the question of divorce originated among the Protestants of Continental Europe in the sixteenth century. It soon began to appear in the legislation of Protestant States on that continent, and nearly at the same time to affect the laws of New England. And from that time to the present it has proceeded from one degree to another in this country until, especially in New England and in States most directly affected by New England opinions and usages, the Christian conception of the nature and obligations of the marriage bond finds scarcely any recognition in legislation, or, as must thence be inferred, in the prevailing sentiment of the community."* This is a heresy, born and bred of free thought as applied to religion; it is the outcome of the habit of interpreting the Bible according to man's private judgment, rejecting ecclesiastical authority and Catholic tradition. REV. MORGAN DIX, Lectures on the Calling of a Christian Woman. *It is hardly necessary to remind the reader of the obsequiousness of Cranmer; the matter of the divorces of Henry VIII., of the conduct of Luther and Melancthon in the case of the Landgrave of Hesse; of the abortive “Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum" in the reign of Edward VI., and of John Milton's tractate addressed to Parliament on the "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce." THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. THE history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilization. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal-houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century, to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy, and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigor. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustine, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which, a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than one hundred and fifty millions,* and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in un * Estimated now at two hundred and twenty-five millions. diminished vigor when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. We often hear it said, that the world is constantly becoming more and more enlightened; and that this enlightening must be favorable to Protestantism, and unfavorable to Catholicism. We wish that we could think so. But we see great reason to doubt whether this be a well-founded expectation. We see that during the last two hundred and fifty years, the human mind has been in the highest degree active that it has made great advances in every branch of natural philosophy— that it has produced innumerable inventions tending to promote the convenience of life-that medicine, surgery, chemistry, engineering, have been very greatly improved-that government, police, and law have been improved, though not quite to the same extent. Yet we see that during these two hundred and fifty years, Protestantism has made no conquests worth speaking of. Nay, we believe that as far as there has been a change, that change has been in favor of the Church of Rome. LORD MACAULAY, Essays, Critical and Miscellaneous. THE POPULATION, WEALTH, POWER, LAND AND REFORMATION. KENSINGTON, 31st March, 1826. MY FRIENDS :-This Letter is to conclude my task, which task was to make good this assertion, that the event called the "Reformation" had impoverished and degraded the main body of the people of England and Ireland. In paragraph 4, I told you, that a fair and honest inquiry would teach us, that the word "Reformation" had, in this case, been misapplied; that there was a change, but a change greatly for the worse; that the thing, called the Reformation, was engendered in beastly lust, brought forth in hypocrisy and perfidy, and cherished and fed by plunder, devastation, and by rivers of innocent English and Irish blood; and that, as to its more remote consequences, they are, some of them, now before us, in that misery, that beggary, that nakedness, that hunger, that everlasting wrangling and spite, which now stare us in |