stimulate and fructify the mind, and to put it on the path of original activity and production.

In all Protestant lands, the universal diffusion of the Bible in the vernacular tongues, has proved an instrument of culture of inestimable value. Apart from its direct religious influence, the Bible has carried into the households, even of the humblest classes, a most effective means of mental stimulation and instruction. By its history, poetry, ethics, theology, it has expanded the intellect of common men, and roused them to reflection on themes of the highest moment. The scene which Burns depicts in "The Cotter's Saturday Night" suggests not only the religious power of the Bible in the homes of the poor, but also its elevating and inspiring influence within the entire sphere of mental action. The Church of Rome has never, by a general prohibition, interdicted the use of the Bible to the laity; but it has done little to promote it. On the contrary, the ten Rules relating to the censorship of books, which emanated from the Council of Trent, impose severe restrictions upon the circulation and reading of the Scriptures in the vernacular languages. "Inasmuch," they say, "as it is manifest from experience, that if the Holy Bible, translated into the vulgar tongue, be indiscriminately allowed to every one, the temerity of men will cause more evil than good to arise from it; it is, on this point, referred to the judgment of the bishops or inquisitors, who may, by the advice of the priest or confessor, permit the reading of the Bible, translated into the vulgar tongue by Catholic authors, to those persons whose faith and piety, they apprehend, will be augmented, and not injured by it; and this permission they must have in writing. But if any one shall have the presumption to read or possess it without such written permission, he shall not receive absolution until he have first delivered up such Bible to the ordinary. Booksellers, however, who shall sell, or otherwise dispose of Bibles in the

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vulgar tongue, to persons not having such permission, shall forfeit the value of the books, to be applied by the bishop to some pious use; and be subjected to such other penalties as the bishop shall judge proper, according to the quality of the offense. But regulars shall neither read nor purchase such Bibles without a special license from their superiors." This rule fairly indicates the policy of the Church of Rome since the Tridentine Council. This policy had its origin after the movements of the laity, in Romanic countries, in the twelfth century, against ecclesiastical abuses, when the Waldenses and other sects resorted to the Bible, and encouraged the reading of it. In England the opposition to Wickliffe had a similar effect in leading the authorities of the Church to discountenance the use of the Bible in the vulgar tongue. The Jansenists, Arnauld and his associates, advocated a more free reading of the Scriptures by the laity; but they were combated on this point, as on other peculiarities of their system. Even in recent times fulminations have been sent forth from the Vatican against Bible societies; and this hostility is not only directed against translations made by Protestants, but against the unrestricted circulation of any versions in the language of the people. Back of all these rules and prohibitions, however, there is another formidable hindrance in the way of the general reading of the Bible among Roman Catholic laymen. It arises from the doctrine that they are incapable of interpreting it. In the early ages of the Church, the Scriptures were rendered into the languages of the tribes to whom the Gospel was carried. The Fathers were not opposed to the reading of them by the people. Even as late as Gregory I. they recommend it. But the practice began to fall into disuse in consequence of the prevalent belief that laymen are incompetent to un

1 App. i. ad Concil. Trid. De libris prohib. Reg. iv. The rules are translated by Mendham, The Literary Policy of the Church of Rome, p. 63 seq.

derstand it incapable of deciphering its meaning for themselves. Protestant teachers, on the contrary, have declared that the Bible is intelligible to plain men, and have universally inculcated upon all the obligation to read it habitually. The English version and the translation of Luther have entered into the intellectual life of the nations to which they severally belong, with an exciting and transforming energy, the wholesome effect and full extent of which it is impossible to estimate. To say nothing of a strictly religious influence, if we could subtract from the German mind the effect, regarded only from an intellectual point of view, of Luther's Bible, and do the same in the case of our version in its relation to the English-speaking race, how incalculable would be the loss!

The effect of the Reformation upon literature in England is generally understood. The age of Elizabeth, the era of Spenser and Raleigh, of Bacon and Shakespeare, was the period in which the ferment caused by the Reformation was at its height, and when Protestantism established its supremacy over the English mind. That Protestantism was a life-giving element in the atmosphere in which the eminent authors of that and of the following ages drew their inspiration, admits of no reasonable doubt. We have only to imagine that the reign of Mary and her religious system had continued through the sixteenth century, and we shall appreciate the indispensable part which Protestantism took in the creation of that great literary epoch. The great writers of the Elizabethan period have been called "men of the Renaissance, not men of the Reformation." 1 A brilliant French author has even grouped them together under the title of the "Pagan Renaissance." 2 It. is quite true that they derived their materials largely from the poets and novelists of Italy; that the influence of the Italian culture is

1 Matthew Arnold, Schools and Universities on the Continent, p. 154. 2 Taine, History of English Literature, i. 143 seq.

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manifest in their works. From this point of view, the classification just mentioned is not so incorrect. Moreover, the English writers of this grand era were true to themselves; they are marked by a fresh vigor and genuine naturalness. At the same time, their veneration for the great truths of religion, their profound, unaffected faith, are equally conspicuous; and by this quality they are distinguished from the school of the Renaissance in Southern Europe. The same French critic to whom we have referred, adverts, in another passage, to the constant influence of "the grave and grand idea" of religion, and adds: "In the greatest prose writers, Bacon, Burton, Sir Thomas Browne, Raleigh, we see the fruits of veneration, a settled belief in the obscure beyond; in short, faith and prayer. Several prayers written by Bacon are amongst the finest known; and the courtier Raleigh, whilst writing of the fall of empires, and how the barbarous nations had destroyed this grand and magnificent Roman Empire, ended his book with the ideas and tone of a Bossuet." 1 It is not more true that Shakespeare rises above all the narrow confines of sect, than that his dramas reveal a deep faith in a supernatural order, and are pervaded with the fundamental verities of the Christian religion. The boldness and independence of the Elizabethan writers, their fearless and earnest pursuit of truth, and their solemn sense of religion, apart from all asceticism and superstition, are among the effects of the Reformation.2 This is equally true of them as it is of Milton and of the greatest of their successors. Nothing save the impulse which Protestantism gave to the English mind, and the intellectual ferment which was engendered by it, will account for the literary phenomena of the Elizabethan

times.

1 i. 378. The passage of Raleigh is the apostrophe, beginning: "O; eloquent, just, and mightie Death!"

2 A just view of this matter is presented by Hazlitt, Lectures on the Dramatic Lit. of the Age of Elizabeth (lect. i.), where the influence of the Reformation is eloquently traced.

The Reformation in Germany transferred literary activity from the South to the North. Since that time, the literary achievements on the Catholic side have been, in comparison with those of the Protestants, insignificant. A learned Catholic scholar has stated the difficulty which he experienced in finding Catholic names worthy of note, when he undertook the task of describing the state of learning in Germany in the period after the Reformation.2 He attributes this intellectual dearth to the methods of education adopted by the Jesuits, who obtained so extensive a control over the instruction of the young. In the seventeenth century, theological controversy and the desolating effects of war prevented Germany from emulating England in the path of science and literature. But the eighteenth century opens with the illustrious name of Leibnitz; and from that time, especially from the middle of that century, the achievements of the German mind in all branches of human knowledge have surpassed those of any other nation, ancient or modern. Germany has earned the distinction of being the land of scholars. It appears that in England, immediately after the Reformation, the cause of learning suffered in consequence of the injury done to schools by the confiscations of Henry VIII., and by the rapacity of his courtiers and those of Edward. The attention given to theological disputes in the Universities tended for a while to the same result. In Germany, most of the Protestant leaders were devoted Humanists. In the ferment excited at first by the Wittenberg Reform, there was danger that science and education would be neglected; and of this danger Melancthon was painfully sensible. He made schools an object 1 Gervinus, Gsch. d. poetisch. National-Lit., Th. iii. 20.

2 Döllinger, Vorträge, etc. (Munich, 1872).

8 Warton, History of English Poetry, i. § xxxvi.; Arnold, Schools and Universities, etc., p. 153.

4 The anxiety of Melancthon on this subject, a few years after the Lutheran movement commenced, and the efforts in behalf of education to which he was prompted, are described by Galle, Charakteristik Melancthons, p. 119.