of these scenes, "loves his son, the duke, and stands in great dread of him." Cæsar was the handsomest and strongest man of his age. At a bull-fight he could easily make six wild bulls fall under the blows he struck. Not a morning passed at Rome but some one was found assassinated during the night, and poison consumed those whom the dagger failed to reach. People durst hardly move or breathe in Rome, each trembling lest his turn should be next. Cæsar Borgia was the very hero of crime. The spot on earth's surface where iniquity went to such a height, was no other than the throne of the pontiffs; and no wonder, for when man once gives himself up to the powers of evil, the more he affects to rise in the sight of God, the deeper does he plunge himself in the gulph of hell. It is impossible to describe the immoral festivities with which the pope, his son Cæsar, and his daughter Lucretia, indulged themselves; and no one can contemplate them but with horror. of antiquity perhaps never saw the like. accused Alexander and Lucretia of incest, charge seems wanting. The pope's death was extraordinary. He had ordered poison to be prepared in a box of sweetmeats for one of the cardinals who was to have had it served to him at the close of a sumptuous supper, but this intended victim had gained over the steward, and the drugged comfits were placed before Alexander himself, who ate of them and died.1 "The whole city ran together, and gloated with delight on this dead viper." 2 Such was the man who filled the papal see at the commencement of the century in which the Reformation burst forth.

The very groves Historians have but proof of this

Thus had the clergy lowered both the reputation of religion and their own; and thus might a powerful voice well exclaim, "The ecclesiastical state is opposed to God and his glory. This the people well know, and it is too well proved by so many songs, proverbs, and sneers, at the expense of the priests, now passing current among the common people, as well as by the caricatures of monks and priests to be seen on all the walls, and even on playing cards; not a man but feels disgust when he sees or hears a clergyman approaching." These are Luther's words. 3

.

E messe la scutola venenata avante il papa. (Sanuto.)

2 Gordon, Tomasì Infessura, Guicciardini, &c.

3 Da man an alle Wände, auf allerley Zeddel, zuletzt auch auf den Kartenspielen, Pfaffen und Münche malete. (L. Epp. ii. 674.)

The evil spread throughout all ranks: an erroneous specific had been sent abroad among men; corruption of morals answered to the corruption of doctrine; a mystery of iniquity weighed heavily on the enslaved Church of Jesus Christ.

Yet another consequence necessarily flowed from the neglect into which the fundamental doctrine of the gospel had fallen. Men's minds grew dark as their hearts became depraved. When the priests reserved to themselves the distribution of a salvation which belonged to none but God, they seemed by that alone to have acquired a sufficient title to popular respect. What need had they to study sacred literature? Their business now was, not to explain the Scriptures but to grant diplomas of indulgence; and for this, the painful acquisition of much learning was altogether unnecessary.

In the country parts, says Wimpheling, preachers were chosen from among wretched creatures, originally brought up as beggars, and who had been cooks, musicians, gamekeepers, stable boys, and even worse.1

Nay, the very higher clergy were often sunk in grievous ignorance. A bishop of Dunfield congratulated himself on his never having learned Greek or Hebrew; and the monks pretended that these two languages, but especially Greek, were the source of all heresies. "The New Testament," said one of them, " is a book full of snakes and thorns. Greek," he goes on to say, "is a new language, of late invention, and of which a man needs be well on his guard. As for Hebrew, my dear brethren, it is certain that all who learn it become Jews." We have this on the authority of Heresbach, the friend of Erasmus and a respectable writer. Thomas Linacer, though a learned and celebrated clergyman, never had read the New Testament. At the close of his life (in 1524) he made a copy be brought to him, but immediately tossed it from him with an oath, because on opening it, his eye had fallen on these words: "But I say unto you, Swear not at all." Now he happened to be a great swearer. "Either," says he, "this is not the gospel, or we are not Christians."2

The very

theological faculty at Paris was not then afraid to say before the parliament, “It is all over with religion if leave be given to study Greek and Hebrew."

1

Apologia pro Rep. Christi.

2 Müller's Relig. vol. iii. p. 253.

Whatever accomplishments might here and there be found among the clergy, proficiency in sacred literature was not one of them. The Ciceronians, as the admirers of Cicero were called in Italy, affected to sneer at the Bible on account of its style; and men who held themselves out as priests of the church of Jesus Christ, translated the writings of holy men, inspired by the Spirit of God, into the style of Virgil and Horace, in order that they might not offend the ears of good society. For example, cardinal Bembo for Holy Ghost writes breath of the celestial Zephyr; for to remit sins, to bend the manes and the sovereign gods, and instead of Christ, Son of God, Minerva come forth from the forehead of Jupiter. Finding that respectable scholar, Sadolet, engaged in translating the epistle to the Romans: "leave off such childish work," said he to him, "such fooleries are unbecoming a man of sense." 1

Such were some of the consequences of the system under which Christendom lay oppressed. The picture which they present, no doubt, makes the corruption of the Church and the necessity for a reformation evident, being the conclusion which we intended in sketching it. The vital doctrines of Christianity had entirely disappeared, and with them had departed that life and that light which are the very essence of the religion of God. The Church, as a body, had lost its vital energy, and there it lay, all but lifeless, extended over that part of the globe which had been occupied by the Roman empire.

Who could be expected to restore its lost animation? Where was there to be found a remedy for such an accumulation of evils?

V. A reform in the Church had now been the universal cry for ages, and all the powers of humanity had set themselves to make the attempt. But it was what God alone could accomplish. He began, accordingly, by humbling all the powers of men, in order that there might be full proof of their incapacity. He beheld them, one after another, dashing themselves to pieces at the foot of the colossus which they were endeavouring to destroy. Rome was the first object with which earth's princes began their struggle. All the might of the Hohenstaufen family, 2 Felleri, Mon. ined., p. 400.

2 The German emperors of the house of Hohenstaufen in Swabia. To wit, the emperors of Charlemagne's family who reigned during the ninth century, were succeeded, first, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, by emperors of the ducal houses of Saxony and Franconia alternatively, and thereafter, in the twelfth century, by those here referred to, of the house of Swabia, and tracing their

EFFORTS TOWARDS REFORMATION.

59

heroes with the crown of the empire encircling their brows, seemed pledged to humble and reform Rome, and to rescue the nations, and Germany in particular, from her tyranny. But the petty castle of Canusium discovers to us of what small avail was the power of the empire, when matched with the Church's usurping chief. We there see that redoubtable prince, the emperor Henry IV., after a long and useless struggle with Rome, reduced to spend three whole days and nights in the ditches of that insignificant Italian fortress, exposed to the winter's piercing cold, despoiled of his imperial robes, without shoes, with no better covering than some woollens, imploring with cries interrupted with sobs, the compassion of Hildebrand, before whom he throws himself on his knees, and who deigns at length, after three lamentable nights had past, to allow himself so far to be wrought upon as to grant forgiveness to the suppliant.2 Of so small account was the might of the great ones of the earth, of the world's kings and emperors, when matched against Rome.

These were followed by perhaps yet more formidable adversaries, the men of genius and learning. The mere revival of literature in Italy involved an energetic protest against the popedom; but, to mention a few particular instances, Dante, the father of Italian poetry, boldly places the mightiest of the popes

lineage from the free lords of Hohenstaufen who were raised to the ducal dignity of Swabia in the eleventh century, and afterwards supplied several emperors. Previous to this, of the Franconian princes, Henry IV. in particular, had lived on very ill terms with pope Gregory, with whom he quarrelled about the appointment of bishops; yet being put under the ban by the pope, he had to submit to the disgraceful humiliation alluded to by the author in the text, and also in the 35th page. This, however, did not so intimidate subsequent emperors of the house of Hohenstaufen, and in particular Frederick Barbarossa and his grandson, Frederick II. as to deter them from resisting the power of the pope. Frederick II. though repeatedly placed under the papal ban, held out by force of arms, at the expense, however, of bequeathing the hatred of the popes to his descendants. His son, Conrad, could with difficulty maintain his power against the revolts excited against him, and was the last emperor of the family, while his grandson Conradin was deprived of his kingdom of Sicily, bestowed by the pope on the duke of Anjou, by whom he was beheaded.-L. R.

2 See how pope Hildebrand himself relates this event: "Tandem rex ad oppidum Canusii in quo morati sumus, cum paucis advenit, ibique per triduum ante portam, deposito omni regio cultu, miserabiliter, utpote discalceatus et laneis inductus, persistens, non prius cum multo fletu apostolicæ miserationis auxilium et consolatium implorare destitit, quam omnes qui ibi aderant, ad tantam pietatem et compassionis misericordiam movit, ut pro eo multis precibus et lacrymis intercedentes, omnes quidem insolitam nostræ mentis duritiam mirarentur, nonnulli vero non apostolicæ severitatis gravitatem, sed quasi tyrannicæ feritatis crudelitatem esse clamarent." (Lib. iv. ep. 12; ad Germanos.)

in his hell; he makes the apostle Peter utter the severest and most humiliating language against his unworthy successors, and of the monks and the clergy he gives the most horrible description.

Another great genius, Petrarch, a man of a mind superior to all the emperors and popes of his time, boldly insisted on a return to the primitive constitution of the Church; and to effect this, calls upon the men of his time and the government of the emperor, Charles IV., to lend their assistance. Laurentius Valla, one of the most illustrious of the literary men of Italy, most energetically assailed both the pretensions of the popes and the pretended inheritance they hold from Constantine. These were followed by a whole legion of poets and of men of science and philosophy, and thus the torch of literature being everywhere rekindled, threatened to burn down the Roman scaffolding that obscured it. All these endeavours, however, were useless. Leo. X. took literature into his own service, and made poetry and the arts and sciences, as it were, the ministers and menials of his court, humbly kissing the feet of the very power which in their childish self-conceit they had vaunted that they could destroy.

At last there appeared an adversary which, more than any other, seemed capable of reforming the Church, and that was the Church itself. The call for reform now burst from all quarters, and had been sounding for ages, when there met at Constance, in the council that takes its name from that city, the most imposing of ecclesiastical assemblies. Christendom had never, indeed, known a meeting of the kind, that carried with it so much weight and authority; comprising, as it did, an immense number of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, eighteen hundred priests and doctors of divinity, the emperor with a following of a thousand persons, the elector of Saxony, the elector Palatine, the dukes of Bavaria and Austria, and the ambassadors of all the other powers. Among these distinguished persons the chief place must be assigned to the illustrious and immortal doctors of the university of Paris, the d'Aillys, the Gersons, the Clemangis, men eminent at once for piety, learning, and moral courage, and who communicated an energetic and salutary impulsion to the council by the truths which they published, and the power with which they spoke. All gave way