preserver of literature, in those days of Egyptian darkness. The man is not to be envied, who can reflect, without some emotions of gratitude, on those various and noble foundations, which, although they may have at last degenerated into haunts and hiding-places of profligacy, formed, nevertheless, the only retreats of learning, civilization, and charity, during a dreary interval of general ignorance and brutality. It would be scarcely too much to affirm that the papal Church, corrupt as it became, was no less than the Ark, which preserved the moral and spiritual life of Christendom from perishing in the flood, that so long overspread the face of the earth. Nay, the most indignant Protestantism will never scruple to confess thus much,-that foul as the Romish Church has been and is, it has preserved the true Catholic doctrine, though under the deepest incrustations of error, and has been over-ruled by God to the purpose of continuing the true Church, and the true faith, so that the gates of hell have not wholly prevailed against them.