spirit of society, had, through great part of Catholic Europe,
undergone a complete change. But the unchangeable Church was
still there.

Some future historian, as able and temperate as Professor Ranke,
will, we hope, trace the progress of the Catholic revival of the
nineteenth century. We feel that we are drawing too near our own
time, and that, if we go on, we shall be in danger of saying much
which may be supposed to indicate, and which will certainly
excite, angry feelings. We will, therefore, make only one more
observation, which, in our opinion, is deserving of serious
attention.

During the eighteenth century, the influence of the Church of
Rome was constantly on the decline. Unbelief made extensive
conquests in all the Catholic countries of Europe, and in some
countries obtained a complete ascendency. The Papacy was at
length brought so low as to be an object of derision to infidels,
and of pity rather than of hatred to Protestants. During the
nineteenth century, this fallen Church has been gradually rising
from her depressed state and reconquering her old dominion. No
person who calmly reflects on what, within the last few years,
has passed in Spain, in Italy, in South America, in Ireland, in
the Netherlands, in Prussia, even in France, can doubt that the
power of this Church over the hearts and minds of men, is now
greater far than it was when the Encyclopaedia and the
Philosophical Dictionary appeared. It is surely remarkable, that
neither the moral revolution of the eighteenth century, nor the
moral counter-revolution of the nineteenth, should, in any
perceptible degree, have added to the domain of Protestantism.