MAS AQUINAS-THE CONFESSIONAL-OUR NATIONAL DANGERS- DANGERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND-ITS PRESENT STATE CON- APPENDIX. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH PROTESTANTS-THEIR CONNECTION WITH THE CHURCH OF GENEVA-HUGUENOTS-PERSECUTED BY HENRY II. REST UNDER HENRY III.-OPPOSED BY THE HOUSE OF GUISE -HENRY IV.-EDICT OF NANTES-ITS PROTECTION NOMINAL -THEIR MEN OF LEARNING-LOUIS XIV.-DIFFERENT PLANS FOR CONVERSION BY THE JANSENIST AND JESUIT METHOD ADOPTED-VARIOUS EDICTS-ORDER ISSUED BY LOUVOIS-RE- NOVATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES-ITS CONSEQUENCES- A NEW EDICT BY LOUIS XIV.-LEGAL EXISTENCE OF THE HUGUE- NOTS IGNORED THEIR SUFFERINGS-OBTAIN A LEGAL RECOGNI- TION AS NOT CATHOLICS"--THE REVOLUTION-ITS EFFECTS- AND INFLUENCE-OUTRAGES ON THE PROTESTANTS SOUTH OF FRANCE-THEIR CONDITION UNDER LOUIS RALITY OF THE POPES-LUTHER-IGNATIUS LOYOLA, HIS BIRTH, MILITARY EXPLOITS, CONVERSION, MIRACLES, EARLY TRAVELS -SPAIN-PARIS-ROME-REFLECTIONS. THE restoration of learning was the dawn of the Reformation, and the invention of printing its morning star. The long night of the middle ages, which had well nigh lasted a thousand years, (A.D. 500-1450,) was drawing to its close, when Wycliffe, Huss, and Jerome of Prague, awoke men from their dreamy slumbers, and preached the gospel of light and liberty to the astonished world. The means which Heaven employed for accomplishing this wondrous change, were the same as those which we so often behold under the reign of Providence. It was the Divine power of bringing good out of evil, and of compelling vice and wickedness to conduce to religious and moral improvement. The long-continued schisms and atrocities of the B Romish pontiffs had broken down the superstitious veneration felt for the church. It was the baseness of Alexander VI., and of Julius II., which destroyed the belief in papal infallibility. Even their poets were obliged to pronounce their condemnation. Dante depicts pope Anastasius as sunk in the infernal abyss, under the weight of the crimes of the church, and polluted with filth and mire. In hell, he finds Nicholas III., planted with his heels upwards, waiting till Boniface VIII. arrives, who is to take his place, to be relieved in his turn by Clement V., a lawless shepherd. The milder spirit of Petrarch is roused by Romish depravity to a higher pitch of indignation. In one of his sonnets, he compares the papal court to Babylon. To him, Rome is a fountain of grief, the dwelling-place of wrath, the school of error, and the temple of unbelief. He pours forth, with wrathful energy, every epithet of disgrace against the unblushing thing of iniquity. It was thus also that Chaucer, in our own country, depicted the reigning licentiousness of monks and friars. At length, the Council of Constance (A.D. 1414) was assembled by the emperor Sigismund and other European princes, to attempt a reform of these ecclesiastical abuses. They came to a decision, which they could not well avoid, that the church, both in its head and its members, required to be purified. But how little they meant by this formal declaration, was apparent, when they violated the safe-conduct of Huss. On his arrival, Huss was accused of heresy, and cast into prison. Sigismund, ashamed of this treachery, demanded that Huss should be brought before the council. He was at once informed, that nothing short of a full recantation of his opinions could restore him to liberty. Huss, on refusing to comply with the demand, was sent back to prison. On July 6, 1415, he was again brought before the council, was condemned for heresy, and ordered to be burned. His martyrdom followed the next day, with circumstances of great cruelty, and his ashes were thrown into the Rhine. His companion, Jerome, shared the same fate the ensuing year. Though by this nefarious artifice, which may well be denominated the Prelude to Jesuitism, these Bohemian reformers were destroyed, their opinions spread rapidly in every direction. Nothing was now wanted, but some powerful and expeditious method of diffusing these opinions amongst the populace, to enable them successfully to encounter the Romish church. This method was supplied by the invention of printing. In 1450, Fust is supposed to have printed the first edition of the Latin Vulgate Bible: the printing of that Bible was the signal for a universal change. But nothing contributed more effectually to impair the character of the Romish church, than the infamous pontificates of Alexander VI. and Julius II. The first of these monsters died in 1503, the other in 1512. To these succeeded Leo X., of the family of Medici, who, though of a milder disposition, was equally indifferent about the interests of religion, and the advancement of real piety. His court was the centre of men of taste and learning, but so little was Christianity esteemed and valued, that you might suppose you had been living at the court of the pagan, Cæsar Augustus. Everything which is sacred or Scriptural there received some pagan title. God the Father, was saluted as Jupiter; God the Son, as Mercury or Apollo; and the Virgin Mary, as Diana, or the goddess of Loretto.* Leo ascribes his arrival at the popedom" to the favour of the immortal gods." The Latin poetry of cardinal Bembo is full of this pagan mythology, and is chargeable with the grossest obscenity. Such was the state of Rome, the capital of Christendom, when Tetzel, the * See Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de Medici. Dominican friar, was commissioned to preach the sale of indulgences in Saxony. He executed this commission with such extravagance, as to provoke the attack of Luther. The conflict then began to rage in all its fury. In 1520, Leo issued his damnatory bull of excommunication against Luther, delivering him over to the devil, requiring the secular princes to seize him, and condemning his books to be burned. Lu ther, on his part, raised a huge pile of wood near the walls of Wittemberg, and hurling the decretals, the bull, and the canon-law into the flames, he defied the terrors of the рарасу. Princes, nobles, and the people were on the side of the Reformer. Even Dr. Lingard, the popish historian, admits, "that the minds of men had of late years been embittered by frequent, but useless, complaints of the expedients devised by the papal court to fill its treasury at the expense of the natives." The cause of the Reformation triumphed far and wide, and its thunders were heard on the walls of the Vatican. But, to add to these ecclesiastical difficulties, Rome was menaced with political dangers. In 1526, when Clement VII. had succeeded to the papacy, the Imperialists crossed the Alps, and took possession of Rome. "On that day," exclaims Ranke, “the splendour of Rome and thus did the pope, who had sought the liberation of Italy, see himself beleaguered in the Castle of St. Angelo, and as it were a prisoner." What a marvellous coincidence with some recent events! came to an end, To Clement succeeded Paul III., in whose popedom Loyola arrived at Rome, A. D. 1540. But before we proceed to his reception, it is necessary that we should relate the circumstances of his early life. Ignatius Loyola was born A.D. 1491, in Spain, in the province of Guipuzcoa. His family was ancient and noble, and possessed of the Castle of Loyola, |