temn. When the marvelous prayer of the departing LordThey are not of the world, even as I am not of the world; sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth"--and the high and holy character which should pertain to the officers of the Church of God, as so powerfully drawn by St. Paul in the pastoral epistles, are placed in contrast with the scandalous lives of these Popes, and with these extenuations and apologies of professedly one of the most scientific and conscientious historians of the Catholic Church, the moral sense experiences a most terrible shock, and the suspicion is awakened that Alzog is writing in fear of the Index Expurgatorius.

We have before remarked that, in a Church history written from a Catholic stand-point, no sympathy with, or defense of, movements in opposition to the peculiar tenets and genius of the Romish Church may be looked for. Such expectation would be most unwise. Yet we may demand of any writer of respectability such statement of facts as will give to the reader of average intelligence a just resultant impression of the period under examination. We are reluctantly compelled to believe that, in his treatment of the "Reformers before the Reformation," Alzog has failed to satisfy this reasonable demand. The feeling awakened in the mind of one who should read the history, for the first time, from the pages of this writer, is, that Wiclif, Huss, Jerome of Prague, John of Wesel, John von Goch, Savonarola, and the whole line of heroic men who uttered their stout protest against the fearful corruption and wickedness which were consuming away the Church in both head and members, were only wretched vipers, which it was the duty of all men to crush out with the heel of power, or consume in the fires of the auto-da-fe. In a Catholic history we are prepared to find opposition to these men; indeed, we expect their hearty condemnation; but we confess to utter astonishment at the stony heartlessness of Alzog as he treats this period of history. His spirit is that of a gloomy inquisitor, with not a touch of sympathy or a tear of regret at what he believes to be the errors authority, were designed to strengthen it; they were long and severe; the murderer was compelled to make public penance, and felt himself stained by the blood he had shed. Thus, among a fierce and half-savage people, the authority of relig ion, in accordance with humanity, checked the effusion of blood, and rendered an instance of assassination more rare in all Greece than in a single village in Spain." -Literature of the South of Europe, chap. xxxi.

of these men; but he is willing to give one more twist to the thumb-screw, and one more turn to the rack, to compel recantation. He utterly forsakes the high domain of the historian, to play the part of the most wretched partisanship. Look at this picture, painted by a powerful, yet truthful, artist:

We betake ourselves in spirit to the fifteenth century. It is difficult to describe how sad the Church's condition then seemed. The Lord's vineyard was a desert; thorns and thistles covered it, in place of vines. The priesthood was grown worldly and even dissolute. The Popes, overstepping all limits in their assumptions, led lives scandalous and horrible beyond measure. The monkish orders were following them in the way of ruin. Simony, extortion of every kind, and concubinage, were the order of the day. Church assemblies seemed only held for the bacchanalian orgies that went with them. During the Council of Constance there were no less than fifty thousand strangers in the town, and a great swarm of abandoned women among them. At this time the Church saw at her head three pretended vicegerents of Christ instead of one, alternately excommunicating and cursing each the others. The poor people, designedly chained down by basest superstitions, fainted as sheep without a shepherd. Was it a wonder, when a part of them, casting aside all restraints of chastity and morality, followed in the footsteps of their corrupt leaders, and gave themselves up to every vice, if the other and nobler portion, in sore need of the bread and water of life, gave vent to loud and still louder demands for the Church's reformation, in head and in members ?-F. W. KRUMMACHER.

All of this, and no word of extenuation from Alzog of the conduct of these branded heretics! We repeat that impartial readers of this portion of our author's work must pronounce him lacking in the highest qualities of the historian, and his work well calculated to foster in members of his own communion a spirit of bigotry and uncharitableness. In these crucial examples he plainly violates the principles which he had already laid down to guide the historian. (See vol. i, p. 14.)

In further confirmation of this opinion we notice the author's treatment of the Inquisition. Doubtless, satisfactory reasons for the establishment of this court can be found in the spirit of the times. In an age when the doctrine of religious toleration had found no defenders, it is easy to understand how heresy, which was judged to be the most heinous crime, would be suppressed by the strong arm of the civil and ecclesiastical power alike. But it is totally unworthy a writer of the nine

teenth century to be studying up apologies for the institution and horrible cruelties of this fearful court. For example, what are we to think of the following: "It is doubtful if in our own day sectaries as dangerous and malignant as the Albigenses and Cathari would be treated more leniently; and if so, why should we marvel at their treatment in the Middle Ages, so eminently religious in character?" etc.—Vol. ii, p. 982. Is Rome, through one of her chief councilors, here affirming anew the doctrine of semper eadem respecting intolerance, and the physical punishments by which, when power returns, she is ready to subdue dissent and heresy? But, as though Alzog were a little ashamed of his efforts to excuse the Inquisition, he utters a feeble condemnation of its abuse in Spain, and then turns round to apologize for his apology by trying to prove greater cruelties on the part of the Protestants! The usual puerile fallacy of supposing any lesser villainy to be a virtue, or that because arson is not homicide, it is, therefore, not a crime! While we reluctantly believe with the able historian of Rationalism, (Lecky, "History of Rationalism," vol. ii, pp. 40, 46,) that "the Church of Rome has inflicted a greater amount of unmerited suffering than any other religion which has ever existed among mankind;" and also that "nothing can be more grossly disingenuous or untrue than to represent persecution as her peculiar trait;" and we may be compelled to conclude with another able historical writer, that the strange contradictions presented in the history of religious communities can be accounted for only on the supposition that the human mind must be naturally intolerant of opposition, (Smyth, "Lectures on Modern History," lect. xii,) we can feel nothing but antagonism toward a Church historian of our own day who more than intimates that erroneous opinions, so judged, may be exterminated by the infliction of torture. It is in view of these positions of a grave historian, whose work bears the imprimatur of the Pope, and the indorsement of the most learned archbishops of this country, that we are unwillingly compelled to ponder the late utterances of a leading English historian in an influential American journal:

Give them (the Catholics) the power, and the Constitution will be gone. A Catholic majority, under spiritual direction, will forbid liberty of worship, and will try to forbid liberty of con

science. It will control education; it will put the press under surveillance; it will punish opposition with excommunication, and excommunication will be attended with civil disabilities. That it will try to do all this, as long as it accepts the ultramontane theory which at present passes current, is as certain as mathematics. It tried before in the Dark Ages; it will try again in the age of enlightenment.-J. A. FROUDE, in the "North American," November, 1879.

That these opinions are correct cannot be for a moment doubted by those who accept the maxim of semper eadem, and that this is still adhered to, the recent utterances ex cathedra from Rome give little room to doubt, notwithstanding the assertions of Romanists that Protestants are not in a position to understand Catholic doctrines.

The limits of this article will not permit an examination of Alzog's treatment of the great protest of the sixteenth century; we must dismiss this most prolific subject with but a single remark. While somewhat more moderate than many historians of his Church in the discussion of some of the dividing questions, he is most decidedly and thoroughly Catholic in his attitude toward the Reformation as a religious movement. He sees in Luther a very gifted and pious monk so long as he kept the peace, but an arch-apostate when he begins to question the purity and authority of the Church. Luther's expres sions of pacific intentions, etc., "are the first act in a long drama of hypocritical professions;" in his letter to the Pope of March 2, 1519, "he was playing the contemptible hypocrite," etc.; he "had recourse to his usual dexterity and cunning;" he "had given much offense by his bibulous habits and his unseemly familiarity with females;" "he continued to exert, through his letters and other writings, the baleful influence which his presence had inspired;" in his connection with Henry VIII. “he showed himself the most vile of hypocrites; "Luther was both a glutton and a drunkard." He closes by quoting approvingly the estimate of the Jesuit Pallavicini. But we tire of these pretensions to history. Why is it that Alzog, and even the abler and more profound Döllinger, lose sight of the fundamental meaning of history-"inquiry,” “research"-while they are treating so grave and solemn an event as the Reformation? Why do they consent to betake themselves to vituperation, or to a skillful and ingenious array

of the weaknesses of great actors, and not to bring their best powers to the discovery of the causes of an event so tremendous in its consequences to Rome herself? Who does not know that to attribute so wonderful a revolution in doctrine and life to any merely hypocritical perversity involves a psychical absurdity which is not tolerable in the veriest historical tyro? Of all the cheap ways of writing history this is the very cheapWhile Döllinger has been much more just than Alzog in the estimate of Luther's character and work, both are alike inclined to give to the Reformation little credit for high and saving results.

est.

It has passed into an adage that no man is wholly good or wholly bad. This truth must be ever-present with the historian and the biographer as they attempt their high and holy work. Every man, too, must be himself, and can be nobody else. To measure one man by his fellow is an almost impossible task. Plutarch may charm by his ingenious parallels, but there is ever lurking in this style of biography a demon of injustice which the fair-minded and honorable will seek to exorcise. We may, indeed, demand of the great leader and reformer deep and settled convictions, the use of honorable means, and a fair promise of success; these conditions being fulfilled, we are to judge their work by carefully and conscientiously determining the grand resultant of their labors, as this resultant has been revealed in the onflowing decades or centuries. To sketch a character from its defects is, therefore, grossly unjust, not to say detestably wicked. The purest and the best of earth would go down under such an onslaught. Herein we discover a serious defect of Alzog. He seems to be almost totally oblivious of the fact that enthusiastic minds and many great reformers have been subject to great fluctuations of feeling, and the victims of almost overwhelming spiritual depression. The agonizing prayer of Israel's great lawgiver, "Blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast written;" and his fatal haste in twice smiting the rock; the despairing cry of Elijah, "It is enough; now, O Jehovah, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers;" Paul's pathetic words, "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh "—these are familiar examples of the weakness and of the soul-agony