tional usefulness.* If instead of making age, and pious pretensions, tests for the religious profession, real demonstrable merit were required, those disorders that now prevail would soon cease. No one should be admitted who cannot acquire by his talents an honourable independence in the world. It was an attention to such qualifications that rendered the French clergy so superior to all others on the continent, and enabled them to support the dignity of the sacerdotal character with suitable propriety. Their learning, urbanity, and strict adherence to the principles of decorum, afforded them the means of rendering themselves both useful and acceptable in foreign countries during their exile and dispersion, whereas their mere character of priesthood or religious profession, would have avalled them nothing.

Of the truth of the opinion I have now stated, America furnishes an excellent example. A few gentlemen of the congregation of St. Sulpicius, who were fortunate enough to escape the horrors of the French revolution, and save a little remnant of their property, took refuge in the United States, and established themselves at Baltimore, where,

* Little ought to be calculated on the devastations which Bonaparte has rapaciously made on the Peninsula, among the religious orders and establishments.

conformably to their profession, they engaged themselves in communicating religious and literary information. In the beginning, their labours were confined to the instruction of young men destined for the Church; but the candidates for priesthood being few in that country, they afterwards admitted respectable persons of every description to the participation of the advantages afforded by their institution. Such as profess the Catholic communion are regularly instructed in the doctrines and practices peculiar to their Church; whilst the Protestants are merely obliged to attend the places of worship to which they respectively belong. By this impartial and equitable line of conduct, proper discipline, and a strict attention to their professional duties, they have founded one of the most respectable literary establishments of the present day. Their course of education is not limited to the study of Greek and Latin literature, philosophy, and different branches of the mathematics; it comprehends also the liberal and ornamental arts; such as drawing, music, botany, natural history, and the living languages. Besides these advantages, that may be considered as purely local and academical, the benefits of this college are extended to the whole country. The inhabitants of Baltimore and its vicinity are particularly benefited by the residence of these worthy ecclesiastics; for notwithstanding their principal occupation consists in the discharge of their professional duties, "they do not neglect the culti

vation of those arts which are subservient to the comforts of life. They have a large portion of land sufficient to furnish their numerous community with abundance of fruit and vegetables of every kind; and they have naturalized many exotics; indeed, a great number of the produc tions of the West India Islands, and that without any shelter or artificial heat. In their green and hot houses they raise such plants as cannot thrive in the open air, for the purpose of botanical improvement, and the benefit of the curious. They have also erected an elegant little church, in the most ancient style of architecture. Thus they contribute to diffuse a taste for the fine arts in that country; at the same time that the labouring and industrious parts of the community are benefited by finding employment

under them.

Against such establishments as we have been endeavouring to characterize, were the efforts of the early Reformers principally directed. With a zeal not always guided by knowledge or pru dence, they levelled all distinctions: a monk became only another word for deceit, superstition, or wickedness; and those who had long found it difficult to observe the rigid vows which

Friar

"Quien dice Frayle dice Fraude."-He who says says Fraud-is a punning proverb used to this day among Spaniards.

they had imposed upon themselves, easily imbibed the most inveterate prejudices against the austerities and mortifications which the Reformers endeavoured to abolish. In the end, an enlightened and daring policy relieved one half of Christendom from the thraldom of religious abjurations, unsocial seclusions, unnatural restraints, and many ridiculous superstitions; though that these ends could not have been accomplished without a total abolition of such societies as have just been described, is a matter by no means clear.

SECTION VII.

Sketch of the Origin of the Reformation
in Germany.

1

THIS is, perhaps, the most difficult, because the most delicate, point, of the whole Catholic history. It is hardly possible to touch upon it, without incurring the risk of giving offence to one or other, perhaps, both, of the two great bodies into which the Christian world has been divided by that event. Nor is it easy to exhibit the subject in any new point of view. The facts, however, being well known, there will be less occasion to enlarge.

It is not intended, in this section, to trace the

progress of the Reformation in the various countries where it has been received. Neither do I pretend to give any farther history of that great event than is absolutely needful to connect the striking lineaments of this portrait.

We have already seen the ill use which was made of the promulgation of Indulgences; and the ground it afforded on which to attack, with advantage, the Church and Court of Rome. This attack commenced in the year 1517. Martin Luther, a friar of the Augustine Order, first opened the warfare; and his conduct was very generally approved by the people; by some princes, bishops, divines, cardinals, and even by several monks. Making common cause, as he pretended, with the friends of literature, he attached to his standard numerous learned and intelligent men. Even Erasmus, perhaps, the most profoundly learned man of the age, once entertained a favourable opinion of Luther's principles. He, at first, believed that Almighty God had raised him up to reform the Church; but his opinion of our Reformer changed, when he perceived that it was not only against abuses, but even against the very vitals of the Church, that he meditated a serious attack. The rashness and precipitation, of Luther but ill accorded with the mild and moderate views of Erasmus; and though he complained, that Luther's adversaries loaded him with calumnies, instead of answering his arguments; and that