but for fifteen centuries; not religious merely, but political,
embracing as it were the whole progress of European society, from the
fall of the Roman Empire to the Protestant Reformation; yea, intimately
connected with the condition of Europe to the present day, and not of
Europe only, but America itself! What an august power is this Catholic
empire, equally great as an institution and as a religion! What lessons
of human experience, what great truths of government, what subtile
influences, reaching alike the palaces of kings and the hovels of
peasants, are indissolubly linked with its marvellous domination, so
that whether in its growth or decay it is more suggestive than the rise
and fall of any temporal empire. It has produced, probably, more
illustrious men than any political State in Europe. It has aimed to
accomplish far grander ends. It is invested with more poetic interest.
Its policy, its heroes, its saints, its doctors, its dignitaries, its
missions, its persecutions, all rise up before us with varied but
never-ending interest, when seriously contemplated. It has proved to be
the most wonderful fabric of what we call worldly wisdom that our world
has seen,--controlling kings, dictating laws to ancient monarchies, and
binding the souls of millions with a more perfect despotism than
Oriental emperors ever sought or dreamed. And what a marvellous vitality
it seems to have! It has survived the attacks of its countless enemies;
it has recovered from the shock of the Reformation; it still remains
majestic and powerful, extending its arms of paternal love or Briarean
terror over half of Christendom. As a temporal government, rivalling
kings in the pomps of war and the pride of armies, it may be passing
away; but as an organization to diffuse and conserve religious
truths,--yea, even to bring a moral pressure on the minds of princes and
governors, and reinforce its ranks with the mighty and the noble,--it
seems to be as potent as ever. It is still sending its missionaries, its
prelates, and its cardinals into the heart of Protestant countries, who