hitherto been shared with the aristocracy. In Scandinavia a mighty spirit was aroused against foreign despotism: the struggle was lasting, and Engelbrecht and the two Stures showed the Danes and the world that Swedes rely not in vain for freedom on their sword. The east of Europe lay under Cimmerian darkness, and mankind was there in a listless torpor, from which, two centuries later, the spirit of Peter the Great alone could arouse it. Italy, divided into small states, was basking in the sunshine of papal splendour. Yet, since the migration of the popes from Rome to Avignon, which, for seventy years, evinced their dependency upon the temporal power of France; and since the vigorous attacks of John Wicliff, the precursor of Huss, on those satellites of popery, the mendicant friars, it had become, at last, manifest to the laity of Europe that the clergy no longer was an all-powerful body; the splendour of the mitre being unable to outshine the occasional glances of common sense. Throughout the whole of Europe, the third class, the burgesses, had risen to wealth and freedom; and even the peasants of Switzerland had long ago proved at Morgarten and Sempach, and more recently at Murten, that bravery is not the exclusive inheritance of nobility. The youth was now matured to a man, and only wanted resolution to express his manhood, and to achieve emancipation. It will be worth while to premise, at this stage of our survey, a few words concerning the champion of European mankind, who solemnly declared that resolution, and by whose zeal, energy, and perseverance it was mainly carried into effect. Great men are so, because, comprehending the want of the period in which they live, they give to it a mighty expression, combining the elements of the public spirit in their own mind. Every truly great mind is the mirror of the fairest portion of its time; and I may venture to affirm that human greatness can never be much in advance of the spirit of the time at which it appears. Alexander, Cæsar, Mahomet, Charlemagne, Gregory VII., &c. are the heroes of their time and history, because they conceived and represented the highest ideas of the periods in which they flourished: and thus Luther is undoubtedly the greatest man, not only of his country, but of the whole christian era; for he, by the innate power of enthusiasm, expressed heroically, but moderately, the want of his time, and placed himself at the head of those who fought for the liberty of that reason, which was now awakened in the minds of He fought, and conquered, undaunted by the fulminations hurled against him from Rome. But far be it from us to call this single man, who, if born at a less agitated period, would, in all probability, have remained simply an honourable private character;-far be it from us, I say, to call him the author of an event so universal as the Reformation. Luther was the chief mental warrior of his age. Reason chose him as her champion, and he proved himself fully worthy of the cause; for never did worldly knight appear in the lists with more humility, courage, and self-denial, than was evinced by this men. spiritual hero. Whatever he did, was done by divine impulse, in answer to the voice in his own heart, and to the summons of the age. A determined plan, such as worldly business requires, he could not lay down for the reform of the spiritual kingdom among mankind: this could only be done by Providence, in the primitive councils of eternity. Therefore we see Luther, impelled by the spirit, and carried onward by the force of successive circumstances, rising gradually, and at length depriving the hierarchy of that spiritual realm which it had so long misruled. He is like a traveller on an acclivity, who is constantly ascending, because with every upward step the horizon expands, and the splendours of nature multifariously spread around him; and, in this continuous progress of the Reformation, we see a fresh proof of its divine origin. Had human intellect planned it, human powers might have destroyed it. But all earthly influences were made to forward involuntarily the great work of regeneration; and in course of time, the calculating policy of the princes promoted the diffusion of the evangelical creed as effectually as the folly and blindness of the popes. The only way for the latter to have met the storm which menaced them was, by placing themselves at the head of the reformers, as a Hildebrand would probably have done; and in that case mankind might have reached the period of developed manhood by a more peaceable medium. But it would appear that, in the moral, as in the physical world, perfection is attainable only through the strife of contending elements. In the history of mankind, we see all great successes secured by struggles; and even the gospel of peace was propagated by the sword. The opposition between catholicism and protestantism, and the contentions occasioned thereby, are in no sense misfortunes for mankind. Had protestantism become prevalent in Europe, to the total extinction of its rival creed, this victory (had no new opponent arisen) might have led to an insupportable self-assumption in human intellect, and eventually to a phariseeism in religion, which would have made mankind the victims of a barren, comfortless selfconceit. Had, on the other hand, catholicism succeeded in suppressing protestantism, the clergy would have held mankind through centuries in its trammels, and later times must have presented the spectacle of an Egyptian hierarchy, and a priestly mythology, in which freedom of thought and investigation would have been stifled. But it was otherwise decreed. By their mutual strife both have been benefited. Popery has lost its influence, and now exists only in empty form,—a monument of past and fallen grandeur. But catholicism, which must be distinguished from popery, still exists, as the representative of the infantine creed, and also of the youthful age of mankind. Protestantism elevates the reason, and thus becomes the representative of the manly age. Catholicism warns protestantism against adoring reason as its sole divinity;-thus the voice of Dryden: "Dim as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars To lonely, weary, wandering travellers, So reason to the soul;-and as on high Protestantism cautions catholicism not to blind the eyes of faith, lest -man the truth With superstitions and traditions taint, as your great poet exclaims, for whose inward eye beauty had revealed herself, whilst his mortal vision was dimmed by night. Both, then, catholicism and protestantism, tending to the same source, that of truth, will eventually meet and join in a reconciliation, which must lead to the perfection of mankind, when the one fold, or invisible church, shall have but one flock. No one can venture to express a hope as to when this period shall arrive. Centuries are but drops in the ocean of eternity; and I can conceive no stronger evidence of human vanity and pride, than when man loses all belief in the dignity of his nature, if he, the short-sighted mortal, do not enjoy, during the span of time allotted to him, those fruits, to the production of which the past and present have worked, and are working. |