History of the Intellectual Development of Europe Volume II Part 10

[Sidenote: The mode of communicating knowledge changes.] But, secondly, as to the change which ensued in the mode of communicating information--a change felt instantly in the ecclesiastical, and, at a later period, in the political world. The whole system of public wors.h.i.+p had been founded on the condition of a non-reading people; hence the reading of prayers and the sermon. Whoever will attentively compare the thirteenth with the nineteenth century cannot fail to see how essential oral instruction was in the former, how subordinate in the latter.

[Sidenote: Injury to pulpit instruction.] The invention of the printing-press gave an instant, a formidable rival to the pulpit. It made possible that which had been impossible before in Christian Europe--direct communication between the government and the people without any religious intermedium, and was the first step in that important change subsequently carried out in America, the separation of Church and state. Though in this particular the effect was desirable, in another its advantages are doubtful, for the Church adhered to her ancient method when it had lost very much of its real force, and this even at the risk of falling into a lifeless and impa.s.sive condition.

[Sidenote: Influence of church services on the people.] And yet we must not undervalue the power once exercised on a non-reading community by oral and scenic teachings. What could better instruct it than a formal congregating of neighbourhoods together each Sabbath-day to listen in silence and without questioning? In those great churches, the architectural grandeur of which is still the admiration of our material age, nothing was wanting to impress the wors.h.i.+pper. The vast pile, with its turrets or spire pointing to heaven; its steep inclining roof; its walls, with niches and statues; its echoing belfry; its windows of exquisite hues and of every form, lancet, or wheel, or rose, through which stole in the many-coloured light; its chapels, with their pictured walls; its rows of slender, cl.u.s.tering columns, and arches tier upon tier; its many tapering pendants; the priest emerging from his scenic retreat; his chalice and forbidden wine; the covering paten, the cibory, and the pix. Amid clouds of incense from smoking censers, the blaze of lamps, and tapers, and branching candlesticks, the tinkling of silver bells, the play of jewelled vessels and gorgeous dresses of violet, green, and gold, banners and crosses were borne aloft through lines of kneeling wors.h.i.+ppers in processional services along the aisles. The chanting of litanies and psalms gave a foretaste of the melodies of heaven, and the voices of the choristers and sounds of the organ now thundered forth glory to G.o.d in the highest, now whispered to the broken in spirit peace.

[Sidenote: Influence of village churches.] If such were the influences in the cathedral, not less were those that gathered round the little village church. To the peasant it was endeared by the most touching incidents of his life. At its font his parents had given him his name; at its altar he had plighted his matrimonial vows; beneath the little gra.s.s mounds in its yard there awaited the resurrection those who had been untimely taken away. Connected thus with the profoundest and holiest sentiments of humanity, the pulpit was for instruction a sole and sufficient means. Nothing like it had existed in paganism. The irregular, ill-timed, occasional eloquence of the Greek republican orators cannot for an instant be set in comparison with such a steady and enduring systematic inst.i.tution.

In a temporal as well as in a spiritual sense, the public authorities appreciated its power. Queen Elizabeth was not the only sovereign who knew how to thunder through a thousand pulpits.

[Sidenote: The pulpit yields to the press.] For a length of time, as might have been expected, considering its power and favouring advent.i.tious circ.u.mstances, the pulpit maintained itself successfully against the press. Nevertheless, its eventual subordination was none the less sure. If there are disadvantages in the method of acquiring knowledge by reading, there are also signal advantages; for, though upon the printed page the silent letters are mute and unsustained by any scenic help, yet often--a wonderful contradiction--they pour forth emphatic eloquence, that can make the heart leap with emotion, or kindle on the cheek the blush of shame. The might of persuasiveness does not always lie in articulate speech. The strong are often the silent. G.o.d never speaks.

[Sidenote: Listening and reading.] There is another condition which gives to reading a great advantage over listening. In the affairs of life, how wide is the difference between having a thing done for us and doing it ourselves! In the latter case, how great is the interest awakened, how much more thorough the examination, how much more perfect the acquaintance. To listen implies merely a pa.s.sive frame of mind; to read, an active. But the latter is more n.o.ble.

[Sidenote: Decline of pulpit influence.] From these and other such considerations, it might have been foreseen that the printing-press would at last deprive the pulpit of its supremacy, making it become ineffective, or reducing it to an ancillary aid. It must have been clear that the time would arrive when, though adorned by the eloquence of great and good men, the sermon would lose its power for moving popular ma.s.ses or directing public thought.

[Sidenote: Newspapers; their origin.] Upon temporal as well as ecclesiastical authority, the influence of this great change was also felt. During the Turkish war of 1563 newspapers first made their appearance in Venice. They were in ma.n.u.script. The "Gazette de France"

commenced in 1631. There seems to be doubt as to the authenticity of the early English papers reputed to have been published during the excitement of the Spanish Armada, and of which copies remain in the British Museum. It was not until the civil wars that, under the names of Mercuries, Intelligences, etc., newspapers fairly established themselves in England.

[Sidenote: Decline of power in parliamentary eloquence.] What I have said respecting the influence of the press upon religious life applies substantially to civil life also. Oratory has sunk into a secondary position, being every day more and more thoroughly supplanted by journalism. No matter how excellent it may be in its sphere of action, it is essentially limited, and altogether incompetent to the influencing of ma.s.ses of men in the manner which our modern social system requires.

Without a newspaper, what would be the worth of the most eloquent parliamentary attempts? It is that which really makes them instruments of power, and gives to them political force, which takes them out of a little circle of cultivated auditors, and throws them broadcast over nations.

[Sidenote: Dawn of the Reformation.] Such was the literary condition of Western Europe, such the new power that had been found in the press.

These were but initiatory to the great drama now commencing. We have already seen that synchronously with this intellectual there was a moral impulse coming into play. The two were in harmony. At the time now occupying our attention there was a possibility for the moral impulse to act under several different forms. The special mode in which it came into effect was determined by the pecuniary necessities of Italy. It very soon, however, a.s.sumed larger proportions, and became what is known to us as the Reformation. The movement against Rome that had been abandoned for a century was now recommenced.

[Sidenote: Variation of human thought.] The variation of human thought proceeds in a continuous manner, new ideas springing out of old ones either as corrections or developments, but never spontaneously originating. With them, as with organic forms, each requires a germ, a seed. The intellectual phase of humanity observed at any moment is therefore an embodiment of many different things. It is connected with the past, is in unison with the present, and contains the embryo of the future.

Human opinions must hence, of absolute necessity, undergo transformation. What has been received by one generation as undoubted, to a subsequent one becomes so conspicuously fallacious as to excite the wonder of those who do not distinctly appreciate the law of psychical advance that it could ever have been received as true. These phases of transformation are not only related in a chronological way, so as to be obvious when we examine the ideas of society at epochs of a few years or of centuries apart--they exist also contemporaneously in different nations or in different social grades of the same nation, according as the cla.s.s of persons considered has made a greater or less intellectual progress.

[Sidenote: Variations in Italian ideas.] Notwithstanding the a.s.sertion of Rome, the essential ideas of the Italian system had undergone unavoidable modifications. An illiterate people, easily imposed upon, had accepted as true the a.s.severation that there had been no change even from the apostolic times. But the time had now come when that fiction could no longer be maintained, the divergence no longer concealed. In the new state of things, it was impossible that dogmas in absolute opposition to reason, such as that of transubstantiation, could any longer hold their ground. The scholastic theology and scholastic philosophy, though supported by the universities, had become obsolete.

With the revival of pure Latinity and the introduction of Greek, the foundations of a more correct criticism were laid. An age of erudition was unavoidable, in which whatever could not establish its claims against a searching examination must necessarily be overthrown.

[Sidenote: The Reformation: its history.] We are thus brought to the great movement known as the Reformation. The term is usually applied in reference to the Protestant nations, and therefore is not sufficiently comprehensive, for all Europe was in truth involved. A clear understanding of its origin, its process, its effects, is perhaps best obtained by an examination of the condition of the northern and southern nations, and the issue of the event in each respectively.

[Sidenote: The preparatory state of Germany, France, England.] Germany had always been sincere, and therefore always devout. Of her disposition she had given many proofs from the time when the Emperor Otho descended into Italy, his expedition having been, as was said, an armed procession of ecclesiastics resolved to abate the scandals of the Church. The Councils of Constance and Basle may be looked upon as an embodiment of the same sentiment. The resolution to limit the papal authority and to put a superior over the pope arose from a profound conviction of the necessity of such a measure. Those councils were precursors of the coming Reformation. In other countries events had long been tending in the same direction: in Sicily and Italy by the acts of Frederick II.; in France through those of Philip the Fair. The educated had been estranged by the Saracens and Jews; the enthusiastic by such works as the Everlasting Gospel; the devout had been shocked by the tale of the Templars and the detected immoralities in Rome; the patriotic had been alienated by the a.s.sumptions of the papal court and its incessant intermeddling in political affairs; the inferior, unreflecting orders were in all directions exasperated by its importunate, unceasing exactions of money. In England, for instance, though less advanced intellectually than the southern nations, the commencement of the Reformation is perhaps justly referred as far back as the reign of Edward III., who, under the suggestion of Wiclif, refused to do homage to the pope, but a series of weaker princes succeeding, it was not until Henry VII. that the movement could be continued. In that country the immediately exciting causes were no doubt of a material kind, such as the alleged avarice and impurity of the clergy, the immense amount of money taken from the realm, the intrusion of foreign ecclesiastics. In the South of France and in Italy, where the intellectual condition was much more advanced, the movement was correspondingly of a more intellectual kind. To this difference between the north and the south must be referred not only the striking geographical distribution of belief which was soon apparent, but also the speedy and abrupt limitation of the Reformation, restrictedly so called.

[Sidenote: The theory of supererogation,] In recent ages, under her financial pressure, Rome had a.s.serted that the infinite merits of our Saviour, together with the good works of supererogation of many holy men, const.i.tuted, as it were, a fund from which might be discharged penalties of sins of every kind, for the dead as well as the living, and therefore available for those who had pa.s.sed into Purgatory, as well as for us who remain. [Sidenote: and nature of indulgences.] This fund, committed to the care of St. Peter and his successors, may be disbursed, under the form of indulgences, by sale for money. A traffic in indulgences was thus carried on to a great extent through the medium of the monks, who received a commission upon the profits. Of course, it is plain that the religious conception of such a transaction is liable to adverse criticism--the bartering for money so holy a thing as the merit of our Redeemer. This was, however, only the ostensible explanation, which it was judged necessary to present to sincerely pious communities: behind it there lay the real reason, which was essentially of a political kind. It was absolutely necessary that papal Rome should control a revenue far beyond that arising in a strictly legitimate way.

As all the world had been drained of money by the senate and Caesars for the support of republican or imperial power, so too there was a need of a like supply for the use of the pontiffs. The collection of funds had often given rise to contentions between the ecclesiastical and temporal authorities, and in some of the more st.u.r.dy countries had been resolutely resisted. To collect a direct tax is often a troublesome affair; but such is human nature--a man from whom it might be difficult to extort the payment of an impost lawfully laid, will often cheerfully find means to purchase for himself indulgence for sin. In such a semi-barbarian but yet religious population as that with which the Church was dealing, it was quite clear that this manner of presenting things possessed singular advantages, an obvious equivalent being given for the money received. The indulgence implied not only a release from celestial, but also, in many cases, from civil penalties. It was an absolute guarantee from h.e.l.l.

[Sidenote: Martin Luther.] It is said that the attention of Martin Luther, formerly an Augustinian monk, was first attracted to this subject by the traffic having been conferred on the Dominicans instead of upon his own order at the time when Leo X. was raising funds by this means for building St. Peter's at Rome, A.D. 1517. That was probably only an insinuation of Luther's adversaries, and is very far from being borne out by his subsequent conduct. His first public movement was the putting forth of ninety-five theses against the practice. He posted them on the door of the cathedral of Wittenberg, and enforced them in his sermons, though at this time he professed obedience to the papal authority. With a rapidity probably unexpected by him, his acts excited public attention so strongly, that, though the pope was at first disposed to regard the whole affair as a mere monkish squabble for gains, it soon became obvious, from the manner in which the commotion was spreading, that something must be done to check it. The pope therefore summoned Luther to Rome to answer for himself; but through the influence of certain great personages, and receiving a submissive letter from the accused, he, on reconsideration, referred the matter to Cardinal Cajetan, his legate in Germany. The cardinal, on looking into the affair, ordered Luther to retract; and now came into prominence the mental qualities of this great man. Luther, with respectful firmness, refused; but remembering John Huss, and fearing that the imperial safe-conduct which had been given to him would be insufficient for his protection, he secretly returned to Wittenberg, having first, however, solemnly appealed from the pope, ill informed at the time, to the pope when he should have been better instructed. Thereupon he was condemned as a heretic. Undismayed, he continued to defend his opinions, but, finding himself in imminent danger, he fell upon the suggestion which, since the days of Philip the Fair, had been recognized as the true method of dealing with the papacy, and appealed to a general council as the true representative of the Church, and therefore superior to the pope, who is not infallible any more than St. Peter himself had been. To this denial of papal authority he soon added a dissent from the doctrines of purgatory, auricular confession, absolution. [Sidenote: The right of individual judgment a.s.serted.] It was now that the grand idea which had hitherto silently lain at the bottom of the whole movement emerged into prominence--the right of individual judgment--under the dogma that it is not papal authority which should be the guide of life, but the Bible, and that the Bible is to be interpreted by private judgment. Thus far it had been received that the Bible derives its authenticity and authority from the Church; now it was a.s.serted that the Church derives her authenticity and authority from the Bible. At this moment there was but one course for the Italian court to take with the audacious offender, for this new doctrine of the right of exercising private judgment in matters of faith was dangerous to the last extreme, and not to be tolerated for a moment. [Sidenote: Excommunication of Luther.] Luther was therefore ordered to recant, and to burn his own works, under penalty, if disobedient, of being excommunicated, and delivered over unto Satan. The bull thus issued directed all secular princes to seize his person and punish his crimes.

[Sidenote: He resists, and publicly burns the bull,] But Luther was not to be intimidated; nay, more, he retaliated. He denounced the pope, as Frederick and the Fratricelli had formerly done, as the Man of Sin, the Anti-Christ. He called upon all Christian princes to shake off his tyranny. In presence of a great concourse of applauding spectators, he committed the volumes of the canon law and the bull of excommunication to the flames. The pope now issued another bull expelling him from the Church. This was in January, 1521. This separation opened to Luther an unrestrained career. He forthwith proceeded to an examination of the Italian system of theology and policy, in which he was joined by many talented men who partic.i.p.ated in his views. The Emperor Charles V. found it necessary to use all his influence to check the spreading Reformation. But it was already too late, for Luther had obtained the firm support of many personages of influence, and his doctrines were finding defenders among some of the ablest men in Europe.

An imperial diet was therefore held at Worms, before which Luther, being summoned, appeared. But nothing could induce him to retract his opinions. An edict was published putting him under the ban of the empire; but the Elector of Saxony concealed him in the castle of Wartburg. [Sidenote: and the revolt spreads.] While he was in this retirement his doctrines were rapidly extending, the Augustinians of Wittenberg not hesitating to change the usages of the Church, abolis.h.i.+ng private ma.s.ses, and giving the cup as well as the bread to the laity.

[Sidenote: The Swiss Reformation. Zuinglius.] While Germany was agitated to her centre, a like revolt against Italian supremacy broke out in Switzerland. It too commenced on the question of indulgences, and found a leader in Zuinglius.

Even at this early period the inevitable course of events was beginning to be plainly displayed in sectarian decomposition; for, while the German and Swiss Reformers agreed in their relation toward the papal authority, they differed widely from each other on some important doctrinal points, more especially as to the nature of the Eucharist. The Germans supposed that the body and blood of Christ are actually present in the bread and wine in some mysterious way; the Swiss believed that those substances are only emblems or symbols. Both totally rejected the Italian doctrine of transubstantiation. The old ideas of Berengar were therefore again fermenting among men. An attempt was made, under the auspices of the Landgrave of Hesse, to compose the dissension in a conference at Marburg; but it was found, after a long disputation, that neither party would give up its views, and they therefore separated, as it was said, in Christian charity, but not in brotherhood.

At the first Diet of Spires, held in 1526, it was tried to procure the execution of the sentence pa.s.sed upon Luther, but the party of the Reformation proved to be too strong for the Catholics. At a second diet, held at the same place three years subsequently, it was resolved that no change should be made in the established religion before the action of a general council, which had been recommended by both diets, should be known. On this occasion the Catholic interest preponderated sufficiently to procure a revocation of the power which had been conceded to the princes of the empire of managing for a time the ecclesiastical matters of their own dominions. [Sidenote: The Protestants; origin of the name.]

Against this action several of the princes and cities _protested_, this being the origin of the designation Protestants subsequently given to the Reformers. At a diet held the following year at Augsburg, a statement, composed by Luther and Melanchthon, of the doctrines of the Reformers was presented; it also treated to some extent of the errors and superst.i.tions of the Catholics. This is what is known as the Confession of Augsburg. [Sidenote: Organization of the Reformation.] The diet however not only rejected it, but condemned most of its doctrines.

The Protestants, therefore, in an a.s.sembly at Smalcalde, contracted a treaty for their common defence, and this may be looked upon as the epoch of organization of the Reformation. This league did not include the Reformers of Switzerland, who could not conscientiously adopt the Confession of Augsburg, which was its essential basis. The Sacramentarians, as they were called, became thus politically divided from the Lutherans. Moreover, in Switzerland the process of decomposition went on, Calvin establis.h.i.+ng a new sect, characterized by the manner in which it insisted on the Augustinian doctrines of predestination and election, by the abolition of all festivals, and the discontinuance of Church ceremonies. At a later period the followers of Zuinglius and Calvin coalesced.

[Sidenote: Its culmination. Peace of Westphalia.] The political combinations which had thus occurred as Protestantism rapidly acquired temporal power gave rise, as might have been antic.i.p.ated, to wars. The peace of Augsburg, 1555, furnished the Reformers the substantial advantages they sought--freedom from Italian ecclesiastical authority, the right of all Germans to judge for themselves in matters of religion, equality in civil privileges for them and the Catholics. A second time, sixty-four years subsequently, war broke out--the Thirty Years' War--and finally the dispute was composed by the treaty of Westphalia. This may be regarded as the culmination of the Reformation. Peace was made in spite of all the intrigues and opposition of Rome.

[Sidenote: Extent of the movement.] The doctrines of the Reformation were adopted with singular avidity throughout the north of Europe, and established themselves for a time in France and in Italy. Even as early as 1558 a report of the Venetian amba.s.sador estimates the Catholics of the German empire at only one-tenth of the population. For twenty years not a student of the University of Vienna had become a priest.

[Sidenote: The revolt in Italy.] Such was the Reformation among the German nations. It is not possible, however, to comprehend correctly that great movement without understanding the course of events in Italy, for that peninsula was involved, though in a very different way. In its intellectual condition it was far in advance of the rest of Europe, as is proved by such facts as those to which we have alluded respecting the printing of books. Between it and the nations of which we have been speaking there was also a wide difference in material interests. What was extorted from them was enjoyed by it. The mental and material condition of Italy soon set a limit to the progress of the Reformation.

[Sidenote: Position of the Italians.] The Italians had long looked upon the transalpine nations with contempt. On the principle that the intellectually strong may lawfully prey on the intellectually weak, they had systematically drained them of their wealth. As we exchange with savages beads, and looking-gla.s.ses, and nails, for gold, they had driven a profitable barter with the valiant but illiterate barbarians, exchanging possessions in heaven for the wealth of the earth, and selling for money immunities or indulgences for sin. But in another respect they had looked upon them with dread--they had felt the edge of the French and German sword. The educated cla.s.ses, though seeking the widest liberty of thought for themselves, were not disposed to more than a very select propagandism of opinions, which plainly could only be detrimental to the pecuniary interests of their country. Their faith had long ago ceased to be that of conviction; it had become a mere outward patriotic acquiescence. Even those who were willing enough to indulge themselves in the utmost lat.i.tude of personal free-thinking never made an objection when some indiscreet zealot of their own kind was compelled by ecclesiastical pressure to flee beyond the Alps. No part of Europe was so full of irreligion as Italy. It amounted to a philosophical infidelity among the higher cla.s.ses; to Arianism among the middle and less instructed; to an utter carelessness, not even giving itself the trouble of disbelief, among the low. [Sidenote: State of their universities.] The universities and learned academies were hot-beds of heresy; thus the University of Padua was accused of having been for long a focus of atheism, and again and again learned academies, as those of Modena and Venice, had been suppressed for heresy. [Sidenote: State of the learned academies.] The device of the Academy of the Lyncei indicated only too plainly the spirit of these inst.i.tutions; it was a lynx, with its eyes turned upward to heaven, tearing the triple-headed Cerberus with its claws. Nor was this alarming condition restricted to Italy; France had long partic.i.p.ated in it. From the University of Paris, that watch-tower of the Church, the alarm had often been sounded; now it was against men, now against books. Once, under its suggestions, the reading of the physics and metaphysics of Aristotle had been prohibited, and works of philosophy interdicted until they should have been corrected by the theologians of the Church. The physical heresies of Galileo, the pantheism of Caesalpinus had friendly counterparts in France. Even the head of the Church, Leo X., at the beginning of the Reformation, could not escape obloquy, and stories were circulated touching his elevation to the pontificate at once prejudicial to his morals and to his belief.

[Sidenote: False position of the papacy.] In such an ominous condition, the necessity of carrying out the policy to which Italy had so long been committed perpetually forced the papal Government to acts against which the instructed judgment of its own officials revolted. It was a continual struggle between their duty and their disposition. Why should they have thought it expedient to suppress the Koran when it was printed in Venice, 1530? why, when Paul IV., 1559, promulgated the Index Expurgatorius of prohibited books, was it found necessary that not less than forty-eight editions of the Bible should be included in it, sixty-one printers put under the ban, and all their publications forbidden, at first the interdict being against all prohibited books, and, on this being found insufficient, even those that had not been permitted being prohibited? Why was it that Galileo was dealt with so considerately and yet so malignantly? It was plain that toleration, either of men or books, was altogether irreconcilable with the principles of the Holy See, and that under its stern exigencies the former must be disposed of, and the latter suppressed or burnt, no matter what personal inclinations or favouring sentiments might be in the way. If any faltering took place in the carrying out of this determination, the control of Rome over the human mind would be put into the most imminent jeopardy.

[Sidenote: Check of the Reformation in Italy.] So stood affairs in Italy at the beginning and during the active period of the Reformation, the ancient system inexorably pressing upon the leading men, and impelling them to acts against which their better judgment revolted. They were bound down to the interests of their country, those interests being interwoven with conditions which they could no longer intellectually accept. For men of this cla.s.s the German and Swiss reformations did not go far enough. They affirmed that things were left just as inconsistent, with reason, just as indefensible as before. Doubtless they considered that the paring away of the wors.h.i.+p of saints, of absolution for money, penances, indulgences, freedom from papal taxation, the repudiation of intrusive foreign ecclesiastics, was all to the detriment of the pecuniary interests of Italy. They affirmed that the doctrines put forth by the Reformers made good their ground, not through the force of reason, but through appeals to the ignorant, and even to women; not through an improved and sounder criticism, but, as it was declared, through the inward light of the Spirit; that nothing had been done to alleviate the ancient intolerant dogmatism, the forcible suppression of freedom of thought. [Sidenote: Leo X.; his character.] Leo X., it is well known, at first altogether mistook the nature of the Reformation.

He was a man of refined tastes and pleasure, delighting in sumptuous feasts, and too often scandalizing the devout by his indecent conversation and licentious conduct. He gloried in being the patron of the learned, devoting all his attention to the progress of literature and the fine arts, a connoisseur in antiques. The amenities of the life of an accomplished gentleman were not to be disturbed. He little dreamt that in the coa.r.s.e German monk there was an antagonist worthy of the papacy. The gay Italians looked upon Luther with ineffable contempt, as introducing ideas even more absurd than those he was trying to displace, and, what was perhaps a still greater offence, upholding his bad doctrines in worse Latin. They affected to believe that they discerned a taint of insanity in the Reformer's account of his conflicts with the Devil, yet were willing to concede that there was a method in his madness, since he was bent on having a wife. In their opinion, the result of the German movement must be exceedingly detrimental to learning, and necessarily lead to the production of very vulgar results, exciting among the common people a revolutionary and destructive spirit.

Nor was this personal distaste for Luther altogether undeserved. The caricatures which that great man permitted himself to put forth are too indelicate to be described to a modern reader. They would be worthy of our disgust and indignation did we not find some palliation in the coa.r.s.eness of the communities and times in which he lived. Leo awoke to his blunder when it was too late, and found that he had been superciliously sneering at what he should have combated with all his might.

[Sidenote: Check of the Reformation in Europe.] It is now more than three centuries since the Reformation commenced, and we are able, with some degree of accuracy, to ascertain its influence. Founded as it was on the right of private interpretation of the Scriptures, it introduced a better rule of life, and made a great advance towards intellectual liberty. It compelled men to be more moral, and permitted them to be more learned. For the traditions of superst.i.tion it subst.i.tuted the dictates of common sense; it put an end to the disgraceful miracles that for so many ages had been the scandal of Europe. The a.s.sertion of the Italians that it was a great injury to letters is untrue. Though not to be regarded in any respect as a learned man, Luther approved of the study of Greek and Hebrew, recognized by all parties to be dangerous to the Latin system. And even if the accusation be admitted that he approved of their cultivation, not from any love of them, but from hatred to it, the world was equally a gainer. Toward the close of his life it seemed as if there was no other prospect for papal power than total ruin: yet at this day, out of three hundred millions of Christians, more than half owe allegiance to Rome. Almost as if by enchantment the Reformation suddenly ceased to advance. Rome was not only able to check its spread, but even to gain back a portion of what she had lost. [Sidenote: Its causes were not supernatural.] The cause of this, which may seem at first an extraordinary result, is not to be attributed to any supernatural influence, as some have supposed. When natural causes suffice, it is needless to look for supernatural.

Though there might be sovereigns who, like Henry VIII., had personal reasons for discontent with the Italian court; though there were some who sought to usurp the power and prerogatives of the popes; though there might be n.o.bles who, as the Prince of Wales's tutor wrote to Sir W. Paget, were "importunate wolves, as are able to devour chantries, cathedral churches, universities, and a thousand times as much;" some who desired the plunder of establishments endowed by the piety of ages, and who therefore lent all their influence in behalf of this great revolution; there was among such and above such that small but all-important body of men who see human affairs from the most general point of view. [Sidenote: Influence of statesmen and philosophers.] To these, whatever might be the nation to which they happened to belong, it was perfectly evident that the decomposition of faith which had set in, if permitted to go on unchecked, could not possibly end in any other way than in producing an anarchy of sects. In their opinion, the German Reformation did not go far enough. It still practically left untouched the dependency of the Church upon the State. In the southern nations of the Continent it had merely irritated the great European ulcer, whereas what was required was the complete amputation of the rotten ma.s.s. In their judgment it was better to leave things as they were until a thorough eradication could be accomplished, and this, at the time, was obviously impossible. Not understanding, perhaps, how much human affairs are developed according to law, and how little by the volition of individuals, they liberally conceded that Catholicism had been the civilizing agency of Europe, and had become inwoven with the social fabric for good or for evil. It could not now be withdrawn without pulling the whole texture to pieces. Moreover, the curtain of papal authority, which at one time enveloped all Europe in its ample folds, had, in the course of these late events, been contracted and stretched across the Continent, dividing the northern and southern nations from each other. The people of the south saw on its embroidered surface nothing but forms of usefulness and beauty, they on the north a confusion of meaningless threads. But the few who considered it as a whole, and understood the relations of both sides, knew well enough that the one is the necessary incident of the other, and that it is quite as useless to seek for explanations as to justify appearances. To them it was perfectly clear that the tranquillity and happiness of Christendom were best subserved by giving no encouragement to opinions which had already occasioned so much trouble, and which seemed to contain in their very const.i.tution principles of social disorganization.

[Sidenote: Influence of the nature of the Reformation.] A reason for the sudden loss of expansive force in the Reformation is found in its own intrinsic nature. The principle of decomposition which it represented, and with which it was inextricably entangled, necessarily implied oppugnancy. For a short season the attention of Protestantism was altogether directed to the papal authority from which it had so recently separated itself; but, with its growing strength and ascertained independence, that object ceased to occupy it, becoming, as it were, more distant and more obscure. Upon the subordinate divisions which were springing from it, or which were of collateral descent from the original Catholic stock, the whole view of each denomination was concentrated.

The bitterness once directed against the papacy lost none of its intensity when pointed at rivals or enemies nearer home. Nor was it alone dissensions among the greater sects, oppositions such as those between the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, whose discords were founded on points admitted by all to be great and essential; the same principle ran down through all the modes of sectarian combination as they emerged into life, producing among those of equal power struggles, and in the strong toward the weak persecution. [Sidenote: Effect of sectarian disputes.] Very soon the process of decomposition had advanced to such an extent that minor sects came into existence on very unessential points. Yet even among these little bodies there was just as much acrimony, just as much hatred as among the great. These differences were carried into the affairs of civil life, each sect forming a society within itself, and abstaining, as far as might be, from a.s.sociations with its rivals. Of such a state of things the necessary result was weakness, and, had there been no other reason, this in itself would have been quite sufficient in the end to deprive Protestantism of its aggressive power. An army divided against itself is in no condition to make warfare against a watchful and vigorous enemy.

[Sidenote: Want of concentrated power.] But this was not all. It was in the nature of Protestantism from its outset that it was not constructive. Unlike its great antagonist, it contained no fundamental principle that could combine distant communities and foreign countries together. It originated in dissent, and was embodied by separation. It could not possess a concentrated power, nor recognize one apostolic man who might compress its disputes, harmonize its powers, wield it as a ma.s.s. For the attainment of his aims the Protestant had only wishes, the Catholic had a will. The Church of England, of Scotland, or of any other Protestant nation, undoubtedly did discharge its duty excellently well for the community in which it was placed, but, at the most, it was only a purely local inst.i.tution, altogether insignificant in comparison with that great old Church, h.o.a.ry and venerable with age, which had seen every government and every inst.i.tution in Europe come into existence, many of them at its bidding, which had extirpated paganism from the Roman empire, compelled the Caesars to obey its mandates, precipitated the whole white race upon the Holy Land--that great old Church, once the more than imperial sovereign of Christendom, and of which the most respectable national Church was only a fragment of a fragment.

[Sidenote: Condition of Catholicism.] Very different was it with Catholicism. It possessed an organization which concentrated in the hand of one man irresistible power, and included all the southern countries of Europe not Mohammedan. It could enforce its policy by the armies and fleets of obedient kings. It is not surprising, when this state of things is considered, that the spread of the Reformation was limited to its first fervour--that the men who saw its origin saw also its culmination. It is not to be wondered at that, with the political weakening arising from a tendency to subdivision and disintegration on one side, and the preparing of a complete and effective organization against the danger that was threatening on the other, the issue should have turned out as it did.

[Sidenote: The means of resistance resorted to by Rome.] Rome, awaking at last to her danger, met the Reformation with four weapons--a counter-reformation, an increased vigour in the Inquisition, the inst.i.tution of the Jesuits, and a greater embellishment of wors.h.i.+p. The disposition of the northern nations was to a simplification of wors.h.i.+p, that of the south to adorn it with whatever could captivate the senses.

Ranke a.s.serts that the composition of the ma.s.s of Marcellus by Palestrina, 1560, had a wonderful effect in the revival of religion; there can be no doubt that it const.i.tuted an epoch in devotion.

[Sidenote: A counter-reformation.] But of all these, the first and best was a moral change which she instantly imposed upon herself. Henceforth it was her intention that in the chair of St. Peter should never again be seen atheists, poisoners, thieves, murderers, blasphemers, adulterers, but men, who, if they were sometimes found, as must be the case, considering the infirmities of humanity, incompetent to deal with the great trials which often befell them, were yet of such personal purity, holiness of life, and uprightness of intention as to command profound respect. Those scandals that hitherto had everywhere disgraced her began to disappear, a true reformation, but not a schism, occurring through all ecclesiastical grades. Had Protestantism produced no other result than this, it would have been an unspeakable blessing to the world.

[Sidenote: The Inquisition brought into activity.] By another very different means the Italian power sought to insure its domination--by an increased activity of the Inquisition. It is difficult to understand how men of capacity could have justified this iniquitous inst.i.tution.

Certainly it could not have been upon any principles of Christian morality, nor even upon those of high statesmans.h.i.+p. For the Inquisition to accomplish its purpose, it must needs be as all-seeing as Providence, as inexorable as the grave; not inflicting punishments which the sufferer could remember, but remorselessly killing outright; not troubling itself to ascertain the merits of a case and giving the accused the benefit of a doubt, but regarding suspicion and certainty as the same thing. If worked with the unscrupulous, impa.s.sive resolution of Machiavellianism, this great engine for the coercion of the human mind could be made to accomplish its purpose. It thoroughly extinguished Protestantism in Spain and Italy, and in those countries maintained a barrier against the progressive reason of man.

[Sidenote: The Jesuits are established.] But the most effective weapon to which the papacy resorted was the inst.i.tution of the order of the Jesuits. This was established by a bull of Paul III., 1540, the rules being that the general, chosen for life, should be obeyed as G.o.d; that they should vow poverty, chast.i.ty, obedience, and go wherever they were commanded; their obedience was to the pope, not to the Church--a most politic distinction, for thereby an unmistakable responsibility was secured. They had no regular hours of prayer; their duties were preaching, the direction of consciences, education. By the Jesuits Rome penetrated into the remotest corners of the earth, established links of communication with her children who remained true to her in the heart of Protestant countries, and, with a far-seeing policy for the future, silently engrossed the education of the young. At the confessional she extorted from women the hidden secrets of their lives and those of their families, took the lead in devotion wherever there were pious men, and was equally foremost in the world of fas.h.i.+on and dissipation. [Sidenote: Their influence all over the world.] There was no guise under which the Jesuit might not be found--a barefoot beggar, clothed in rags; a learned professor, lecturing gratuitously to scientific audiences; a man of the world, living in profusion and princely extravagance; there have been Jesuits the wearers of crowns. There were no places into which they did not find their way: a visitor to one of the loyal old families of England could never be sure but that there was a Jesuit hidden in the garret or secreted behind the wainscot of the bedroom. They were the advisers of the leading men of the age, sat in the cabinets of kings, and were their confessors. They boasted that they were the link between religious opinion and literature. With implicit and unquestioning obedience to his superior, like a good soldier, it was the paramount duty of the Jesuit to obey his orders, whatever those orders might be.

It was for him to go, at the summons of a moment, with his life in his hand, to the very centre of pagan or of reformed and revolted countries, where his presence was death by law, and execute the mission intrusted to him. If he succeeded, it was well; if he should fall, it was also well. To him all things were proper for the sake of the Church. It was his business to consider how the affair he had in hand was to be most surely accomplished--to resort to justifiable means if they should appear sufficient, if not, to unjustifiable; to the spiritual weapon, but also to be prepared with the carnal; to sacrifice candour if the occasion should require, if necessary even truth, remembering that the end justifies the means, if that end is the good of the Church.

While some religious orders were founded on retirement, and aimed at personal improvement by solitude, the Jesuits were instructed to mix in the affairs of men, and gather experience in the ways of worldly wisdom.

And since it is the infirmity of humanity, whatever may be the vigour of its first intentions, too often to weary in well-doing, provision was made to re-enforce the zeal of those becoming lukewarm to admonish the delinquent, by making each a spy on all the others, under oath to reveal everything to his superior. In that manner a control was exercised over the brotherhood in all parts of the world. In Europe they had, in a very short time, stealthily but largely engrossed public education; had mixed themselves up with every public affair; were at the bottom of every intrigue, making their power felt through the control they exerted over sovereigns, ministers of state, and great court ladies, influencing the last through the spiritual means of the confessional, or by the more natural but equally effectual entanglements of requited love. Already they had recognized the agency of commerce in promoting and diffusing religious belief, and hence simultaneously became great missionaries and great merchants. With the Indies, East and West, they carried forward extensive commercial undertakings, and had depots in various parts of Europe. In these operations they were necessarily absolved from their vows of poverty, and became immensely rich. In South America they obtained a footing in Paraguay, and commenced their n.o.ble attempt at the civilization of the Indians, bringing them into communities, teaching them social usages, agricultural arts, and the benefits arising to themselves and the community from labour. They gave them a military organization, subdivided according to the European system, into the customary arms--infantry, cavalry, artillery; they supplied them with munitions of war. It was their hope that from this basis they should be able to spread the rule of the Church over America, as had been done in preceding ages over Europe.

[Sidenote: Causes of their suppression.] An intolerable apprehension of their invisible presence and unscrupulous agency made all Europe put them down at last. The amenities of exquisite courteousness, the artifices of infinite dissimulation, cannot for ever deceive. Men found, by bitter experience, that within the silken glove there was an iron hand. From their general in Rome, who was absolute commander of their persons and unchallengeable administrator of their prodigious wealth, down to the humblest missionary who was wearing away his life among the Andes, or on the banks of the Hoang-ho, or in the solitary prairies of Missouri, or under the blazing sun of Abyssinia--whether he was confessing the b.u.t.terfly ladies of Paris, whispering devilish suggestions into the ear of the King of Spain, consoling the dying peasant in an Irish cabin, arguing with mandarins in the palace of the Emperor of China, stealing away the hearts of the rising generation in the lower schools and academies, extorting the admiration of learned societies by the profundity of his philosophy and the brilliancy of his scientific discoveries--whether he was to be seen in the exchanges and marts of the great capitals, supervising commercial operations on a scale which up to that time had been attempted by none but the Jews--whether he was held in an English jail as a suspected vagabond, or sitting on the throne of France--whether he appeared as a great landed proprietor, the owner of countless leagues in the remote parts of India or South America, or whether he was mixing with crowds in the streets of London, and insinuating in Protestant ears the rights of subjects to oppose and even depose their monarchs, or in the villages of Castile and Leon, preaching before Catholic peasants the paramount duty of a good Christian implicitly to obey the mandates of his king--wherever the Jesuit was, or whatever he was doing, men universally felt that the thing he had in hand was only auxiliary to some higher, some hidden design. This stealth, and silence and power became at last so intolerable that the Jesuits were banished from France, Spain, Portugal, and other Catholic countries. But such was their vitality that, though the order was abolished by a papal bull in 1773, they have been again restored.

[Sidenote: Effects of change of opinion among the learned.] Though it is sometimes said that Rome in this manner, by her admirable combinations and irresistible movement, succeeded at last in checking the Reformation, a full consideration of the state of affairs would lead us to receive that a.s.sertion with very considerable restriction. She came out of the conflict much less powerful than she had entered it. If we attribute to her policy all that it can justly claim, we must also attribute to causes over which she had no kind of control their rightful influence. The Reformation had been, to no small extent, due to the rise of criticism, which still continued its development, and was still fruitful of results. Latin had fallen from its high estate; the modern languages were in all directions expanding and improving; the printing-press was not only giving Greek learning to the world, but countless translations and commentaries. The doctrine successfully established by Luther and his colleagues--the right of private interpretation and judgment--was the practical carrying out of the organic law of criticism to the highest affairs with which man can be concerned--affairs of religion. The Reformation itself, philosophically considered, really meant the casting off of authority, the installation of individual inquiry and personal opinion. [Sidenote: Effects of criticism on religion and literature.] If criticism, thus standing upon the basis of the Holy Scriptures, had not hesitated to apply itself to an examination of public faith, and, as the consequence thereof, had laid down new rules for morality and the guidance of life, it was not to be expected that it would hesitate to deal with minor things--that it would spare the philosophy, the policy, the literature of antiquity. And so, indeed, it went on, comparing cla.s.sical authors with cla.s.sical authors, the fathers with the fathers, often the same writer with himself. Contradictions were pointed out, errors exposed, weakness detected, and new views offered of almost everything within the range of literature.

[Sidenote: The Bible.] From this burning ordeal one book alone came out unscathed. It was the Bible. It spontaneously vindicated for itself what Wiclif in the former times, and Luther more lately, had claimed for it.

And not only did it hold its ground, but it truly became incalculably more powerful than ever it had been before. The press multiplied it in every language without end, until there was scarcely a cottage in reformed Europe that did not possess a copy.

But if criticism was thus the stimulating principle that had given life to the Reformation, it had no little to do with its pause; and this is the influence over which Rome had no kind of control, and to which I have made allusion. The phases through which the Reformation pa.s.sed were dependent on the coincident advances of learning. First it relied on the Scriptures, which were to the last its surest support; then it included the Fathers. [Sidenote: Decline of the value of patristic learning.]

But, from a more intimate study of the latter, many erudite Protestants were gradually brought back to the ancient fold. Among such may be mentioned Erasmus, who by degrees became alienated from the Reformers, and subsequently Grotius, the publication of whose treatise, "De jure belli et pacis," 1625, really const.i.tuted an epoch in the political system of Europe. This great man had gradually become averse to the Reformation, believing that, all things considered, it had done more harm than good; he had concluded that it was better to throw differences into oblivion for the sake of peace, and to enforce silence on one's own opinions, rather than to expect that the Church should be compelled to accommodate herself to them. If such men as Erasmus, Casaubon, and Grotius had been brought to this dilemma by their profound philosophical meditations, their conclusion was confirmed among the less reflecting by the unhappy intolerance of the new as well as the old Church. [Sidenote: Moral effects of persecutions.] Men asked what was the difference between the vindictiveness with which Rome dealt with Antonio de Dominis, at once an ecclesiastic and a natural philosopher, who, having gone over to Protestantism and then seceded, imprudently visited Rome, was there arrested, and dying, his body was dug up and burnt, and the rigour of Calvin, who seized Servetus, the author of the "Christianismi Rest.i.tutio," and in part the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, when he happened to pa.s.s through Geneva, and committed him to the flames.