Church. The greatest deviations, rejoined Manzoni, are none, if the main point be recognised, the smallest are damnable heresies, if it be denied; that main point is the infallibility of the Church, or rather of the pope.

"It was not difficult to show that many had recognised this infallibility by word of mouth and by their writings, and yet had completely estranged themselves from Christianity; but Manzoni looks on the form as that which is most essential, and seems to regard the spirit as secondary. The recollection of some of the greatest and some of the worst of the popes could not but carry with it some weight, for in state affairs, Manzoni does trace revolutions to the spirit of the government; but to the temporal power he allowed only a very inferior importance, and the decay of civil authority he was always ready to attribute chiefly to a non-recognition of its just relation to the pope. Mixed marriages, he said, might increase the number of catholics, but truth and justice must be asserted, independently of any ulterior consideration. I did not fail to remind him that each party believed that it had truth and justice on its own side, and that neither the civil nor ecclesiastical power had strength enough to extirpate opinions entertained by millions. From the above, you will perceive how Manzoni expressed himself, and that I made it my business, not so much to controvert him, as to lead him more and more to develope his own views. My assertion, that the essence of Christianity was

wanting in no confession, Manzoni could not bring himself to admit, since authority would then be placed in a new position. We parted, however, in perfect kindness, with the closing words of Augustine, in which we both joined: in omnibus caritas; utinam!"

This passage of Von Raumer would admit of extensive and instructive annotation; but in this place it is preserved for the sake of the ore imbedded in the earth.

The road from Milan to Brescia is blithe with all manner of produce. It was one continued garden the whole way, one uninterrupted blending of vines, mulberry-trees, rice, corn, and, by the innumerable streams made for irrigating the rice-grounds, banks of blue and white violets, primroses and periwinkles.

It was however redeemed from monotony by the Alps above Como, Lecco, and Bergamo, which paid us by a series of magnificent views for the keen blast they poured down from their icy summits. Amid the antiquities of Brescia the memory naturally recalls the famous Arnold, a reader in the choir at Brescia. He is one of that class of men in ecclesiastical history, whom it suits authors of a particular turn of mind to select as special heroes, evangelical doctors, and protestants by anticipation. Those controversialists who seek and find the Church Catholic, not in the providential continuance of a substantive institution with certain external notes and sacred rites, but in a chain of individuals or parties, whose

links, however discrepant, adhere one to another by virtue of some latent principle common to all, have used the name of Arnold of Brescia with much the same intention and success as that of Vigilantius, or the Paulicians or the Albigenses. But of this more hereafter in the fitting place. A sketch of Arnold's life and actions will be useful.

In these days, and in this land of anti-church feeling, our ears are accustomed to the accusation of pride and carnal ambition brought against the temporal dignity of bishops, the wealth of chapters and the like. The facility of the accusation will perhaps sufficiently account for its frequency. A thoughtful attention to the altered circumstances of the world would show the unreasonableness of the charge, and a careful examination of history would abundantly testify that the state, and not the Church, is the gainer by this condition of things. In the middle of the twelfth century there seems to have been a class of minds who were unable to reconcile themselves to the new shape which the Church had taken, and by which alone it would appear to us dim-sighted mortals that she could have fulfilled her office among the European kingdoms of that day. The feudal modification of primitive episcopacy effected by the system of Charlemagne was perilous, and it brought with it many things distasteful to such as did not go along with the spirit of the times. Arnold of Brescia represents this class of minds, to whom the ecclesiastical monarchy and baronial episcopate of the Middle

Ages were in the highest degree hateful. It were to be wished he had been a more respectable representative. He was a disciple of the notorious Abelard, and, unfortunately, seems to have adopted a philosophical explanation of the catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and to have been decidedly heretical respecting the two chief Sacraments of the Church. But to vindicate the exclusively spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom appears to have been the great object of his life, and to attain which he put forth all his surpassing eloquence and biting satire. But he was far from confining himself to legitimate agitation in his place and sphere. The first-fruits, as Gibbon calls them, of his preaching, were a rebellion of the Brescians against their bishop, and this was followed by a condemnation of his opinions in the second Lateran Council, and a personal admonition and command to be silent'. When Arnold found himself no longer a popular leader in Brescia, and consequently unsheltered from the vengeance of the authorities, he fled to Zurich, where he was favorably received by the wrong-headed Swiss. St. Bernard, however, whose very name as an opponent speaks volumes against Arnold, (seeing that the Saint himself was a keen reformer of his own times) did not allow him to enjoy Swiss patronage long. Arnold,

1 Gibbon seems to have exaggerated in this matter. He copied from Mosheim, among whose chosen favorites Arnold finds a place. Some men have an instinctive sympathy with heresy, the effect of a congenial temper.

in the boldness of a last venture, appeared in Rome itself at the head of two thousand mountaineers. Like Rienzi in later days, Livy and the Bible divided his studies. At Rome Arnold organized a complete revolution! He was master of the city for ten years, and the popes Lucius, Eugenius III., and Anastatius IV. were compelled to submit. The riches of the Church became the pay of Arnold's adherents; while he declared the voluntary oblations of the people to be sufficient for the clergy. Blood, tumult and robbery seem to have marked his whole career, till the bold-spirited Englishman, Adrian IV, monk of St. Alban's, became pope. He adopted more energetic measures. Arnold, like most demagogues, found that his end when gained was no longer an end. The avenue kept opening out, as it ever does, before him. He had destroyed the temporal dignity of the popes in Rome: he now proceeded to assail their spiritual jurisdiction. He also raised the twenty-eight parishes of Rome against the cardinals. In accordance with the character of this movement, an attempt was made to murder a cardinal in the streets. Adrian IV. laid the city under an interdict from Christmas to Easter. It was not raised till the senators banished Arnold. He threw himself into the arms of the Viscounts of Campania, from whom he was demanded by Frederick Barbarossa, who was come to Rome for his coronation. Arnold was burnt at Rome, and his ashes thrown into the Tiber. His movement must not be looked upon as single and