diffusion of Christianity throughout Europe. The spirit of Christianity was decidedly opposed to that of the Roman nation; the latter being an exclusive egotism, founded solely on the preponderance of the Roman people over all others. Roman denizenship was the highest honour to which barbarians could aspire, and was seldom conferred, even upon kings, With the Romans, not the man, but the citizen, was esteemed, and they were called upon, by the very constitution of their commonwealth, to become the oppressors of every alien. Christianity, on the contrary, excites in every man, of whatever state or nation, an esteem for the dignity of mankind, without reference to the claims of citizenship. The citizenship which it regards in man is that of heaven; and thus we see Roman power and customs decline in the same measure that Christianity increases and diffuses itself. We must not, however, infer from this (as many have done in modern times), that the consequent result of Christianity is to suppress national feeling, and to introduce a false cosmopolitism. Such an opinion I, for one, must unequivocally disclaim. History witnesses that true national feeling, that freedom and independence are encouraged, rather than suppressed, by the doctrines of Christianity. It is opposed solely to all egotism, public as well as private, national as individual. Peoples and states now enjoy a peaceable co-existence in just equilibrium, and this favourable circumstance results, not from political combinations, but from the deep-rooted love

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of freedom, which is inculcated by the christian precepts. They interfere not with the relation of the citizen to his state, excepting when such relation occasions a contempt for the dignity of manhood in the person of an alien. To the Roman character Christianity was indeed opposed, because the subjugation of other nations formed a chief feature of that character; but among the modern European peoples its influence promotes the truest patriotism, acknowledging in an alien, not the freeman only, but the Christian and the citizen, of a friendly state.

Christianity has, no doubt, in view to unite the whole human race, but, at the same time, to preserve the distinction of families or nations, marked by natural confines or by difference of language. According to the spirit of this divine doctrine, which corresponds to the true dignity of mankind, the monocracy of one people over the others is unattainable, and all attempts thereat have been frustrated by the genuine Christian feeling, inculcated among the nations. I repeat, that the influence of Christianity is directed to the spiritual man, in order to lead him to his eternal country, and only interferes with the earthly man, taken as a natural product, when such interference is requisite, as the health of the body promotes that of the soul. Taken as a natural product, man belongs, like the flower of the field, or the creature of the desert, to a determined species, for which boundaries have been marked out by Providence. He belongs to his nation, as to the sphere

which nature has allotted to him, wherein he may exert his tendency towards moral perfection. Thus he has an earthly country, which he defends from unjust attacks, on the same principles of right and duty, which bind him to protect the earthly tenement of his soul against injury and destruction.

During the middle ages we see this tendency of Christianity to lead mankind to a great union-its definitive moral aim-represented in the form of hierarchy, but in a human manner, and, therefore, imperfectly and perishably. The appearance of the papacy, or hierarchy, during the middle ages, with its all-crushing power, has indeed something revolting for our present notions, in the state of moral and religious cultivation to which we have arrived. But our historical opinions should not be formed from the point where we now stand; we ought to trace the life of mankind through its various degrees and periods;—in a word, we should follow history, and not strive to form it.

The European peoples of the middle ages were in the first stage of youth, when the sensual impulses predominate, notwithstanding the existence of an exalted moral tendency. These impulses frequently threaten the annihilation of the spiritual strength; and it is necessary to work upon the sensual man by sensual means. During the ferment accompanying the destruction of the Roman empire in the west, the papacy had gradually arisen from small beginnings; but, during the fifth, sixth, and seventh

centuries, the European nations were too unsettled for the hierarchical power to gain a decided form. The violent commotions of these peoples undulated irresistibly towards that political state when social connexions, or, in other words, christian states, arose, which, however, were of very short duration, and served only as a transition to those more recent. Thus the empires of Odoacer and of Theodric, erected out of the ruins of Roman power, perished. The Lombardian empire fell beneath the iron arm of Charles the Great; and he was the first who, taking a comprehensive view of the wants of his time, united the nations, fatigued by such multifarious struggles, into one common social form, and led them to the somuch-wished repose. With the consolidation of the temporal power, that of the spiritual kept pace; and as, by the nature of the christian doctrine, no materials for an external structure could be furnished thereby, it being a moral institution, without any prescribed form, paganism and Judaism were placed in requisition for this purpose. Yet at the time of Charles the Great, the pope was but the humble servant of the servants of the Lord," without earthly importance, till that great monarch himself planted the germ of the future power, which became so dangerous to his successors. By confirming the donation of the exarchate, made by Pepin to Pope. Zachary, the emperor gave to the bishops of Rome a temporal arm, with which, at a later period, the spiritual thunders were most effectually wielded. The

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empire of Charlemagne owed its speedy dissolution to the discordant elements of which it was composed; a cause which, more frequently than family events, leads to the division of great empires.

During the tenth and eleventh centuries, we see the foundation of our present political institutions laid down; for all the modern states were at this period either formed, or about to be so. The feudal system, which grew out of the warlike and wandering life of the German nations, may be called the primary principle in the formation of most of the modern European states. The power of the princes increased with the erection of cities, and the establishment of the third class, the burgesses, which, particularly for the German emperor, became an instrument of incalculable power. The knights were opposed to the civilians, and ready to forward the ambitious views of the ruling monarch, and at the same time to gratify that passion for military adventure, which seems to have been inherent among the German tribes. Emperors who, like Henry I. and Otho the Great, regarded themselves as the chiefs of the European sovereigns, and were acknowledged as such, gave so great a preponderance to earthly power and majesty, that the rising freedom of the various European nations might have been smothered by the constitution of an universal monarchy, like that of Rome, had not a counterpoise been furnished in the power of the church. The German emperor, and at the same time king of the Romans, stood at the head of