on his accession (1534) made this Contarini a cardinal, and, at his suggestion, summoned into the college likewise other distinguished men, most of them members of the spiritual society above spoken of. By this honorable act, so different from the conduct of former popes, Paul III. laid a foundation for reconciliation with the German reformers. The cardinals commenced a vigorous war against all abuses, and by the pope's command drew up a scheme of church reform. Contarini pressed his views by numerous essays, written in a free and evangelical spirit, and finally undertook the office of papal legate to confer with the Protestant leaders at Ratisbon. The pope, however, did not dare to commit to him the full powers which he wished, and which the emperor demanded. Hence, although the two parties came to a full agreement on all doctrinal points, all proved in vain. Luther suspected fraud; the cardinals at Rome violently opposed Contarini's views of justification; the pope, the French, and the Germans themselves, feared that the emperor would become absolute, if intestine religious quarrels among his people were extinguished, and, by the united result of these causes, the conference of Ratisbon broke up.

Eleven years passed before this same pope opened the council at Trent, so long promised. The proceedings of this celebrated council belong to two separate eras, 1545 and 1562. In the earlier, they built up an entire corpus of divinity, fundamentally opposed to the principles of the Reformers, as to justification and all the kindred topics. Contarini was no more; his successor Cardinal Pole (also one of the oratory of divine love,') was, however, his ardent admirer. Yet the legate, and his coadjutor the archbishop of Siena, with other champions of moderate opinions, were entirely overpowered at the council; and quitted prematurely, fearing that their own faith would be the object of attack. Thus were Protestant doctrines definitely and finally rejected from Romanism, and conciliation for ever rendered impossible.

The council did not effectively resume its sittings until the beginning of the year 1562, when, with great effort and much sincerity, Pius IV. assembled it to deliberate on reform; which was now the sole topic. Most strikingly did their discussions illustrate the tendency of Europe to assume the organization of independent national churches. Each of the three nations had its own complaints, and its own views. The Spaniards contended that the episcopal authority was not a mere emanation from the papal, but was an independent divine appointment. The German ambassadors, in the name of the emperor Ferdinand, demanded that the plan of the council of Constance should be adopted as the basis of reform. Besides, he claimed the cup for the laity, permission for the priests to marry, dispensation from fasting, the erection of schools for the poor, improvement of the liturgies, of the

catechisms, and of church music, and a stringent reformation of the convents. One of the articles which he proposed, was thus expressed: 'It were to be wished that the pope should humble 'himself according to the example of Christ, and submit to a 'reform affecting his own person, his dominions, and his cabinet. 'The council must reform the nomination of cardinals as well as 'the conclave.' Ferdinand used to say,' As the cardinals are not good, how can they choose a good pope?' And on this occasion he pressed for the discussion of his articles in repeated letters.

Guise, cardinal of Lorraine, at the head of the French prelates, seconded the above. He further demanded that the public services should be celebrated in French, and that preaching should be introduced at the mass; letters also, which he brought from the king, strongly urged some of his requests. Moreover, the French clergy revived the decrees of the council of Basle, and openly asserted that the authority of a council was superior to that of the All three nations cordially agreed in resisting the established order, according to which no one but the papal legate had a right to originate measures before the council.

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In this state of things, very ample changes might have been expected. But the Italian prelates outnumbered and outvoted those of the other three nations; and made it an unprincipled contest for power. The sittings of the council lingered on for ten months, and the bitterest animosity arose. Now was the time for the sovereigns to secede, and to erect separate reforms for themselves in their respective nations! At length, fearing that nothing would be done, they allowed themselves to be talked over by the subtlety of Morone, the papal legate. This clever politician managed to content them with compromises, and with ambiguous reservations. He persuaded Philip II. that the Spanish clergy would be dangerous to him, if they were allowed to become independent of the pope; and meanwhile the French ministry, the Guises, aiming to put their niece, Mary of Scots, on the English throne, desired to make demonstrations of Catholic zeal. The divines also were wearied out with the tedious stay, and were ready to agree to any thing decent, in order to return home. Delicate questions, which would have compromised the interests of the higher powers,-the pope, cardinals, and sovereigns, -were evaded by Morone's address; and so much of reform as struck only against inferior offenders was at length carried triumphantly. The canonical rights of the pope over bishops, and of bishops over their inferiors, were defined with as much severity as was needed to check all practical licentiousness. The proclamation at the end of the sittings was drawn up by Cardinal Guise, and contained a distinct recognition of the pope's ecclesiastical supremacy.

The practical reforms are thus summed up by our author:

The faithful were again subjected to severe and uncompromising church discipline, and, in pressing cases, to the sword of excommunication. Seminaries were founded in which the young clergy were carefully educated in austere habits, and in the fear of God. The parishes were regulated anew, strict rules laid down for the administration of the sacrament and for preaching, and the co-operation of the regular clergy governed by fixed laws. The duties of their office, especially the supervision of the clergy, were strongly impressed upon the bishops, according to the several degrees of their consecration. They also solemnly bound themselves by a peculiar profession of faith (which they subscribed, and to which they swore), to observe the decrees of the council of Trent, and to render entire obedience to the pope. A measure, the consequences of which were most important.'-Vol. i. p. 357.

The council had laid down the law; this would have been useless, had not a new spirit arisen, willing to apply the law. The light which had been kindled in the opening of this century, had put to shame the secularity and impurity of the whole system. While some nobler and more enlightened spirits, with Contarini and Pole, sought to deepen the grounds of religion, and shed its influence over the heart first; there were many more who aimed at outward improvement without any renewing of spiritual principles. The first overt manifestation of this was in the rise of new religious orders. We need not speak in detail of minor attempts to reform the Camaldolites and Franciscans; nor of the new orders, called Theatins, Di Somasca, Barnabites-a sort of regular clergy with monks' vows; for all these are forgotten, in comparison with the Jesuits, the new order founded by Ignatius Loyola.

He was a noble Spanish knight, at an early age disabled by severe wounds. Having betaken himself to imaginative devotional contemplations, his misery became unbearable, under a sense that his heart was still in the world, which he was trying to leave. He escaped at length from his torment by learning (as he thought) to distinguish between the good and evil spirits which had access to his mind; and now he gave himself up to enthusiastic visions, which formed the whole of his religion. But he retained the old habit of a soldier, regarding obedience as the first of duties, and unswervingly held to the principle of absolute submission to the pope.

We must only concisely add, that he at length went to Rome with the young friends who had enthusiastically bound themselves to him, and that they there assumed the title, The Company of Jesus. Several times they were molested by the charge of heresy, but succeeded in obtaining absolution. The austerity of their lives, their zeal in teaching, their attendance on the sick, attracted numerous followers; their organization rapidly advanced, and the whole body resolved, first, to elect their general for life;

next, to vow that they would perform whatever the pope should lay on them, without discussion, condition, or reward!

It was impossible for the court of Rome to decline such allies; and in 1543 they received an unconditional establishment. Their influence was first manifested in the early sittings of the council of Trent; where their energy defeated Cardinal Pole and the moderate party. The institution soon spread through Italy and Spain. They got rid, to a great extent, of useless ceremonies which wasted the time of the monks, and aimed at mastering every department of human knowledge. Very rapidly they took into their own hands the education of youth, and drove out of the field the more classical and pagan masters. In half a generation they thus revolutionised the taste of Italy. Admiration of classical architecture, and of the beauty of classical authors, came to an end; antiquity was now studied as a matter of erudition, not of taste. Society became stiffer, and more exclusive; classical simplicity was at an end. Literature became more decorous and more formal, and originality vanished.

In the year 1551, the Jesuits were invited by Ferdinand to Vienna, and with wonderful rapidity extended themselves over half of Germany. The favor of princes introduced them to the universities; and by diligence, zeal, order, formal erudition, and ostentatious austerity, they carried all before them. Without genius, originality, nor any deep and ingenuous piety, they monopolized education, and conquered German teachers on their own soil.

The ascetic spirit had also thrown more and more of its supporters into the cardinalate; and the bigot Caraffa urged the pope (Paul III.) to erect a universal tribunal called the Inquisition, after the model of that by which Ferdinand the Catholic had extirpated Moors in Spain. In 1542 the pope gave way to their representations, and to an express memorial from the hand of Ignatius Loyola. The cardinals Caraffa and Toledo were the first commissaries, and they proceeded without delay and without remorse, to perpetrate atrocities which have justly earned for the very name of the Inquisition the deepest hatred of Europe.

But the ascetic spirit presently reached the papacy itself. The first pope elected for his purity of morals, was the aged Adrian of Utrecht, tutor of Charles V. This was in 1522, and indicated a turn of the tide. In 1534, Paul III. set the example of electing cardinals who had no recommendation but personal merit. In 1555, the power of the strict party was remarkably manifested by the election of two popes of their side. The former, Marcellus II., died on the 22nd day, and the most austere of the cardinals, Caraffa, was chosen to succeed him. This old man was, as we have said, a vehement ascetic and a merciless bigot; but he had also been reared in an intense hatred of the house of Austria;

and by his furious attacks on the rights of sovereigns, he did the papacy no small damage. His successor, Pius IV., though no zealot, for ever put an end to the bold treasons against the estates of the church, in which the relatives of a pope had been used to indulge; for he executed, without trial, Cardinal Caraffa, nephew of the late pope, and five of his nearest relations. Thenceforward nepotism showed itself only in a more legal form. But Pius IV., though himself a man of the world, did more than his predecessor for the spread of stricter morals, first, by forcing the Council of Trent to a termination, secondly, by the influence of his nephew, Carlo Borromeo, a man of purest integrity and simple piety, who was practically his prime minister, and afterwards Archbishop of Milan. This pope also terminated the vain effort of the papacy to support itself against the sovereigns, and commenced the close union with the Spanish crown, which each power found to be so profitable. We see, therefore, why his reign is the era at which Protestantism came to a stand.

II. Now commences the dreadful reaction in its full tide of power. His successor, Pius V., carried the ascetic principle to its highest point; and exhibited in his own character the deplorable and instructive union of deep devotion, singular purity, humility, and unearthliness, with fanatical and most cruel bigotry. Archbishoprics and bishoprics gradually fell to the ascetic party; the Inquisition went on its merciless work in Spain and Italy. Carranga, archbishop of Toledo, who, after Pole, had done more than any man to restore Romanism in England, was put to death for heterodoxy on the subject of justification: the members of the Oratory of Divine Love were extirpated. Speculative philosophy and physical science were punished with like furious and cruel zeal. It was by the advice of this pope that Philip II. endeavored to impose the Romish faith on Holland by force of arms he approved Alva's bloody measures, and sent him the consecrated hat and sword in token of his approbation. In his papacy the Huguenots were utterly defeated in France, and preparations were made for the treacherous massacre on St. Bartholomew's eve, which his successor, Pope Gregory XIII., sanctioned. Thus between the years 1566 and 1572, the bloody struggle was well nigh accomplished, by which Europe was divided, as it were for ever, into Catholic and Protestant powers.

In the year 1563, Pius IV. had encouraged Albert, duke of Bavaria, to enforce Romanism in his dominions, by a gift of one tenth of the property of the clergy. Thenceforward, the Catholic princes of Germany cooperated with the Jesuits with the utmost zeal; explaining away or violating the treaty of Passau, and many of them imitating the cruelties of Italy and Spain. The Austrian rulers were more mild and prudent; yet many important steps were there also taken in the same direction. Only in