ter and principles gave of excellence and usefulness in his intercourse with the world, was such as to make all who knew him regard him as one of those rare persons whom God sends to be an example and support for others. His early life was distinguished for its purity, and its freedom from all faults which could occasion serious uneasiness to those who were most interested in him. Having entered college at an early age, he won the regard of all who knew him by the high qualities which he displayed in his intercourse with others and in the pursuit of his studies. The nearer circle of his intimate friends was every day more and more closely bound to him by the ties of mutual affection and respect. No one was ever loved more sincerely by his friends, or more deserved their love. They can say of him with truth, in the words of an old poet after his friend's death, "He had an infant's innocence and truth, His religious and moral principles pervaded his life, without giving to it any austerity. While he preserved the largest and most sympathetic charity for the faults of others, he shrank with instinctive delicacy from contact with any thing base and untrue. He was always bold in supporting what he believed to be right, and never hesitated to assume the responsibleness which his opinions brought upon him. Having left college with the highest honors, he determined, after devoting a year to the improvement of his health, to enter upon the study of theology. For some months he pursued this study, with his classmate Greenwood as his companion. The death of this dear friend affected him so deeply, that, for the sake of change of scene, and in the hope of still further strengthening his health, he visited Europe. After an absence of somewhat more than a year, he returned the last October. The experiment had not brought the desired result. After his return, he was exposed, in the providence of God, to great suffering. A dark cloud, through which no ray of light could pierce, settled on his mind, his fine faculties became all jangled and out of tune, until by a sudden death he was removed, as we trust, from this world of darkness and disappointment and sorrow, to an infinitely better and happier state of existence. To his friends his memory will always be a source of unfailing pleasure. They can remember nothing but what was excellent in him, and they can never cease to regard their having known him as a blessing over which time and change can have no power. The death of one who had the brightest prospects and the highest aspirations, and who gave the surest promise of fulfilling all his own hopes and all the expectations of his friends, speaks to others with terrible power of the uncertainty and worthlessness of all that is founded upon merely human calculations, and teaches us to feel the unspeakable blessings and consolations which are to be found in our faith in God and our knowledge of his mercies, as revealed to us by Christ. N. We have, in the present instance, added twenty-four pages to our usual number, by no means intending, however, to make this a precedent. ART. 1.- THE ARTISTIC AND ROMANTIC VIEW OF THE CHURCH OF THE MIDDLE AGES.* EACH Protestant communion doubtless embraces among its members persons of either sex, few or many, who would be easy converts to the Roman Church, if only they were to be addressed by the argument or method which is peculiarly suited to meet their state of mind or feeling. That Church is well provided with arguments and methods for making reprisals upon Protestantism, and they are effective with the undefended and the susceptible. The argument from au 1. Mores Catholici: or Ages of Faith. London: C. Dolman. 1844 6-7. Three vols. royal 8vo. pp. 725, 786, 809. 2. Four Lectures on the Offices and Ceremonies of Holy Week, as performed in the Papal Chapels. Delivered in Rome in the Lent of 1837. By NICHOLAS WISEMAN, D. D. London: C. Dolman. 1839. 8vo. pp. 183. 3. Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches and among Foreign Peoples. By FRED. WM. FABER, M. A., Fellow of University College, Oxford. London Rivingtons. 1842. 8vo. pp. 645. 4. Rest in the Church. By THE AUTHOR OF "FROM OXFORD TO ROME." London: Longmans. 1848. 12mo. pp. 348. 5. The History and Fate of Sacrilege. By Sir HENRY SPELMAN. Edited in part from two MSS., revised and corrected, with a Continuation, large Additions, and an Introductory Essay. By Two PRIESTS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. London: Masters. 1846. 8vo. 6. Contrasts or a Parallel between the Noble Edifices of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, and Similar Buildings of the Present Day: showing the Present Decay of Taste. By A. WELBY PUGIN, Architect. London: 1836. Atlas 4to. thority wins many who are unable to disprove it. The offer of a shelter of peace from distracting controversies and pamphlet disputes and anxious uncertainty about matters of faith may be urged with great effect on many, who love such repose and will yield to its conditions. These two pleas have won many converts to Rome, and among them are the strong and the weak. A third means of conversion, perhaps the most efficient, is of too vague and comprehensive a character to be described in one epithet or phrase. The nearest approximation to a definition of this method in a few words may be expressed in the terms Artistic and Romantic. The Church has most powerful influences to address to the eye, the imagination, and the feelings. It is most richly furnished with means to engage the sentiments, the affections, the love of beautiful and imposing forms, and the admiration of abstract qualities embodied in pleasing or gorgeous symbols. These are susceptibilities which are akin to the religious sentiment in very many breasts. There are those who most esteem a rigid system of faith which they can believe to be as deeply rooted as the forest oak; but there are also those who wish the stiffness of their creed to be relieved by rich and graceful vines trailing all over it. Schleiermacher said that Moehler's Symbolism "was the greatest blow ever given to Protestantism." The old Church has been more indebted for converts, in our day, to its romantic and artistic influences than to its argument of authority, or its offer of a peaceful refuge for a distracted mind. Even Protestants have contributed no small amount of help to that Church, in expressions of sympathy for its poetic attractions, and in imitation of some of its methods which have most power over the feelings. There is a wonderful fascination, a bewitching charm, in the artistic and the romantic influences of the Roman Church. This is the theme which we now propose to treat, with incidental allusions to other topics. The materials of the influences thus brought into action by the Church, with some Protestant aid, are found in a revived taste for the arts, usages, and some of the institutions of the Middle Ages. A marked change of feeling and of judgment in this direction has been witnessed within the last few years. The stern and almost vengeful animosity, which, till within a quarter of a century, pervaded all Protestant literature towards every man and thing associated with the ancient Roman Catholic system, has relaxed. School-books and pop 1849.] Appreciation of Catholicism. 347 ular histories once covered the whole period of the Middle Ages with indiscriminate and sweeping abuse. Robertson, Henry, and others, are wholly unworthy of the place which they have held as authorities in this matter. Sismondi, indeed, has perpetuated in our day some old severities and . scandals, and is, perhaps, as rigorous a judge of the old Church as it ever had. But he stands almost alone. More than a score of recent eminent writers, in history, religion, philosophy, morals, and art, might be named as examples of a revived interest and a softened feeling towards the Middle Ages. A deeper research, an appreciation of excellence in art, and a love of justice where censure and reproach have been indiscriminately pronounced, have led many writers even to exceed the due demands of charity and admiration. Bower's Lives of the Popes had described them as a most unredeemed series of violent and unprincipled men. This general condemnation of the whole line of Roman Pontiffs was the prevailing judgment among Protestants. Then, slowly and very cautiously, single Popes were excepted, apologized for, extolled. Roscoe even exaggerated the magnificence of Leo X. Then, successively, Voight, Hurter, Hock, and Ranke relieved some of the dark pages of Papal history, though, it must be owned, at the expense of darkening the other pages. Protestants have agreed to exculpate Gregory VII., who seated five Popes in succession in the chair of St. Peter before he filled it himself, and Sylvester II., and Innocent III., and some half dozen other Pontiffs, out of some two hundred and fifty in the Roman list. But no historical skepticism, justice, or mercy can ever relieve the scandalous doings of Popes John X. and XI., and Sergius III., monsters in every sensual and abominable sin, or of John XII., the youthful criminal, who died as an adulterer. Nor can the acts of the Church under the Othos and the Counts of Tusculum, nor the revelations made at the Council of Rheims for the suppression of simony, nor the atrocities of Julius II. and Alexander VI., ever be cleared of their sad renown. Pages of even ecclesiastical history must ever remain dark, and give an epithet to several centuries. But still, the willingness to do justice to the Church and to her institutions is prominent in all our best modern authors, German, French, and English. We rejoice at this. Chateaubriand says, that St. Louis, a favorite, but some what mythical character," as a legislator, a hero, and a saint, is the representative of the Middle Ages." The Protestant Guizot is one of the kindest adjudicators on those ages. His encomium on the agricultural and literary monks is equally beautiful and true. St. Benedict is now made to dispute with Luther the praise of a reformer for routing the somewhat dubious asceticism of the lazy monks, and literally turning them out to grass. Hallam, another discriminating judge, calls Guizot "a model of justice and candor," in holding the scales of impartiality as to the medieval Church.* Michelet affirms that "the monastic state was an asylum for the Christian Church." Maitland, in his "Dark Ages," which he endeavours to make so light, rather overdoes the matter of illumination, and is somewhat ambitious in his labor of love. His happy and good-humored intimations give promise of rather more than his results fulfil. Besides, instead of dating the Middle Ages, according to the usual method, from A. D. 500 to A. D. 1100, he dates them between A. D. 800 and A. D. 1200; thus, as Hallam happily says, "excluding midnight from his definition of darkness, and replacing it by break of day."+ Now these rectifications of judgment concerning the Middle Ages, whether resulting from research or charity, are to be commended. But it must not be forgotten, that, while they are valid against all coarse and sweeping denunciations, they are far from redeeming those ages from substantial charges of error. Research and charity have thus effected much, but art has been the medium of winning softened and kindly feelings among Protestants to the ancient Church. The Madonna, for whose wellnigh supreme adoration the Church has received so much reproach, has repaid, by the effect of her multiplied pictures alone, the allegiance of her devotees. That mild and tender countenance, the same in all tolerable representations of it, would scarcely be refused a place in any Christian dwelling. The Holy Mary, combining a mother's fondness with a virgin's modesty, and interceding for the wretched with the pity of a heart that had been pierced by a sword, but had never rankled with revenge, though the holiest, is the most familiar subject of Christian art, and still but one subject among a thousand. The splen *Hallam's Supplementary Notes, Chap. viii. |