unless it can do so with impunity. One of the principal novelties in the letters of this bishop is found in that to Alexander, bishop of Antioch. He affirms that the Synod of Nicæa honoured Antioch, not for the greatness of the see, but because St. Peter had his see first in that city. Another novelty introduced by Innocent was the foundation of much of the subsequent presumptions of the bishop of Rome. He decided, in his letter to the same bishop, that when a province is divided by the emperor, there shall still be one metropolitan, and that the Church be not altered at the discretion of the emperors. This seems to have been the first edict of a Christian bishop which ventured to declare the decisions of an ecclesiastic to be independent of the will of a prince. The decree of Innocent was an usurpation upon the united authority, both of the general or provincial synods, which were accustomed so frequently to meet, and on the authority also of the emperors, by whom alone they had been hitherto summoned. A most singular remark occurs also in one of the decrees or letters of this bishop; he declares that the priests who have departed from the Catholic faith have lost the Holy Spirit, which operates chiefly in ordination. The theory seems now to have begun to prevail which makes ordination by a bishop the sole channel of a peculiar grace. In a letter to the bishops and deacons of Macedonia he calls the apostolical see the head of the Churches. This language was the beginning of the assumption which has ended in declaring Rome to be the mother and mistress of all Churches, and out of which there is no salvation. The affirmations of these earlier bishops of Rome, in the course of a few centuries, became each in its turn an antiquity from which precedents were drawn to justify every claim to power over the authority and independence of Churches, over the rights of princes, or over the consciences of individuals. Innocent also enforces, by numerous decrees, the celibacy of the clergy, and condemns, under the penalty of not being admitted to repentance, the woman who Vows virginity, and afterwards marries. In this, and in many other enactments, the germ of the future power of the bishops of Rome is discoverable. It is the tendency of all power to enlarge itself as much as possible. The usurpations of Rome were slow, cautious, gradual, and, in many instances, useful progressions of active, sometimes pious, sometimes crafty, but always ambitious, authority, unsuccessfully resisted by its contemporaries, till it wielded the sceptre over reason, civilization, and Scripture. But to none of its earlier bishops is the see of Rome more deeply indebted for its eventual greatness and dominion than to Iunocent I. The very pagans, who sought in the invasion of Alaric to propitiate their ancient deities, solicited his sanction to their proceedings. He was honoured by the emperor, esteemed by his contemporaries, beloved by the people who had unanimously chosen him to be their bishop; and he employed all his great influence to the establishment of the supremacy of Rome, which he appears to have considered essential to the hou

our of Christianity and the general benefit of the Churches.'". History of the Papacy, vol. i. pp. 153—6.

We must find room for one further extract, that in which the progress of the "encroachment" under the Popes Sixtus and Leo is described.

"Celestinus was succeeded by Sixtus III., who earnestly endeavoured to rivet the fetters which had already been forged for the bishops of Eastern Illyricum. These bishops were by no means so willing to part with their independence as the bishops of Rome were to deprive them of it; their subordination to the Roman see, in the person of the bishop of Thessalonica as a deputy, or vicar, was an innovation which had not been sanctioned by any General Council, and which they themselves had not formally recoguised. But these things were treated with indifference by the bishops of Rome, who now began to regard it as their province rather to give laws than to wait for or observe them. Rufus, bishop of Thessalonica, having died in 431, Sixtus invested his successor Anastasius with the same authority over the bishops of Illyricum which had been committed to and exercised by his predecessor, and demanded the compliance of Perigenes, bishop of Corinth, who had withstood the usurpation. The Illyrian bishops were declared by Sixtus not bound to obey the decrees of any eastern council without the ratification of the Roman see,-a decree directed, perhaps especially, against a canon of a General Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431), which enacted that no bishop should assume authority in a province that had not always belonged to his diocese, in order that the liberty which Christ had purchased with His blood might not be gradually lost.'

"Hitherto the progress of Romish despotism had not been assisted by any distinguished abilities on the part of those who successively occupied the so-called chair of St. Peter. But, after the death of Sixtus, the management of the rising monarchy was intrusted to a man whose personal genius and skill contributed not a little to establish and advance its pretensions.

"Leo, as a Roman deacon or archdeacon, had already become so distinguished by his power of persuasion, and his skilful management of affairs, that he had been despatched by Valentinian III. into Gaul, to mediate between the rivals Aetius and Albinus; and he was absent on that mission when he was recalled to succeed Sixtus in the bishopric of Rome, to which he had been unanimously elected by the clergy and people. On his assumption of office, he delivered an eloquent sermon, in which he declared the preaching of the word to be one of his most sacred and important duties. Ninety-six (genuine) sermons of Leo are extant. He always preached on the anniversary of his accession; and in these sermons he speaks much of his own unworthiness, which, however, is always coupled

with the mention of St. Peter, whose successor he declared himself to be, and whose authority he commends to universal respect, as admitting of no infringement. In his sermon on the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul, Leo speaks of Rome as the holy and elect people, the priestly and royal city, which has become the head of the world through the holy chair of St. Peter, and has a far more extended dominion by means of the Christian religion than by its earthly power.' The praise of eloquence has been too lavishly bestowed upon these sermons; but they are remarkable on account of the pretensions which they contain, and as being the earliest extant examples of homiletical discourses by a Roman bishop."-History of the Papacy, vol. i. pp. 170-2.

We have been led on, step by step, to a far greater length than we had at first contemplated, and we are now compelled to draw abruptly to a close. But we have said enough, and more than enough, to show the narrow and uncandid spirit in which, notwithstanding the supposed advance of the science of historical criticism, Protestant historians, even still, approach the consideration of any of those great historical questions upon which they have learned to entertain early and inveterate prejudices.

There is one aspect of the argument, however, which we have altogether overlooked, but upon which, although it is now too late to think of entering fully into it, we must briefly advert before we have done. We refer to an assumption upon which the whole Protestant view of the history of the Papacy is formed. It is more markedly prominent in Mr. Riddle's narrative than in most of the later historians; but the assumption, in a more or less subtle form, pervades them all. Mr. Riddle avowedly proceeds upon the assumption that the claims of the modern Papacy are a usurpation. He contents himself, accordingly, with denying the existence of any analogous pretensions in the primitive Church. He shelters himself in a negative position; and, under his favourite illustration of "the fog," thinks it enough to maintain that, as long as no trace of what he considers the observation can be detected in the ecclesiastical atmosphere during the earliest phases of the Church's existence, it is to be presumed that it was one of those exhalations which arose at a later and more corrupt stage of her history.

In other words, Mr. Riddle claims to throw the burden of proof upon the papal advocate.

Now it is scarcely necessary to say that no Catholic will assent to this gratuitous claim, and that no philosophical

historian will tolerate it even as an assumption. It would be a long, though not a difficult task, to detail all the arguments against it, even so considered; and we allude to it merely in the way of protest, and lest we should appear in what we have already written, to suffer this important point to go by default.

It is enough to say that every candid historian represents the Papacy of the fourth (or at farthest of the fifth) century as already in possession of the substantial prerogatives of what Catholics regard as the primacy; and even Mr. Riddle, as we have seen, hardly denies the facts, although he endeavours to explain them as an unwarranted aggression on the independence of the Church.

Again, the enjoyment of such powers by any individual bishop, must be admitted to be directly at variance with the natural feeling of pride and independence which the individual Churches, and especially those of the more distinguished cities, are known to have cherished from the earliest times.

Finally, it is contrary to all the analogies of human nature and of history, that such a preeminence could have sprung up by a spontaneous and unresisted growth.

The very existence, therefore, of such an institution as the Papacy, is at least prima-facie evidence of its legitimacy. And hence, so far from the burden of proof lying upon the advocate of the Papacy, he is, on the contrary, entitled to assume its divine origin as a fact, until every particular as to its alleged human growth has been satisfactorily demonstrated..

This is a position from which the Catholic historian must never suffer himself to be seduced. It is one to which every new human revolution gives fresh strength and solidity. "When we look back upon past ages, says Hurter," and behold how the Papacy has outlived all other institutions, how it has witnessed the rise and wane of states and kingdoms, itself amid the fluctuations of human things, preserving the selfsame unchangeable spirit, can we wonder that men look to it as to the Rock which rears itself unshaken amid the beating surges of time!"

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NOTICES OF BOOKS.

I.-An Essay on the Identity of the Scene of Man's Creation, Fall, and Redemption. By the Rev. W. HENDERSON. London, Dublin, and Derby Richardson and Son.

HE object of this brief Essay is sufficiently expressed

THE

by its title; and the attempt is not less ingenious than interesting. Of course the question as to the identity of the scene of our creation, fall, and restoration, is one upon which opinions will vary; but even though our readers may be somewhat sceptical on this point, we think Mr. Henderson's Essay will not be read without interest.

II.-Narrative of the Conquest of Finland by the Russians in the Years 1808-9. From an unpublished Work by a Russian Officer of Rank. Edited by GENERAL MONTEITH, Madras Engineers, 8vo. London: Booth, 1854.

An able and interesting narrative of a campaign which may very soon possess a very deep interest in England. The present aspect of affairs in the Baltic may not improbably portend a series of events in the winter 1854-5, very similar to those of 1808-9, recorded in the present volume.

III.-The Children of Mary Instructed. By a MOTHER. Second Edi. tion. London, Dublin, and Derby: Richardson and Son, 1854.

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This little volume, which comes to us with the imprimatur of the Bishop of Plymouth, is the work of a lady equally distinguished by her rank and position in society, and by the practical religion which marks her out as especially a Christian Mother." It is one of those charming little books which only a parent-and only a pious parent, could write; its style being just adapted to fascinate the minds, and arrest the attention of little children. The volume, however, is one from which adults need not be ashamed to gather fruits; the little meditations, prayers, and resolutions, with which each chapter ends, being as full of devotion and of practical theology as they are of simplicity and tenderness. It cannot fail, we