this part of his conduct, when I reflect on the shameless and profane manners of the Norman princes. But his private life was purely his own, originating more directly from the honest and good heart with which, through grace, he was eminently endowed. As a divine and a Christian, he was the first of characters in this century, and is, therefore, deserving of some attention.

He was born at Aoust in Piedmont. From early life his religious cast of mind was so prevalent that, at the age of fifteen, he offered himself to a monastery, but was refused, lest his father should have been displeased. He afterwards became entangled in the vanities of the world; and to his death, he bewailed the sins of his youth. Becoming a scholar of Lanfranc, his predecessor in the See of Canterbury, at that time a monk at Bec, in Normandy, he commenced monk in the year 1060, at the age of twenty-seven. He afterwards became the prior of the monastery. His progress in religious knowledge was great; but mildness and charity seem to have predominated in all his views of piety. The book commonly called Augustine's Meditations, was chiefly abstracted from the writings of Anselm. At the age of forty-five he became abbot of Bec. Lanfranc dying in 1089, William Rufus usurped the revenues of the See of Canterbury, and treated the monks of the place in a barbarous manner. For several years this profane tyrant declared, that none should have the see while he lived; but a fit of sickness overawed his spirit; and conscience, the voice of God, which often speaks even in the proudest and the most insensible, severely reproved his wickedness; insomuch that he nominated Anselm to be the successor of Lanfranc. That Anselm should have accepted the office with much reluctance under such a prince, is by no means to be wondered at; and, the more upright and conscientious men are, the more wary and reluctant will they always be found in accepting offices of so sacred a nature; though it is natural

for men of a secular spirit to judge of others by themselves, and to suppose the "nolo episcopari," to be, without any exceptions, the language of hypocrisy.

Anselm pressed the king to allow the calling of councils, in order to institute an inquiry into crimes and abuses; and also to fill the vacant abbeys, the revenues of which William had reserved to himself with sacrilegious avarice. Nothing but the conviction of conscience, and the ascendency which real uprightness maintains over wickedness and profligacy, could have induced such a person as William Rufus, to promote Anselm to the see, though he must have foreseen how improbable it was, that the abbot would ever become the tame instrument of his tyranny and oppression. In fact, Anselm, finding the Church overborne by the iniquities of the tyrant, retired to the Continent with two monks, one of whom, named Eadmer, wrote his life.

Living a retired life in Calabria, he gave employment to his active mind in writing a treatise on the reasons why God should become man, and on the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation: a work at that time useful to the Church of Christ, as he refuted the sentiments of Roscelin, who had published erroneous views concerning the Trinity. For, after a sleep of many ages, the genius of Arianism or Socinianism, or both, had awaked, and taken advantage of the general ignorance, to corrupt the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. Anselm knew how to reason closely and systematically, after the manner of the famous Peter Lombard, master of the sentences, and Bishop of Paris; and he was properly the first of the scholastic divines. The method of ratiocination then used was, no doubt, tedious, verbose, and subtile, and, in process of time, grew more and more perplexed. It was, however, preferable to the dissipation and inanity which, in many publications of our times, pretend to the honour of good sense and sound wisdom, though devoid of learning and industry.

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Moreover, the furniture of the schools, in the hands of a fine genius like Anselm, adorned with solid piety, and under the control of a good understanding, stemmed the torrent of profane infidelity, and ably supported the cause of godliness in the world. Roscelin was confuted, and the common orthodox doctrine of the Trinity upheld itself in the Church. What were the precise views of Roscelin will be better understood, when we come to introduce one of his scholars, the famous Peter Abelard to the reader's notice.

Anselm, weary of an empty title of dignity, and seeing no probability of being enabled to serve the Church in the archbishopric, entreated the Pope to give him leave to resign it, but in vain. Nor does he seem to have been justly chargeable with the display of an "ostentatious humility," when he had first refused the promotion.* The integrity, with which he had acted, ever since that promotion had taken place, ought to have rescued him from the illiberal censure. "Rufus had detained in prison several persons, whom he had ordered to be freed during the time of his penitence; he still preyed upon the ecclesiastical benefices; the sale of spiritual dignities continued as open as ever; and he kept possession of a considerable part of the revenues belonging to the See of Canterbury." Was it a crime, or was it an instance of laudable integrity in Anselm, to remonstrate against such proceedings? I suppose the candour and good sense of the author to whom I allude, would have inclined him to praise that upright conduct, for which Anselm was obliged to retire to the Continent, had not this same Anselm been a priest, and a priest too of sincere zeal and fervour. In justice to Anselm, it should, moreover, be observed, that one reason why he wished to resign his archbishopric was, that he believed he might be of more service to the souls of men in a merely clerical character, which was more obscure. And he was naturally led to assign this reason

* See Hume, vol. i,, p. 302.

to the Pope, from the observation which he made of the effect of his preaching on audiences in Italy.

Men of superior talents, however, are frequently born to drudge in business or in arts, whether they be in prosperous or in adverse circumstances. For mankind feel the need of such men; and they themselves are not apt to bury their powers in indolence. A Council was called at Bari by Pope Urban, to settle with the Greeks the dispute which had long separated the Eastern and Western Churches, concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost. For the Greek Church, it would seem, without any scriptural reason, had denied the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son; and had, therefore, thrust the words AND THE SON* out of the Nicene Creed. While the disputants were engaged, the Pope called on Anselm, as his father and master, for his reply. The archbishop arose, and by his powers of argumentation silenced the Greeks.

At Lyons, he wrote on the conception of the Virgin, and on original sin; and thus he employed himself in religious, not in secular cares, during the whole of his exile: a strong proof of his exemption from that domineering ambition of which he has been accused. In the year 1100 he heard of the death of his royal persecutor, which he is said to have seriously lamented, and returned into England, by the invitation of Henry I. To finish at once the account of his unpleasant contests with the Norman princes, he, at length, was enabled to compromise them. The great object of controversy was the same in England as in the other countries of Europe, namely, "Whether the investiture of bishoprics should be received from the King or from the Pope." Anselm, moved undoubtedly by a conscientious zeal, because all the world bore witness to his integrity, was decisive for the latter; and the egregious iniquities, and shameless violations of all justice and decorum, practised by princes in that age, would naturally strengthen the * 6 Proceeding from the Father and the Son."

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prejudices of Anselm's education. To receive investiture from the Pope for the spiritual jurisdiction, and, at the same time, to do homage to the king for the temporalities, was the only medium, which in those times could be found, between the pretensions of the civil and ecclesiastical dominion; and matters were settled, on this plan, both in England and in Germany.

If Anselm then contributed to the depression of the civil power, and the confirmation of the papal, he was unhappily carried away by a popular torrent, which few minds had power to resist. It seemed certain, however, that ambition formed no part of this man's character. "While I am with you," he would often say to his friends, "I am like a bird in a nest amidst her young, and enjoy the sweets of retirement and social affections; but when I am thrown into the world, I am like the same bird hunted and harassed by ravens or other fowls of prey: the incursions of various cares distract me; and secular employments, which I love not, vex my soul." He who spent a great part of his life in retirement, who thought, spake, and wrote so much of vital godliness, and whose moral character was allowed, even by his enemies, to have ever been without a blot, deserves to be believed in these declarations.

Let us then attend to those traits of character, which were more personal, and in which the heart of the man more plainly appears. He practised that which all godly persons have ever found salutary and even necessary, namely, retired and devotional meditation, and even watched long in the night for the same purpose. One day, a hare, pursued by the hounds, ran under his horse for refuge, as he was riding. The object, bringing at once to his recollection a most awful scene, he stopped and said weeping, "This hare reminds me of a sinner just dying, surrounded with devils, waiting for their prey." It was in this manner that he used to spiritualise every object; a practice ever derided by profane minds, whether performed