between Spain and Portugal, in which the boundaries of the two kingdoms in South America, were accurately defined. The Jesuits forbade the approach of either party into Paraguay.

But

an army was sent, which soon broke through all resistance, and in 1758, the Jesuits were banished from the kingdom of Portugul, and soon after, from that of Spain, and their estates were confiscated. In ship loads they returned from foreign countries, and in crowds they pressed from the great peninsula, to seek some new employment from their sinking patron.

In France, they fell into disgrace, in a religious controversy. In sentiment they were Pelagians. In 1640, Jansenius published the doctrines of Augustine, concerning depravity and free grace. The publication was condemned by the inquisition, and the Pope. But Jansenius had many followers. All united with him, who were disgusted with the Roman superstitions, and wished the promotion of vital piety. About the same time, a French translation of the New Testament was made by Quesnel, accompanied with annotations, containing the principles of Augustine. Its circulation was rapid. The Jesuits took fire, and compelled Pope Clement XI. in 1713, to issue the bull UNIGENITUS, condemning that and its notes. The Jansenists were inflamed; but Parliament confirmed the bull, and the Jansenists felt the horrors of persecution. They became enthusiastic, and pretended to supernatural succours; to revelations and miracles, and declared that, to shew the truth of their cause, God had ordered the bones of their dead, especially of the Abbe of Paris, to work miracles. Thousands flew to the Abbe's tomb, to behold the wonders, and the Jansenists grew popular. They exposed the moral corruptions of the Jesuits, and turned the tide against them, so that the order was abolished in France, by royal edict in 1762, and all their colleges and possessions were confiscated and sold.

Still they were upheld by the Pope, as he had felt their worth; but their cause had grown desperate, and in compliance with the universal demand, Ganganelli or Clement XIV. suppressed them entirely in all the Papal countries, July 21, 1773.

With the Jesuits fell the amazing power of Papal Rome. But she fell into the fangs of a monster, more horrible than ever stalked forth upon the bloody arena of depraved man. About the middle of the last century. a set of most ferocious infidels, headed by Voltaire, D'Alembert, Rousseau, and Frederic II. king of Prussia, resolved upon the annihilation of Christianity. Berlin was the centre of their operations; but the Gallican church was the first object of their attack. Her

Clergy were amazingly numerous and rich, being no less than eighteen archbishops, one hundred and eleven bishops, one hundred and fifty thousand priests, with a revenue of five millions sterling annually, besides three thousand and four hundred wealthy convents. But they were an easy prey. The revocation of the edict of Nantez, had driven experimental religion from the kingdom, and, with a most splendid church, the nation was given up to infidelity. Her priests themselves, from the vast increase of light, were ashamed of their tricks, and pious frauds. The absurdities of indulgence, penance and purgatory, could no longer be swallowed by a nation full of intelligence. The conspirators saw this, and drew out the monster. The wealth of the church was a fine object of attack. It was soon made the property of the nation. A civil constitution was formed for the clergy, to which all were required to swear, on pain of death, or banishment. The great body refused, and priest and altar were overturned, and blood once esteemed sacred, flowed to the horses' bridles. Such as could, escaped through a thousand dangers and found an asylum in foreign countries. No tongue can tell the woes of the nation.

The revolutionary torrent, overflowed the neighbouring countries, and laid waste the Roman church with all her trumpery. Her priests were massacred. Her silver shrines and saints, were turned into money for the payment of troops. Her bells were converted into cannon, and her churches and convents, into barracks for soldiers. From the Atlantic, to the Adriatic, she presented but one most appalling spectacle. She had shed the blood of saints and prophets, and God now gave her blood to drink.

The emperor Napoleon despised the pope and the whole system of monkery. To secure the reverence of the people he compelled Pius the Seventh, in 1804, to place the crown upon his head, but in less than four years after, he dispossessed him of his ecclesiastical state, and reduced him to a mere cipher in the political world. The pope issued against him and his troops a bull of excommunication, but it was the pitiable bluster of the decayed old man. The Dominicans in Spain felt his vengeance, and he there, in 1808, abolished the inquisition With the return of the Bourbons, the Gallican church has again reared her head, and fell superstition has appeared in high places. In Spain the infernal inquisition has been in part re-established,*

* In 1820 the inquisition at Valencia was broken open by the revolu. tionists, and five hundred were released from its dark and humid dungeons,

and the pope has sent out again some of the order of the Jesuits.

The principles of the Roman church are expressed in the decrees of the council of Trent and the confession of Pius IV; but they have been always subject to an exposition of the Pope, who has claimed to be infallible. Her rites and ceremonies have varied but little for centuries. A stranger in papal countries now feels himself transported back into the dark

ages.

Her Pontiffs, since the reformation, have generally sustained a better character than before. Some have been weak. Some ambitious. A few, respectable for talent and piety.

The same may be said of her clergy. Baronius and Bellarmin have been her most eminent controversialists. Father Paul of Venice, has been her most distinguished historian. Bossuet, Bourdaloue and Massillon her greatest orators.* Fenelon, archbishop of Cambray, was "the Enoch of his age." He walked close with God, and by his writings did much for the promotion of piety. Pascal and Quesnel were eminent for learning and piety. The letters of Pascal first exposed the arts of the Jesuits. Many of the Jansenists appeared to be possessed of the faith and holiness of the gospel. But the great mass of the Bishops have spent their time amid the cabals and luxuries of courts--the slaves of temporal princes; and the lower order of priests have had little but their habit, title and a few ceremonies to shew that they had any connexion with Him whose kingdom is not of this world.

Monastic orders have continued to arise. The two most famous since the reformation have been "The Fathers of the oratory of the Holy Jesus," 1613, and the monks of La Trappe, 1664. Laziness, ignorance, voluptuousness and discord have

* Bossuet died in 1704 bishop of Meaux. He distinguished himself by his funeral orations in honour of the princes and great men of his age.

Such was the eloquence of Bourdaloue that on the revocation of the edict of Nantez, Lewis XIV. sent him to preach the Catholic doctrines to the Protestants. He had more solidity and close reasoning than Massillon, but less imagination and less of the pathetic and persuasive. He died 1704, aged 72.

Massillon was born at Hieres in Provence, 1663. His powers of eloquence early brought him to Paris, where he long carried captive crowded audiences. His oratory was peculiarly his own, and such his fidelity as to bring the gay court of Lewis XIV. and the monarch himself to serious reflection. "Father," said the king to him, "when I hear other preachers I go away much pleased with them, but whenever I hear you, I go away much displeased with myself." In 1717 he was made bishop of Clermont. He died 1742, aged 79.

continued to characterize all those establishments. The popularity of the Jesuits threw into the back ground the whole tribe of monks and friars. All experienced in the French revolution a tremendous overthrow.

The Catholics continue to be very numerous in the worldprobably not less than 100 millions, an immense power if brought to act under one head. Multitudes in Asia know no other religion than that of the Pope. A large part of Europe is still sunk in ignorance and Papal superstition. In Spain the Papal power has never lost much of its force. The inquisition, has in a degree been suppressed, but efforts are now making to re-establish it. In South America too, the Catholic church remains very splendid and imposing. The number of her priests, monks, temples, festivals and idle ceremonies is immense, and the ignorance and superstition of the people are beyond conception. But a free government must sap her foundations, or at least entirely change her character. Already the wealth and power of the priesthood is diminished, monks are ridiculed, feast days are much disregarded, the sale of indulgences is partially stopped, the Bible is getting into free circulation, and protestants live and die undisturbed. In Great Britain and her dependencies Catholics are numerous. From the reign of Queen Elizabeth they have there been guarded by the most severe enactments, and numbers have been put to death. Some of these laws have of late been repealed, but the Catholics are still excluded from any part in the government. In Canada they are sunk in the grossest ignorance. In the United States they have one archbishop, four bishops, 160 priests, and about 140,000 souls, chiefly foreigners. They have colleges at Baltimore, Georgetown, New-Orleans and St. Louis. They reside chiefly in Maryland, Louisiana, Florida and the capital cities.

Though he has millions in his church, the wealth and consequence of the Pope have nearly all passed away. Strangers visit him from curiosity as the remnant of that tremendous power which once ruled the Christian world. The present.Pope is the two hundred and fiftieth that has filled the Papal chair.

Many in the Roman church are gladly receiving the Holy Scriptures. The 1260 years, the time of her duration, is rapidly drawing to a close, when, it is believed, she will be merged in that true church which knows no infallible guide but the scriptures, and seeks salvation only by faith in a crucified Redeemer.

CHAPTER XIV.

Greek Church. Its history, doctrine, and discipline. Russian Greek Church. Its establishment and separation from the Greek Church. Sect of Isbraniki. Efforts of Peter the Great. Doctrines and discipline. Eastern churches. Ground of their early divisions. Nestorians. Monophysites. Asiatics and Africans. Copts. Abyssinians. Armenians.

The once happy and flourishing churches of Greece and Asia soon sunk to decay, when they had drunk the poison of Arius, and consented, with idol Rome, to bow the knee in image worship. By the Saracens they were, from time to time, awfully scourged and rooted up of heaven for their wickedness; but still they flourished in much wealth and splendour while the Byzantine Cæsars held their thrones. The rising power of the Roman pontiff excited their jealousy; and his pride and haughtiness kindled their rage. In the middle of the ninth century, Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople, was excommunicated by the Roman pontiff, for asserting that the Holy Ghost proceeded only from the Father and not from the Son. The act was resented by the Grecian emperor, and the Roman pontiff was excommunicated in turn. A breach was made between the Eastern and Western churches, which was soon widened by new subjects of contention, and confirmed in irreconcilable enmity. From this period is dated the rise of the Greek church; though that church embraces the primitive churches planted by the apostles.

In numbers, wealth and glory, the Grecian Church far exceeded the spiritual dominion of the Roman see. In the tenth century, she received into her connexion the immense Russian dominions which were converted to the Christian faith. But she had a fatal enemy in the east, before whom she was rapidly consumed. One after another of her beautiful churches she beheld converted into a Mahometan mosque; while their worshippers were destroyed by the sword, or converted by terrors and bribes to the religion of the impostor. From the west, the fanatical crusaders came pouring in torrents to rescue, if possible, her lost territory. She was jealous of their design, and only submitted to what she could not resist; and while she had little cause to thank them for their aid, she had reason to bewail, had her eyes been open to it, the inheritance they left; a vast deposit of moral corruption.

In 1453, the empire of the Greeks was overthrown by the Mahometan power; and, with it, perished their religious esta