former age. Her acquisitions in the new world have more than compensated for what she has lost in the old. Her spiritual ascendancy extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn,-countries which, a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than 150,000,000; and it will be difficult to shew that all the other Christian sects united amount to 120,000,000. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot in Britain-before the Frank had passed the Rhine-when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch-when idols were still worshipped in the Temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand upon a broken arch of London Bridge, to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's." (Edinburgh Review, October 1840, pp. 227, 8.)

Again, at the close of the same article (on Ranke's Popes) occurs the following remarkable passage: "It is not strange that, in the year 1799, even sagacious observers should have thought that at length the hour of the Church of Rome was come. An infidel power ascendant-the Pope dying in captivity-the most illustrious prelates of France living in a foreign country on Protestant alms-the noblest edifices, which the munificence of former ages had consecrated to the worship of God, turned into temples of victory, or into banqueting-houses for political societies, or into theophilanthropic chapels ;-such signs might well be supposed to indicate the approaching end of that long domination.

Anarchy had its day. A new dynasties, new laws, new titles; The Arabs have a fable that the

"But the end was not yet. Again doomed to death, the milk-white hind was still fated not to die. Even before the funeral rites had been performed over the ashes of Pius VI., a great reaction had commenced, which, after the lapse of more than forty years, appears to be still in progress. order of things rose out of the confusion-new and amidst them emerged the ancient religion. great Pyramid was built by antediluvian kings, and alone, of all the works of men, bore the weight of the flood. Such as this was the fate of the Papacy. It had been buried under the great inundation; but its deep foundations had remained unshaken; and when the waters abated, it appeared alone amidst the ruins of a world which had passed away. The Republic of Holland was gone, and the Empire of Germany, and the great Council of Venice, and the old Helvetian League, and the House of Bourbon, and the Parliaments and Aristocracy of France. Europe was full of young creations-a French Empire, a Kingdom of Italy, a Confederation of the Rhine. Nor had the late events affected only territorial limits and political institutions. The distribution of property, the composition and spirit of society,

had, through great part of Catholic Europe, undergone a complete change; but the unchangeable Church was still there.

"Some future historian, as able and temperate as Professor Ranke, will, we hope, trace the progress of the Catholic revival of the nineteenth century. We feel that we are drawing too near our own time, and that if we go on, we shall be in danger of saying much which may be supposed to indicate, and which will certainly excite, angry feelings. We will, therefore, make only one observation, which, in our opinion, is deserving of serious attention.

"During the eighteenth century the influence of the Church of Rome was constantly on the decline. Unbelief made extensive conquests in all the Catholic countries of Europe, and in some countries obtained a complete ascendancy. The Papacy was at length brought so low, as to be an object of derision to infidels, and of pity rather than of hatred to Protestants. During the nineteenth century this fallen Church has been gradually rising from her depressed state, and reconquering her old dominion. No person who calmly reflects on what, within the last few years, has passed in Spain, in Italy, in South America, in Ireland, in the Netherlands, in Prussia, even in France, can doubt that her power over the hearts and minds of men is now greater than it was when the Encyclopædia and the Philosophical Dictionary appeared. It is surely remarkable that neither the moral revolution of the eighteenth century, nor the moral counter-revolution of the nineteenth, should in any perceptible degree have added to the domain of Protestantism. During the former period, whatever was lost to Catholicism was lost also to Christianity; during the latter, whatever was regained by Christianity in Catholic countries was regained also by Catholicism. We should naturally have expected that many minds, on the way from superstition to infidelity, or on the way back from infidelity to superstition, would have stopped at an intermediate point. Between the doctrines taught in the schools of the Jesuits and those which were maintained at the little supper-parties of the Baron Holbach there is a vast interval, in which the human mind, it should seem, might find for itself some resting-place more satisfactory than either of the two extremes, and at the time. of the Reformation millions found such a resting-place. Whole nations then renounced Popery, without ceasing to believe in a First Cause, in a future life, or in the divine authority of Christianity. In the last century, on the other hand, when a Catholic renounced his belief in the real presence, it was a thousand to one that he renounced his belief in the gospel too; and when the reaction took place, with belief in the gospel came back belief in the real presence.

"We by no means venture to deduce from these phenomena any general law ; but we think it a most remarkable fact, that no Christian nation which did not adopt the principles of the Reformation before the end of the sixteenth century should ever have adopted them. Catholic communities have, since that time, become infidel, and Catholic again; but none has become Protestant." (ld. pp. 257, 8.)

As I knew of no work in our language giving the Catholic view of the effects

of our Church upon the civilisation of Europe, from the commencement of Christianity down to the present time, I undertook the translation of this, in order that the English public might have an opportunity of seeing them represented in their true colours. Both Catholics and Protestants, I think, will be interested in such an inquiry. The author had two objects in view: 1st, to shew the beneficial effects of the Church of Rome on the civilisation of Europe; and 2d, to shew the injurious effects thereon of the principle of Protestantism, that is, the principle of private judgment in matters of faith as opposed to Church authority. He does not say that nothing has been done for civilisation by Protestants, but he does say that Protestantism has not been favourable to it; and I beg the reader to mark well this distinction, for it is a point which has been much misunderstood. The advocates of the Reformation tell us of what has been done in the way of improvement since that time, and then say that it is owing to that event. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. This is false reasoning. We must trace events to their causes more accurately than this. But it is unnecessary for me to repeat what the reader will find so well pointed out by Balmez. Our author, moreover, does not stop here; for he not only shews that no good effects flowed from the proclamation of the principle of private judgment and the destruction of authority, but he goes further, and shews their injurious consequences.

The reader is requested to bear in mind that the author was a native of Spain, and therefore he must not be surprised to find much that relates more particularly to that country. In fact, the fear that Protestantism might be introduced there seems to have been the motive which induced him to undertake the work. He was evidently a man of strong national as well as religious feeling, and he dreaded its introduction both politically and religiously, as he considered that it would be injurious to his country in both points of view. He thought that it would destroy the national unity, as it certainly did in other countries.

A very interesting part of the work is that where he states the relations of religion and political freedom; shews that Catholicity is by no means adverse to the latter, but, on the contrary, highly favourable to it; and proves by extracts from St. Thomas Aquinas and other great Catholic divines, that they entertained the most enlightened political views. On the other hand, he shews that Protestantism was unfavourable to civil liberty, as is evidenced by the fact, that arbitrary power made great progress in various countries of Europe soon after its appearance. The reason of this was, that the moral control of religion being taken away, physical restraint became the more necessary.

Our author has described the effects of the monastic system on civilisationa system which our Protestant brethren have been taught to look upon as superstitious; but if they will examine the facts, they will find, to use the eloquent words of Dr. Gillis of Edinburgh, "that it was the superstition that considered the lilies of the field how they grew, and became not solicitous how it should be fed, or how it should be clothed; the superstition that broke

bread in the wilderness to the way-worn pilgrim, and spread a kindly shelter over his wearied and now resting head;-the superstition before whose children the glories of Carthage are eclipsed; for Carthage only crossed the Alpine steeps, while they still dwell within those highest worlds of snow, training, as it were, to a rational service in the cause of helpless humanity, the very brute creation, and making modern travellers covet the honour of a remembrance within the monastic registers of Mount St. Cenis, Mount St. Gothard, or the great St. Bernard ;-the superstition that plunges still into the mines of Mexico and Peru, builds hospitals for the plague in the very bowels of the earth, and teaches the disciples of Peter of Betancourt thus to give expression to their vows: I make a vow of poverty, chastity, and hospitality, and bind myself to attend the sick who are poor, although they may be infidels, and attacked with contagious disorders;'-the superstition that picked up little forlorn infants, and gave a parent to every orphan and abandoned child; the superstition that taught the maiden of high degree how favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain,' and sent her not unfrequently, in search of better praise, to the poor man's hovel, to watch there beside the bed of wretchedness, and turn its pillow-nay, to go live and die amid the infected atmosphere of public hospitals, and add new grace to the habits of her gentle training by ministering there more angel-like to the wants and sufferings of her more rough-cast fellow-creatures ;-the superstition that prayed, in its protracted vigils, to win the sinner back to virtue-that fasted to feed the hungry at its gate-that sold itself to redeem the captive, and teach Europe how in time to break the chains of slavery; -the superstition that crossed the seas, as they do who go in search of gold, to plead before kings the cause of justice and humanity, and claim redress for their lost-sight-of and down-trodden subjects—that followed savages to their foresthomes, to live with wild beasts, and share the hardships of untutored natureeating of its bread and drinking of its cup-only that it might point out every where the way to heaven;-the superstition that gave readily its very blood to prove the truth of its own testimony-that told martyrs how to die, and Christians how to live the crucified life of a St. Paul;-the superstition that deemed its cloisters as castles without an armoury when unprovided with books,' claustrum sine armario, quasi castrum sine armentario-that reared the wondrous structure of Benedictine learning, and created anew the literature of a bygone world within the solitudes of St. Maur;-the superstition that taught Dominic de Gusman and Francis of Assisium how to revel in deeds of evangelic heroism, and stamp their names upon a century—that took Ignatius from the breach of Pampeluna's walls, to make him the father of that mighty race, which, if it could boast of Xavier only, would have given Christendom, as it were, a thirteenth apostle-that disciplined the schools of Europe, created Paraguay, and still reaps the fruit of its great parent's prayer, that it might never fail to suffer persecution;-the superstition that invented chivalry, and, in the first days of distant travel throughout the troubled East, guarded, nay made, the public roads of Catholic Europe, and was ignorant

of nothing but of charging for its labour, or of enforcing Christian charity through human legislation;-the superstition, in fine, whose last brilliant gift to the world was the holy and enlightened sovereign who lately filled so worthily the chair of St. Peter, and whose crosiered sceptre was oft stretched in mercy to the oppressed, but never lowered before the mightiest of earthly kings."-("The orders here alluded to," says Dr. Gillis, "are, the Maronite monks of Mount Libanus, the monks of St. Bernard, of Menthon, and of St. Francis, the monks of St. Peter of Betancourt, the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, the very many orders of Hospitaliers, the Contemplative Orders, the Trinitarians, and the Order of Mercy for the Redemption of Captives; all the orders that had missions-the Order of St. Benedict, the Order of St. Dominic, the Order of St. Francis, and all its branches; the Society of Jesus, the Teutonic Knights, the Knights of Malta, &c. &c., the Brothers Pontifices,' or Bridge-builders, the Camaldolese branch of the Benedictine Order, to which his late Holiness belonged.")

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As a sequel to this volume, I intend to publish a translation of F. Hurter's "Institutions of the Church in the Middle Ages," being a portion of his great work on the Life and Times of Innocent III. This will shew more in detail than could be done in this volume (which takes so wide a range) the effects of Catholicity on the civilisation of Europe during the middle ages.

WOOLLASHALL, April 3, 1849.

C. J. HANFORD.

"The great reputation which Dr. Balmez enjoys in his own country, and which will rapidly extend over Europe, began with a brochure on the property of the clergy. This work appeared at the time when, in the Cortes, before the revolution of September 1840, the fate of religious communities and the patrimony of the churches were in agitation. Although published in a small town in Catalonia, it made a sensation in Madrid. But this was but a portion of the great ideas which were in agitation in the soul of this young writer; it was only a point in the vast extent of things and times which he had silently surveyed in long study and deep meditation. He published another brochure on the condition of Spain; he wrote in periodicals; edited a Review at Barcelona; and now the religious press of Madrid finds in him its most eloquent organ. The intellectual movement which is at this moment going on in Spain, especially regarded in a Catholic point of view, presents a picture highly worthy of attention, and the different labours of M. Balmez would afford the subject of a special examination; but his great work on Civilisation must now engage our attention.

"At the time when he viewed with joy the progress of Catholicity in several countries of Europe, interested attempts were made to introduce the Protestant religion into the bosom of his own country, to deprive that people, already labour