During the former period, whatever was lost to Catholicism was
lost also to Christianity; during the latter, whatever was
regained by Christianity in Catholic countries was regained also
by Catholicism. We should naturally have expected that many
minds, on the way from superstition to infidelity, or on the way
back from infidelity to superstition, would have stopped at an
intermediate point. Between the doctrines taught in the schools
of the Jesuits, and those which were maintained at the little
supper parties of the Baron Holbach, there is a vast interval, in
which the human mind, it should seem, might find for itself some
resting-place more satisfactory than either of the two extremes.
And at the time of the Reformation, millions found such a
resting-place. Whole nations then renounced Popery without
ceasing to believe in a first cause, in a future life, or in the
Divine mission of Jesus. In the last century, on the other hand,
when a Catholic renounced his belief in the real Presence, it was
a thousand to one that he renounced his belief in the Gospel too;
and, when the reaction took place, with belief in the Gospel came
back belief in the real presence.

We by no means venture to deduce from these phenomena any general
law; but we think it a most remarkable fact, that no Christian
nation, which did not adopt the principles of the Reformation
before the end of the sixteenth century, should ever have adopted
them. Catholic communities have, since that time, become infidel
and become Catholic again; but none has become Protestant.

Here we close this hasty sketch of one of the most important
portions of the history of mankind. Our readers will have great
reason to feel obliged to us if we have interested them