to think, to rule the ignorant
and superstitious everywhere. Great critics are unanimous in their
praises of that wonderful mechanism which ruled the world for one
thousand years.

Nor did the popes, for several centuries after Leo, grasp the temporal
powers of princes. As political monarchs they were at first poor and
insignificant. The Papacy was not politically a great power until the
time of Hildebrand, nor a rich temporal power till nearly the era of the
Reformation. It was a spiritual power chiefly, just such as it is
destined to become again,--the organizer of religious forces; and, so
far as these are animated by the gospel and reason, they are likely to
have a perpetuated influence. Who can predict the end of a spiritual
empire which shows no signs of decay? It is not half so corrupt as it
was in the time of Boniface VIII., nor half so feeble as in the time of
Leo X. It is more majestic and venerable than in the time of Luther. Nor
are Protestants so bitter and one-sided as they were fifty years ago.
They begin to judge this great power by broader principles; to view it
as it really is,--not as "Antichrist" and the "scarlet mother," but as a
venerable institution, with great abuses, having at heart the interests
of those whom it grinds down and deceives.

But, after all, I do not in this Lecture present the Papacy of the
eleventh century or the nineteenth, but the Papacy of the fifth century,
as organized by Leo. True, its fundamental principles as a government
are the same as then. These principles I do not admire, especially for
an enlightened era. I only palliate them in reference to the wants of a
dark and miserable age, and as a critic insist upon their notable
success in the age that gave them birth.

With these remarks on the regimen, the polity, and the government of the
Church of which Leo laid the foundation, and which he adapted to
barbarous ages, when the Church was still a struggling power and
Christianity itself little better than nominal,--long before it had much
modified the laws or changed the morals of society; long before it had
created a new civilization,--with these remarks, acceptable, it may be,
neither to Catholics nor to Protestants, I turn once more to the man
himself. Can you deny his title to the name of Great? Would you take him
out of the galaxy of illustrious men whom we still call Fathers and
Saints? Even Gibbon praises his exalted character. What would the
Church of the Middl