tinian. * It is sometimes stated that it was a morbid introduction brought on by perverted Christianity; but this is not correct. To the latter belongs the disgrace of having adopted and used it; but the evil notion of religious constraint by Government is founded on errors in jurisprudence previously common in the Pagan world.

Hugh Greathead, bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1253, was a celebrated Greek scholar, and a man of true piety as well as of rare accomplishments. He recommends that all priests who cannot preach should resign; and that if they are unwilling to do so, they should weekly explain the Gospel to the people. He promoted translations of the Scriptures, and advocated numerous independent works of this kind, in order that accuracy and perspicuity might be attained. He was not only a good and great, but a bold man, preaching before the Pope in a strain of holy indignation against the arrogance, impiety, and incompetence of the clergy. His powerful precepts and example led many a forlorn one to the fountain of life.

If we turn from the province of active life to that of the contemplative, and visit the cloister, we find but feeble traces of evangelical power.

Monachism was introduced into England as early as the fifth century, if not before. Columba was a monk, as was Bede. During the ages characterized by the ruthless invasions of the Northmen, the religious establishments were the asylums of piety and civilization; often destroyed, but again renewed, with all their corruptions and defects, the only witnesses for God and heaven in *Code, Book First.

those times of trouble. The monasteries of Ireland, especially, became schools renowned throughout Europe for the promotion of religion and science, whence Christianity and the seeds of civilization were transported to other countries.*

The monastic system received its first systematic reform from Cuthbert in 747, its second from Dunstan in 965, its third from Lanfranc in 1075, its deathblow, in these islands, from our Legislature in 1539.

For upwards of eight hundred years, in many of the most beautiful valleys of the kingdom, daily and nightly orisons arose from companies of religious recluses; the music of the convent bell floated over woods and pastures green, its call to heavenly things; the broad gates of the abbey were opened with equal hospitality to the cavalcade of princes as to the meanest beggar. Much of temporal benefit was done, many defects of medieval society compensated. Good men, thoughtful men, earnest practical men, occasionally arose and became influential. In all parts of the country we find traces of their labours and monuments of their skill.

History is silent as to the manifestation of that special powerful spiritual life which it was the professed object of these institutions to promote. If they had been successful in this, it would have changed the character of their own and following ages; but we are compelled to state, that as an attempt to advance the reign of God in the soul, and of Christ in the Church, it was a total failure, and became a source of evil instead of good. It dis

*Neander, "Memorials of Christian Life," p. 416.

countenanced the truth concerning the atonement of Christ, which is the only solution and solace of the difficulties which press humanity.

Monasticism as an institution never became thoroughly acclimated in England, either in its contemplative eastern, or its more active western phase. The great monks of our country were missionaries only: such were Patrick, Columba, Boniface, and Lillebrod. We have no fathers and founders of the system amongst our great names.

Two beautiful pictures, the one of the temporal, the other of the spiritual aspect of convent-life, are to be found in modern literature, besides the lofty eulogiums. of Montalembert.

The first is furnished by Mr. Froude ::-"Ever at the sacred gates sat Mercy, pouring out relief from a neverfailing store to the poor and the suffering; ever within the sacred aisles the voices of holy men were pealing heavenwards, in intercession for the sins of mankind; and influences so blessed were thought to exhale around those mysterious precincts, that the outcasts of society— the debtor, the felon, and the outlaw-gathered around the walls, as the sick men sought the shadow of the apostle, and lay there sheltered from the avenging hand till their sins were washed off from their souls. Through the storms of war and conquest, the abbeys of the middle ages floated, like the ark upon the waves of the flood, inviolate in the midst of violence, through the awful reverence which surrounded them.”*

The other is by Dr. Hook, who admits, however, the

* Froude, vol. ii., p. 406.

"The

limited extent to which his language applies :— monastery was, however, more especially the city of refuge to those who sought deliverance not so much from the vengeance of Norman law, as from the tyranny of sin, the power of Satan, the love of the world, the fear of eternal death. Here their eyes and hearts were directed to the cross of Christ, and they were taught to rely on Him crucified. They were told of the blood of Christ, which could cleanse the most aggravated sin, and of the Spirit of Christ, who can sanctify the most polluted nature."*

The religious life of the cloister appears to have been singularly unsuccessful in producing any local or general social religious effect. No purely evangelical succession or school sprang up from monasticism in this country. Doubtless, there were men who by the force of personal piety made gospel truth the tradition of their convent home, but no such exhibition was sufficiently illustrious or permanent in England to raise it into Church history.

* "Lives of the Archbishops," vol. ii., p. 18.

CHAPTER V.

The Wycliffites.

RELIGION has in all ages vindicated its Divine origin by manifesting independence of human institutions. The elaborate machinery of the Papal Church obstructed it; the worldly policy of European States polluted it; yet, like the hidden current of lava, it always flowed on beneath the crust of visible things. Just as the most dreary wastes in the world yield some vegetation to interest and reward the naturalist, so the Christian may rejoice in the belief that the most barren wastes of history have had their living spiritual plants; the latter may dwell hidden in clefts and caves, but are of the Lord's planting, and destined to bear flowers of amaranth in paradise above.

The Gospel was well expounded and well defended in Merton College, Oxford, by Thomas Bradwardine, called "the profound doctor," who became Divinity Professor, and afterwards Chaplain to King Edward the Third, and who, for a very brief space, was Archbishop of Canterbury. His teaching on the vital question of justification by faith in the atonement of Christ, is quite