by at least indirect Jesuit instigation, by the command of the ferocious Sultan Amurath IV. In the course of the intervening seventeen years he was four times deposed, and as many times restored to the Ecumenical throne. Each election of Cyril was a triumph for England and Holland; each deposition was a triumph for France and Rome. Throughout the dispute, no calumny was too wild for the Jesuits to allege if it could only induce the Sultan to command the deposition of Cyril Lucar. Their creature, Cyril of Beroa, was more than once intruded into the Patriarchal throne during his lifetime, and finally succeeded to his place on his martyrdom. He did not long occupy his ill-gotten dignity, as in 1639 Sultan Amurath commanded his banishment and death. But he had time in the interval to call together a Synod at Constantinople, which violently anathematised Cyril Lucar and his doctrines. Succeeding councils contented themselves with condemning Protestant doctrines without hurling violent invectives at a champion and martyr of the Greek nation. The Synod of Jassy, in 1641, dealt gently with his memory. That of Bethlehem or Jerusalem, in 1672, pronounced his Confession a forgery, and only blamed him for not explicitly repudiating it.

The creed promulgated by this council, the latest authorised Confession of the Eastern Church, is analysed and commented upon at some length by Mr. Neale. To our non-theological eyes it certainly seems to inculcate Transubstantiation and Purgatory; but we shall be much better pleased to believe, with Mr. Neale, that it does not really commit the Orthodox Church to those dogmas. If so, there is perhaps nothing in the decrees of the council which would positively condemn at any rate the High Church section of the English Church.* Possibly even Lutheranism in its Swedish form might escape. It asserts baptismal regeneration and the necessity of episcopacy, and it denies the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination. It asserts seven sacraments, but we cannot help thinking that that controversy, at all events, is a verbal one.† There is only one im

*It is worth noticing, on the other hand, that the articles of the Church of England, while attributing error to all the other ancient Patriarchal churches, seem pointedly to abstain from censuring that of Byzantium. As the churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and 'Antioch have erred' [doubtless in the Nestorian and Monophysite disputes], 'so also the Church of Rome hath erred.' But no English clergyman is committed to the position that the Church of Constan'tinople hath erred.'

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† The Anglican definition of a sacrament includes its being 'gene'rally necessary to salvation.' No Roman Catholic believes this of Orders or Matrimony.

portant point on which there seems an irreconcilable difference between the Eastern Church and the most High Church Protestant. Invocation of saints is clearly asserted by her formularies, and from invocation of saints practically follows that excessive reverence for pictures which is even more repulsive to Protestant feelings. But it does not follow that condemnation is pronounced on the rejection of this practice. And the Orthodox Church may plead, as even Rome may to some extent, that her formal teaching on these points differs widely from the superstitions popular among her members. The formal Confession of the Eastern Church in no way obscures the one Mediatorship of the Redeemer; it simply teaches that the saints may be piously invoked as intercessors. The probability is that the sentiment of a quasi-polytheism is too deeply engrained in the mind of southern Europe to be eradicated by any theological teaching,

Since the seventeenth century, there has been but little direct intercourse between the Orthodox East and the Protestant West. The bishops of the non-juring secession in England made a futile attempt to obtain their recognition by the Russian Church, which M. Mouravieff has somewhat strangely mistaken for a regular movement on the part of the Church of England. But the great events of the last few years, which have opened for England such a career in the East, cannot fail to bring the subject very prominently before every one who pays real attention to such matters. The greatest danger is from ignorance on both sides. The common English Protestant knows nothing of the Eastern churches, and can hardly be made to understand the difference between a Greek and a Papist. The Orthodox, again, are seldom aware how much the episcopal Protestant churches retain in common with themselves; how, in by far the greatest number of disputed points, Greece, England, and Scandinavia agree against Rome. To remove ignorance of this kind is surely a laudable and Christian work. And we have a class of men who seem specially called upon to undertake it. Almost every man who thinks on religious matters at all has a tendency towards either High Church' or 'Low Church.' In a communion like our own, whose ritual and articles are so plainly the result of a compromise, both will assuredly always exist. And more than that, for a good while to come, both ought to exist. Each has its appropriate sphere of usefulness both within and without the pale of the English Church. The really moderate and rational members of both parties may do good service by promising Christian fellowship in different directions. The Evangelical' naturally feels

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most sympathy with foreign Protestants; while the Anglican' (not the Romanizer) feels an irresistible attraction towards the ancient churches of the East.

The policy of English churchmen is not to proselytise, but simply to exhibit their own system, in its best colours, before the eyes of Eastern Christians. Such was the original design of the Jerusalem Bishopric, though it has latterly been perverted from that intention. The same friendly policy has been carried out in Mr. Hill's admirable schools at Athens, which, we believe, have never given any offence to the Greek authorities. A noble opportunity now presents itself in the memorial church about to be erected at Constantinople. That monument to the brave men who died in the late war ought to become a centre, not of proselytism, but of friendly intercourse with the members of the ancient churches of the East. There they ought to behold a communion, united with them in opposition to Roman corruptions and usurpations, exhibited in its fairest and most friendly light*; and we learn with great satisfaction, at the moment we are terminating this inquiry, that the Sultan has recently assigned a conspicuous site upon the hills which crown the Bosphorus to this interesting trophy of our heroism and our faith..

* We have placed at the head of this article the names of two or three small publications of a character too distinctly theological to allow us to consider them at any length. The pamphlet headed 'Papal Aggression in the East,' is attributed to Bishop Wordsworth of Perth. It is well worth reading, as a clear exposition, from the point of view of a moderate High Churchman, of the points of agreement and difference between Greece, Rome, and England. A valuable article on the same subject will also be found in the Colo'nial Church Chronicle' for September, 1856. Mr. Meyrick's little volume is part of his well-intentioned series designed to spread better information on the Continent, with regard to English ecclesiastical matters. He of course exhibits the English Church as depicted by her divines of the High Church class; but to this, as we said above, we make no sort of objection. His Greek volume both deserves, and may expect to attain, greater success than is likely to fall to the lot of those which are designed for the enlightenment of Roman Catholic Europe. With the Orthodox he has a common ground, which he has not with any spiritual subject of the Bishop of Rome. His book seems well adapted to answer his purpose, if he can only make his Greek readers understand that his object is in no way to beguile them from the Orthodox Communion. His design, as we understand it, is simply to show that there are fewer impediments than are generally thought on both sides, to a fraternal union between the Greek and English Churches, without either surrendering its national peculiarities. In this design we wish him success.

ART. III.-Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire (faisant suite à l'Histoire de la Révolution Française). Par Monsieur A. THIERS. 17 vols. Paris: 1845-58.

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FTER a labour extended over eighteen years, M. Thiers has at length accomplished his design, to write the history of France during the greatest epoch of her annals; and he has accomplished it with a brilliancy of execution and a vivacity of narration which have captivated the attention of Europe and raised an enduring monument to his literary fame. He has unquestionably surpassed all his predecessors in the ease and vigour of his style, in his descriptive power, in his delineation of the character of Napoleon, in his view of the organisation and inner life of the First Empire. Nor is it difficult to deter mine the cause of the extensive popularity of this work. It is the picture of the French Empire, and the apotheosis of its chief. The representation indeed may not always be accurate, and the panegyric not always just. But even its inconsistencies and exaggerations fall in with the sympathies of France in this generation for a period of French history, of which the sufferings are forgotten, and the triumphs are adored. In that country, therefore, its popularity gains from sentiment what its credit loses from analysis. But whilst we enter upon a review of this important production, with a strong sense of the inspiration the historian has drawn from his heroic theme, and of the amazing industry he has bestowed on this composition, we must be permitted to try its value by a different standard and a severer test. A work of this kind especially invites the criticism of foreign nations; and the success it owes to national predilections or contemporary passions can only be rendered permanent by the higher qualities of fidelity and truth. Never was it more important than at the present time that the past and present spirit of the French Empire and of its great founder should be considered and understood, and neither M. Thiers nor those who may criticise his writings can be expected to dismiss from their minds the obvious and direct bearing of this history on the other States of Europe.

The institution of the Consulate represented that period of Continental politics which confirmed the overthrow of prescriptive power and organised the Revolution. The triumph of lawless energy in France had had its counterpart in the decline of established institutions beyond the Rhine. The long and doubtful struggle which had preceded the peace of Luneville had finally

established France without an equal on the mainland, and England without an equal on the sea. The military power to which change and insecurity had given birth had conquered change and insecurity in its turn. The national acquiescence of the French people in the Consulate was the instinct of Revolution to institute its government and to impersonate its glory. Change was now allied with tradition, and disharmony was replaced by order. The Code incorporated what was just in the ancient laws of the realm with what was essential to renovated society. The Concordat acknowledged the rights of the Papacy, as distinguished from a principle of spiritual independence; and the rights of Christianity, as distinguished from a principle of national irreligion. The Empire of 1804 associated the Revolution with the sanction of conquest, as the marriage of 1810 afterwards associated it with the sovereign houses of Europe. The aristocracy of birth was again united with the aristocracy of intellect and of arms. The soldiers of fortune became the dukes of the empire. Thus the elements of progressive restoration became the attributes of reconstructed monarchy. But by degrees the interest of the nation was lost in that of the Ruler. The magnificent problem of the Empire, -to ally its existence with the interests of civilisation, was abandoned for a policy which, in commerce and in war, eventually annihilated its own power. The sentiment of martial glory was quenched in a sense of moral degradation; and the pride of external power mocked the national servility. Meanwhile the other Continental Powers, which had been ruined one by one in proportion to French exaction and their own disunion, were at length inspired by the heroic spirit which had never left our shores, and followed in the train of England to vindicate her principles, to reward her constancy,. and to liberate Europe.

It is through this period, crowded with unexampled events, that M. Thiers aims to portray the reconstruction of a national polity in France, to follow the career of French conquest, and incidentally to describe English government and English character. The task demands not simply great capacity, but also extraordinary attainments. No other era is so rich in the grandest elements of history, and yet so difficult from its novelty and extent. The continental preeminence of Imperial France involved her history, more deeply than at any former period, with the records of every other State; and the protracted struggle between conquest and subjection, from which this preeminence arose, called widely into play the national character of every other people. A history therefore of the Consulate and the Empire cannot be exclusively based upon a knowledge of French

VOL. CVII. NO. CCXVIII.

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