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" Thus when Bome fell, the Church had been divinely pre- pared to take her place ; and the dream of Plato, that governors should be teachers of wisdom, seemed near to fulfilment. The genius of the new polity is to be judged, not by the faults of particular men, but by the cast of virtues which it exemplified as a whole, and by its softening influence over the manners of savage nations. If the bishops of Bome* and of other cities set up a power savouring too much of this world, they did so in an age of iron and of blood, and gained something for humanity by setting the simple cross against the sword, vanquishing king- doms by fiedth, and brute force by mind. When Bome was sacked by the Goth and the Hun, and Carthage by the Vandal, the bishops t of both cities were the great relievers of all suffer- ing by their alms and prayers. Often, in such cases, Christians shewed that they knew what sacrifice to Grod means, by selling even the holy vessels of their churches, that the price might relieve men suffering from war or famine. Even the emperor Julian, who loved them not, had with true ingenuousness con- fessed their zeal in such works, and had desired heathens to learn from it. See^ how these Christians love one another\j was one of their early marks ; for they could not fail to do so, if they knew truly the love of Gk)d, which yet passes knowledge. In a like spirit they built hospitals for the sick, whereas the empire before them had built amphitheatres for men to fight with beasts. It * See MilmaD'B Bidory of Chrutiardty, both the earlier and the Latin ; or Neander and Ghateaabriand. t Mihnao and Chateaobriaod. X Tertullian. M. P. 27 418 CHURCH HISTOBT. wa3 a Christian monk (St Tdemachus) who, in the traest mar- tyrdom, put an end to such spectacles at the cost of his life. But when the Northern nations had spread night over Europe, the faith of Christ, though mixed with legends and ancient customs, was still a light in a dark place. In its power, the bishops* of Spain forbade the Oothic chieftains to estimate any humble life .as worth less than their own, and affixed the same penalty to any murder of man. In the same spirit, it was reckoned an acceptable sacrifice to God for serfs to be emancipated by their rude lords. Even the right of asylum in churches, (though it became abused f, as it had been among the Hebrews, from whose precedent it seems taken,) was useful in so fierce an age, as enabling passion to cool, and equity to obtain a hearing. Again, in the monasteries were preserved the relics of learning. Around them, or in episcopal cities, survived an image of the old Roman tribunate, with its veto in favour of humanity upon illegal tyranny; and so the germs of our municipal | freedom were cherished. The schools of Charlemagne in France, the patronage of learned men by Alfred, and the foundation of many colleges throughout Europe, are all connected in some measure with the influence of the Church in the dark ages. They are akin to that spirit which sent missionaries into the most savage nations, like the Briton Winifrid (or Boniface) into Germany, softening everywhere wild man, by shewing him something of the truth of God. Even where such missions, or the Churches which sent them forth, were in collision with one another, as the Churches of lona and Western Britain were with the growing centralisation of Bome, the spirit which animated them all was the same, and the truth which lay at the bottom of their zeal was essentially one. " Of religious wars, such as the Crusades, we may say that, if Christianity had never existed, they would not the less have • Gaizot. f Hosea vi. 8, 9, where harbouring of homicides in the Levitical cities seems implied. t Gmzot, and Sir James Stephen's Lectures on French History. CHUBCH HISTORY. PRIMITIVE REVIVAL. 419 been fought. For their real causes were generally passion or policy. Yet the religion, which was made a pretext for them, ZZ an elevating Luence among the mixSmotives of thJ combatants, and often ennobled ferocity into courage, while sometimes it even mitigated victory. Nor need we doubt that, in this tangled world, such contests are often means of working out a Divine design, which is neither to be measured by the consciousness of its instruments, nor yet to be charged with the acts of their free will. We see all things not as yet put under the feet of the most perfect wisdom. *^ But a great sign of the goodness of Christianity is, that when the ages of twilight were to brighten into noonday, they did so chiefly by returning to the first principles of our faith. By reviving the good news of God's * frank* forgiveness of sins, such men as Wyclif and Luther rolled away the burden that lay heavy on the human breast. By putting us, in the Spirit of Christ, face to &ce with Qod, they put away all false subterfriges of the conscience, and all vain gloryings, and at the same time all fears, awakening in men both a deeper humility, and a con- sciousness of strength not their own. Again, leading us to the foot of Christ's cross, they shewed us the evil of wilful sin, and by what a sacrifice of self-dedication our health is wrought, and persuades us to ' sin no more, lest a worse thing befal us.* They did not thus bring a new Christianity, but they renewed the power of the old. Then by putting in every man's hands the sacred writings of the prophets and apostles, they not only enable us to judge of the truth of things, but give us a won- derful instrument %r awakening in ourselves the same spirit as dwelt in the writers. For though faith is in one sense the gift of God, yet in another sense it comes by reading and by hearing. Hence I wish you also to study our scriptures, especially the book of Isaiah, and the Psalms, and St Paul, and St John, with perhaps also Genesis. These five books, postponing at first those which concern you less, I should like to see spread and read in India. They would teach you what our fSuth is, better 27—2 420 POWER OP CHRISTIANITT, AND ITS INSTRUMENTS. than my account can ; and might, if it be the Divine will, have the same power to awaken in you a hunger and thirst after righteousness, as they have often shewn in Europe and in Asia. Nor is it a slight sign of our religion having come from God, that its earliest writings yet breathe such power. We have learnt since many arts and sciences, and have adapted our phrase and usage, as we have a right, to the aspects of various nations. But the first life which dwelt fresh in the apostles and prophets, upon whom the temple of men's minds is built, yet speaks in their writings; and when we have most caught a contagion from thence, we most partake of their spirit, and enter into the mind of Christ, and do, as Christ did, the works of God who sends us. You should read, then, Hebrew history ; nor is there any harm in comparing it with your own, since there is one God of Jew and Gentile ; you should compare the doctrine and faith of Christ with both that of the Jews, and with any- thing analogous to it among yourselves, or answering to it in your own spirits ; you should study the life, and death, and all the history of Christ Himself, and the results of His appearing in the world ; you should kneel down for a little, and pray as it were at the foot of the cross in thought, asking the Divine Enlightener for His light ; you may consider also whether such a deliverer as Christ from both the penalty and stain of evil, and such a revealer of immortality, is not what you need for your own peace; and then I hope, alike the substance of our &ith, and the attestation which accompanied it, and the history which prepared for it, and the results which have followed it, which we both see in the history of natioi^), and can try for ourselves, will all together convince you that it is taught us by Gt)d, the Father of all. But I agree with Blancombe, that the love of Divine things must go before their knowledge, and if you would know whether the doctrine is of God, you must be endeavouring to do His will." DIFFICULTY OF ORIGINAL BIN. 421 CHAPTER XII. Dodrinai DifficulHei and ExptoMUioM. " Consider the work of God : for who can make that straight which He hath made crooked t In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider : God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.'* — Ecolxsiastss vn. 13, 14.