n France,--shall I add, in England
and America?--it is more in earnest, and more laborious and self-denying
than many sects among the Protestants. In Germany--in those very seats
of learning and power and fashion which once were kindled into lofty
enthusiasm by the voice of Luther--who is it that desert the churches
and disregard the sacraments, the Catholics or the Protestants?

Surely such a power, whether we view it as an institution or as a
religion, cannot be despised, even by the narrowest and most fanatical
Protestant. It is too grand and venerable for sarcasm, ridicule, or
mockery. It is too potent and respectable to be sneered at or lied
about. No cause can be advanced permanently except by adherence to the
truth, whether it be agreeable or not. If the Papacy were a mere
despotism, having nothing else in view than the inthralment of
mankind,--of which it has been accused,--then mankind long ago, in lofty
indignation, would have hurled it from its venerable throne. But
despotic as its yoke is in the eyes of Protestants, and always has been
and always may be, it is something more than that, having at heart the
welfare of the very millions whom it rules by working on their fears. In
spite of dogmas which are deductions from questionable premises, or
which are at war with reason, and ritualism borrowed from other
religions, and "pious frauds," and Jesuitical means to compass desirable
ends,--which Protestants indignantly discard, and which they maintain
are antagonistic to the spirit of primitive Christianity,--still it is
also the defender and advocate of vital Christian truths, to which we
trace the hopes and consolations of mankind. As the conservator of
doctrines common to all Christian sects it cannot be swept away by the
hand of man; nor as a government, confining its officers and rules to
the spiritual necessities of its members. Its empire is spiritual rather
than temporal. Temporal monarchs are hurled from their thrones. The long
line of the Bourbons vanishes before the tempests of revolution, and
they who were borne into power by these tempests are in turn hurled into
ignominious banishment; but the Pope--he still sits secure on the throne
of the Gregories and the Clements, ready to pronounce benedictions or
hurl anathemas, to which half of Europe bows in fear or love.

Whence this strange vitality? What are the elements of a power so
enduring and so irresistible? What has given to it its greatness and it