i.... Syllabus totam Europam pervasit at cui malo mederi
potuit etiam ubi tanquam oraculum infallibile susceptus est? Duo tantum
restabant regna in quibus religio florebat, non de facto tantum, sed et
de jure dominans: Austria scilicet et Hispania. Atqui in his duobus
regnis ruit iste Catholicus ordo, quamvis ab infallibili auctoritate
commendatus, imo forsan saltem in Austria eo praecise quod ab hac
commendatus. Audeamus igitur res uti sunt considerare. Nedum Sanctissimi
Pontificis independens infallibilitas praejudicia et objectiones
destruat quae permultos a fide avertunt, ea potius auget et aggravat....
Nemo non videt si politicae gnarus, quae semina dissensionum schema
nostrum contineat et quibus periculis exponatur ipsa temporalis Sanctae
sedis potestas.]

[Footnote 400: Esperons que l'exces du mal provoquera le retour du bien.
Ce Concile n'aura eu qu'un heureux resultat, celui d'en appeler un
autre, reuni dans la liberte.... Le Concile du Vatican demeurera
sterile, comme tout ce qui n'est pas eclos sous le souffle de l'Esprit
Saint. Cependant il aura revele non seulement jusqu'a quel point
l'absolutisme peut abuser des meilleures institutions et des meilleurs
instincts, mais aussi ce que vaut encore le droit, alors meme qu'il n'a
plus que le petit nombre pour le defendre.... Si la multitude passe
quand meme nous lui predisons qu'elle n'ira pas loin. Les Spartiates,
qui etaient tombes aux Thermopyles pour defendre les terres de la
liberte, avaient prepare au flot impitoyable au despotisme la defaite de
Salamis.]

XV

A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF THE MIDDLE AGES. By HENRY CHARLES
LEA[401]

A good many years ago, when Bishop Wilberforce was at Winchester, and
the Earl of Beaconsfield was a character in fiction, the bishop was
interested in the proposal to bring over the Utrecht Psalter. Mr.
Disraeli thought the scheme absurd. "Of course," he said, "you won't get
it." He was told that, nevertheless, such things are, that public
manuscripts had even been sent across the Atlantic in order that Mr. Lea
might write a history of the Inquisition. "Yes," he replied, "but they
never came back again." The work which has been awaited so long has come
over at last, and will assuredly be accepted as the most important
contribution of the new world to the religious history of the old. Other
books have shown the author as a thoughtful inquirer in the remunerative
but perilous region where religion and politics conf