er hands, never
again to be enjoyed by any successor, she did not accomplish much
more. Had not the sovereign pontiffs been so completely occupied with
maintaining their emoluments and temporalities in Italy, they might have
made the whole continent advance like one man. Their officials could
pass without difficulty into every nation, and communicate without
embarrassment with each other, from Ireland to Bohemia, from Italy to
Scotland. The possession of a common tongue gave them the administration
of international affairs with intelligent allies everywhere, speaking
the same language.

Not without cause was the hatred manifested by Rome to the restoration
of Greek and introduction of Hebrew, and the alarm with which she
perceived the modern languages forming out of the vulgar dialects.
Not without reason did the Faculty of Theology in Paris re-echo the
sentiment that, was prevalent in the time of Ximenes, "What will
become of religion if the study of Greek and Hebrew be permitted?" The
prevalence of Latin was the condition of her power; its deterioration,
the measure of her decay; its disuse, the signal of her limitation to
a little principality in Italy. In fact, the development of European
languages was the instrument of her overthrow. They formed an effectual
communication between the mendicant friars and the illiterate populace,
and there was not one of them that did not display in its earliest
productions a sovereign contempt for her.

The rise of the many-tongued European literature was therefore
coincident with the decline of papal Christianity; European literature
was impossible under Catholic rule. A grand, a solemn, an imposing
religious unity enforced the literary unity which is implied in the use
of a single tongue.

While thus the possession of a universal language so signally secured
her power, the real secret of much of the influence of the Church lay
in the control she had so skillfully obtained over domestic life. Her
influence diminished as that declined. Coincident with this was her
displacement in the guidance of international relations by diplomacy.

CATHOLICITY AND CIVILIZATION. In the old times of Roman domination the
encampments of the legions in the provinces had always proved to be foci
of civilization. The industry and order exhibited in them presented an
example not lost on the surrounding barbarians of Britain, Gaul, and
Germany. And, though it was no part of their duty to occupy themse