know but little of the twenty-three years' reign of Antoninus Pius. The Count of Stolberg produces this as an instance to shew that the happiest periods of history are not those of which we hear the most in the same manner as in the little world of man's soul, the most saintly spirits are often existing in those who have never distinguished themselves as authors, or left any memorial of themselves to be the theme of the world's talk; but who have led an interior angelic life, having borne their sweet blossoms unseen, like the young lily in a sequestered vale, on the banks of a limpid stream.

In a state of society also, where men were not obliged by law to observe the discipline of Christians, it is to be expected that violent contrasts would be presented, and that the number of the good, that is, of those who were good from principle, would appear comparatively small. Before all things were weakened, dissolved, and melted into one vast dull mass of mediocrity, in which there would be nothing to appear as a contrast to evil, it was unavoidable that excellence and constancy of virtue, and that the perfection of Christian sanctity, should produce a violent reaction, so as apparently to give rise to crimes of a certain ferocious and sublime character; for the same reason that there may be fewer avowed infidels and atheists, where the modern system has obtained undisputed possession of a country, than in any other. M. Rubichon has well explained this difficulty-"There is no reaction where there is no action; there is no infidelity where there is no faith; religion is not insulted where it is never mentioned. Is there not a God? I wish nothing better,' is the general reply under such circumstances. 'There is no reason to hate him. If there be a God, it is well; but as his kingdom is not of this world, and we are so beneath him, he can never be concerned about us, and consequently he does not require that we should be concerned about him." 112

"The history of the world is the judgment of the world," says a celebrated poet; and I am far from wishing to express the opinion, that the middle ages should be

1 Geschichte, viii.. 1.

2 De l'Action du Clergé, p. 20, 200.

exempted from this charge. There have been always passions and errors, and consequently crimes and troubles; but it seems to me that the Abbé de la Mennais is singularly happy in his distinction between the past and later ages, where he says, that in them "men knew what was evil and what was good; whereas, at present, men are rather inclined to doubt than to pronounce positively what is evil and what is good."

The disposition to revile the period of Christian antiquity accompanied the zeal of the religious and political innovators of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; it became the spirit of these ages to revile the past; and this leads me to remark a circumstance which will further explain why historical truth, as far as regards Christian antiquity, is so often obscured to the moderns. On the one side, those who are attached to the ancient wisdom find it impossible to enter into the detail of all the crimes and absurdities and sophisms of the men who calumniate it, whose whole course is so ignoble and wretched that they rather endeavour to forget it, and leave the judgment to God, who searcheth hearts; whereas the church, which became intimately connected with all the institutions of the middle ages, is in itself so venerable and majestic, so closely associated, even in the estimation of its adversaries, with all that is noble, and generous, and heroic in our early history, that the grossest attacks directed against it are found to excite great interest in consequence of the magnificent background which must belong of necessity even to these false and malicious representations; however false and malicious, they must still be concerned with names which, after all efforts to pervert their sound, inspire the ideas of sanctity and peace, so that even the faithful are drawn on by the magic of the harmonious words which their adversaries are obliged to repeat in calumniating them. That it should be the spirit of any age to calumniate a period from which it derives all its ancestral treasures, need excite no surprise. "All things are to be expected by man, since I am now accused by you.' This was the observation of Xenophon when he found himself basely charged with treachery by the very men. whom he had conducted from the plains of Babylon; whom he now beheld rising up, one after another, to give unjust

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sentence against him. There is nothing strange, therefore, in the circumstance of ingratitude and calumny being visited upon an heroic age. Pericles, in his celebrated oration over the slain, laid bare one spring which would be sufficient to give movement to these base passions. "Men," he said, are always ready to listen to the praise of others as long as each man supposes that he could perform what he hears; but whatever is recorded exceeding that point they regard as an object of envy, and reject as incredible." It may be observed in all these modern writers, that they take a pleasure in dwelling upon the faults of the old Christians, and in exaggerating their crimes. This, too, arises from a principle of constant operation in all ages. It is remarked in Athenæus how later poets, even Eschylus and Sophocles, ascribed certain corrupt manners of their own time to the Homeric age, which did not belong to it.3 And in the same manner it is certain that, even where there was a disposition to do justice to Christian antiquity, sufficient care has not been taken to form a just estimate of the intentions of a simple people. That a French liberal, like M. Montlosier, should produce the reproaches of Pope Gregory to the clergy, designed for their correction, and preserved by them to be studied by their successors, as an historical evidence of the corruption of the clergy in the middle ages, is no great wonder; but that a learned and candid German historian, like Neander, should make similar use of the remonstrances of St. Bernard to his clergy, intended for their private edification, and transmitted by them to our time, does indeed appear strange and grievous. Surely there is great reason to suspect histories, in the composition of which the ordinary rules of life and the dictates of common sense seem violated. Neander might have observed that St. Bernard was so far from standing alone in his age, that he represents himself as deriving his greatest consolation from the character of his contemporary clergy. Thus he says to the monks at Clairvaux: "Tristis est anima mea usquedum redeam, et non vult consolari usque ad vos. Quæ enim est mihi consolatio in tempore malo et in loco peregrinationis meæ? Nonne vos in Domino?" 4 ? Thucydid. ii. 38. 4 Epist. 144.

1 Anab. vii. 6.

3 Lib. i. 14.

The modern writers seem to consider the Christians of the middle ages as men who were deficient in natural reason: but they bring no proof that the superior men of these times (for the vulgar at all times want guidance) stood in need of the writers of the nineteenth century to tell them what their duty was. What these men thought to be their duty, in all probability was their duty; and no doubt, without waiting for our judgment, the people generally could determine when they had a good king and a holy bishop, and when there was that good cause which is required for martyrdom. The scenes and events which appear to our eyes as having been most extravagant may suggest very different reflections from what are now generally advanced. They seem in one respect to serve as an evidence of the truth of the Christian religion; for if, instead of the zeal and enthusiasm which characterised these times, so much nearer than our own to the great events of the Christian history, men had appeared as indifferent and cool as the present race of reasoning disciples, it would have been very natural to infer that they did not believe in it. The zeal and enthusiasm of these ages seem a necessary link in the chain of historical evidence in proof of Christianity. It was to be expected and required that human nature would thus act when in the presence of such a miraculous and divine event. It may be for men like the moderns, who lead a comfortable and easy life of indifference and oblivion, to rail at enthusiasm, but how can it be for them to talk of faith? Moreover, a conviction of the profound faith which prevailed in these ages may induce men of really philosophic minds to be more cautious in charging them with superstition. Frederick Schlegel remarks, that "faith should not be considered, as many persons would teach, to be the true middle way between both extremes of superstition and infidelity; but on the contrary, that superstition should be ranked along with infidelity, for it is impossible to assign it a place separate from infidelity. Superstition is a positive error and part of unbelief, which last is generally rather a misbelief, a false belief, than a bare absence of belief; it is an idolising of nature and of reason, and of its suggestions and knowledge. One may even lay it down as a general position and invariable rule, that

wherever faith in the one good and just God is lost, there will be raised inwardly some more or less dangerous idol, either of selfishness, or of sensuality, or else a system of reason and an idolatry of nature, or the false sentiment of power belonging to that pernicious spirit which despises and ridicules every thing but itself." Generally, as applied to the charges usually brought against the different institutions of the middle ages, there seems excellent sense in the expression of Guizot, that "nothing falsifies history more than logic: when the mind rests on one idea, it draws all possible consequences, and makes it produce all that it could produce, and then represents it in history with all this attendance. But it is not so that the world moves; events are not so quick in their deductions as the human mind." 12 Of late years, however, several illustrious men have employed their genius in defence of the heroic ages of Christianity. Müller calls the middle ages "the ages of forgotten or unknown merit." "The substantial part of the knowledge and civilisation of antiquity never were forgotten," says Frederick Schlegel; "for very many of the best and noblest productions of modern genius we are entirely obliged to the inventive spirit of the middle ages. It is, upon the whole, extremely doubtful whether those periods which are the most rich in literature possess the greatest share either of moral excellence or of political happiness.-We sacrifice truth to effect when we speak of the dark ages and of the revival of knowledge."3 We are unjust in giving with one consent exclusive praise to new-born gawds, though they are made and moulded of things past, giving to dust that is a little gilt

More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.

Who does not love and admire the patriotic warmth with which Voght speaks of the German people united under Maximilian? Certainly the spectacle of a vast empire, rich in that old national virtue which still gives an interest to their name, is most imposing. Then ruled Berthold the Dextrous, and Albert the Lover of the Arts, in Mainz; John the Learned, in Worms; Friederich the Wise, in 2 Cours d'Hist. Mod. v. 23.

'Philosophie des Lebens, p. 298. 3 Hist. of Lit. i. 7.