HENRY EDWARD MANNING

579

With all its barbaric splendor and imperial power, what has Constantinople accomplished for the civilization or the Christianity of the East? If the salt had kept its savor, it would not have been cast out and trodden under the feet of the Eastern Antichrist.

While this was accomplishing in the East, in the West a new world was rising, in order, unity, and fruitfulness, under the action of the Pontiffs. Even the hordes which inundated Italy were changed by them from the wildness of nature to the life of Christian civilization. From St. Leo to St. Gregory the Great, Christian Europe may be said not to exist! Rome stood alone under the rule of its pontiffs, while as yet empires and kingdoms had no existence. Thus, little by little, and one by one, the nations which now make up the unity of Christendom were created, trained and formed into political societies. First Lombardy, then Gaul, then Spain, then Germany, then Saxon England; then the first germs of lesser States began to appear. But to whom did they owe the laws, the principles, and the influences which made their existence possible, coherent, and mature? It was to the Roman Pontiffs that they owed the first rudiments of their social and political order. It was the exposition of the Divine law by the lips of the Vicar of Jesus Christ that founded the Christian policy of the world.

Thus, the Church has been able to do without the world, and even in spite of it. Nothing can be conceived more isolated, more feeble, or more encompassed with peril, than the line of the Roman Pontiffs; nevertheless, they have maintained inviolate their independence with their sacred deposit of faith and of jurisdiction, through all ages and through all conflicts, from the beginning to this hour. It seemed as if God willed to remove the first Christian emperor from Rome in the early fervor of his conversion, lest it should seem as if the sovereignty of the Church were in any way the creation of his power. God is jealous of His own kingdom and will not suffer any unconsecrated hand to be laid upon His ark, even for its support.

The "stone cut without hands," which became a great mountain and filled the whole earth, is typical, not only of the expansion and universality of the Church, but of its mysterious and supernatural character. No human hand has accomplished its greatness. The hand of God alone could bring it to pass.

What is there in the history of the world parallel to the Rome of the Christians? The most warlike and imperial people of the world gave place to a people unarmed and without power. The pacific people arose from the Catacombs and entered upon the possession of Rome as their inheritance. The existence of Christian Rome, both in its formation, and

580

HENRY EDWARD MANNING

next in its perpetuity, is a miracle of Divine power. God alone could give it to His people; God alone could preserve it to them, and them in it. What more wonderful sight than to see a Franciscan monk leading the Via Crucis in the Flavian Amphitheatre, or the Passionist missionaries conversing peacefully among the ilexes and the vaults where the wild beasts from Africa thirsted for the blood of the Christians? Who has prevailed upon the world for one thousand five hundred years to fall back as Attilla did from Christian Rome? Who has persuaded its will, and paralyzed its ambitions and conflicting interests? Such were my thoughts the other day when the Sovereign Pontiff, surrounded by the princes and pastors of the Church, was celebrating the festival of the Resurrection over the Confession of St. Peter. I thought of the ages past, when, in the amphitheatre of Nero, within which we stood, thousands of martyrs fell beneath the arms of the heathen. And now, the Rex Pacificus, the Vicar of the Prince of Peace, there holds his court and offers over the tomb of the Apostle the unbloody sacrifice of our redemption. The legions of Rome have given way before a people who have never lifted a hand in war. They have taken the city of the Cæsars, and hold it to this day. The more than imperial court which surrounded the Vicar of Jesus Christ surpassed the glories of the Empire. "This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith." The noblest spectacle upon earth is an unarmed man whom all the world cannot bend by favor or by fear. Such a man is essentially above all worldly powers. And such, eminent among the inflexible, is he, the Pontiff and King, who, in the midst of the confusions and rebellions of the whole earth, bestowed that day his benediction upon the city and the world.

TWO FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY ORATORS

Robespierre the elegant orator is dressed suitably to his time. Danton the fiery orator is addressing the people from the tribune. Both lived in the most exciting times of French History. Their orations are Interesting as portraying the underlying principles of the great French Revolution.

ARTHUR PENHRYN STANLEY (1815-1881)

THE ELOQUENT DEAN OF WESTMINSTER

T

HE life of Dean Stanley we may briefly state. Son of the Bishop of Norwich, he studied at Rugby under the famous Dr. Arnold, whose "Life" he afterward wrote—a work which was very widely read. Graduating later at Oxford, he became chaplain to Prince Albert, and in 1856 Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford. Two years later he was appointed a Canon of Christ Church, and in 1864 became Dean of Westminster, which position he filled till his death in 1881.

Stanley was a man of the highest spirit of tolerance and widest sympathy, his freedom from prejudice being shown in his charity for the heresies of Bishop Colenso and his willingness to preach in Scotch Presbyterian pulpits. While true religion and morality were to him sacred, for systematic theology he had no respect, and he regarded as utter inanity the controversies of the priesthood about postures, lights, vestments, etc. As a preacher, he exercised a wide influence, and as an author he produced various meritorious works on theological and other subjects.

THE LESSON OF PALMERSTON'S LIFE

[On October 29, 1865, shortly after the death of England's popular Premier, Lord Palmerston, Stanley delivered in Westminster Abbey a notable discourse upon his life and work. There is no better example of his powers as an orator than this eulogistic essay, and we offer from it the following suggestive extract.]

Each human soul gifted above the souls of common men leaves, as it passes away from this lower world, a light peculiar to itself. As in a mountainous country each lofty peak is illumined with a different hue by the setting sun, so also each of the higher summits of human society is lighted up by the sunset of life with a different color. Whether the difference arises from the materials of which it is composed, or from the