scribe the same period as fills Dean Milman's lively pages; but from that distant point of view, and with such light as those long centuries will throw upon the past, how different may be the subjective impressions of the writer, as to the place occupied in the whole Christian system by the Church once enthroned on the seven hills, and reigning for a thousand years over the nations of the West!

It has taken the long period of eighteen hundred years to bring about the outward form of Christianity at present existing in Protestant countries, and it will, apparently, take many more to extend anything like the same spiritual privileges to the whole of Christendom. But Christendom is, after all, but a small part of the inhabited portions of the globe, and to vast millions of the human race the feet of those who preach the Gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things, have never yet reached. We attach no importance to speculations in things not revealed, and therefore we will not say we think that the world must be converted to God before it comes to an end; neither will we conclude that the past rate of progress is to be taken as the measure of future Gospel triumphs. But we do feel justified in meeting positive statements to the effect, that nothing but Rome can be intended in the prophetic parts of the New Testament which speak of apostacy, by directing attention to the probability that the future events spoken of may yet be future, and are to have their accomplishment in times of far greater success and yet deeper corruption. In these days of uncritical dogmatism, it is sometimes useful to oppose one theory to another, and to hint at the probable hiatus in the chain of men's reasonings on matters not disclosed to human ken.

The history treated of in the work before us, is given with fidelity, its various scenes being sketched with the hand of a master. We are inclined to view it as a fault that the spiritual manifestations of Christianity are either not treated of at all, or too little brought forward to relieve the often intensely hateful character of the mere political side of the picture. Take, as an example, the reign of the degraded Justinian in the sixth century, and that of the most renowned of courtezans, his empress Theodora, and how dense is the air of wickedness which pervaded the whole, unrelieved, in Dean Milman's pages, by any of that true light of Christ, which, coming into the world, enlighteneth every man! We read of popes and councils, but they seem entirely the instruments of political intrigue, and we feel that if Christianity, as a little leaven, is fermenting in the corrupt mass, its processes must be occult and obscure indeed. Yet we believe that no times have been so dark as not to furnish illustrations of

the power of godliness; and that often the political aspects of Christianity in courts and armies conceal, by their more worldly intrusiveness, what is alone worthy of the name of religion. This period is certainly peculiarly destitute of spiritual phenomena, and yet they are not altogether wanting. Unfortunately history has too often felt it to be its duty to presume, that the politically great are the whole of mankind, or, at least, the only portion worth notice. But both among the high and the low, the retiring graces of Christianity may be found in the darkest ages, perhaps existing in deeper recesses because of the surrounding iniquity. We wish Dr. Milman had more frequently drawn piety from its cell, if only to relieve the painful sense forced upon us of the almost utter corruption of public affairs, even when administered by professed Christians. We do not altogether approve of Milner's plan, and we admire his reasonings still less; yet we have been often refreshed by comparing his view of successive centuries with that given in the work before us. We are persuaded that it must become more and more the peculiar task of the ecclesiastical historian to trace the stream of piety in its humble meanderings; to detect the silvery waters amidst the dark woods and overhanging rocks of an intrusive and worldly profession.

b

We have the more regretted this apparent neglect of the spirit of Christ, manifested even in the most corrupt ages of the Church, because Dr. Milman has given unequivocal proofs both of his ability to detect its existence and appreciate its value. In speaking of the conversion of the Teutonic tribes, he thus feelingly recognizes the internal power of our holy religion in circumstances apparently opposed to its operation :—

'But Christianity had sunk into depths of the human heart, unmoved by these tumults, which so fiercely agitated the surface of the Christian world. Far below, less observed, less visible in its mode of operation, though manifest in its effects, was that profound conviction of the truth of the Gospel, that infelt sense of its blessings, which enabled it to pursue its course of conversion throughout the world, to bring the Roman mind more completely under subjection, and one by one to subdue the barbarian tribes which began to overspread and mingle with the Greek and Latin population of the Empire. For Christianity had that within it which overawed, captivated, enthralled the innate or at least universal religiousness of mankind; that which was sufficiently

b We embrace this opportunity of referring to the best edition of Milner's history, in four octavo volumes, revised and corrected throughout by the Rev. Thomas Granthan, B.D., Rector of Bamber, Sussex. London: Longman and Co. The great circulation of cheap and incorrect editions makes it important to have one which may be considered authoritative. Mr. Grantham has discharged his duty well, verifying quotations, and adding others of importance.

simple to arrest by its grandeur the ruder barbarian, while, by its deeper mysteries, it led on the philosophic and reflective mind through unending regions of contemplation. It had its one Creator and Ruler of the universe, one God, one Redeemer, one Spirit, under which the ancient polytheism subsided into a subordinate hierarchy of intermediate beings, which kept the imagination in play, and left undisturbed almost all the hereditary superstitions of each race. It satisfied that yearning after the invisible which seems inseparable from our nature, the fears and hopes which more or less vaguely have shadowed out some future being, the fears of retribution appeased by the promises of pardon, the hope of beatitude by its presentiments of peace. It had its exquisite goodness, which appealed to the indelible moral sense of mankind, to the best affections of his being; it had that equality as to religious privileges, duties, and advantages, to which it drew up all ranks and classes, and both sexes (slaves and females being alike with others under the divine care), and the abolition, so far, of the ordinary castes and divisions of men; with the substitution of the one distinction, the clergy and the laity, and perhaps also that of the ordinary Christian and the monk, who aspired to what was asserted, and believed to be, a higher Christianity. All this was, in various degrees, at once the manifest sign of its divinity and the secret of its gradual subjugation of nations at such different stages of civilisation. It prepared or found ready the belief in those miraculous powers which it still constantly declared itself to possess; and made belief not merely prompt to accept, but creative of wonder, and of perpetual preterhuman interference. Some special causes will appear, which seemed peculiarly to propitiate certain races towards Christianity, while their distinctive character reacted on their own Christianity, and through them perhaps on that of the world.'-vol. i. pp. 255, 6.

With this exception, on which different opinions will probably be formed by our readers, we are able to use the highest terms of the whole execution and character of this work, the production of the matured mind of the author. He has brought to it accumulated stores of knowledge, a freedom from class prejudices, and a sense of the duties of his office far more scientific and philosophical than has hitherto fallen to the lot of our Church historians. He has pointed out the sources of those peculiarities of the Latin division of Christianity which distinguish it from other portions of the field, with great clearness; peculiarities partly local and physical, partly providential, and partly, in appearance at least, accidental. He has especially traced the growth of Papal power, at first unknown, then a matter of mere sentiment, afterwards gradually demanded, and then conceded. The various phases of this remarkable despotism are graphically described, as they present themselves in the successive ages of its existence. At first there is a mere conventional deference, on the part of Christendom, to the Church of the capital of the whole world; then succeeds a

necessary interference, on the part of Rome, in matters which agitated, and threatened to injure, the Christianity of remote provinces; afterwards political causes demanded that the Roman pontiff should claim more worldly power, as the best instrument, in the circumstances, of saving a religious and spiritual influence. So far we can recognize the principles of a just economy of Providence, making all things work together for the good of the Church, and the spread of its legitimate control over the lower natures with whom it came in contact. But soon the bounds were passed which separated personal motives from maxims of public utility, and the Bishop of Rome ceased to be the friend, and became the real enemy of the Church. This process was long, and it is often difficult to separate the boundaries of light and darkness, of mere personal ambition, and a regard for the general good. But the ultimate results leave no doubt of the character of the usurpation. Age by age all that is virtuous and benevolent in the Papacy gradually vanishes, until there appears upon the scene a monstrous exhibition of pride and worldliness, to which we do not wonder that Apocalyptic visions should be referred, although we may not recognize the critical justice of the application.

We think it an excellence of Dr. Milman's history that he fully recognizes these various degrees of value possessed in different ages by the Church of Rome. He does not involve in one indiscriminating censure a mighty system which at one period had most admirable characteristics, and at another formed the only bulwark against a savage and exterminating political power. But neither does he with an overweening fondness for what is old, or a blind reverence for asserted divine right, extenuate the faults of Latin Christianity, or maintain for it any perpetual claim to reverence. As far as it appears to be a divine instrument, adapted for peculiar crises of history, he gives it its meed of praise, but no further. This is the only way in which this awful page of the Church's progress can be profitably studied, or Christianity be vindicated from the charge of failure. If a fancied perfection of apostolical Christianity is assumed, in spite of the glaring errors and vices which clearly disfigure it, as exhibited in the Epistles, and all after history is to be tried by this exaggerated standard, then indeed it is difficult to discover much that is admirable in the career of Rome. But the enlightened expounder of the Holy Scriptures, and of early church history, will remember that Christianity was never perfect, and that having lapsed into errors of doctrine and practice, even under the eye of apostles, it could not be expected to exhibit a more spotless form when they had left the world. How many stumbling-blocks would the remembrance

of this principle remove out of the way of the Christian student! How would an irrational, although perhaps amiable, optimism cease to darken counsel by words without knowledge, if the necessary mingling of good and evil were recognized in the contemplation of the Church's progress!

The influence of second causes on the spread of the Church has always been a marked feature of its history, and cannot be neglected by any historian of enlightened and philosophic views. Nor can we fail to remark how certain idiosyncrasies of character, both in individuals and communities, both favour the reception of the truth in the first instance, and also throw over it, when it is embraced, something of their own colouring. To this fact Dr. Milman gives great prominence, and we will quote the continuation of the passage given above, respecting the Teutonic races, as illustrative of his mode of viewing it, and also as furnishing a good specimen of his style of writing.

'We are not at present advanced beyond the period when Christianity was in general content (this indeed gave it full occupation) to await the settlement of the Northern tribes, if not within the pale, at least upon the frontiers of the Empire: it had not yet been emboldened to seek them out in their own native forests or morasses. But it was a surprising spectacle to behold the Teutonic nations melting gradually into the general mass of Christian worshippers. In every other respect they are still distinct races. The conquering Ostrogoth or Visigoth, the Vandal, the Burgundian, the Frank, stand apart from the subjugated Roman population, as an armed or territorial aristocracy. They maintain, in great part at least, their laws, their language, their habits, their character; in religion alone they are blended into one society, constitute one church, worship at the same altar, and render allegiance to the same hierarchy. This is the single bond of their common humanity; and so long as the superior Roman civilisation enabled the Latins to maintain exclusively the ecclesiastical functions, they might appear to have retreated from the civil power, which required more strenuous and robust hands to wield it, to this no less extensive and important influence of opinion; and thus held in suspense the trembling balance of authority.

'There might appear in the Teutonic religious character a depth, seriousness, and tendency to the mysterious, congenial to Christianity, which would prepare them to receive the Gospel. The Grecian polytheist was often driven into Christianity by the utter void in his religion, and by the incongruity of its poetic anthropomorphism with the progress of his discursive reason, as well as by his weariness with his unsatisfactory and exhausted philosophy; the Roman was commanded by its high moral tone and vigour of character. But each had to abandon temples, rites, diversions, literature, which had the strongest hold on his habits and character, and so utterly incongruous with the