A CATHOLIC REFORMATION-OVERCOMING SCANDALS. 49.

cept His truth, or to be governed by His commandments. He will compel none into heaven against their own free will, or without their own co-operation. Christ foretold that scandals should come, and we naturally look for them. What would have been thought of the disciple of Christ who should have abandoned His holy standard, and set up one in opposition, because of the scandal resulting, under the very eyes of Christ himself, from the treason of Judas? Would he have been viewed as a sound Protestant, or simply as an unreasoning madman?

To our minds, one of the most persuasive, if not strongest evidences that the Catholic Church is in reality the Church of Christ "the pillar and ground of the truth”—is precisely her continued triumph over accumulated scandals and abuses, which would have crushed any merely human institution. Had not the Church and the Papacy been divine in origin, and divine in energy, the torrent of evils which overflowed society in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries would have overwhelmed the former, and the Great Schism would have rnined the latter. That, under such circumstances, with the princes of the world so often arrayed against the Church, and the masses of the people stirred up everywhere by the storms of fanaticism-with almost all the elements of society seemingly ripe for revolt, and prepared to rush in determined unison to the attack, she should still have conquered, and not only conquered, but become even stronger after, and seemingly in consequence of having passed through disasters which are so frightful to contemplate, even after the lapse of nearly five centuries; this fact is, to our judgment, one of the most palpable and unanswerable arguments for establishing her superhuman origin, and her ever-enduring, because divine vitality. If the world, and the flesh, and the devil, all combined together, could have conquered her, they would surely have done so centuries ago.

In fact, the wonderful vitality of the Church was never perhaps more strikingly exhibited than it was precisely at the

VOL. I. -5

close of the Great Schism, in the first quarter of the fifteenth century. Then she put down the mischievous heresy of the Hussites, after having in the previous century put down the kindred or rather parent heresy of the Wickliffites or Lollards in England. Her triumph in the fourteenth century over the numerous fanatical sects, to which we have already alluded, though truly wonderful, happening as it did during the continuance of the Schism or immediately before, was almost as nothing compared with her triumph over the truculent Hussite system, which, if successful, would have destroyed both society and religion in Europe, and throughout the world. For this heresy was based on principles which were utterly subversive of all law and of all government; on principles which were not a mere speculation or destined to remain a dead letter. This is apparent from the civil wars which the Hussites stirred up throughout Bohemia, which covered that kingdom with ruins and stained its soil with the blood of its citizens, and which threatened to penetrate through Germany into Western Europe and to make the whole structure of European society a complete wreck. The fierce and truculent spirit of this pestilent heresy is embodied in the fearful bequest of the Hussite leader, Ziska, who, dying amidst bloody civil wars which he and his master had caused, left his skin to be used on a war drum, the very sound of which might frighten his enemies!†

* The most prominent and dangerous principle of the heresies of both Wickliffe and Huss was that which declared, that no man who was in the state of mortal sin had any right to hold office, to govern, or to require obedience from others, whether in Church or State. This principle plainly opened the door to anarchy, both civil and religious, and it was a direct encouragement and provocative to rebellion against constituted authority; for the rebel, whether in Church or State, had but to imagine and denounce his rulers as sinners before God-a very easy thing--and then his rebellion was fully justified.

We have elsewhere treated this subject at some length, in special essays on Huss and the Council of Constance. (Miscellanea.) We think that the

HOLINESS OF THE CHURCH-THE MONASTERIES.

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It is not to be supposed that during all these terrible struggles with the powers of the earth and the hosts of darkness, and all these lamentable scandals, the sanctity of the Church was impaired. Very far from it. On the contrary, perhaps at no period of her history, before or since, has the holiness of the Church shone forth with greater lustre. Those scandals were but the shadows which served to bring out more clearly and prominently the lights in the picture of her sanctity. Her heavenly splendor gleamed forth the more brilliantly, precisely in consequence of the surrounding darkness. Wo to the world, had that light been extinguished! Mankind would have been left in utter and hopeless darkness. During the very worst period of her history, while bloody commotions and turbulent heresy were threatening her from without, and protracted schism was dividing her strength from within, she manifested an energy and a holiness of purpose, which baffled her enemies, encouraged her friends, and proved to all her heavenly origin and divine power.

Notwithstanding scandals and defections from her ranks, the great body of the clergy and laity remained sound and faithful, even during the worst times. The Popes were far in advance of their age, and were, in general, men of pure lives and upright conduct in their public administration. The monasteries, as in previous ages, continued to be the retreat of learned and pious men, who, after having become thoroughly imbued with the spirit of God in holy solitude and contemplation, went forth from their retreats to instruct the people and to scatter among them that heavenly fire which

facts therein developed, fully refute the usual popular charges against the Council of Constance and the Catholic Church, and prove how pernicious and dangerous were the maxims promulgated by Huss, and sought by him and his disciples to be established by force. If Huss and Wickliffe were suitable forerunners of the German reformers, the latter certainly do not borrow any special lustre from the former. As we shall see, both sets of reformers were animated by the same unscrupulous and truculent spirit, and both succeeded in bringing about similar commotions in society.

was burning in their own hearts. As the candid Protestant, Dr. Maitland, well remarks:

"Monasteries were beyond all price in those days of misrule and turbulence, as places where (it may be imperfectly, but better than elsewhere) God was worshiped; as a quiet and religious refuge for helpless infancy and old age, a shelter of respectful sympathy for the orphan maiden and the desolate widow; as central points whence agriculture was to spread over bleak hills and barren downs and marshy plains, and deal bread to millions perishing with hunger and its pestilential train; as repositories of the learning which then was, and well-springs for the learning which was to be; as nurseries of art and science, giving the stimulus, the means, and the reward to invention, and aggregating around them every head that could devise and every hand that could execute; as the nucleus of the city, which, in after days of pride, should crown its palaces and bulwarks with the crowning cross of its cathedral. This, I think, no man can deny. I believe it is true, and I love to think of it. I hope that I see the good hand of God in it, and the visible trace of His mercy that is above all His works. But if it is only a dream, however grateful, I shall be glad to be awakened from it; not indeed by the yelling of illiterate agitators, but by a quiet and sober proof that I have misunderstood the matter. In the meantime, let me thankfully believe that thousands of persons at whom Robertson and Jortin, and other such very miserable second-hand writers have sneered, were men of enlarged minds, purified affections, and holy lives-that they were justly reverenced by men--and above all, favorably accepted by God, and distinguished by the highest honor which He vouchsafes to those whom He has called into existence, that of being the channels of His love and mercy to their fellowcreatures."**

In the learned work from which this is a quotation, Dr. Maitland, original documents in hand, scatters to the winds the injurious statements made by Dr. Robertson in his View of Europe introductory to his widely circulated and much read history of Charles V. He convicts the Scotch historian of grevious misstatement at almost every step. He shows

* The Dark Ages. A series of essays intended to illustrate the state of religion and literature in the ninth. tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. By the Rev. S. R. Maitland, D. D., F. R. S., and F. S. A., sometime librarian to the late Archbishp of Canterbury, and keeper of the MSS. at Lambeth. Third edition, London, 1853. Preface, iv, v.

DR. MAITLAND AND DR. ROBERTSON.

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also how Mosheim and McClaine, whom Robertson calls "his learned and judicious translator," were also guilty of frequent and unpardonable perversion and garbling of their authorities, which they nevertheless professed to quote from the original sources. The refutation is ample and it leaves nothing to be desired, so far as it goes. Our limits will not permit us to enter into many specifications; yet we can not help referring to his well-merited castigation of Roberston in reference to the quotation made by the latter from the well-known Homily on the duty of a Christian, by St. Eligius or St. Eloy, Bishop of Noyon, in France, in the seventh century. This is a pretty fair specimen of the manner in which "such miserable second-hand writers" as Robertson and his numerous copyists, are wont to deal with the facts of history, whenever the Catholic Church is concerned.

To prove his reckless assertion, that before the Reformation the whole duty of a Christian was regarded as being comprised in certain merely external observances, which "were either so unmeaning as to be altogether unworthy of the Being to whose honor they were consecrated, or so observed as to be a disgrace to reason and humanity," Dr. Robertson, following Mosheim, alleges the Homily of St. Eligius. He culls here and there from the homily such extracts as suit his purpose, wholly omitting others in the context itself which would have clearly proved the precise contrary of his proposition! Mosheim had given the original extract from the homily, with marks indicating that passages had been omitted; while in the version as given by Robertson all such indications are carefully removed. White, in the Brampton Lectures ascribed to him, "goes a step further, and prints the Latin text without any break or hint of omission;" while a previous writer-Jortin-had indicated in his translation but one out of at least seven such breaks in the text. Now what will be thought of Mosheim, Robertson, and all their imitators, when it appears from the original homily itself—a large portion of which is translated by Dr. Maitland-that the