their theories, not the discussions of controversial
theology, but the character of a single institution. The opportunity he
has taken to do this, the assumed coincidence between the process of
dissolution among the Protestants and the process of regeneration in the
Court of Rome, is the characteristic peculiarity of the book. Before we
proceed to give an analysis of its contents, we will give some extracts
from the Preface, which explains the purpose of the whole, and which is
alone one of the most important contributions to the religious
discussions of the day.

This book arose from two out of four lectures which were delivered in
April this year. How I came to discuss the most difficult and
complicated question of our time before a very mixed audience, and in
a manner widely different from that usually adopted, I deem myself
bound to explain. It was my intention, when I was first requested to
lecture, only to speak of the present state of religion in general,
with a comprehensive view extending over all mankind. It happened,
however, that from those circles which had given the impulse to the
lectures, the question was frequently put to me, how the position of
the Holy See, the partly consummated, partly threatening, loss of its
secular power is to be explained. What answer, I was repeatedly
asked, is to be given to those out of the Church who point with
triumphant scorn to the numerous Episcopal manifestoes, in which the
States of the Church are declared essential and necessary to her
existence although the events of the last thirty years appear with
increasing distinctness to announce their downfall? I had found the
hope often expressed in newspapers, books, and periodicals, that
after the destruction of the temporal power of the Popes, the Church
herself would not escape dissolution. At the same time, I was struck
by finding in the memoirs of Chateaubriand that Cardinal Bernetti,
Secretary of State to Leo XII., had said, that if he lived long,
there was a chance of his beholding the fall of the temporal power of
the Papacy. I had also read, in the letter of a well-informed and
trustworthy correspondent from Paris, that the Archbishop of Rheims
had related on his return from Rome that Pius IX. had said to him, "I
am under no illusions, the temporal power must fall. Goyon will
abandon me; I shall then disband my remaining troops. I shall