CHAPTER XI.

The letter was sent, and in the course of the forenoon the _tabellarius_, or letter-carrier of the inn, returned from Formiæ. Crispina brought him to Paulus, who was in an avenue of the garden watching some players as they contested a game of quoits or _discus_. This avenue connected the garden proper with the open country westward, terminating in a cross-hedge of myrtle, through which a little wicket or trellis gate opened. "The man has brought no letter back," the hostess said, signing at the same time to the messenger to deliver the particulars of his errand.

He had found the tribune, he said, and had given him the letter and asked for an answer. The tribune was at the moment inspecting a body of troops. He read the note, however, and immediately took out of his belt both his _stylus_ and _pugillaria_, or hand-tablets; when the prætorian prefect Sejanus, happening to pass, entered into conversation with him, and the messenger then saw Velleius Paterculus hand to Sejanus Paulus's letter. After reading it, the general gave it back, said something in Greek, and went away. The tribune thereupon told the bearer that he would send an answer during the day by a messenger of his own. Paulus thanked the man, who then withdrew.

Our hero, who had prepared his fishing-tackle, a portion of which he had in his hand, remarked that it was vexatious to lose so fine and favorable a day. "Moreover, why should I be a prisoner?" he suddenly exclaimed. "I have a triple right to my personal liberty, as Roman citizen, knight, and noble. And what have I done to forfeit it? What have I done except parry the blow of an assassin whom I neither injured nor provoked?"

"Hush!" murmured Crispina; and just then Cneius Piso, having a bandage round his head, and leaning on the arm of Plancina, was seen passing into the inn before them from another part of the garden.

The landlady stood still a moment, till the two figures had disappeared, when she said, with a slight motion of the thumb in the direction of Piso, "He reports himself quite well now except for a headache. He and his lady leave us in an hour for Rome, and I hope I may say both _vale_ and _salve_. You ask what you have done. Have you not come to Italy to claim rights which are indisputable?"

"Is that reason?"

"It is a thousand reasons, and another thousand, too. Alas! do not deceive yourself, as your namesake and cousin did, about the character of the world."

At the door of the inn they separated, she to attend to the multifarious business of her household, and he to loiter purposelessly. After a little reflection, he went quite through the house by the _impluvium_, and the central corridor beyond it, and looked into the public room, or _atrium_. At one table a couple of centurions sat playing dice with the _tesseræ_, and shouting the names of half a dozen gods and goddesses, as their luck fluctuated. At another table a powerfully built, dark, middle-aged man, having a long, ruddy beard streaked with gray, upon whom Asiatic slaves waited, was taking a traveller's repast; his slaves helping him to costly wine, which he drank with a grimace of dissatisfaction, but in formidable quantities. Other groups were dotted round the large apartment. In order not to draw needless notice, for all eyes turned to him for a moment, except those of the two dice-throwing and bellowing centurions, Paulus seated himself behind an unoccupied table near the door. While idly watching the scenes around him, he thought he heard his name pronounced in the passage outside. He listened, but the noise in the room made him uncertain, and the voice outside was already less audible, as of one who had passed the door while speaking.

Presently he heard, in a much louder tone, the words, "Why, it is not our carriage, after all. Let us return and wait where we can sit down." And the speaker again passed the public room, coming back, apparently, from the porch.

Paulus happened to be sitting close to the door, which was open; a curtain, as was common, hanging over the entrance. This time, in spite of the noise in the dieta, a word or two, and a name, though not his own, struck him. He fancied some one said, "No harm to her; but still, not the brother--the sister, my trusty Claudius."

Where had Paulus heard those tones before? In itself, what he had overheard was a sufficiently harmless fragment of a sentence. Nevertheless, Paulus rose, left his table, lifted aside the door-curtain, and went into the corridor, where he saw Cneius Piso and Plancina, with their backs to him, walking toward the end of the passage opposite the porch, but he nearly stumbled against a young man going the other way. This person, who was good-looking, in both senses of the word, wore the sober-colored _exomis_, or tunic, the long hair, and the slippers of a slave. He had in his right hand a stylus; in his left, tablets of citron-wood, open and covered with blue wax, on which he was reading, with his head bent, some note which he had made there.

"It is my fault, noble sir," said he; "I was stooping over these and did not observe you; I beg you to pardon my awkwardness." And he bowed with an air of humility.

"It is I, rather, who am to blame," said Paulus, scanning steadily the features of the slave, who had made his apology with a look of alarm, and in exaggerated accents of deprecation.

Shortly after this incident, while Paulus, who had not returned to the _atrium_, was leaning dreamily over the balustrade of the inn's central court, and watching the fountain in the impluvium there, he was struck heavily on the shoulder from behind by an open hand. Turning round slowly, he beheld a man in the very prime of life, who was entirely a stranger to him.

"I was told I should find you here, excellent sir," said the stranger.

Paulus took in, at a glance, his dress and general appearance. He had a thick brown beard, neatly trimmed, and open, daring, large blue eyes, in which there was nothing whatever sullen or morose; yet a sort of wildness and fierceness, with a slight but constant gleam of vigilance, if not subtlety. On the whole, his face was handsome; it was conspicuously manful, and, perhaps, somewhat obdurate and pitiless.

His stature was good without being very lofty. He had broad shoulders, rather long, sinewy arms, a deep chest, and, altogether, a figure and person not lacking any token of agility, but more indicative of huge strength.

He wore sandals, the laces of which crossed each other up his mighty legs, which were otherwise bare, and a white woollen _diphera_ covered his shoulders, and was belted round his waist.

"And who told you that you would find me here?" asked Paulus; "for a few minutes ago I did not know I should find myself here."

"There goes the youth who told me," answered the other pointing, and at the same moment Paulus saw the slave, against whom he had walked in the passage, cross on tiptoe an angle of the court-yard, and vanish through a door on the opposite side.

"Claudius," continued the stranger, "is an acquaintance of mine, and chancing to meet him as I entered the hostelry, I asked for you."

"And pray who are you, and what do you want with me?" asked Paulus, after the slave, who must, he now felt sure, be the Claudius to whom Benigna was betrothed, had disappeared.

"Who am I?" returned the stranger; "a good many people know my name, and my person, too. But that matters not for the present. Your second question is more immediately important. 'What do I want with you?' To deliver to you a letter; nothing more. Understanding that I meant to stroll out in this direction, the distinguished tribune, Velleius Paterculus, requested me to hand you this."

And he produced from a fold in the breast of his white woollen tunic a letter, having a written address on one side, and a thread round its four ends, which thread was knotted on the side opposite to that bearing the superscription. The knot was secured by a waxen seal, upon which the scholarly writer had, in imitation of the deceased minister Mæcenas, impressed the engraving of a frog.

Paulus opened it and read what follows:

"To the noble Paulus Æmilius Lepidus, the younger, Velleius Paterculus sends greeting:

"Go where you like, amuse yourself as you like, do as you like--fish, ride, walk, read, play, sing--provided you sleep each night at the Post House of the Hundredth Milestone, under the excellent Crispina's roof. Be careful of your health and welfare."

"So far so good," said Paulus; "I am a prisoner, indeed, but with a tolerable long tether, at least. I am much obliged to you for bringing me the letter."

"Imprisonment!" observed the other. "I have heard a knot of centurions, and also soldiers unnumbered, talk of your imprisonment, and of the blow with which it seems to be connected. You are a favorite, without knowing it, among the troops at Formiæ. One fierce fellow swore, by quite a crowd of gods, that your blow deserved to have freed a slave, instead of enslaving a knight; that is, to have freed you had you been a slave, instead of enslaving you, who are already a knight."

"I feel grateful to the soldiers," said Paulus. "You are doubtless an officer--a centurion, perhaps?"

"Well, they do speak freely," replied the stranger, "and so do I; therefore you have made a fair guess; but you are wrong."

"Ah! well," said Paulus; "thanks for your trouble, and farewell. I must go."

"One word," persisted the other. "I am a famous man, though you do not seem to know it. The conqueror in thirty-nine single combats at Rome, all of them mortal, and all against the best gladiators that ever fought in circus or in forum, stands before you. At present I am no longer obliged to fight in person. I keep the most invincible _familia_ of gladiators that Rome has hitherto known. You are aware of the change of morals and fashions; you are aware that even a senator has been seen in the arena. Some day an emperor will descend into our lists." (This, as the reader knows, really happened in the course of time.) "Join my family, my school; I am Thellus, the lanista."

"What!" cried Paulus, his nostrils dilated, and his eyes flashing. "In Greece, where I have been bred, gladiatorial shows are not so much as allowed by law, even though the gladiators should be all slaves; and because some senator has forgotten the respect due to the senate and to himself, and has no sense either of decency or humanity, you dare to propose to me, the nephew of a triumvir, the son of an honorable and a famous soldier--to me, the last of the Æmilians, to descend as a gladiator into the arena, and to join your school, _mehercle!_ of uneducated, base-born, and mercenary cut-throats!"

The lanista was so astounded by this unexpected burst of lofty indignation, and felt himself thrust morally to such a sudden distance from the stripling, at least in the appearance of things, that he uttered not one word for several instants. He glared in speechless fury at the speaker, and when at length he found voice and ideas he said,

"Do you know that I could take you in these unarmed hands, and tear you limb from limb where you stand, as you would rend a chicken--do you know that?"

"I do not," said Paulus, in slow and significant accents, facing round at the same time upon the lanista with deliberate steadiness, and looking him fixedly in the face; "but if you even could, it would suit my humor better to be murdered where I am by a gladiator than to be one."

"By the Capitoline Jove!" cried Thellus, after another rather long, doubtful pause, laughing vehemently, "when I place your skill of fence, about which I have heard a particular account, by the side of your high spirit, you really do make my mouth water to number you among my pupils. I have not a man in my _familia_ whom you would not, when a little addition to your years shall have perfected your bodily vigor, stretch upon the sand in ten minutes. But what mean you, after all? You do not wish to hurt my feelings, because I make you a friendly offer in the best shape that my unlucky destiny and state of life afford me the means of doing? Do you, then, so utterly despise the gladiator? Have you reflected on it so deeply? Who, nevertheless, displays in a greater degree many of the severest and highest virtues? Do you despise the man who despises life itself, when compared with honor in the only form in which honor is for him accessible? Answer that. Do you despise abstemiousness, fortitude, self-control, self-sacrifice, chastity, courage, endurance? Answer that. Who is more dauntless in the combat, more sublimely unruffled when defeated, more invincibly silent under the agony of a violent death, accompanied by the hootings of pitiless derision, and _whose_ derision, whose mockery, is the last sound in his ears? _Let that pass._

"But who pays a dearer price for the applause of his fellow-men when it is his? Who serves them more desperately in the way in which they desire to be, and will needs be, served? Who gives them the safe and cruel pleasures they demand more ungrudgingly, or under such awful conditions? Who comes forward to be mangled and destroyed with a more smiling face, or a more indifferent mien? Who spurns ease, and sloth, and pleasure, and pain, and the sweet things of life, and the bitter things of death, in order to show what manhood can dare and what manfulness can do, and in order to be thoroughly the man to the last, with the same constant and unconquerable mind, as the very gladiator whom you thus insult? Women can often show _heroism_ in pain while shrinking from danger; and, on the other hand, amidst the general excitement and the contagious enthusiasm of an army in battle, to fight pretty well, and then to howl without restraint in the surgeon's hands, is the property of nearly all men. Some who face danger badly endure anguish well; and many, again, who cannot support pain will confront danger. But if you wish to name him who does both in perfection, and who practises that perfection habitually, you will name the gladiator. Nor is it pain of body alone, nor loss of life alone, which his calling trains him to undergo with alacrity. Are you sure that our motives are simply and solely that grovelling lust of gain which you imply? _Mercenary_ you dare to term us? Mercenary! The gambler is mercenary. Is the gladiator like your high-born voluntary gambler? Is the gladiator deaf to praise? Indifferent to admiration? Reckless of your sympathy? Is he without other men's human ties and affections, as the gambler is? Has the gladiator no parents whom he feeds with that blood which flows from his gashes? No wife whom he is all the time protecting with that lacerated and fearless breast? No children whom his toils, efforts, and sufferings are keeping out of degradation, out of want, and out of that very arena which he treads with a spirit that nothing can subdue, in order that those whom he loves may never enter it?"

While Thellus thus thundered with increasing and increasing vehemence, the clear-faced youth whom he addressed, and who had confronted his words of menace without any emotion except that of instinctive and settled defiance, was and appeared to be quite overwhelmed. Had Paulus been struck bodily, he could not have felt any thing like the pain he suffered. The words of the gladiator smote the lad full to the heart, like stones shot from a catapult.

Thellus gazed thoughtfully at him during the pause which ensued, and then resumed by exclaiming,

"Mercenary! that is, he takes pay. Does the author take pay? answer that. Do the lawyer and soldier take pay? Does the magistrate take pay? Does, or does not, the emperor take pay? Does the vestal virgin herself take pay? If the gladiator did, and suffered, and was all he does, all he suffers, all he is, in mere sport, and at his own personal expense, I suppose you would respect him. But I, Thellus--I, the gladiator--I, the lanista--would scorn him, and spurn him, and spit upon him. Blame the community who go to these sports, and sit in shameless safety; blame the hundreds of thousands who succeed other hundreds of thousands to applaud us when we kill our beloved comrades, and, at the same time, to howl and hoot over those same brave friends whom we kill; blame those who, having cheered us when we slew our faithful companions, yell at us in our own turn when we are slain; blame men for taking us when we are little children, and rearing us expressly to be fit for nothing else; blame men for taking the little ones of captured warriors who have in vain defended their native lands against the discipline and skill of Rome; blame men for mingling these poor infants in one college with the foundlings and the slaves to whom law and positive necessity bequeath but one lot in this life; blame those who thus provide for the deadly arena. Blame your customs, blame your laws, blame your tyrannous institutions, against which the simplicity and trustfulness of boyish years can neither physically nor mentally struggle; blame, above all, your fine dames, more degraded--ay, far more degraded and more abased than the famishing prostitutes who must perish of starvation, or be what they are; blame your fine dames, I say, who when, like the august Julia, they import the thick silks of India, are not satisfied till they pick them _thin_ and transparent before wearing them, lest their garments should conceal their shame; and thus attired, pampered with delicacies, gorged with food, heated with wine, surfeited with every luxury, reeking and horrible, know not what else to do to beguile the languid intervals of systematic wickedness, than to come to the arena and indulge in sweet emotions over the valiant and virtuous fathers of homes and hopes of families, who perish there in torture and in ignominy for their pleasure."

"O God!" cried young Paulus.

"Well may you," cried Thellus, "be filled with horror. Ah! then, when will a god descend from heaven, and give us a new world? I have one child in my home, a sweet, peaceful, natural-hearted, conscience-governed, loving little daughter. Her mother has gone away from me for ever to some world beyond death where more justice and more mercy prevail. The day when I lost her I had to fight in the arena. _Eheu!_ She was anxious for me, she could not control her suspense; she saw the execrable Tiberius. Bah! do you think I'm afraid to speak? Of what should I be afraid? Thellus has been at the funeral of fear; yes, this many a day," continued Thellus, raising his voice; "she came to the Statilian amphitheatre against my express command; she saw the execrable Tiberius, contrary to every custom, after I had been victor in four fatal encounters, when I was worn out with fatigue, order me to meet a fresh antagonist; and looking up among the hundred thousand spectators, I beheld the sweet, loving face. I beheld the clasped and convulsive fingers. But, lo, who came forth to fight against me? Whom had the accursed man provided as my next antagonist? Her only brother, poor Statius, whom Tiberius knew to be a gladiator, and whom he had thus selected for the more refined excitement of the spectators to fight against Thellus; but, above all, for his own more refined enjoyment, for the monster had tried and found my poor Alba incorruptible; and this was his revenge against a wretched gladiator and his faithful wife. Statius was no match for me; I tried to disarm him; after a while I succeeded, wounding him at the same time slightly. He fell, and his blood colored the sand. I looked to the people; they looked to Tiberius, waiting for the sign of mercy or execution. I was resolved in any case not to be the slayer of Statius.

"The prince turned up his thumb, to intimate that I was to kill my wounded opponent. The amphitheatre then rang with a woman's scream, and the people, with one impulse, turned _down_ their hands. I bore Statius in my own arms out of the arena; but when I reached home, I found my wife was near childbirth, delirious, and raving _against me_ as the murderer of her brother. She died so, in my arms and in her brother's. She left me my poor little Prudentia, who is dearer to me than all this globe."

After taking breath, he added, quoting Paulus's words,

"But we are a gang of base-born, uneducated, and mercenary cut-throats."

"Oh! forgive, forgive, forgive my words," exclaimed Paulus, stretching out both hands toward the gladiator.

Thellus took those hands and said,

"Why, I love you, lad. I love you like a son. I am not high-born enough to be father to the like of you; but it is not forbidden me to love a noble youth who hates baseness and is ignorant of fear. I'll tell you more; but first answer me--are you of opinion, from what has passed between us, that Thellus is an uneducated man?"

"I am afraid that you are better educated than I am."

"In any case," replied Thellus, "I am ready to confess that the qualities and virtues exercised by gladiators are exercised for a wrong purpose, and in a wrong way. But tell me, why is bread made? You will not say because bakers bake it. That would be a girl's answer; it would be saying that a thing is because it is, or is made because it is made. Why is it made? Because it is wanted. Would bakers bake it if nobody ate it? If nobody wanted to live in a house, would masons build any? or would there even be any masons? You could not, I grant, have music if there were no musicians, if none wanted music. It is the gladiator, unquestionably, who does the fighting in the arena; but if none wanted the fighting, you would have no gladiators. I have told you how we are trepanned in helpless infancy; and not only reared, prepared, and fitted for this calling, but hopelessly unfitted for every other. We supply the spectacle--but who desires the spectacle? It is not we; we are the only sufferers by it; we detest it. But whatever in so dreadful and wicked a pastime can be noble, courageous, unselfish, heroic, we the same, we the victims, give and exhibit; and all the selfishness of it, all that is cowardly in it, all that is cruel, base, despicable, execrable, and accursed, sits on the benches, and applauds or yells in the wedges;[61] this you, _you_, who go thither, and bring thither us, your victims, this you produce, this is your contribution to it. Ours is honor, valor, skill, and dauntless death; yours, inhumanity, cowardice, baseness, luxurious ease, and a safe, lazy, and besotted life."

"It is true," said Paulus. "Hideous are the pleasures, detestable the glories of this gigantic empire; but _unless, as you say, a God himself were to come down from heaven_, how will it ever be reformed?"

"How, indeed?" answered Thellus.

Little did they dream who a certain Child in Syria was, who had then entered his eleventh year!

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[60] Greek, we may observe, was to the Romans of that age about as familiar as, and far more necessary than, French is to us. It was the vehicle of all philosophy, and the condition of all higher education. The fashionable Romans used Greek phrases in conversation through vanity.

[61] Juvenal, vi. 61.

THE POPE AND THE COUNCIL, BY JANUS.

Since the apostolic bull convoking the General Council of the Vatican, now in session, has been issued by Pius IX., an immense literary activity has manifested itself in most countries about the great and important questions which are supposed to claim the attention of that august assembly of the Catholic Church. Not only Catholic, but also Protestant reviews have engaged in various ways in the discussion of matters relating to the council. Very numerous, indeed, are the pamphlets--nay, books and volumes of greater import--that have been published within the last ten months in Italy, Belgium, France, England, and Germany. It is particularly in this latter country that publications concerning more or less the present council have been most numerous, and prominent reviews have given able and elaborate notices of most of them. Several publications, of this character have been rendered accessible to Italian, French, and English readers, thus exhibiting the importance attached to them outside of Germany.

It is our present purpose to enter upon a closer examination of a work which we have already briefly noticed in a former number, we mean the book, _The Pope and the Council, by Janus_, of which an authorized translation appeared both in England and in this country.

We adduce this fact as a very peculiar one, which will cause still greater surprise to the reader when he is informed that an authorized French translation appeared but a short time after the original itself.

The reader has already been told what he is to think of the orthodoxy of _Janus_, when his doctrines are judged by the criterion established by the church. But let us state here at once that we have a right to apply the Catholic test to the doctrine set forth by _Janus_. For they, namely, the authors (p. 14,) expressly profess to be in communion with the Catholic Church, though "inwardly separated by a great gulf from those whose ideal of the church is an universal empire." The translator, too, presents _Janus_ as "a work of _Catholic authorship_," and declares "_the authors members of a school, morally if not numerically strong, who yield to none in their loyal devotion to Catholic truth_!"

In view of such declarations, we may proceed to inquire, What is the aim of _Janus_? The authors can best answer this question; for, in their opinion, since the forgery of the Isidorian Decretals, about the year 845, the primacy has been distorted and transformed.

"The papacy, such as it has become, presents the appearance of a disfiguring, sickly, and choking excrescence on the organization of the church, hindering and decomposing the action of its vital powers, and bringing manifold diseases in its train."

Moreover, _Janus_ boldly asserts _à priori_ that the approaching council will not enjoy that freedom of deliberation necessary to make it truly œcumenical.

"The recently proclaimed council is to be held not only in Italy, but in Rome itself; and already it has been announced that, as the sixth Lateran Council, it will adhere faithfully to the fifth. That is quite enough; it means this: that whatever course the synod may take, one quality can never be predicated of it, namely, that it has been a really free council." (Pp. 345, 346.)

These extracts would be quite sufficient to show the aim of _Janus_, and his view of the "pope and the council." How such harsh and preposterous language may be reconciled with _loyal devotion to Catholic truth_, and that _commendable piety_ which the authors of _Janus_ profess, we ask candid and impartial readers to decide.

_Janus_ considers it to be true piety "to expose the weak points of the papacy, denounce its faults, and purposely exhibit their mischievous results;" appealing to a saying of St. Bernard, _Melius est ut scandalum oriatur, quam ut veritas relinquatur_. It is this intense love of truth which prompts _Janus_ "to oppose, frankly and decisively, every disfigurement" (p. 20) which the church has undergone for nearly a thousand years. "_To ward off so fatal a catastrophe_," with which the church is now threatened by the council, the authors have attempted in this work to contribute to the awakening and direction of public opinion, (p. 27,) and have entered this "protest, based on history," and appeal to the "thinkers among believing Christians," and are modest enough to hope that their "labors will attract attention in scientific circles, and serve as a contribution to ecclesiastical history." (Preface.)

We cannot, therefore, be surprised that a work with such a _scientific_ programme should have caused some sensation, even among Catholic theologians, many of whom were not slow to unmask the _historical representations_, and "direct reference to original authorities," of which _Janus_ makes such great parade. That _Janus_ was hailed with great delight, not only abroad but also in this country, by an anti-Catholic press, and nearly all reviews or periodicals, cannot be a matter of wonder, when we know that such allies as _Janus_ within our own pale are welcome to the enemies of the church.

In England, _Janus_ was heralded by a grand preliminary and concomitant flourish of trumpets. Every thing was done by a certain very small but very zealous clique to give this book as great a publicity as possible.[62] The _North British Review_, the _Saturday Review_, and the _Academy_, have joined in one chorus of eulogy, exulting over the victory which they think _Janus_ has achieved. Among the many admirers of _Janus_ in our country, suffice it to say that one writer has been so fascinated by this "_work, so entirely made up of facts_," that he triumphantly exclaims, "No one can help feeling convinced of its veracity." Nay, more than this, the same reviewer pays a compliment to _Janus_ which, considering the source it comes from, involves a strange contradiction. It runs thus,

"The author (_Janus_) shows himself throughout a _thorough_ Catholic, but an _earnest_ and liberal Christian, a learned canonist, a faithful and discriminating historian."

Without further comments, we propose to meet _Janus_ and his admirers upon equal grounds, since it is their earnest wish

"that the reader's attention should be exclusively concentrated on the matter itself, and that, in the event of its evoking controversy, no opportunity should be given for transferring the dispute from the sphere of objective and scientific investigation of the weighty questions under review." (P. 28.)

We have no reason to dread _that facts and "original authorities" must and can speak for themselves_, and we too shall hope to see where the saying of Pope Innocent III. is verified, "_Falsitas sub velamine sanctitatis tolerari non debet_."

In presence of such a vast amount of matter as _Janus_ gives to his readers, and we might say _en passant_ with such little semblance of order and system, it becomes necessary to confine our examination to three leading points: 1. To the manner in which the investigation is conducted, or the scientific character of the work; 2. To the orthodoxy which the authors profess; 3. To the historical and critical parts of the book.

1. As is correctly stated in the "Translator's Notice," the substance of the volume already appeared in a series of articles in the _Allgemeine Zeitung_, or Gazette of Augsburg, in March, 1869, under the heading of "The Council and the _Civilta_." In these articles, "historical facts" were brought forward, which called forth prompt and sharp answers from the Catholic reviews of Germany, where several falsehoods were exposed and denounced as gross misrepresentations. When these articles were issued in their present form, the authors of _Janus_ took no notice of the exposure, but quietly dropped from their book these three mendacious statements. Not a word of apology or retractation was offered. An able theologian[63] has pointed out these tactics of _Janus_; but, to our knowledge, no reply was given.

"Our _Janus_," says the same critic, "may feel quite at ease; he will not be brought to the stake either for his historical criticism, or even for his heresies; but he has branded himself as a forger by the very act of spiriting away these lies, only to come forward with a look of perfect innocence and palm off upon the world others more numerous."

Indeed, the new name of _Janus_, assumed by the authors, has also a figurative meaning, inasmuch as a different face may be exhibited, just as the case may demand. _Janus_ declares his love and attachment to the church and the primacy, and regards it as a _complete misapplication_ of the term _piety_ "to conceal or color historical facts and faulty institutions." (P. 20.)

Hence the inference will be legitimate to stigmatize as impious a mode of investigation which misstates and distorts historical facts, shaking at the very foundation both the church and the primacy. And this is precisely what _Janus_ would accomplish, even contrary to his own avowed intention. For, according to him, "The primacy rests on divine appointment;" and still it has been transformed, and has become destructive to the church, rending asunder _that unity_ which to uphold and represent it had been instituted. (Pp. 18, 21.)

"Since the ninth century, a transformation of the primacy, artificial and sickly, the consequences of which have been the splitting up of the previously united church into three great ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other."

If such is the case, where, may we ask, is that primacy of _divine institution_ to be found?--that primacy ever-living and indefectible as the church herself. And yet, we have the word of _Janus_ for it, the primacy, divinely instituted as the centre of unity, has virtually become extinct, and has failed to be the source and centre of unity. Did _Janus_ himself dare to face this inevitable and logical conclusion?

"The Roman bishops not only believed themselves to be in possession of a divine right, and acted accordingly, but this right was actually recognized by others." (P. 22.)

How is this profession to be reconciled with the following one, "that the form which this primacy took depended on the concessions of the particular local churches"?

What the privileges were which Christ himself bestowed on the primacy, _Janus nowhere_ attempts to state. Where, then, is his reason for asserting that the form which the primacy took depended on concessions? Wherein consist the privileges inherent in the primacy by divine right, and which are those conceded by the local churches? Until _Janus_ has distinctly defined these respective limits, with what show of logic and scientific process can he pronounce that for eight centuries the primacy was _legitimately developed_, and since the ninth century so fatally transformed and totally disfigured? Truly, if he had committed himself to any _precise_ theory,[64] he would have exposed himself to an inglorious refutation; as it is now, he has taken refuge in silence. And yet, in justice to himself, and in order to save his scientific reputation, _Janus_ was obliged to define these divine rights of the primacy before he could venture to say that they had been _fatally_ transformed; thus he is able to bring forward "a very dark side of the history of the papacy." Superficial minds may be ensnared by this deceitful procedure, but fair and scientific thinkers will rise indignantly and enter their solemn protest against such an abuse of logic and history. Moreover, it is obvious that a primacy whose form, that is, rights inherent to it, are made dependent upon the consent of those over whom it is to be exercised, is illusory, and is a mere shadow. It is very difficult to understand how such a novel mode of reasoning should have escaped our authors, who have "written under a deep sense of anxiety," and we fear that, by pledging their faith to such dogmas as the infallibility of the church, and the divinely appointed primacy of St. Peter and his successors, in the person of the bishops of Rome, they have either deluded themselves or hoped to delude others by hollow professions of faith and a hypocritical show of piety.

The authors, having thus left a wide and open field in which to lead astray and bewilder the minds of their readers, do not hesitate to assert, "No one acquainted with church history will choose to affirm that the popes ever exercised a fixed primatial right in the same way" over the churches in different countries. Quite a captious and vague affirmation in each and every particular. Are we to understand that, because the same primatial rights were not everywhere and uniformly exercised, there were no acknowledged rights of the primacy? And yet to this conclusion, however illogical, such a proposition would lead. If the Roman bishops have not at all times exercised the same rights over the churches in Egypt as over those of Africa or Gaul, it is simply owing to the different condition of the various churches, where the exercise of such rights was not necessary, and by the very nature of things varied to meet the exigencies of the churches. What opinion would we form of a writer--we may be permitted to use a familiar illustration--who, from the fact that Congress did not at one time enforce the same article of our constitution in the State of Ohio as it did in Virginia, concluded that this legislative body possessed not, or was not conscious of possessing, the same rights and power granted by the constitution in Ohio as in Virginia? This is precisely what _Janus_ would induce his readers to believe regarding the rights of the primacy. That the popes throughout the first centuries of the church exercised primatial rights, _Janus_ readily grants, and must grant from the position he assumes. Now, if the exercise of such rights over the various churches at different periods of the _ancient_ church, taken _collectively_, _involve all those prerogatives_ which the papacy has since claimed and enjoyed, we must of necessity infer that the rights of the primacy, as understood and exercised at the present period, are identical with those of the first eight centuries.

This we could prove by a "work entirely made up of facts, and supporting all statements by reference to the original authorities." Yes, this has already been done by able and judicious historians; among the more modern ones we may appropriately challenge a careful perusal of the history of Dr. Döllinger,[65] in which a complete enumeration of the prerogatives exercised by the bishops of Rome over the whole church, both in the east and in the west, may be found, together with a direct reference to many and unexceptionable historical facts. Under the present head we merely refer to the action of Pope St. Victor, in the second century, against the churches of Asia Minor concerning the question of paschal celebration against the Quartodecimans; St. Stephen, against the Anabaptists in Africa; St. Cornelius, against Novatus and Felicissimus; St. Dionysius, in the case of Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, when the Emperor Aurelian himself would not sustain him, and referred to the Bishop of Rome for a final decision; all these statements attested by such writers as Eusebius,[66] Socrates,[67] and Theodoret.[68] How about the appeal of the Montanists to the Bishop of Rome, mentioned by Tertullian[69] himself? Did not Marcion repair to Rome to obtain a reversal of the sentence passed against him?[70] Did not that illustrious champion of faith, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, appeal to Pope Julius I. against the Arians, when the Council of Sardica was convoked at the request of the pope in the year 343, and the supremacy of the Roman bishop solemnly acknowledged, to whom all must appeal for final sentence?[71]

_Janus_, however, with this most conspicuous incident of history before him, says,

"There is no mention of papal rights, or any reference to a legally defined action of the Bishop of Rome in other churches, with the single exception of the canon of Sardica, which never obtained universally even in the west." (P. 23.)

Having produced one most remarkable instance of the application of this canon of Sardica, we now must inform our readers that this same _canon_ of the Synod of Sardica was inserted in a Latin version of a collection of canons known by the name of "Prisca Collectio,"[72] as early as the fifth century, and regarded as a code of laws attesting the tradition of the _ancient_ church, according to the maxim of St. Vincent of Lerins, _Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est_. In like manner did St. John Chrysostom, that great doctor of the eastern church, appeal to Pope Innocent I., although his adversary, the usurper Theophilus, had sent delegates to Rome to gain the pontiff, who annulled all the acts of Theophilus and his party against the illustrious patriarch. The letter which St. Chrysostom[73] wrote to the pope adds great strength to our argument. St. Cyprian, too, by whose authority our adversaries would fain triumph, sent the acts of synods held by himself to the Bishop of Rome for confirmation, and also asked St. Stephen to _depose_ Marcion, Bishop of Arles, as being a partisan of Novatian, and to appoint another in his place. But we must ask pardon of the reader for having already been too long in these references--though as yet we have said nothing of the many acts and letters of Pope St. Leo the Great--all of which demonstrate beyond the shadow of doubt that the most ample exercise of _all primatial_ prerogatives was made in nearly all the churches of the Christian world. A rapid glance over the discourses and letters of the distinguished pontiff, in the voluminous work of Ballerini, will corroborate our assertion in its whole extent. What are we to think of these words of _Janus_, "No one acquainted with church history will choose to affirm that the popes ever exercised a fixed primatial right"? To us, it would seem nothing less than an appeal to the ignorance of his readers. A similar proceeding we notice in the following paragraph:

"The well-known fact speaks clearly enough for itself, that throughout the whole ancient canon law, whether in the collections preserved in the eastern or the western church, there is no mention made of papal rights."

We do not attribute such a confused and inaccurate knowledge to _Janus_, that he is not fully aware what all these collections comprise. These collections or codes of law are pretty numerous,[74] both in the Greek and in the Latin churches, and some of them contain besides the "Canones Apostolorum," not only many decrees of the councils, both particular and œcumenical, that were held during the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, but also the decretals of the early popes. Thus, for instance, the collection made by the monk Dionysius[75] comprises, in a chronological order, the decretals or decrees of all the popes from St. Siricius, in the year 395, to St. Anastasius II. in 486. Another Spanish collection of canons, called the _Liber Canonum_, is very comprehensive,[76] embracing the decrees of all the synods that were held in the eastern and western churches, together with the decretal letters of twenty popes from St. Damasus to Gregory the Great. A similar collection of canons in Africa was approved by the Synod of Carthage in 419. Now, according to our authors, in _all these collections_ "no mention is made of papal rights, or any reference to a legally defined action of the Bishop of Rome in other churches." Truly! we need but challenge an examination of many decrees of synods, and of the official letters of the popes contained in these collections, and we shall find all primatial rights fully exercised and universally acknowledged. Who does not know the splendid testimonies of the fathers in the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, both of which acknowledged in their acts the supremacy of the see of Rome! As to the many decretal letters of the popes, there are no more celebrated documents in early history than the professions of faith given by Pope Celestine I. to the bishops of Gaul against Semipelagianism,[77] St. Boniface to the bishops of Illyria, St. Gelasius in a decree on _canonical_ Scripture and the well-known formula of Pope St. Hormisdas,[78] subscribed to by the eastern bishops. By far the greater number of these pontifical letters constituting those _collections_ imply one or another prerogative exercised by the bishops of Rome, who were ever conscious, even in _those early ages_, of being the supreme teachers and guardians of faith appointed by Christ himself. With what mien of self-sufficiency and confidence _Janus_ can style a "well-known fact," something of which just the very opposite results from an inspection of historical records, is more than unintelligible in authors who make such ado about their scientific fairness. With a desire to save _Janus's_ reputation as a _learned canonist_ and _faithful historian_, we must presume such a grave misstatement wilful, and naturally enough he must have reckoned on readers who have little or no knowledge of the "ancient collections of the canons." Yet we must not fail to enter an energetic protest against these self-proclaimed "scientific labors and contributions to ecclesiastical history." Is it by such unblushing assertions, without proof to sustain them, that the authors show their "love and honor for an institution" which forms an essential part of the constitution of the church?

The whole introduction of this work, covering nearly thirty pages, exhibits a programme with summary indications, whence _Janus_ infers that with the present council the system of absolutism is to be crowned, and the church to come within the grasp of a "powerful coalition." This great danger to the church the anonymous authors feel in duty bound to avert, and to oppose this "advancing flood-tide," in which we may discover another characteristic mode of warfare, since _Janus_ deems it necessary to "assail a powerful party, with clearly ascertained objects, which has gained a firm footing through the wide ramifications of the Jesuit order." And this party he can only attack by "bringing forward a very dark side of the history of the papacy." Indeed, a singular mode of warfare, but one which presents no feature of novelty. Have not the Reformers of the sixteenth century, like most of their forerunners, concealed their true aim by attacking ostensibly the Curia, or some religious body, as Luther did the Dominicans, and in the seventeenth century did not the Jansenists resort to a similar stratagem? Now, with such a clear profession before us, why these assaults on the hierarchy and the church in general for the last thousand years? Why make the whole church accountable for the misdeeds and _menacing coalition_ of a party? Why, as _faithful Catholics_, appeal, not to the council nor to the hierarchy, but "to the thinkers among believing Christians"? _Reformers_ before _Janus_ usually appealed from the popes to general councils, but he surpasses them all by appealing neither to the one nor to the other, but to the laity, who may even pronounce on the "reception or rejection of the council or its decisions." Assuredly no further arguments need be brought forward to satisfy candid and discriminating minds that _Janus_ has ill succeeded in masking his true purpose; nor can his professions of loving truth and justice stand the test of criticism, or the dignity of scientific investigation tolerate the insolent treatment it has suffered at the hands of _Janus_ and his school. For those among our readers who must be shocked at seeing names of men distinguished for their learning and piety at a very critical period in Germany, quoted in support of the opinions of this school of traitors, (pp. 16, 17,) we can say that _Janus_, by attributing to such men a similarity of views with himself, makes a gratuitous and bold assertion, corroborated by no reliable authority; only one name, that of the eccentric Baader, lends any probability to this impudent statement. But such names as Walter, Philipps, Hefele, Hagemann, Gfrörer, and even Döllinger up to a certain time, renowned for their profound researches and contributions to ecclesiastical history and jurisprudence, are studiously omitted by _Janus_; nor would it have served his purpose, since the eminent theologians just mentioned have undermined and exploded whatever scientific or historical basis Febronianism and Gallicanism could boast of, and which _Janus_ would reëstablish. In summing up our considerations on this point, we fully concur in the remarks of an able writer, that _Janus_

"does his utmost to overthrow what is at present by far man's strongest barrier against the rapid and violent inflowing atheistic tide, without attempting to substitute another in its place. If his book could exercise any real power, that power would be put forth in favor of those whom the author agrees with us in regarding as the most dangerous enemies of every highest human interest."

This serious apprehension has been fully verified by the many admirers _Janus_ has found in the hostile camp; nay, the apostate Froschhamer has even complimented _Janus_ publicly,[79] with only one restriction, namely, that he has only gone half-way, and finds fault with this inconsistency.

2. We did not propose to content ourselves with the gratuitous assertion that _Janus_ is not "throughout a thorough Catholic and earnest Christian;" but we shall make it clear that he has already seceded from well-established points of doctrine, and even rendered his scheme of reforming the church an impossible hypothesis. As we have already stated, _Janus_ directs his attacks against a "party"--ultramontanism--which, he says, is "essentially papalism." (P. 34.) But while professing to oppose an "ultramontane scheme," he finally arrives, by a very promiscuous array of _historical facts_ and _scientific investigations_, at the conclusion that the entire church, led by the popes during the last thousand years, has been dragged into this gross error and devastating _torrent_ of ultramontanism. By means of a _huge forgery_ the "whole constitution and government of the church has been changed"--that is, has become a human institution, and lost its divine character. What, then, is the result the writers of _Janus_ arrive at as to their own position? "Inwardly a great gulf separates" them from such a church and its chief pastor--that is, from Pius IX. and the episcopacy. For in another place (p. 3) he affirms that the doctrines he attacks are "identical with those of the chief head." Does it not follow from these premises that _Janus_ excludes himself from this "centre of unity," as the see of Rome has been called by St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage? Likewise St. Jerome, in his book against Rufinus, asks the latter, "Is your faith the faith of the Church of Rome? If so," he adds, "we are both Catholics." During the pontificate of St. Hormisdas, from the year 514 to 523, two hundred and fifty bishops signed a formulary sent them by the pope, in which they declared that they who were not in all things in union with the apostolic see were cut off from communion with the Catholic Church.[80]

"Sequentes in omnibus," says the text so forcibly, "Apostolicam Sedem et prædicantes ejus omnia constituta, spero ut in una communione vobiscum, quam Sedes Apostolica prædicat, esse merear, in qua est integra et verax Christianæ religionis soliditas. Etiam sequestratos a communione Ecclesiæ Catholicæ, id est, non consentientes Sedi Apostolicæ."[81]

By what right, then, or by what interpretation, we demand, can _Janus_ be called a "thorough Catholic"?

The unity and indefectibility of the church of Christ are essential doctrines, most clearly and distinctly embodied in the sacred Scriptures. But _Janus_ no longer admits them, as the following passages will show:

"The previously united church has been split up into three great ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other.... When the presidency in the church became an empire, ... then the _unity_ of _the church_, so firmly secured before, was _broken_ up." (P. 21.)

According to _Janus_, a "great and searching reformation of the church is necessary;" and, let it be understood, not in matters of discipline, which can vary, but in matters of faith--yes! in the most important points touching the divine constitution of the church.

"The popes possessed none of the three powers which are the proper attributes of sovereignty; neither the legislative, the administrative, nor the judicial."

"For a long time nothing was known in Rome of definite rights bequeathed by Peter to his successors."

"The bishops of Rome could neither exclude individuals nor churches from the church universal." (Pp. 64, 66.)

Confront these assertions with the few but remarkable facts already given from history, and what becomes of them?

"There are many national churches which were never under Rome, and never even had any intercourse with Rome." (P. 68.)

_Janus_ then proceeds to give examples of such autonomous churches, and we confess that it has seldom been our lot to see any thing more vague and evasive.

In the first place, we refer to the letter of the Syrian bishops, which was read in the fifth session of the synod held in Constantinople in the year 536, by the Patriarch Mennas; moreover, the profession which the Archimandrites and other Syrian monks sent to Pope Hormisdas, in which they plainly acknowledge and invoke the Bishop of Rome as supreme guardian of the entire flock of Christ.

If the churches in Persia, in Armenia, and in Abyssinia, before they were commingled and entangled with the different Gnostic sects and Monophysites, or Jacobites, were in union with the churches of Alexandria, of Antioch, and Constantinople, who, in their turn, recognized the supremacy of the see of Rome, in what possible sense can they be called _autonomous_? Frumentius had been ordained Bishop of Axuma, in Abyssinia, by St. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, toward the year 326.[82] Will _Janus_ claim St. Athanasius as his partisan respecting this autonomy? His attempt to claim the same autonomy for the early Irish and British churches is no less hazardous, and we refer to Dr. Döllinger's history[83] for a refutation of such claims. In this connection, however, it was only our purpose to prove from _Janus's_ own admission that the "unity of the church was broken up." Quite natural, too, since the "centre of unity" no longer preserved its divine mission and character!

We hasten to another grave charge against the orthodoxy of _Janus_, namely, that he denies the primacy both in its divine institution and in its rights. The true primacy he reviles as "papalism," and would substitute a mere primacy of honor or "presidency." For it was only during a few centuries that the primacy had a _sound_ and _natural_ development; since then it has become disfigured by human "fabrications," and consequently exists no longer. Such being the case, we are unable to discover even a supremacy of honor, lawfully exercised by the pope. We solicit a careful examination of the primacy as it appears in the _Ancient Constitution of the Church_, and in the _Teachings of the Fathers_, (pp. 63-75,) and the inevitable conclusion derived from those assumptions, sounding like oracles of Delphi, will be this, the plenitude of power assumed and exercised by the Bishop of Rome over the whole church has no foundation whatsoever, neither in the Scriptures, as interpreted by the fathers, nor in ancient tradition, but has been and still is an encroachment on the privileges of the particular churches, a usurpation exercised by force and oppression--in fine, an innovation on the divine constitution given to the church by Christ. Every thing that is advanced by _Janus_ purporting to trace historically the origin and causes of papal power and its "unnatural development," even with that illustrious pontiff St. Leo the Great, (p. 67,) taking up nearly two thirds of the volume, proves, if any thing, that no special prerogative was given to St. Peter by Christ, and hence could not, of course, be "hereditary in the line of Roman bishops." (P. 74.) The great _nightmare_ of _Janus_ is, indeed, the pope's infallibility, or the supremacy of the Roman see in doctrinal decisions; but while assaulting the former in a _pêle-mêle_ warfare, he utterly destroys the primacy itself; though it would seem that infallibility properly understood is but a corollary of the primacy itself. While professing to reject the doctrine of the "papacy," _Janus_ discards a truly apostolic doctrine of the Catholic Church, and we cannot but suspect him of well-calculated dissimulation when he says that the "authors of the book profess their adherence to the conviction that the primacy rests on divine appointment." Contrast this with the statements quoted, and we can hardly refrain from sentiments of abhorrence and indignation at such duplicity, as, on the one hand, we find it stated that "the ancient church found the need of a bishop possessed of primatial authority," and, on the other hand, "nothing was known of definite rights," and the "same powers were exercised by the bishop of Antioch, Jerusalem, or Alexandria."

The orthodoxy of _Janus_ and his abettors is impeachable in another no less serious point. The church has ever been conscious of her own infallibility, whereby she is protected from all error in teaching "all truth to the nations;" in other words, it has ever been firmly believed among Catholics that the _ecclesia docens_, or teaching church, succeeded to the divinely bestowed privilege of apostolic infallibility, and, whether congregated in council or dispersed throughout the world, is a true exponent of "unity in faith and grace" with her divine Founder. If this were not so, in what possible sense could the church be called "a pillar and ground of truth"? Where would the assistance and guidance of the Holy Spirit have any visible action or influence, if it be not to preserve her "immaculate, holy, and pure"? Hence, those beautiful images employed by the Apostle St. Paul, of the "union of the body with the head," of this truly _spiritual alliance of Christ with his spouse_, that is, the church, through whose ministry the life of Christ descends from the head to the members, Christ's life being nothing else but truth and grace.

But if we adopt _Janus's_ idea of the church, she has become as the "harlot of Babylon," a depositary of falsehood and iniquity. For he denies the unerring authority of œcumenical councils under the conditions in which it has always been received as a dogma by Catholic theologians. The oath of the bishops toward the apostolic see, prescribed for many past centuries, is pronounced by _Janus_ as incompatible with "that freedom of deliberation and voting" which are essential to such an assembly. But, we may ask, does this oath interfere in the least with the strict obligation of keeping the faith intact and inviolable? Does this oath imply any violation of Catholic conscience? You might as well assert that the oath taken by a member of Congress, or of a particular legislature, to support and abide by the constitution, interferes with his liberty of speaking and voting. In keeping with this hypothesis of _Janus_, all the councils that were held in the west, and universally acknowledged as œcumenical, "were perverted, and mere tools of papal domination--shadows of the councils of the ancient church." (P. 154.) But the councils held in the east were truly œcumenical, because the popes had _nothing_ to do with them, (pp. 63, 64;) but the emperors, on the contrary, exercised all those prerogatives which the popes afterward usurped; hence the councils in the west were but a "sham and mockery" when compared to the _genuine_ œcumenical councils held by the emperors, "who sometimes trenched too closely on this freedom." (P. 354.) Yet the weight of imperial power and domination does not do away with that essential condition of an œcumenical council. But with the popes the case is quite the reverse! Truly admirable logic of our _Janus_! He is not content with unprincipled expositions and illogical hypotheses, but resorts to positive _falsification_ of history when he says,

"Neither the dogmatic nor the disciplinary decisions of these councils (held in the east) required papal confirmation; for their force and authority depended on the consent of the church, as expressed in the synod, and afterward in the fact of its being generally received."

And again,

"The popes took no part in convoking councils. All great councils were convoked by the emperors; nor were the popes ever consulted about it beforehand." (Pp. 63, 64.)

What is the verdict of history on these points? That very _Latrocinium_ of Ephesus, in 449, which _Janus_ so adroitly would put among those councils that were regarded as œcumenical, called forth a protest not only from Pope Leo the Great, but also from the eastern bishops, because the ambitious Dioscorus assumed to himself the right of presiding, and, as Prosper and Victor remark in their chronicles, "usurped the prerogative of the supremacy." The most ancient historians, Socrates, Sozomenus, and Theodoret, who continued the church history of Eusebius, attest unanimously those prerogatives of the Roman bishop, which our authors would so boldly deny. Thus, Sozomenus, in the third book of his history, chapter 10, says,

"It is a pontifical law (νὁμος Ιερατικὁς) that whatever has been done without the judgment of the Roman bishop, be null and void."

Socrates, alluding to the Arian Synod of Antioch in "Encæniis," in 431, by the adherents of Eusebius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and which pronounced the deposition of St. Athanasius, observes,

"Neither Julius, the Bishop of Rome, was present, nor did he send any one thither to take his place; though it is prohibited by ecclesiastical law that any thing be decreed in the church without the consent of the Roman pontiff."[84]

When, therefore, St. Athanasius, together with Paul of Constantinople, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza, sought the protection of Pope Julius, the latter had their cause examined in a council held at Rome in 343, at which a great number of eastern bishops were present. Whereupon the pope declared the accused bishops innocent, restored them to their sees, and severely censured those who had concurred in the sentence of deposition against Athanasius and the other bishops. Let it be understood that the Arian bishops, too, on their part, had appealed to the same pope. The action taken by the Pontiff Julius in this grave affair is designated by the historian Socrates[85] as a "prerogative of the Roman Church." In like manner, Pelagius appealed to Pope Innocent I.; Nestorius, to Pope Celestine, to whom St. Cyril of Alexandria had already reported.

Cælestius, a disciple of Pelagius, already condemned by the Synod of Carthage, invoked the arbitration of Pope Zosimus;[86] Eutyches, having been excluded from the communion of the church by Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople, appeals to Pope St. Leo, who in his turn calls upon Flavian to give an account, which the latter does without delay. The correspondence between Leo and Flavian on this point shows the falsehood of _Janus's_ assertion, that the "fathers had given the see of Rome the privilege of final decision in appeals," (p. 66,) and that the "bishops of Rome could exclude neither individuals nor churches from the communion of the church universal." Who does not know the remarkable words of St. Augustine, when Pelagius had been condemned by the synods of Milevis and Carthage in 416, and still persisted to hold communion with the church? Pope Innocent ratified the decrees of the synods, and the illustrious champion against Pelagianism exclaims,

"Two councils have already been sent to the apostolic see; thence answer has been received; the case is terminated; may the error too be ended."[87]

Vain, too, is the attempt of our authors to give dark colors to the transactions between the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon and Pope St. Leo I. (P. 67.) Let us see what the fathers of this council say to the pope, when they request him to sanction that _famous_ twenty-eighth canon, which the legates of Leo had refused to sanction. They say, "Knowing that your holiness hearing (what has been decreed) will approve and confirm this synod and close their petition thus,

"We therefore pray that by thy decrees thou wilt honor our judgment, and we having in all things meet manifested our accordance with the head, so also may thy highness fulfil what is just. (ουτω καὶ ἣ κορυφἣ τοις παισὶν ἀναπληρὡσαι τὸ πρἑπον.)"[88]

Leo I. did not sanction this twenty-eighth canon, for the very reason that it implied, though in equivocal terms, that Rome obtained the primacy on account of its political dignity.

Nor is it true that the fathers by this canon claimed "equal rights" for the see of Constantinople; but merely _patriarchal_ rights and exemption from subordination to Alexandria and Antioch, as the sixth Nicene canon had ordained. Pope Leo I. in his letter[89] to the Emperor Marcian affirmed that Constantinople was indeed an "imperial," but no "apostolic city." Compare this with the words of _Janus_, "But when Leo had to deal with Byzantium and the east, he no longer dared to plead this argument." Anatolius, Patriarch of Constantinople at that period, previous to the Council of Chalcedon was obliged to hold a synod in the presence of the papal legates, in which Leo's letter to Flavian was read and signed, and Eutyches sentenced and deposed. Even at the Council of Ephesus, in 431, St. Cyril presided as plenipotentiary of Pope Celestine, who, upon a report sent him by St. Cyril, had condemned the Nestorian errors in a synod held at Rome in 430, and summoned Nestorius to retract within ten days under pain of excommunication. How trivial, then, and calculated to confuse the reader, must this remark of _Janus_ seem, "At the two councils of Ephesus others presided." It is a well-known fact that the papal legates at the Council of Chalcedon declared that it was a high misdemeanor of the second assembly of Ephesus, in 449, and a crime in Dioscorus of Alexandria, that it was presumed to hold a general council without the authority of the apostolic see; and Dioscorus was accordingly deposed.

The Council of Chalcedon was not convoked before Pulcheria and Marcian had requested and obtained the consent of Pope Leo I., and at its termination the fathers said in their letter to the pope that he had presided over them by his legates as the "head over the members;" and that the emperor had been present for the maintenance of decorum.

Why, then, allege such examples as the despotic actions of Constantius, against whom such great and distinguished bishops as St. Athanasius, St. Hilary of Poitiers, and Lucifer, raised their pastoral voice, when this same emperor so harassed the bishops at Rimini and Seleucia in 359, aided by the cunning of Ursacius and Valens, that they subscribed to an ambiguous but not heretical formulary. Wherefore, St. Jerome exclaims, "Ingemuit totus orbis et Arianum se esse miratus est." The purpose of _Janus_ in placing these assemblies among other councils universally regarded as œcumenical, appears, to say the least, suspicious! (P. 354, and Translator's Notice.)

We might yet quote many examples to exhibit what must be styled _gross misrepresentation_ and _falsification_ of history on the part of _Janus_, when he thus plainly states that the popes were never _consulted_ when councils were convoked, nor _allowed_ to preside, _personally_ or by _deputy_--and "it is clear that the popes did not claim this as their exclusive right," (p. 63.) If any thing were wanting to corroborate our argument, we need but allude to the declaration of the Patriarch Mennas of Constantinople, and many other eastern bishops. When the Emperor Justinian would continue the council which was convoked with the express consent of Pope Vigilius, who withdrew his permission after the emperor issued an edict on the _three articles, (tria capitula,)_ the pope fled to Chalcedon, whence he directed a letter to the whole church,[90] giving an account of the deplorable state of things, adding that he had deposed the haughty bishop, Theodorus of Cæsarea, and suspended Mennas of Constantinople, with the bishops who took his part. The declaration made by Mennas and other bishops, professing their entire submission, affords a most striking example of the supreme authority of the apostolic see in the midst of such turmoil and religious disputes, the pope being an exile and the bishops enjoying the protection of the emperor; and hence not a vestige of coercion in their unqualified declaration, which we may be pardoned for subjoining here. It is as follows,

"Following the apostolic doctrine, and anxious to maintain ecclesiastical unity, we are about to frame the present declaration,[91] We receive and acknowledge the four holy synods, ... and all other things that were decreed and written in these same synods by common consent with the legates and representatives of the apostolic see, not only in matters of faith, but every thing that was so defined and enacted in all other causes, judgments, constitutions, and ordinances we promise hereby faithfully and inviolably to observe."[92]

A circumstance which gives greater weight to this whole exposition is, that these councils were chiefly attended by eastern bishops, among them the patriarchs of Constantinople; and that the Roman pontiffs, though not personally present, still by their representatives, who were not all bishops, exercised such high prerogatives. The emperors themselves recognized these rights of the see of Rome both by their laws and public acts.[93]

We have been rather prolix, and have carried our examination further than we intended; but it seemed necessary to sustain our charges against _Janus_ and his admirers by various and most unexceptionable authorities from history, and the canons of the early councils. The supremacy of the Bishop of Rome in _teaching_ and _governing_ the universal church, could not be exhibited in a more resplendent light than in connection with general councils, those grand assemblies of the hierarchy of the church. Nothing, therefore, was better calculated than the futile essays of the anonymous authors of _Janus_ to depreciate and obliterate, if possible, these prerogatives of the Roman pontiffs in connection with œcumenical councils, in order to lay the foundation of their hypothesis, that since the ninth century papal usurpation and ambition held high sway in the church, "hindering and decomposing the action of its vital powers." How far _Janus_ has succeeded in finding such a _basis_ for _his edifice_ in history and in ancient canonical collections, how far his statements are supported by "_reference_ to _original authorities_," the candid and judicious reader of church history will have been able to decide. If _Janus_ asks the verdict of history for _his_ "Ancient Constitution of the Church," that verdict cries aloud against such a miserable caricature, and his appeal to past tradition is an appeal to ignorance or wilful prejudice. We have impeached his orthodoxy on points of the very first importance, and in vain do we look for those "original authorities" which should verify his hypothesis of the "ancient church."

Before summing up our arguments on this head, we will be allowed to point out another serious and most pernicious error of _Janus_. He says,

"The force and authority of the decisions of councils depended on the consent of the church, and on the fact of being generally received." (Pp. 63, 64.)

Yet we must examine what is meant by this consent of the church; here is his theory:

"When a council passes sentence on doctrine, it thereby gives testimony to its truth. The bishops attest, each for his own portion of the church, that a certain defined doctrine has hitherto been taught and believed there; or they bear witness that the doctrines hitherto believed, involve, as their necessary consequence, some truth which may not yet have been expressly formalized. As to whether this testimony has been rightly given, whether freedom and unbiassed truthfulness have prevailed among the assembled bishops--on that point the church herself is the ultimate judge, by her _acceptance_ or _rejection_ of the council or its decisions." (P. 334.)

What a precious theory indeed of our authors! The teaching body in the church, or the hierarchy, are _mere_ witnesses in giving testimony to the truth. But this testimony may ultimately be rejected; for whether such a testimony has been rightly rendered or not, is left to the decision of the church--consisting of the clergy and _laity_. Whence by a rigid conclusion it follows that the _highest tribunal_ of "acceptance or rejection" of the decisions of a general council, is with the great mass of the faithful or "thinkers among believing Christians." In view of such plain propositions, we should like to be informed how inerrancy or infallibility can be attributed to an œcumenical council? We may then select any council and doubt, as _thinking Christians_, "whether freedom and unbiassed truthfulness have prevailed among the assembled bishops." All certainty is excluded by such a theory, where the decisions of a general council are only binding when accepted by the church outside of the council. This is nothing less than a complete negation of traditional and sound Catholic doctrine--it is simply proclaiming the broad Protestant dogma which grants the widest scope to the private judgment of the individual. In one direction have the authors of _Janus_ been consistent; for they purpose by their labors "to contribute to the awakening and direction of public opinion," which is the tribunal charged by _Janus_ to reject in advance the decrees of this council. (P. 345.) He himself makes an extensive use of this great privilege; for, according to him, since the ninth century there were no truly œcumenical councils; the whole church has been forced and cajoled into giving a wrong testimony. All councils since the period just named have proclaimed the views and tenets of a party as the constant belief of all Catholic Christendom. Such an issue _Janus_ would fain declare impossible. Alas! for his beautiful theory, destroying with one hand what he would build up with the other.

"The church in its totality is secured against false doctrine."

There is precisely the dilemma in which _Janus_ has involved himself. The whole work from beginning to end is intended to show that the church has sunk into a labyrinth of errors, that she has radically changed her ancient and divine constitution, that her centre of unity has become disfigured and sickly, that her vital powers are in a state of decomposition. Does all this not imply false doctrine? Has the church not thereby fallen away from Christ and the apostles? Perhaps _Janus_ will say that it is only the _hierarchy_ that _erred_, not the "thinkers among believing Christians," himself, of course, among the latter.

Well may we inquire of _Janus_ and his _admirers_, What has become of the promises made to the church by her divine Founder? Where is that spirit of truth to guide her through her pastors, the bishops united with the supreme Head? Where is that firm rock against which the gates of hell shall not prevail?

These questions are so intimately connected with the whole divinely reared edifice of the church of Christ, that to deny what the authors of _Janus_ have done is heresy in its worst form, as much as Arianism, Pelagianism, or Nestorianism. We cannot withhold from our readers the appreciation of a candid and thoughtful outsider on the position _Janus_ has followed throughout his work:

"If the liberal Catholicism of _Janus_ and his friends is an infallible system, it is an infallible system which has succumbed at once to a false pretence of infallibility on one side and an openly-admitted fallibility on the other. Now, infallibility which is beaten for centuries, _both_ by a sham infallibility _and_ by admitted incapacity for true infallibility, is infallibility of a very novel kind, very difficult to imagine. It looks, at first glance, very like a rather specially fallible kind of fallibility with a taste for calling itself grand names. If _Janus_ and his friends are right, no paradox of the Christian faith is half as great as theirs, which maintains that the true infallibility of the church has not only lain _perdu_ for centuries, but has been impersonated by a growth of falsehood without any interposition on the part of the divine source of infallibility. That, we confess--with all our respect for the wish of _Janus_ to enter a protest on behalf of liberty and civilization--we do find a hypothesis somewhat hard even to listen to. A dumb infallibility that cannot find its voice for centuries, even to contradict the potent and ostentatious error that takes its name in vain--is that the sort of divine authority to which human reason will willingly go into captivity? But we might sympathize with the authors of _Janus_, in spite of their utterly untenable intellectual position, if they seemed to us to have any clear advantage in moral earnestness and simplicity over their opponents. But, while there is a certain school of ultramontanes that simply and profoundly believes in the infallibility of the pope, in spite of all the critical and historical difficulties which the liberals ably parade and sometimes even overstate, we find it hard to believe that the latter believe cordially in any church infallibility at all." (Quoted by the _Dublin Review_, January, from the _Spectator_, November 6, 1869.)

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] See _Dublin Review_ for January.

[63] Rev. Dr. Scheeben in his pamphlet. Part iii.

[64] The _negative account_ given in pp. 63-69 as the "ancient constitution of the church" takes nothing from our argument.

[65] London edition, 1840, vol. ii. pp. 204, 220.

[66] H. E. v. 24, 25.

[67] H. E. v. 22.

[68] Hæret. fab., ii. 8, edit. Mansi, tom. i. p. 1003 sqq.

[69] Adv. Prax. i.

[70] Epiph. Hæres. 42.

[71] Socrat. H. E. ii. 15.

[72] See Philipps's _Compend. of Can. Law_, vol. i. p. 45.

[73] Galland, Bibl. t. viii. p. 569 sq.

[74] See Ballerini, De Antiq. Collect. and Biblioth. Juris-Can. tom. ii.

[75] Died 536 A.D.

[76] Migne, Patrol. tom. 84, gives this collection.

[77] Denziger's Enchiridion, p. 29.

[78] See Denziger, p. 47.

[79] In the _Augsburg Gazette_, and in a separate pamphlet since issued.

[80] See Döllinger's _History of the Church_, vol. ii. sect. iii. p. 221.

[81] Denzig. Enchir. p. 48.

[82] Athanas. Apol. ad Constant. n. 31. Le Quien, Oriens Christian. tom. ii. p. 642.

[83] Vol. ii. pp. 29, 35 sq.

[84] H. E. 8. edit. Vales. tom. ii. p. 70, ch. 415.

[85] H. E. ii. 15.

[86] Cæl. Symbol. ad Zosim. Mansi, tom. iv. pp. 325, 370.

[87] August. Serm. 132, n. 10.

[88] Ep. ad. Leon. 98, c. i. iv. Ball. edit. Harduin, tom. ii. pp. 655-660.

[89] Ep. 104, ad. Marc. c. iii.

[90] (Vigil. Epist. ad Univ. Eccles. apud Mansi, tom. ix. pp. 50-61.)

[91] Or petition, _libellus_.

[92] Mansi, tom. ix. p. 62.

[93] See Dölling. Ch. H. vol. ii. pp. 204, 205.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF THE REVUE DU MONDE CATHOLIQUE.

THE LITTLE WOODEN SHOE.

Jacques was a fisherman--a lucky one too. He had a little house, all his own, and, in it Jeanne who had been for seven years his wife, and Ange, the jolliest little scamp that ever romped about a fisherman's cottage. But these are not all his treasures. He has, besides, a store of nets and a boat called the Fine-Anguille. The sea was never yet too rough for either. For it never stormed until the Fine-Anguille had come with her crew, snug and dry, to her mooring. The captain of this frigate was Jacques; the mate--and what a mate he was!--was Fanor, a Newfoundland, peer and prince of all dogs. Every body knew the Fine-Anguille. Every body knew Fanor. And well it was for many of them that they did. They had made his acquaintance under memorable circumstances. For, when Fanor looked from his kennel at night along the dark coast, he could see the glow of many a fireside which would have long been dark and cheerless if he had not rescued from the waves the strong arms that earned its fuel. Many a mother felt something queer in her throat and in the corners of her eyes when she saw the great shaggy brute, and thought of a certain little head that might long ago have been pillowed in the sea-weeds.

But when the feast of our Lady of Larmor came, ah! then Fanor was in his glory. Did he walk in the procession? Of course he did! Did he not know what was the proper thing for a respectable dog to do and where his right place was, after the banners? "Ah!" said Jacques, "he's a Christian. He's no dog; he is almost a man."

After Jacques, and Fine-Anguille, and the sea, Ange was the dearest friend of this dog. Fanor paid the most delicate attentions to this little fellow. He kept back his strength and refrained from those boisterous leaps; he gave Ange a thousand tender caresses with his great cold nose and with his paw; and, when he licked his hands, he scarcely moistened them. It was plain that he was in love with this baby. And as for Jeanne, she loved nothing in the world besides Jacques and Ange and the dog.

For you and me, and the thoughtless or busy world, what a grand sight to watch the sea in September! so deep, so dark, it falls and rises with ever-increasing majesty. There is a menace in its ceaseless roll, its beauty is terribly grand, and from the shore we admire its strength and its immensity. But how differently it appears to the poor fisher's wife! For her there is nothing to admire in the ocean. For her it is only a source of anxiety and dread. How gloomy to her is the evening as it settles over this ever-tossing plain; how her heart starts at the vague threats of the wind! This blue and white-crested mass is perhaps a shroud. Is there no moaning save that which the listless water makes? And, when the horizon lowers, is the wild call of the sea-bird the only strange cry that can be heard? And, as the wind sweeps from the stormy offing, we perhaps think it beautiful. But to the fisher's wife it is dreadful. She fears for him who toils in the abyss. What can a little shell like Fine-Anguille and a man and a dog do against the ocean?

We may say, "How beautiful!" But she cries, "Holy Virgin! the sea is too high! Sweet Jesus! it blows too, too hard."

One day Jeanne was with Ange on the beach and Jacques was preparing Fine-Anguille for fishing. Jeanne sat, knitting, by the water's side. Ange had kicked off one of his little wooden shoes, and with his rosy little foot was playing in the water. He laughed, he shouted, he splashed the little waves that ran softly upon the sand. Ah! what grand fun he was having.

It was evening. The setting sun bathed the entire coast in purple, and the water, still and peaceful, reflected this scene of splendor.

Ange had tied a string to his little shoe and had thrown it out on the water.

"Mamma," said he, "look! see my Fine-Anguille! In a minute I am going to make a storm."

And he splashed away with his bare foot.

The little shoe tossed from one side to another; finally it filled with water. Jeanne looked up and said. "Naughty boy! put on your shoe. Quick!"

Just then, somebody touched her shoulder. It was a stranger, from Paris, perhaps. This seemed probable from the haughty air, which people from the city always have, and also from his cold, harsh look and his pale countenance.

Jeanne was frightened.

"I want a boat," said this strange person, "to go out into the offing." Jacques approached. "If you like, sir, I am ready. Here, Fanor!"

"What! take that brute along with us? Horrid cur! He is filthy and smells of old fish. I can't bear him for a companion."

"I will not go without my dog," said Jacques.

"Come!" said the stranger, "this beast is of no use. I will give you a louis to leave the dog." Jacque looked at his wife hesitatingly. Jeanne was pale. The stranger tossed the louis in his hand.

Just then Ange cried, "My shoe has gone to the bottom!" And Jeanne said, "Don't go without the dog."

Soon the Fine-Anguille left the shore, and, breaking through the rosy water, disappeared in the distance, like a faint cloud.

Jeanne turned again toward the house, carrying her child, whose little foot hung bare over her dress.

When she reached the heights, she turned to scan the horizon. She saw a thick gray band stretched along it. Seized with anxious foreboding, she paused.

"Will it be fair?" she asked of Father Lucas, the cow-herd. "What sort of a night will they have over by the Thunder Rocks and the White Mare, and in the offing?"

Father Lucas, in turn, scanned the horizon. "Fine-Anguille is a good sea boat!" said he; and passed on with his cows.

"It is the wind!" thought Jeanne, as Ange by an unconscious movement covered his foot with her apron. "It is the wind! God be merciful to us!" Then she entered the house.

At ten o'clock gusts began to blow. The waves moaned piteously. Jeanne could not sleep. But neither the moaning of wind nor wave could disturb Ange as he lay wrapped snugly in his cradle. His mother struck a light. One is not so much frightened when one can see clearly. Then it seems as if one could do any thing; but what can one do against the wind?

"The wind! O my God! the wind," cried Jeanne. "But, at any rate, Fanor is with him!"

Then, as every thing creaked and moaned around her, she fell into a light slumber. She saw the great sea with its frightful gulfs, its white yawning mouth and threatening rocks, and its deceitful shoals. She saw her child on the beach, splashing the water with his naked foot. She saw the little wooden shoe which had been ship-wrecked. Then she heard the voice of Ange murmuring, "I'll make a storm!"

Jeanne trembled.

Then, as the roof of the cottage moved and creaked, she remembered how the waves had entered the little shoe.

All at once she rose up and took Ange, fast asleep, in her arms. She threw her cape over her shoulders. It was raining hard and the wind blew strongly. She lit a lantern; a sudden gust put it out, and she was left in the black darkness. But the surf made so much noise that it served as a guide. She reached the beach in safety.

"Ange! O Ange! if Fine-Anguille has perished!"

The belfry of Larmor stood black in the sombre night, and the sea dashed its white foam at the very steps of the church.

Jeanne seated herself on the damp sill, and, wrapping Ange in her cloak, waited with longing eyes, counting every wave.

Slowly the day broke, and the storm abated as the sun rose. It shone first on the fortress of Port-Louis, then along the rest of the coast; and Jeanne saw the little wooden shoe broken among the pebbles--"Broken! and yet so light! It ought to have floated!"

Then Jeanne saw the Fine-Anguille. Her sail was rent and tattered. Her broken mast hung half in the water. All that could be hoped was that she might come in with the tide, and that Jacques would be able to avoid the rocks. Perhaps they still preserved their oars! As she listened, she thought she heard them striking on the row-locks; but no, it was the wind. The broken mast might still serve to hold them off the rocks. Already she could hear Fanor's voice. But on the heaving plain her glance could barely follow the little craft. Finally, as a sudden gust blew afresh, it disappeared altogether.

Jeanne closed her eyes. And, when they reopened, Jacques and Fanor were beside her. Jacques was pale; Fanor with red, distended nostrils, and panting, shook the water from his shaggy coat.

"Wife," said Jacques, "we have been very unlucky! We beat all night against the wind. I wished to come in last evening after we had doubled the citadel; I knew it would blow. But that fool of a Parisian would see the offing! He is dead now. God have mercy on him! I have never worked so hard in all my life! To lighten the boat he wanted to drown Fanor. And when he saw the breakers, he would jump overboard to swim. Fanor went after him and brought him to the gunwale; and, while I was lending him a hand, puff! we were all in the water together. Holy Mother! how I did lay about me. I caught a plank. 'Hold on, Fanor!' said I. But Fanor had left the stranger and had seized me by the collar. And so I made the shore. O the brave beast! he's no dog; he is almost a man!"

"And Fine-Anguille?" said Jeanne.

"She will come in with the tide. She is as light as a wooden shoe."

CARDINAL POLE.

Cardinal Pole was a representative man. As Archbishop of Canterbury he stands in direct contrast to Cranmer. Each of these primates was at the head of a host during a period of mortal conflict. They led respectively the forces of the old and of the new faith. Pole represented the Catholics of England, especially the wiser and better part of them. Cranmer was one of the feeblest and worst specimens of the reformers. He had not even the unenviable merit of being true to his own principles. He could not stand the shock of battle, and though a standard-bearer, he surrendered his colors in the hope of saving his life. Pole, on the contrary, suffered persecution for righteousness' sake, and the cruel fate of his mother and his near relatives warned him but too plainly of the end that awaited him if he should ever come within reach of the tyrant. Let us trace his history, though but in outline; for we shall find it full of interesting matter, food for reflection, and lessons of piety. There are many men of less importance and less merit whose lives are better known than his. One who enjoyed his friendship during many years--Ludovico Beccatelli, Archbishop of Ragusa--has left us a record of his acts, and painted his character with a faithful hand. To him principally, and to Cardinal Pole's own writings, we are indebted for what we have learned respecting him; for though much is to be found on the subject of his career in the pages of Lingard, Strype, Flanagan, Hume, Strickland, and Froude, it is to those higher sources especially, together with the state papers of the time, that every one must remount who would obtain reliable information.

It was when Henry VII. had passed the middle of his reign, and Alexander VI. filled the papal chair, that Reginald Pole was born at Stowerton Castle in Staffordshire. His father was Sir Richard Pole, (afterward Lord Montacute, or Montague,) a Welsh knight, and his mother was Mary, Countess of Salisbury, daughter of that Duke of Clarence whom Edward IV. drowned in a butt of Malmsey. He was the cousin also of Elizabeth, Queen of Henry VII. and mother of Henry VIII. He had thus all the advantages which people attach to high descent, and no pains were spared to give him an education suited to his rank and prospects. The monasteries were then schools for the instruction of boys of good family, and to one of these Reginald was sent when a child. It was the Carthusian monastery at Shene, from whence he was removed in time to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he laid the foundation of his future learning, and was taught by the celebrated Linacre, the preceptor of Prince Arthur, and physician to Henry VIII. and the Princess Mary.[94] His education was carried on at the cost of Henry; for which reason he often in after life spoke of the king with gratitude. He was but a boy when he obtained his degree of B.A., and might (like Wolsey, who graduated at Oxford when fourteen years old) have been called the "Boy Bachelor." He was also admitted very early into deacons' orders; at seventeen he was made Prebendary of Salisbury; and at nineteen Dean of Wimborne and Exeter.

The reformation had not yet broken out. England was ruled without a parliament by the all-powerful minister Cardinal Wolsey; and Henry VIII., who had in 1513, when Pole was at Oxford, won the battle of the Spurs and taken Tournay, appeared for a moment as a competitor for the imperial crown on the death of Maximilian. It was part of his good pleasure that Reginald Pole should be highly educated, and accordingly about the year 1520, when the youth was twenty years old, he caused him to repair to the University of Padua to complete his studies. Reginald resided in that seat of learning in great splendor. A numerous retinue attended him, and he enjoyed the society and esteem of many eminent persons, such as Bembo[95] and Sadolet.[96] His morals were pure, his manners graceful, and his amiability made him much beloved.

After five years of university life, he returned to England, and was received by Henry with many marks of royal favor. But he shunned the splendors and seductions of the court, and retired to a house that had belonged to Dean Colet within the Carthusian monastery at Shene. Henry's erratic career had begun; and he was seeking to obtain a divorce from his faithful and virtuous wife, Catharine of Aragon. Reginald earnestly desired to escape the complications that were likely to ensue. He knew that a storm was gathering; and after two years of retirement at Shene, he obtained Henry's permission to pursue his studies at the University of Paris.[97] He was not yet priests' orders, neither had he taken monastic vows. For this a curious reason was assigned.

All the contemporaries of Queen Catharine affirm that she earnestly desired a union in marriage between her daughter, the Princess Mary and Reginald Pole. His mother, the Countess of Salisbury, had always resided with Mary, and the biographers of Pole with one voice declare that Mary had regarded him with favor from earliest childhood. We ought not, however, to lay too much stress on this fact, since the disparity of their ages was too great to admit of their being lovers at an early period of life. Reginald was sixteen years older than Mary, yet it is not surprising that, when her proposed marriage with the Emperor of Germany was broken off, and Reginald, having returned to England, appeared at court in his twenty-fifth year conspicuous for the culture of his mind and the beauty of his person, the queen should wish to see him become the husband of her child. He was of royal blood, and very nearly resembled his ancestor Edward III. and his great-uncle Edward IV. His portrait was taken by Michael Angelo for that of the Saviour of men in the grand painting of the Raising of Lazarus. He revived, therefore, in his carriage and features the memory of the heroic Plantagenets from whom he descended. Already renowned for learning, and with a mind enriched with travel and residence in foreign lands, he had frequent opportunities of seeing the lovely Mary who would probably one day be Queen of England. Lady Salisbury still lived with her, and she was both her relative and friend. The princess showed great partiality for the noble and accomplished Reginald; and at a much later period a marriage was proposed between them as a matter of state convenience, but without its being very long or seriously entertained.[98]

Reginald was not suffered to remain long in peace at the University of Paris. An order arrived requiring him to procure opinions favorable to the divorce, in concert with Langet, the brother of the Bishop of Bayonne. The task was ungrateful to him, full of danger, and hardly to be executed with a clear conscience. He resigned it to his colleague, and was soon recalled. He might have succeeded Wolsey in the see of York, and possibly Warham in that of Canterbury, had he been willing to pander to the vicious inclinations of his royal master. He wavered, indeed, for a moment, and fancied he had found an expedient by which he might satisfy Henry without wounding his own conscience. He repaired to Whitehall Palace, and there, in the stately gallery, he stood before the anti-christian king. He loved that king in spite of his wickedness; for he owed to him his education, together with many dignities and splendors. He loved him too well to deceive him. The truth could not be suppressed. It wrought within him like a pent-up fire. His feelings overcame him, and he burst into tears. It was enough to stir the king's displeasure. It revealed the secret workings of Reginald's mind. The divorce would be a crime--a horrible crime. The reasons assigned in its favor were flimsy deceits. The helpless queen and her daughter would be victims moving all hearts to pity. Henry frowned, and his hand often sought the dagger's hilt; but though Reginald wept, it was not likely a Plantagenet should fear. Upon quitting the gallery, Reginald was loaded with the bitterest reproaches by his brothers, and especially by Lord Montague. He was induced to write to the king. He explained his motives in language equally firm and temperate; and Henry, into whom the demons had not yet fully entered, took the letter, or professed to take it, in good part. He declared that he loved Pole in spite of his obstinacy, and that, if his opinion were only favorable to the divorce, he should love him more than any man in the kingdom. History has taught us how much his love was worth; for his embraces were sure pledges of ruin and destruction. He did not, however, withdraw Reginald's pension of five hundred crowns, but allowed him to leave England again.

Having emphatically declared his dissent from the resolutions of parliament and convocation, Pole found his position more and more uneasy. He turned his face again to the south, and in 1532 took up his residence for a time at Avignon. During his absence the fatal divorce was completed, and the doom of England as a Catholic country was sealed. The thought of returning to it became distasteful; and he retired to the monastery of Carpentras, and subsequently to his old quarters at Padua. His leave of absence was extended. He was enabled to visit Venice. His pension was duly paid; he received the revenues of the deanery of Exeter, and was specially exempted from the obligation of swearing allegiance to the children of Anne Boleyn. So far forbearance was shown toward him, and he was not insensible to the indulgence. He always in after life retained the same feelings, and even his bitterest invectives were softened with notes of love.

In the year 1535, when he was in his thirty-fifth year, (for, being born in 1500, his years run with the century,) Pole was requested to send in his opinion on the authority claimed in England by the see of Rome. A similar request was made to all other English noblemen and gentlemen; for Henry in his worst deeds endeavored to fortify himself by public opinion; and when doctors at the universities resisted his will, he overcame their scruples by the help of menacing letters.[99] Mr. Starkey, a personal acquaintance, was commissioned to correspond with Pole, and he advised him to avoid his previous errors. He was to say distinctly and honestly whether he approved the divorce and the separation from Rome--whether they were, in his opinion, right or wrong in the abstract, and not whether they might be defended on grounds of expediency. He insisted the more on this distinction, because, as we have seen, when Pole was first consulted by Henry about the separation from Catharine, he had hesitated, requested time for consideration, and tried to discover reasons for complying with his sovereign's wishes.

But years had passed since that trying occasion. The germs of evils had rapidly developed. Henry's character had unfolded; Pole's had matured. Their divergence had become antagonism; and Pole was in no way disposed to let the opportunity now afforded him escape. It was the time to write what contemporaries widely scattered, and even posterity, might read. Brief answers to brief questions would do for the king; but a volume would do better for Rome, the courts of Europe, the people of England, and the angry glances of the lawless prince himself. He intended it, no doubt, for Henry's perusal in the first instance; but he could hardly doubt that what he might speak in secret chambers would be proclaimed from the house-tops. He showed the manuscript in parts to Cardinal Contarini. The language was impassioned and almost violent. The cardinal advised discretion, and ended by protesting against what he considered fruitless invective. To this Reginald replied that he knew the king's character well. He had been too much flattered. No one had durst tell him the truth. He could not be moved by gentleness. His eyes ought to be opened by the plainest speaking, and the censures of the church ought long ago to have fallen upon him. It was not for his sake only that Pole wrote; he had the welfare of the flock of Christ in his heart. He was determined to expose the matter fully, that king and people might be thoroughly warned.

In the mean time the emperor's designs on England were abandoned; and the quarrel between him and Henry seemed likely to be brought to a peaceful issue. Thus one hope which Pole entertained of seeing divine judgments fall on the king of England was blighted. Yet his book must be completed. The king must have the first reading of it. He would not even submit it to Pope Paul III. through Cardinal Contarini. Perhaps he feared that his holiness would think it ill-timed or intemperate. We certainly find him lamenting that the pope did not convince the emperor how much more blessed it would be to fight with Henry than with the Turks--to be the champion of the Christian faith in Europe, and drive back the fearful encroachments of heresy.[100]

At length, in May, 1536, Pole's _De Unitate Ecclesiæ_, was completed. His ardent disposition and his indignant piety found vent in this composition, and it rolled along like a river swollen by rains. The very passages in it which Mr. Froude holds up to reprobation and scorn are those which Catholics in general will regard with the most pleasure; they will strike upon their ears as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and denouncing in just and measured terms the crimes of a royal heresiarch. It will appear to them instinct with affection rather than hatred. "I will cry in your ears," he says, "as in the ears of a dead man--dead in your sins. I love you--wicked as you are, I love you. I hope for you, and may God hear my prayer. I should be a traitor did I conceal from you the truth. I owe my learning to your care." He draws a hideous picture of Henry's guilt and presumption, and then proceeds to dissect a book which Henry had sent him on the supremacy by Dr. Sampson, Bishop of Chichester. He inveighs against the abuse which Henry made of his regal power, maintaining that the king exists for the people, not the people for the king. He makes the people the source of kingly power; and his words, _populus regem procreat_, "the people make the king," involve a distinct denial of

"The right divine of kings to govern wrong."

He subordinates the regal office to that of the priest, and in language singularly modern, he asserts that sovereigns are responsible to their people, and that Henry, by breaking his coronation oath, has forfeited his right to the crown, and justified the rebellion of his subjects.

The third and most important section follows. It is addressed to Henry VIII., to England, to the emperor, and to the Spanish army. He accuses the king of intriguing with Mary Boleyn before his marriage with Anne, and brands the "supreme head of the church" as the "vilest of plunderers, a thief, and a robber." He relates in forcible language the story of the martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, and the Charterhouse monks. He calls on England loudly to rebel.

"O my country!" he says, "if any memory remains to you of your ancient liberties, remember--remember the time when kings who ruled over you unjustly were called to account by the authority of your laws. They tell you that all is the king's. I tell you that all is the commonwealth's. You my country, are all. The king is but your servant and minister."

No trumpet of revolt could blow louder, yet Pole did not stop even here. He proclaimed his intention of exciting the Emperor Charles to invade England, and to assemble under his banner all those English who remained true to God and his holy church. This part of the treatise, when printed, was circulated as a pamphlet in the German States. It protested that Pole acted in the love of his country, and "in that love of the church which was given him by the Son of God." The Spaniards above all men were bound in his view to vindicate the honor of the noble daughter of Isabella of Castile, whom Henry had divorced. The king of France, he believed, would make peace with the emperor, and at the pope's bidding undertake the chastisement of the towering enemy of God and man.

But the address is not all rebuke and menace; the tones of wrath melt into tenderness at the last, and die away in exhortation to repentance and promises of mercy. It effected little. Catharine of Aragon died in Kimbolton Castle in the same year in which it came to hand, and Anne Boleyn, four months later, passed from the bridal-chamber to the scaffold. Henry had broken for ever with the holy see, and England, torn from the centre of unity, sank and wandered in an abyss. The book was sent to England from Venice on the 27th of May, 1536. It was accompanied by two letters, one to the king, the other to Tunstall, Bishop of Durham. The bishop was to read for the king what was intended for his majesty only. By which we must understand that, if the treatise produced the desired effect on Henry's mind, it would be considered as a secret communication; but if it failed, the author would then be at liberty to publish it to the world. It is not certain that Henry ever read it. He heard reports of it, however, from Tunstall and Starkey, and made no mystery of his displeasure to those around him. To Pole himself he wrote briefly, requiring him to return to England and explain his ideas more fully. Starkey and Tunstall wrote also, pointing out Reginald's presumption, which, they said, if persevered in would become a crime, and urging him to return to England, and seek the king's pardon. Pole was far too astute to obey this summons. Other letters were addressed to him, and finding that he would not venture on the English shore, Henry's agents tried to persuade him not to publish the work, and to give up or burn any copies of it which he might have retained. But this request was as fruitless as the former. Pole continued for a time to receive his pension, and his book, the effects of which were likely to be formidable, was reserved in manuscript till a fitting occasion for publishing it should arise.

Being an English subject, in the enjoyment of certain emoluments and dignities, Reginald Pole was not altogether free in his movements abroad. He could not accept an invitation from the pope to visit him at Rome without first obtaining Henry's permission, or without, at least, expressing a hope that his majesty would not be offended if he repaired to the eternal city. Henry did not deign to reply, but he induced Reginald's mother and brothers, Cromwell, and his friends at home, together with some members of both houses of parliament, to endeavor to deter him from the journey and from accepting any office that might be offered him in Rome. For a time, therefore, he resisted the importunities of his friend Contarini, and declined the purple held out to him by Pope Paul III.; for he knew that in accepting it he should make the king his implacable enemy and expose his family to cruel persecution. But other circumstances arose, which made the cardinalate appear desirable; and he accepted it about Christmas, 1536,[101] and trusted that it might in the issue aid him in accomplishing the main purpose of his life. That purpose was the recovery of England, in part at least, if not entirely, to the Catholic faith. The rising in England which he had predicted had taken place. The suppression of the monasteries had filled the faithful in the north with indignation, and from the Wash to the borders of Scotland the people in general flew to arms. They bore on their standards the emblems of faith, and the image of Christ crucified was carried in their front. The revolt was styled the "Pilgrimage of Grace," and its object was not the overthrow of the throne or the sovereign, but the removal from him of all evil counsellors and "villein's blood." It is deeply to the disgrace of Englishmen that they did not rise to a man and support the cause of freedom and religion against the worst of tyrants. Pole was anxious to afford the insurgents all the assistance in his power, and to remove from them and from the English in general any pretext for acquiescence in the changes forced upon them. A legate's commission was granted him, and he was instructed to land in England, or to hover over its coasts in France or Flanders as circumstances might require.[102] He knew not whether the insurrection were crushed, or whether Henry, on the contrary, were in the power of the rebels. He therefore manœuvred with the English government till things should take a decisive turn, and executed his commission with delicacy and dexterity. His professed object was to receive in Flanders such commissioners from the king as he might think proper to send for the purpose of discussing the points at issue between the government and the pope. He brought with him as credentials five letters; one to the Catholic people of England; a second to James of Scotland; a third to Francis King of France; a fourth to the Regent of the Netherlands; and a fifth to the Prince Bishop of Liege. He was ready to treat with Henry on any reasonable terms, and hopes were still entertained at Rome of England's being reconciled to the holy see. He was instructed to exhort the emperor and the King of France to cease hostilities against each other, and to turn their arms against the Turks. By this means they would forward the supreme pastor's design of convening a general council for the reformation of manners and the reconcilement of nations which had fallen from the faith to the unity of Christendom.

No sooner had Pole entered France than the English ambassador there required that he should be delivered up, and sent as a prisoner to England. The lengths to which Henry VIII. had gone altered the position of his Catholic subjects, and to be faithful to God and the holy see was to be nothing less than a traitor. Reginald Pole especially had incurred this charge, and as soon as it suited Henry's purpose, he preferred it against him without scruple. The king of France refused to deliver him up, but he requested Pole not to ask for an audience, and to prosecute his journey as speedily as possible. A treaty with England obliged the French government to give no shelter to political offenders, and Pole was compelled to turn aside from Paris and repair to Cambray. His welcome there was no warmer than in France. The Regent of the Netherlands had been terrified by Henry, and Pole was conveyed under an escort to Liege. A price of fifty thousand crowns was put on his head by the king of England, and four thousand auxiliaries were offered to the emperor to aid him in his campaign against France, provided he would deliver up the person of the cardinal into Henry's hands. The hatred of the king became implacable, and he pursued Pole ever after with the most murderous intentions.

From his watch-tower at Liege, Reginald beheld with bitter regret the failure of every attempt at insurrection in England. Alternate hopes and fears preyed on his mind. Conspiracy against the king seemed to offer the only chance of averting the triumph of Protestantism in England. Rebellion assumed in his eyes a sacred character, and every insurgent who fell wore the glory of martyrdom. He would willingly have seen his relations plotting against the author of untold evils to mankind. But a rumor was spread abroad of his life being in danger; that assassins were employed by Henry to murder him; and the holy father, anxious to preserve so valuable a life, recalled him to Italy. He was bent on publishing his book in defence of the church's unity, and desired to do so under the pope's auspices. In a letter to his secretary, Michael Throgmorton, Cromwell, who was then Henry's chief adviser, heaped reproaches upon Pole for his treason, dared him to publish his book if he thought fit, defended his master's resistance of papal authority, and intimated that Henry could find means to avenge himself on Cardinal Pole, even though he should be "tied to the pope's girdle." The times, it must be confessed, were most painful and trying; wickedness in high places forced many persons from their allegiance against their will who would have been, under happier circumstances, the most loyal and devoted of subjects. The mind of Cardinal Pole was deeply imbued with a love of the Catholic religion, and wherever he might be, whatever he might be doing, his unique object was its reëstablishment in his beloved and native land.

In June, 1538, we catch a glimpse of Cardinal Pole among the orange-groves that skirt the water's edge on the beautiful bay of Nice. Hither he came as attendant on the pope in a congress which resulted in a truce between France and Spain. But the name of Henry VIII. was not mentioned in the treaty on which the sovereigns agreed. The pope and the princes were left free to act toward him or against him as they might think fit.

In the beginning of the year 1539 Pole's book was printed, and sown broadcast over Europe. Many additions had been made to it, and the excesses into which King Henry had rushed increased the vehement indignation of the author. The pope, also, at the same time, issued his bull of deposition against the apostate prince. His crimes could no longer be endured; the putrid member must be lopped off from the body of the church. Cardinal Pole himself was despatched on another mission, the object of which was to arouse the Emperor Charles V. to an invasion of England. He addressed an apology to the emperor explaining his conduct, lest his majesty should fail to see how fealty to the King of kings may sometimes oblige a subject to disown allegiance to an earthly sovereign.

Meanwhile, another rising was meditated in England. The Pilgrimage of Grace had failed, but the moment was propitious for another attempt. The Catholic forces of the empire would be stirred against Henry by the pope and Cardinal Pole, and the pacification of Nice had brought Europe into the condition most adverse to the schismatic king. The plot was discovered by the government, and suspicions fell on the relatives of Pole. He was believed to have been in correspondence with them, and to have excited them to conspire and rebel. His brother, Sir Geoffrey Pole, turned king's evidence, and his accusations were accepted as truthful; though the word of a traitor to his own party is as much to be despised as himself. Knowing, as we do, that the heart of Cardinal Pole was burning with a desire of Henry's overthrow, it will be to us a question of small interest whether he really instigated his friends to revolt or not. Neither shall we be very careful to inquire into the validity or invalidity of the charges against his kinsfolk. If faithful to the king, they were unfaithful to God; if rebels against his authority, they were valiant for the truth. The evidence obtained in their disfavor was presumptive only; it proved, indeed, something as to their general tendencies; but it was not sufficient for their just condemnation. They had one crime which could not be pardoned; they were near relations of Reginald Pole. The king had not a more dangerous enemy than he beyond the seas; and the accused persons were all of them more or less of royal blood; all capable, on occasion, of setting up a rival claim to the throne, and making their descent, titles, property, and influence means of supplanting the reigning prince. The Marquis of Exeter, Lord Montague, and Sir Edward Neville were beheaded on Tower Hill, December 9th, 1538.[103] Lady Salisbury was made to endure a cruel imprisonment, and deprived of all her property; nor could she even purchase a warm garment to protect her aged limbs.[104] When more than seventy years of age, she was brought to the block. "Blessed are they that suffer for righteousness' sake," were her last words. The effect of these judicial murders on Cardinal Pole's mind may easily be conceived. Other injuries may be forgotten or forgiven, but this shedding of the blood of innocent and beloved relatives is a crime that never ceases to cry to heaven for vengeance.

Pole's mission to Charles V. produced little effect. Some warlike demonstrations were made against Henry, but the emperor soon assured the legate that it was impossible for him at that time to proceed further. Reginald Pole was bitterly disappointed. Again his hope of the church's triumph and Henry's discomfiture was blasted. He saw the wicked in great prosperity and flourishing like a green bay tree. But his strength and consolation was in the inner life. "For me," he wrote, "the heavier the load of my affliction for God and the church, the higher do I mount upon the ladder of felicity."[105] There were those who accused him of nourishing a hope that he should one day be king of England; but perhaps they have ascribed to him what was only the foolish dream of some fond admirers.

This legation was a mockery and a cross. He was bandied about from Toledo to Avignon; from Charles V. to Francis. Neither sovereign could be induced to unite against the king of England. Francis refused to receive the legate unless he brought with him some written pledge of the emperor's sincerity, and Charles refused to give that pledge unless the cardinal had first been received by Francis. Pole saw that he was cajoled by both.

Once more he vacated diplomatic functions. Once more he retired within the cloister at Carpentras,[106] to hide his face in mourning and prayer, to ponder the torments of his saintly mother, and fix his weeping eyes in solitude on the image of his crucified Lord. The emperor had tamely declined to fight the battles of Jehovah, and his supineness added wormwood to Pole's bitter cup. Paul III. had compassion on his distress, and need of his counsels. He recalled him from his retreat near Avignon--from the ruins of the Temple of Diana at Carpentras, to the life and energy of Christian Rome.

The hatred of Henry toward Cardinal Pole was increased by this last attempt to band the most powerful princes of Europe against him. "Judgment of treason" was pronounced on him in England; and efforts were made to induce foreign governments to deliver him up. His steps were tracked by spies; his goings in and out were watched; and he believed the poniards of assassins to be often brandished near him. His aged mother, the venerable Countess of Salisbury, was brought to the block,[107] as we have already mentioned. No examination had extracted evidence of her guilt; no ground for a criminal prosecution could be discovered. She was attainted without previous trial or confession; for Henry and his abject minion, Cromwell, were as indifferent to the forms of law as to the substance of justice. Her name, together with that of Pole's nephew, the son of Lord Montague, and that of Gertrude the Marchioness of Exeter, was introduced into a bill of attainder, though neither of them had confessed any crime or had been placed upon trial with means of defence. The marchioness was pardoned in six months; of the fate of the young man no record remains; but the aged countess, who was the last in a direct line of the Plantagenets, who was the nearest relation in blood that Henry had, and of whom in former days the king had often said that she was the holiest woman in Christendom, was dragged from the tower to the scaffold after a confinement of two years, and commanded to lay her head on the block.

"My head," she replied, "never committed treason. If you will have it, you must take it as you can."

The executioner performed his office while the head was held down by force. Reginald Pole ever after regarded himself as the son of a martyr, and accounted that a higher honor than to be born of a royal line.[108]

His long residence abroad after his mother's death was not marked by events of sufficient importance to require very special record. At Rome, the pope granted him a guard, that he might be protected from plots against his life contrived by the revengeful Henry. He corresponded largely with persons of distinction in various countries, and his letters, which were published at Brescia (Brixia) in five volumes quarto, in 1754-57, under the editorship of Cardinal Quirinus, are highly circumstantial, and contain abundant matter of historical interest and closely connected with the lives of Pope Paul III., the Emperor Charles V., the King of Scots, Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. In 1562, a work of his appeared, entitled, _De Concilio Liber_; and in the same year, at Rome, edited by P. Manutius, _Reformatio Angliæ, ex decretis Reginaldi Poli Cardinalis_. Two volumes, quarto. The book on councils was written by Pole as president of the Council of Trent in 1545; and Phillips, in his life of him,[109] speaks of it as

"A treatise which, for perspicuity, good sense, and solid reasoning, is equal to the importance of the occasion on which it was written, and shows at once the reach and ease of the author's genius, and the goodness of his heart. The preface by Manutius is long, and one of the most elegant compositions in the Latin language."

Cardinal Pole's life of exile, therefore, was neither idle nor fruitless. The labors which his hand then wrought remain to this day, and are highly prized by all who love to trace the stream of history to its fountain head. The year after Cromwell's disgrace and death (1541) Pole was appointed Governor of the Province of the Patrimony of St. Peter--the only part of the States of the Church which is now left to the Bishop of Rome. By this kindness on the part of Paul III., the cardinal was relieved of a disagreeable dependence on foreign princes for his daily expenses. His government was marked by wisdom, gentleness, and moderation. He always discouraged severity, though he held firmly the right of the church to punish offenders. His leisure hours were devoted to literature, and in the writings of ancient and modern poets and sages he often forgot, for a time, the miseries of his country, and the dangers which, even in Italy, beset his own person.[110]

Disorders among the clergy, a general corruption of morals, the schism of Luther, and the excesses of Calvin conspired to make a general council the obvious and only remedy that could be applied. Cardinal Pole and two other legates were nominated by Pope Paul III. to preside at the Council of Trent in the year 1542. But the sittings were suspended amid the din of arms, and renewed three years later in the same city. Cardinal Pole then presided again, having on his journey been tracked from place to place by ruffians employed by Henry VIII. to dispatch him at all hazards. Such atrocity, however, did not exasperate Pole unduly, nor cause him to forfeit his character for clemency and moderation. It was, on the contrary, objected to him in Italy, as afterward in England, that he was too lenient. It was even laid to his charge, and made an argument against his being raised to the popedom, that during his administration as governor two persons only had been put to death. He lived, alas! in an age when laws were sanguinary, and human life was comparatively of trifling account.

Cardinal Pole rendered valuable assistance in the early stages of the Council of Trent; but in 1546, he was obliged to discontinue his sittings and retire, first to Padua, and afterward to Rome, in consequence of ill health. The decree of the council concerning justification,[111] as it now stands, was revised and completed by him. It is a monument of luminous and concise statement of scriptural truth, and perfectly reconciles passages at first sight discrepant in the epistles of St. Paul and St. James.

When Henry VIII. was gone to his account, and the young Edward mounted the vacant throne, Cardinal Pole made two unsuccessful efforts to incline the thoughts of that young prince favorably toward the true and ancient religion. But Edward VI. in his tender years was surrounded by persons who made it their business to misrepresent every thing connected with the Catholic Church. The boy-king was thus made the tool and victim of crafty and ambitious men, who reared the structure of their own fortunes out of a pile of sacrilege.

When Paul III. died in November, 1549, Cardinal Pole was at the head of his council, and governor of Viterbo. The larger part of the cardinals were desirous of electing him to the vacant chair; but the number of votes required being two thirds, the choice did not ultimately fall on him. It was not the design of Providence that he should either be pope of Rome or king of England; yet he was very near being the successor of Paul III. on one occasion, and the husband of Mary, Queen of England, on others. During the sitting of the conclave he wrote an essay, which was afterward published, on the duties of the papacy. But the period was not without its trials. Envious detractors arose, and charged him not only with being too lenient in the government of Viterbo, but also with favoring the modern errors. It often happens that when good men avoid severity, their clemency is blamed; when they are gentle and charitable toward heretics, their orthodoxy is impugned.

There was near the lake Benacus, (now Garda,) in the neighborhood of Verona, a spot named Maguzano, where stood, in Cardinal Pole's time, a monastery of Benedictine monks. To this retreat the cardinal turned when, in 1553, he obtained the pope's consent to resign his government of the province of Viterbo. His duties as governor had compelled him frequently to visit Rome, and that city, which should have been the abode of peace and piety, was filled with tumult and discord, in consequence of the dissensions between Julius and Henry II. of France. Many of the cardinal's dearest friends were no more. Contarini, Bembo, Sadolet, Cortesius, Badia, and Giberti, Bishop of Verona, slept the sleep of death, while Flaminius and Victoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, had also gone down to the grave. Cardinal Pole, therefore, was fain to retire beforehand from a transitory world, and seek once more in the shade of the cloister the peace that passes all understanding and the prospect of a heaven near at hand.

But it was with him as with so many others who have betaken themselves to a spiritual retreat, and bidden farewell to the busy world at the very moment when Providence intended to call them into greater publicity and more active service than ever. Edward VI. died on the 6th of July, 1553, the same day of the same month on which his father had stained his hands in the blood of Sir Thomas More. The Princess Mary ascended the throne. She was a zealous Catholic, and if she had only understood the temper of her subjects; if she had not attempted to annihilate a too powerful minority; if she had been content to encourage the ancient faith without persecuting the adherents of the new religion; if she had married an Englishman, or indeed any one but a Spaniard, to whom, on account of his nationality, her people were unalterably averse, she might have prolonged her life and made her reign happy; she might have been one of the greatest sovereigns of her age; she might have established Catholicity in England on a permanent footing; she might have bequeathed to her sister Elizabeth a system of tolerant government, and have taken it out of her power to persecute Catholics in her turn, and to supplant and vitiate entirely the old religion of the land.

No time was lost by the holy father, Julius III., in sending Cardinal Pole to England as legate. Before setting out on his journey, he entered into correspondence with the queen, in order to be certified of her good dispositions, and received from her the warmest assurances of welcome and support.[112] She was, in fact, in the early part of her reign, too eager to announce her future policy, and would have done more wisely if she had followed the counsel of the Emperor Charles V., who warned her "not to declare herself too openly while the issue of affairs was yet uncertain." The successive rebellions of Northumberland in favor of Lady Jane Grey, and that of Sir Thomas Wyatt, ought to have made her be prudent, and avoid above all things pressing matters to extremity. She knew how deeply the nobles and rich men of her realm were implicated in the crime of sacrilege, and how tenaciously they clung to the spoils of abbeys and church lands of which they had become possessed. Scarcely a day passed without some indication of the insecurity of her tenure of power--without some warning of the necessity of ruling with impartiality and moderation.[113]

Cardinal Pole was on his way to England, when he dispatched from the Tyrol two messengers, one to the King of France, and the other to the emperor, informing them of his instructions to negotiate, if possible, a peace between them in the name of the pope. Charles V., however, was by no means disposed to let Pole proceed quietly on his journey. He was bent on marrying his son Philip to Mary, and he feared that the cardinal might be either a rival of his son or an adversary of the match. He refused, therefore, to see the legate, stopped him in the heart of Germany, and caused him to return to Dillingen, on the Danube. Here he received instructions from Rome to wait until circumstances should clear his path; and here too he learned that the articles of the queen's marriage had been agreed to, and the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt suppressed. But the chief obstacle to Pole's presence in England being removed, the emperor consented to receive him at Brussels,[114] and Mary consulted him by letter as to the bishops whom she should appoint to fill the sees of those whom she had removed. The new prelates were carefully selected; and when the Catholic religion was again proscribed in the succeeding reign, one of them only, Kitchin of Llandaff--the calamity of his see--who had changed with every change of the court, abjured the faith of Christ and adopted that of Queen Elizabeth.

Pole was still unable to obtain the emperor's permission to cross over to England, because the marriage of Mary with Philip had not yet been celebrated. The delay was truly afflictive to the cardinal and the queen, and the negotiations carried on by Pole between the emperor and the king of France produced little effect. At last the emperor yielded to Mary's entreaties; Pole's legatine powers, though already very ample, were enlarged; and he was permitted to accept the invitation of the Lords Paget and Hastings, with a train of gentlemen, sent to Brussels for the purpose of escorting him to his native country. He was empowered to reconcile England to the holy see on such conditions as he should think proper and feasible, particular faculties being given to him to dispense with the restitution of church property and ecclesiastical revenues. His agreeable manners and amiable address pointed him out as the fittest man in the world to execute so difficult a commission; and the English ambassador at Brussels, writing of him to Mary, said,

"His conversation is much above that of ordinary men, and adorned with such qualities that I wish the man who likes him the least in the kingdom were to converse with him but one half-hour; it must be a stony heart which he does not soften."[115]

The bill required for the reversal of Cardinal Pole's attainder was passed in November, 1554. It stated that the only reason for the attainder had been the cardinal's refusal to consent to the unlawful divorce of Queen Mary's father and mother, and its repeal restored him to all the rights which he had forfeited through his probity. The legate having taken leave of the emperor, set out the next day in princely style, accompanied by one hundred and twenty horse. A royal yacht and six men of war were in readiness to receive him at Calais. The wind itself was propitious to his voyage, and, having been rough and contrary for several days, suddenly changed its direction, and wafted the apostolic messenger safely to the British shore.

The legate, when he landed at Dover, was received and welcomed by his nephew, Lord Montague. He was treated as one of the royal family, and on his arrival at Gravesend, he was met by the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Bishop of Durham. They presented him with the act by which his attainder was reversed; and in his character as legate he proceeded with them up the Thames in a royal barge, at the head of which shone conspicuously his silver cross. Masses of spectators lined the banks, and a large number of smaller barges followed him up the river till he arrived at Whitehall, then the residence of the court. The chancellor with many lords, the king, and the queen with the ladies of her court, welcomed him with affectionate joy. The palace of Lambeth, which Cranmer had exchanged for a prison, was richly furnished for his use, and on the morrow, the 28th of November, the lords and commons assembled expressly to hear from the legate's own lips the object of his coming. The address which he delivered was long and impressive; it dwelt on the dismal condition of nations cut off from the unity of the church; and it set forth the abundant blessings which would follow from the purpose of the holy see and the queen being accomplished in the formal reconciliation of England to the communion of the Bishop of Rome. On the next day, which was the feast of St. Andrew, the parliament met again, together with the king, the queen, and the legate. The nation, like a scattered and harried flock, was received once more into the fold of the church by general consent, amid deep emotion, praises, and tears of joy. Yet many who were present had misgivings about the permanence and solidity of the union thus affected. They remembered the recent rebellion in favor of Lady Jane Grey, the rising of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the countenance supposed to be given to the rebels by the Princess Elizabeth, the extreme unpopularity of the Spanish alliance, and the haughty, violent character of Gardiner, the chancellor, and of Bonner, the Bishop of London.[116] Events unfortunately justified these apprehensions, and made the short reign of Mary, for reasons which we shall presently enumerate, a dismal failure and an instalment of endless disaster.

The day after the reconciliation, the lord mayor and other civic authorities waited on the legate, and requested him to honor the city with a visit. Accordingly, on the first Sunday in Advent he went by water from Lambeth, landed at St. Paul's wharf, and proceeded in great pomp to the cathedral, where high mass was celebrated in presence of their majesties and the court. The sermon was preached by Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, who took occasion to confess the share which he had in the national guilt, and to implore his hearers, who had been influenced by him when he went astray, to follow him now that he had recovered the right path. It was certainly asking a good deal, since Gardiner himself had sat with Cranmer and pronounced the sentence of divorce between the king and Catharine. He had also maintained the royal supremacy, and sold his pen to Henry's caprice.[117]

The bill which was framed to effect the restoration of the Catholic religion in England was very comprehensive and carefully worded. It distinguished minutely between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, and guarded against what legists are accustomed to consider the encroachments of the latter.[118] It secured to the owners of church lands the undisturbed possession of their property wherever it had been legally conveyanced; and without this concession the legate's mission would have proved fruitless. It was followed by a release of state prisoners, and by an embassy being sent to the Roman see. Before it had reached its destination, Pope Julius III. died,[119] after a pontificate of five years. He was succeeded by Marcellus, who reigned only three weeks, and by his decease opened the door for renewed exertions to raise Cardinal Pole to the papal chair. It was the third time that Pole's friends had used all their influence in his behalf. In the conclave which elected Julius III., Cardinal Farnese had nearly succeeded in procuring his election; in the proceedings which issued in the choice of Marcellus, the same cardinal had obtained letters from the king of France in Pole's favor; and now again, when Caraffa was chosen and took the name of Paul IV., it was not the fault of Philip, Mary, or Gardiner that the tiara did not light on the head of Reginald Pole.

Having mediated a peace successfully between France and the emperor, Pole was appointed, by Philip's special request, chief of the privy council. He was to be absent from the queen as little as possible, and nothing of importance was to be undertaken without his concurrence. Pope Paul IV., however, did not look favorably on Cardinal Pole, and had, even at this time, some thought of recalling him to Rome. Meanwhile the legate with Gardiner made a slight attempt to arouse the University of Oxford from its lethargy in respect to human learning, and a short time afterward, before the end of the year 1555, Gardiner being dead, the cardinal convoked a national synod to consider the disorders of the period, and the best means of stemming the torrent of depraved morals and strange forms of unbelief.

It is not our purpose to enter into the history of the severe measures which were adopted for the extirpation of heresy in England, and which we may, with the light which subsequent events have cast upon them, with reason suspect to have been extreme and injudicious. We are concerned only with the history of Cardinal Pole, and every thing goes to prove that he always preferred lenient to severe measures, so far as he considered it compatible with the welfare of religion and the safety of the throne. As for Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and other principal personages who were put to death, they deserved their fate on account of the numerous treasons and crimes which they had committed, or to which they had been accessory; and Elizabeth herself might with perfect justice have been brought to the block, from which she was saved only by the influence of Gardiner, for conspiring against the crown of her sister. The whole number of victims brought to the scaffold was only from two to four hundred, and numbers of those who escaped into Ireland were sheltered and concealed from legal pursuit by the Irish Catholics, who have suffered death by thousands for the sake of religion, but have scarcely ever inflicted it on others. The fanatics and demagogues, who with the cowardly and blood-thirsty instincts of their species are seeking to stir up the American people, "who will not rise, in spite of their prayers and their prophecies," against the Irish Catholics of the United States, will do well to remember this fact, or rather, as such persons always forget what does not suit their purpose, the intelligent and honest citizens of this republic will do well to remember it, when these mischief-makers attribute to their Catholic fellow-citizens any ulterior design or hope of ever seeking to propagate their religion in this country by violent means.

As for Cardinal Pole himself, even Mr. Froude acknowledges that he was "not cruel." Burnet testifies that he rescued the inhabitants of his own district who were condemned to death from the hand of Bonner.[120] His secretary, Beccatelli, informs us that "he used his best endeavors that the sectaries might be treated with lenity, and no capital punishment inflicted on them;"[121] and he himself declares that he approved of putting heretics to death only in extreme cases.[122] Rigorous and severe punishments upon all classes of offenders, coercive measures and the stern exercise of authority were, however, according to the spirit of that age in every country, and it is not strange that the milder counsels of the gentle Pole were over-ruled, and that he was unable to hinder the executions desired by those who had the supreme power of the law in their hands. The administration of Mary was severe and despotic. Yet it is false to say that in her spirit and intentions she was cruel or tyrannical. What appears to us like an unnecessary and even impolitic rigor and vindictiveness against those who, by the laws of England, were rebels against both the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of the realm, was to a great extent due to the importunate counsels of the lay-lords. Even Bonner and Gardiner would gladly have pursued a milder policy, and the majority of the bishops and ecclesiastics, notwithstanding the atrocious persecutions to which they had been subjected under Henry and Edward, would have cordially sustained their primate if he had been left free to exercise his authority unimpeded by the interference of the civil power. Yet, though Mary's policy was severe, it was mercy itself compared to that of Henry, Elizabeth, and their Protestant successors. It is not only an atrocious calumny; it is a grim and dismal jest for the panegyrists of Elizabeth, and the exculpators of the hideous massacres of Cromwell, to affix the epithet of "bloody" to Queen Mary.[123] Moreover, it is not a mere question of a greater or lesser amount of bloodshed which should govern our award of justice in respect to the two cases. There is a difference of principle in the case, which an impartial Jew, Mohammedan, infidel, or even Protestant can and ought to admit, as some have admitted. Those persons who, in England or elsewhere, have been put to death by the civil power for the crime of heresy under the Catholic law, have been condemned for abjuring that religion in which they had been brought up, and which had been part of the law of the land, as well as the universal and traditional belief of the nation, from the beginning of its formation, or at least for centuries. Even if the principles of law by which they were condemned are pronounced tyrannical and unjust, it is plain that there is no parity between the case of a ruler acting on such principles, in common with other rulers of the time and of past ages, and according to maxims universally approved by jurists and statesmen, and one who compels his subjects to renounce their ancient laws and religion, and to abjure the faith in which they have been educated, at his individual whim and caprice. But although we are not disposed to abandon Queen Mary to her calumniators, we may give to Cardinal Pole the high honor of having been wiser than she was, or than her other counsellors were, and of having been in advance of the general spirit of his age in regard to the wisest and best method of treating religious errors, which had taken too deep a root to be summarily plucked up by a violent effort; and with these few remarks upon a topic which requires much greater space for a satisfactory discussion, we proceed with the personal history of the cardinal.

After Cranmer's execution, Cardinal Pole, who had hitherto been in deacons' orders, was ordained priest, consecrated bishop, and invested with the pallium as Archbishop of Canterbury. His works of piety were numerous; he founded religious houses, preached, prayed, and watched for souls in all respects as one that must give account. He was made chancellor of the University of Oxford, by the resignation of Sir John Mason, and chancellor of that of Cambridge also, on the death of Gardiner.

To a sensitive mind there is no greater anguish than that which springs from the hostility of those whom it has faithfully served. This suffering it was Cardinal Pole's lot to incur. His whole life had been devoted to God, the church, and the holy see. For these he had endured exile, persecution, and the loss of all things. For their sakes he had seen his mother and his dearest relatives dragged to the scaffold. In their cause he had studied, written, toiled, prayed, and wept till his hairs were gray. As their defender and champion he had been welcomed to England by his cousin and sovereign, raised to the head of the English church, and made the chief instrument in bringing back the ancient religion. But having done so, having given every proof a prelate could give of his devoted attachment to his religion, having twice been on the very steps of the papal throne, with what agony must his spirit have been tortured when he found, as he did find, that he was in disfavor with Paul IV.; that he was superseded as legate; that he was recalled to Rome; and that, to crown the cup of bitterness, he and his friend, Cardinal Morone, were to answer to a charge of heterodoxy before the Inquisition.[124]

"Does Almighty God, therefore," he wrote to the pontiff,[125] "require that a parent should slay his child? Once, indeed, he gave this precept when he commanded Abraham to offer in sacrifice his son Isaac, whom he tenderly loved, and through whom all the promises made to the father were to be accomplished. And what are now the preparations your holiness is making but so many forerunners of the sacrifice of my better life, that is, of my reputation? For in how wretched a sense must that pastor be said to live who has lost with his flock the credit of an upright belief?... Is this sword of anguish, with which you are about to pierce my soul, the return I am to receive for all my services?"

Happily for the cardinal, Mary and Philip took his part. They remonstrated with the pope on the loss which they and their subjects would sustain if Pole were recalled, and they prevailed with the holy father so far that he consented to the cardinal's retaining the see of Canterbury, while he appointed Peto, the Greenwich friar, to supersede him as legate. Quite in the spirit of her father, Mary caused the nuncio who brought this decision to England to be arrested, and interdicted Peto from accepting the legatine office. He never received any official notice of his appointment, nor Pole of the papal decision. He was, however, too loyal a subject of the pope to avail himself of this regal interference. He ceased to act as legate, and sent his chancellor to Rome with entreaties and protests. Again the pope required that Pole should appear in Rome to clear himself from the charge of heresy; and Peto was summoned there also to assist the pontiff with his advice. Proceedings against the English cardinal were already commenced, and the distressing state of things was set at rest only by the death of some of the principal actors. Peto, the rival legate, died, and while the affair was still in suspense the grave closed over the disappointed, despairing queen, and the broken-hearted[126] cardinal. He was attacked by a quartan ague, and, feeling conscious of his approaching end, he made a will, in which he protested his attachment to the Church of Rome and especially to Pope Paul IV., from whom he had experienced treatment which seemed equally inexplicable and unkind. His last hours were passed in acts of devotion, and it was probably with supreme satisfaction that he laid his aching head on the pillow of death on the morning of the 18th of November, 1558. His friend, cousin, and sovereign had preceded him in the dark valley by only twenty-two hours, and he felt, no doubt, that his most powerful if not his best friend was no more. Elizabeth was already queen, and her Protestant tendencies were well known. There was every reason to suspect that she would reverse the religious system restored by her sister, and take advantage of the general unpopularity which Mary by her severity had incurred. There was one object only for which Cardinal Pole could reasonably wish to prolong his life, and that was to clear himself from the extraordinary charge which had been brought against him by calumniators. But it was the will of Providence that his fair and unspotted fame should be vindicated only after his death.

During forty days the palace at Lambeth was hung with black. An altar was placed in the apartment of the deceased cardinal, and masses were said constantly for the repose of his soul. His body was then conveyed to Canterbury with great pomp, and his funeral was followed by large numbers of citizens and clergy. The exalted rank of Cardinal Pole, the important part he had played in the history of his time, and the high offices he had filled made him an object of reverence to the multitude, who knew not, and did not even suspect, the intrigues of which he was the victim and the humiliating charge under which he lay.

We shall not endeavor in this place to follow the example of his indiscriminating panegyrists. Suffice it to say that he was a devoted son of the church, and that he did all in his power to resist the impious will of the tyrant with whom Providence had brought him face to face. His zeal for the conversion of England was laudable, though not crowned with the success which it deserved.

In his youth he had written a commentary on Cicero's works; but this was never printed, and the manuscript was lost. He excelled in exposition of the Scriptures, which were his constant study and delight. "His character," Mr. Froude allows, "was irreproachable; in all the virtues of the Catholic Church he walked without spot or stain."[127] He was honored with the friendship of men of great distinction, such as Sir Thomas More, Erasmus, Sadolet, Bishop of Carpentras, Bembo, Friuli, Paul III., and Ignatius Loyola. His forgiving disposition may be gathered from the fact that when three English ruffians came to Capranica to murder him, were arrested on suspicion, and confessed that they were emissaries of Henry VIII., he would only allow them to be condemned to the galleys for a few days. His clemency, as we have seen, in a relentless age, caused him to be suspected; and we have the testimony of Bishop Burnet, the Protestant historian of the Reformation,[128] to assure us that

"such qualities and such a temper as his, could he have brought others into the same measures, would probably have gone far toward bringing back this nation to the Church of Rome; as he was a man of as great probity and virtue as any of the age he lived in."

FOOTNOTES:

[94] He died 1524. Agnes Strickland's _Lives of the Queens of England_, vol. v. 143.

[95] Cardinal Bembo, Secretary of Leo X. and Librarian of St. Mark's, Venice; author of various pieces in Latin and Italian. Born 1470. Died 1547.

[96] Cardinal Sadolet, Bishop of Carpentras, Secretary of Leo X.; author of several works in Latin prose and verse. Born 1477. Died 1547.

[97] Lingard's _History of England_, A.D. 1531.

[98] Froude, _History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth_. Vol. vi. 88.

[99] Lingard, vol. iv. appendix, note 8, 3. _Poli Defensio_, fol. 77, 78.

[100] Pole to Prioli. Epist. vol. 1. p. 446.

[101] December 20, 1536. Froude, iii. 187.

[102] Lingard, v. 45.

[103] Froude vi. 333.

[104] Miss Strickland's Lives, v. 208.

[105] Epist. Reg. Pol. vol. iii. pp. 37-39.

[106] April, 1539.

[107] May 27, 1541. (33 Henry VIII.)

[108] Pole to the Cardinal of Burgos. Epist. iii. 36, 76.

[109] Vol. i. p. 402.

[110] _Life of Pole._ London, 1767, i. 354.

[111] Conc. Trident. Sessio VI.

[112] Flanagan, _History of the Church in England_, vol. ii. 122, 127-8.

[113] See Lingard, vol. v. 198.

[114] February 6th, 1554.

[115] Mason to Queen Mary, October 5th, 1554.

[116] Froude, vol. vi. 395 and 517.

[117] Phillips's _Life of Pole_, vol. ii. 172, note.

[118] Lingard, vol. v. 224.

[119] March 23d, 1555.

[120] _Hist. Ref._ vol. ii. p. 156.

[121] _Vita Poli_, fol. 33.

[122] Poli Epist. Phillips's Life, vol. ii. p. 222.

[123] The number of persons put to death in Queen Mary's reign was, as stated above, not over 400. From the year 1641 to 1659, 826,000 persons perished, were exiled or sold as slaves in Ireland, through the religious persecution of the English Protestant government. (_O'Reilly's Memorials_, p. 345.)

[124] Lingard, v. 254. Phillips, ii. 256-7. Froude, vi. 477, 481.

[125] Greenwich. March 30th, 1558.

[126] "Without straining too far the license of imagination, we may believe that the disease which was destroying him was chiefly a broken heart." (Froude, vi. 526.)

[127] _History of England_, vol. vi. 531.

[128] Vol. ii.

THE YOUNG VERMONTERS.