The Jesuits were also protected by the empress of Russia; and from the bishop of Mohiloff, who, bred a Calvinist, had become a catholic, and who domineered over the church in Poland, they experienced peculiar favor and patronage. He was so eager to re-establish their society, that he gave public permission to a body of ex-Jesuits, assembled in the province of White Russia, to take probationary candidates for the privileges of their order. He pretended that Pius had allowed him so to exercise his authority but this assertion was disclaimed by the pontiff, and probability favors the denial. When the Spanish court remonstrated with the empress on the subject, she maintained her pretensions and those of the prelate whom she protected, and declared that she would not submit to dictation from any court whatever. She afterwards authorised her Jesuit subjects to choose a vicar-general, who should enjoy all the former privileges of the institution; and, in defiance of all the enemies of the Jesuits, she continued to favor the members of an order proscribed and stigmatised by the catholic princes. While she disapproved the conduct of many who had been enrolled among the sons of Loyola, she said that the general demerits of the society did not appear to her to be so atrocious, as to justify its dissolution, or the severities which had preceded and followed that act R.

In France, the cause of Jesuitism was still abetted by many of the dignified clergy; but they were not so open in expressing their wishes for the restoration of the order, as they were in counteracting the claims of the Huguenots, whom the government had ceased to persecute. Some, who hated the Jesuits, joined this party in opposing the protestants, and also in reprobating the licentiousness of infidels. In an assembly holden in the year 1765, an animated remonstrance had been voted by the prelates against the new philosophy. They conjured the king to

8 Memoires Hist. et Philos. sur Pie VI. chap iv.

take vigorous measures for the repression of that profane boldness, that impious freedom, which vilified whatever had for ages been deemed sacred among mankind, and aimed at the subversion of all holy and venerable institutions. If he should be tame or passive at so alarming a crisis, the most portentous mischief, they said, might be apprehended. They accused the protestants of being deeply concerned in these practices, and blamed his majesty for not enforcing the laws against those presumptuous sectaries. In the year 1770, the progress of infidelity gave occasion for another remonstrance, in which the assembled clergy pointed out various works of the new philosophers, as objects of condemnation h, and called for the exertion of all the powers of government in the defence and support of religion, morality, and good order. An assembly of bishops, in 1772, renewed the attack upon the new philosophy; but their fulminations were ineffective; and the contagion continued to spread.

Louis XVI., who had a stronger sense of religion than his predecessor, lamented the prevalence of scepticism: yet he sometimes gave his confidence to men who were known to be infidels. Alarmed at the ministerial influence of Turgot, the clergy, in a council which they held in the year 1775, agreed to such a remonstrance as the danger of the church seemed to require. They represented to the young monarch, in strong terms, the alarming progress of infidelity and atheism, the illegal boldness of the protestants, (who had dared even to erect churches,) the flagrant licentiousness of the press, and the prevalence of a restless and inquisitive spirit, which threatened to unhinge society. Louis promised to attend to these complaints; but he did not take any measures of remedial efficacy. When he was influenced by free

These were, among other publications, Christianity Unveiled, God and Men, the System of Nature, Sacred Contagion, and Hell Destroyed; which the parliament ordered to be publicly committed to the flames,

the clerical non-jurors, menaced them with imprisonment or exile. Many of their number emigrated in the sequel; and many were assassinated by the po pulace.

Under the sway of the democratic convention, so little attention was paid to religion, that it seemed to be in danger of being wholly absorbed by worldly politics. The assembly did not, indeed, expressly vote for its extinction in the new republic; but contented itself with encouraging the surrender of letters of priest-hood, and the open renunciation of all religious sentiments. At length, however, Robespierre pretended to be shocked at the growing spirit of atheism, and moved for the promulgation of a decree, favorable to the cause of religion. By this ordinance, a periodical festival was instituted in honor of the Creator of the world, or the Supreme Being; the propriety of public worship was allowed; and the immortality of the soul was recommended to universal belief. The clergy of the old school, however, were still harassed, and in danger of exile or confinement, until the legislature, in the year 1797, released them from the oaths with which their consciences were offended, and merely required them to promise submission to the government. Two years before this concession was obtained, five bishops had ventured to address a circular letter to the clergy; in which they affirmed, that religion, in the altered government of their country, had no longer a political foundation; that the connexion was dissolved between the church and the state; that the former still expected justice and protection from the latter; but, being left to itself, was obliged to take measures for the establishment of doctrinal uniformity and general regularity of discipline. They recognised the pope as the head of the church, and acknowleged the doctrines of catholicism, as interpreted and explained by Bossuet, the celebrated bishop of Meaux "

n See Mosheim's History, cent. xv

tians to concur with them in every trivial notion or fantastic opinion, in every idle ceremony, or in all circumstances of exterior worship. But, forgetting the obligations of brotherly love, they continued at variance for ages; and they are still sufficiently estranged from each other, to render the idea of an union vi sionary and hopeless.

The Greek church, at the beginning of the century, extended from the Red Sea to the Frozen Ocean, and from the Adriatic to the Caspian. The patriarch of Constantinople was, nominally, the head of this church; but his authority was not co-extensive with the similarity of doctrine. He held a monthly synod in that city, with the metropolitans of Antioch and Jerusalem, and twelve other prelates. In these councils he had no decisive authority: the influence of the majority, the intrigues of the more artful members, and sometimes reason or argument, decided the questions. He did not retain that effective supremacy which some of his predecessors enjoyed over the patriarchs of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine: in the extensive regions subject to the Russian despot, he had not even the shadow of power; and, between the eastern boundaries of Asia Minor and the Caspian, his jurisdiction was not honored with regard or acquiescence. Living also under the government of an infidel prince, to whom every form of Christianity was odious, he was, in fact, a slave to an arbitrary barbarian.

In the provinces of European Turkey, the members of the Greek church were, and are still, very numerous, notwithstanding the discouragement given to population by the tyranny of the government. Almost every successive grand signor thought it his duty to oppress them, that he might evince his zeal as a defender of the Moslem faith. Mustafa III. was more lenient to them than many of his predecessors; but, even under his administration, they were insulted and plundered by his Turkish subjects, and maltreated in every mode of capricious tyranny. Their hierarchy, however, was suffered to subsist; and they

were allowed to transmit to their posterity their favorite doctrines.

Frequent attempts were made by the zealous catholics, in the course of the century, to draw the Greeks into the Romish communion, not by concessions on the part of the former, but by derelictions of opinion on the part of the latter. In consequence of these endeavours, a schism was maintained in various parts of Greece and Asia Minor, and the number of proselytes to the papal church became considerable. The Mainotes, in the Morea, withstood the arts of the Romish missionaries more vigorously, even to the end of the century, than the generality of the Greeks. They assured the intruders, that they were strongly attached to the system of their own church, as opposed to that of the Romanists, whose head they considered as an unchristian schismatic, for having corrupted the purity of the true faith. They particularly condemned the prohibition of the marriage of priests, and ridîculed the issuing of bulls for the pretended rescue of souls from purgatory. They then had only one bishop; and he, like the priests, had no regular allowance, but received occasional contributions for particular masses, and cultivated the soil, or performed other labors, to procure the necessaries of life. The écclesiastics, in general, led exemplary lives, and thus deserved that respect with which the laity treated them; and such was their spirit, that they were the first to take arms in defence of their country".

The schism of which we have spoken was very prevalent in Syria. At Aleppo, the northern capital of that province, the Christian church, about the middle of the century, was in a state of deplorable division.

The orthodox Greeks, or those who adhered to the old system, were less numerous than the followers of the Latin church; but, having greater interest

a

Voyage de Dimo et Nicolo Stephanopoli en Grèce, pendant les Années 1797 et 1798; chap. xxxix.