"We earnestly entreat the royal majesty," wrote the illustrious abbot, "not to make war rashly, without first taking counsel from the archbishops and bishops, or the chief men of the state. Let there be delay, until you hear the advice of those who are sworn to advise and assist you with all their strength." The prince, says Vincent of Beauvais, ought to have peace with all foreign nations far and near; nor ever ought he to make war, not even when they provoke it, unless through necessity, and for some very arduous cause. He ought carefully to consider what are the evils of war,-what perils to the commonwealth, -what troubles of mind,-what oppressions of the poor,-what destruction of goods,-devastation of vines and corn,-conflagration of towns, slaughter of men,-rancour and enmities in their train,—and the loss of souls innumerable. In conformity with those views, says M. de Bonald,* the military service of nobles was on horseback,-defensive rather than offensive. Society endeavoured to preserve what was its own, not to extend it. Cavalry is peculiarly well-fitted for domestic defence, and peculiarly unfitted for aggressive expeditions. As soon as the Paganism of Rome had been revived in Europe under the names of the new learning, says Mr. Digby, the infantry of Rome, that invincible instrument of aggression, revived with it. Uncontrolled by religious principles, such a force is full of danger for mankind, as late events have sufficiently well proved. Every possible impediment to foreign expeditions was used by the legislators of the Middle Age. There were territorial exemptions, temporary exemptions, professional exemptions, exemptions of sex, age, rank, employment, and devotion; many of these rendered men absolutely ineligible for military service. "Let clerks, monks, convertites, strangers, women, and those who be long to them or in their company, be in perpetual peace. Let flocks, herds, husbandmen, dressers of vines and merchants, be always at peace, independently of what is called the Truce of God." Such were the precepts of the Council of Rheims in the twelfth century. Other exemptions are enumerated in the 'Arbre des Batailles.' It is made the matter of Stephen Pasquier's boast in the sixteenth century,† that, while the old Gauls reckoned from one to two hundred thousand men in their armies, the kings of France, in his days, could sooner raise two hundred thousand men of learning, than thirty thousand men of arms. It was to this strong repugnance to war in any shape, and more especially to foreign war, that the solemnities which preceded the commencement of hostilities owed their origin. Ample notice was to be inti† Récherches de la France, vol. i. c. 3.

* Legislation Primitive, ii. 4.

mated to the enemy of all the terms on which peace might be maintained unbroken, and of all the laws which would be enforced against him in the event of refusal. This was the Declaration of War,-a ceremonial which is now lightly disregarded, by those who have lost its meaning.

When the cupidity or ambition of the sovereign blinded his judgment, and urged him to forget these wholesome restraints upon rashness, there was among the people of the Middle Age sufficient fortitude to resist the untoward impulse. In 1315, those of Champagne objected to their monarch, that he had not the right to lead them to war beyond their province. In the next century, those of England similarly upheld their ancient immunity from the maintaining their own king's foreign wars.* Even so late as 1655, and notwithstanding the ascendancy of Erastianism on the one hand, and Puritanism on the other, an event occurred to show that, even in England, the traditions of ages of faith were not wholly lost. In that year, England, without declaration of war, commenced hostilities against Spain by an expedition to St. Domingo and Jamaica. This was considered so unjustifiable, that several officers threw up their commissions, protesting that they would not serve in a cause that was unjust.+ The Catholic religion has decided, that no kind of life is more flagitious than that of men, who fight merely for pay, without respect to the justice of the cause in which they fight. Ibi fas, ubi plurima merces, was not the doctrine of former days. The language of the Church would then have been considered quite good enough by diplomatists. Her practical maxims were adopted, as Mr. Digby observes, by rulers and statesmen, and by all writers, whose works were invested with a political and positive character.

On their side, the pontiffs of the Church knew that, by their office, they had undertaken to provide for the peace and tranquillity of the Churches, and were therefore bound to watch with anxiety, and to investigate, wherever there was known to be any matter of disturbance. In the reign of our lion-hearted Richard, it was thought a sufficient justification of the archbishop of Canterbury for his absence from his see, that he was occupied in making peace between his sovereign and the king of France. If peace was made at Runnimede between the king and barons, it was due to Archbishop Langton's intervention there. Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury in king Richard's days, deserved to be styled "a bridle unto the king and obstacle of ty

* Report of the E. I. Committee, &c. p. 86.

† Ibid. p. 61. Major Cartwright did the same in the first American war.

ranny, and the peace and comfort of his people." When St. Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, was sent ambassador to treat of peace with Philip Augustus, he astonished the most skilful diplomatists of the time with his talent in negociation. He had learned, in the solitude of the cloister, the noble art, which now enabled him to make peace between the kings. He died in London, in the midst of his labours to reconcile England with France, and procure peace for the people of those countries. The battle of Tenchebrai would not have been fought, could the voice of the monks have found listeners. The hermit Vital, more ardent than the rest (says Orderic), boldly forbad king Henry to come to extremities with his brother, duke Robert, "lest one should see revived the hateful crime of the sons of Edipus." St. Lawrence, archbishop of Dublin, was more fortunate with one of that king's successors. The tributary king of Ireland had offended Henry the Second, and the archbishop hastened to London, to effect a peace. Henry rejecting his prayer, sailed for Normandy, whither the holy prelate followed him, to renew his intercessions. Mollified at length, the king consented. Returning from this mission of peace, the Saint had reached Eu, when he was seized with a mortal sickness, and he finished his glorious career in the convent of Our Lady in that city. During the wars of the English in France, the endeavours of the Sovereign Pontiff and his legates to bring the competitors to an accommodation, were incessant. Chateaubriand has beautifully observed, "How lovely it is to see those men of mercy following everywhere the men of blood, endeavouring to make them lay down their arms,—imploring before the battle, weeping after it,—always rejected, never weary, doves of peace, wandering from battle-field to battle-field with vultures."* The Cardinal de Périgord, the Papal legate, heroically but fruitlessly exerted himself to stop the battle of Poitiers. The truce that followed the battle of Cressi was due to the direct interference of the Pope himself. Afterwards, at two separate periods, the Cardinals d'Estouteville and Ursini were commissioned by the Holy See to make peace between the same parties; and the character of these legates agreed well with their office. The Mores Catholici abounds with such examples. Those who presided over the earthly destinies of the Church, knew well their mission, and were true to it. From the moment when, under St. Gregory the Great, the commonwealth of Christendom became consolidated, Europe, with rare exceptions, could, in each succeeding pontiff, point out a zealous peacemaker.

"Albeit unworthy, we hold the place of Him on earth," said

*Discours Hist. iv. 60.

Innocent III, "who hateth discord." "We are chosen," said Nicholas I, in 861, "to that See, which is known to be a lover of justice, and kindness, and peace." "The Father of the World to come," said Martin I to the Sicilian king, "the Prince of Peace, who by His inscrutable condescension hath granted the vicarial office unto our humility, hath inspired us with the wish to diffuse with our whole strength, amongst the children of our Holy Mother the Church, the good of peace." Filled with the spirit of that mission, the pontiffs left no means untried, that promised its accomplishment. If the timid were encouraged, or the weak assisted, the obdurate were coerced by the two-edged sword of Peter, that those whom their rebellion had scandalised might in their turn be edified by the rigour of the Church's justice.

How these holy pontiffs dealt with the transgressors and the violent, who delighted in unjust warfare, and would none of their reproof, we may learn from the rescript which pope Adrian addressed to the counts, and other faithful men, in the kingdoms of Charles and Lothaire : "Since, by a contention of this kind, it often happens, that there is shedding of blood, we judge it right to provide, lest such a wickedness should arrive in our times. Therefore, wishing peace, and not war,for the Psalmist says to the Lord, Dissipa gentes quæ bella volunt,'do you, if possible, make peace between them; but if you cannot, at

least refrain from war:-dissipate battles. Otherwise, if any of you

move against Carolomann, and by your means there should follow a shedding of the blood of the faithful, let him know, that not only shall he be bound with the ties of excommunication, but also consigned to associate with Satan in the chains of anathema." There was little chance of moving some princes to peaceful counsels, unless stunned by the distant thunders of the curse. 66 'I am going to the king, after my fatiguing journey," said Peter of Blois in his letter to the bishop of Rochester, "and I have anything but rest to expect from him." But the frowns of the earthly sovereign had no terrors for this subject of the King of kings. A remarkable instance is mentioned by Cæsar of Heisterbach. An English bishop was recommended in his last hours to confess. On being urged a good deal about it, he at last said to his advisers, "You foolish men, do you think that I have deferred confession to this moment?" Being probably imbued, in part, with the impression that is now-a-days paramount, that religion has nothing to do with politics, they replied, "But your lordship was always occupied in the king's council." "But in no other sense," answered the holy man, "than as Christ himself appeared before Pilate." And, in fact, he had been in the habit of confessing daily. Happy those sovereigns

who gave ear to such counsellors! Happy they who, with Henry VII of Germany, could call GOD to witness, in the presence of their camps, that no glory of the world or worldly lust had led them forth to warfare! "If I look upwards," that sovereign might truly say, "I see my teacher, GOD; if downwards, his vicegerent, the Pope. By these guides I am led ;—who is against me ?"* The times have not improved, since these guides were given up, and in their place the balance of power, and the adjustments of nationality, and egotism, were substituted. There was a legatine ordinance, which England, Scotland, and Ireland, once thought it no shame to put in practice. Every year, on the day after the octave of Pentecost, there was throughout those three realms a great and solemn procession of the faithful, in which GOD was thanked for the return of tranquillity and comfort, and besought to make those blessings permanent amongst us. Have the times mended since those processions were laid aside?

These are times of isolation and mutual distrust. Political diplomacy, abandoning those grounds of peace which were laid by the hands of love in the Ages of Faith, have sought for them where they are not -in cupidity and self-interest. The pretended equilibrium of population and territory is the only adjustment of which the sovereigns of modern Europe, those arpenteurs de terre, as the Comte de Mérode most happily termed them,-seem to consider themselves capable. They watch one another, says Mr. Digby, with a jealous eye, having that kind of mutual esteem and confidence which exist among the lesser potentates, who upon the highway carry on a species of warfare, inferior perhaps to their own, but every whit as legitimate. To the old Catholic arguments in behalf of the interests of peace, humanity, and justice, their standing answer might be given in the words of Northumberland: "That were some love, but little policy." And why

is this? It is because the bond of union which made of the nations of Europe one commonwealth, one Christendom, is no more! Religion has given way, sectarianism has supplanted her. The moderns have embraced the old heathen doctrine of the nationality of creeds and rituals. Their so-called patriotism, says Mr. Digby, derives strength from their so-called religion, and the latter becomes as exclusive as the former. Hence the social state, which the ages of faith viewed only as the means of life, becomes to the moderns what it was to the Gentiles, -the end and aim thereof. The limits of territory are again, as in heathen times, the limits of religious obligation.† And, because the ver+ Ibid. pp. 274-8.

*Mores Catholici, book ix. pp. 378-403.