Europe, let us begin with the unchanging Spain, unchanging, though not without her Protestants. Yet there was no struggle between one cause and the other; the decision was sharp and resolute to the effect that the church should undergo no alteration. Naturally, therefore, the monarchy of Spain fell into a sort of dependence upon the central power of the church to which it was thus devoted. The monarch was the absolute sovereign, ruling for the priesthood, for the nobility, for himself of course, but not for his people. Beneath such a king as Philip II., (1556-98,) in whom the Spanish system, both in church and in state, found its impersonation, the energies of the nation received a blight from which they have never recovered. France. The course of France, alike on some points, was very different as a whole. She had her massacre of St. Bartholomew, the bloodiest blow yet struck against the reformers, (1572,) before the edict of Nantes gave liberty of faith to her Protestants, the Huguenots, (1598.) But from the latter date, at all events, the position of France was that of a nation adhering to the Roman church, yet as its ally, not its subject. It was the temperate state upon the Roman side. Nowhere else did the church of Rome appear to so great advantage as where it was thus established in forbearance. Nowhere else was the state more successfully administered than where it was thus conducted in liberality. Europe saw no truer monarch during the period than Henry IV. of France, (1589-1610.) Holland. Far on in the Protestant van was Holland. She flung herself into the reformation with a frenzy no doubt aggravated by her hatred for her mistress in Spain. The results were soon visible in scenes of pillage and blood. The Roman churches were violated; then the Protestant churches were rent asunder. In the state there were better signs. The heroic war of independence threw off the Span ish dominion, (1566-1609.) But to the hopes thus inspired there came a rapid reverse, with the rise of Maurice of Orange, to whom the best patriot of Holland, John Van Olden Barneveldt, fell a victim, (1619.) The Protestant extreme was quite as fatal as the Roman. Sweden Sweden and Protestant Germany were calmer and Ger- and happier. But the latter country was too much many. broken up, while the former was too much confined, to take any position of enduring influence. It is the less to our purpose to dwell upon their fortunes, inasmuch as they had but little part in the fortunes of our own country. England. Let us pass, therefore, to England, great in the Protestant cause, because great in the moderation by which the cause was sustained. The entrance of the nation into the lists was discreditable enough, so far as it was made at the dictates of Henry VIII., no earnest reformer, but a swollen despot. Once entered in, however, the heart of the nation beat nobly and enduringly. It went through few excesses. The passions of the early reformers were those of individuals; the austerities of the later reformers were those of a few, compared with the many who remained steadfast. The church of the reformation assumed its gentler aspect in the church of England -the mean between the extremes, alike of Protestantism and Romanism. Nor did the state altogether fail to harmonize with the church. The reign of Mary was an interruption; but that of her sister Elizabeth was more than a compensation, (1558-1603.) England was stirred to new life. Physically and intellectually, as well as morally, the nation received the impulse of the age, and bounded forward. Yet there were serious trials to come; the development that had been begun could not go on uninterrupted, its very activity occasioning retrocession at times, as well as advance. All Europe was growing in one direction. No country Intellect but was touched by an intellectual flame. Italy, far ual ex- as she was from the sea that led to the new world, pansion. or from the agitation that led to the new life in the old world, - even she was radiant with science, with poesy, and with art. Galileo uttered his wondrous revelations; Ariosto and Tasso composed their glowing poems; Palestrina breathed forth his solemn strains; Michael Angelo and Raphael created their immortal forms. Spain, too, otherwise so mute or so repulsive, rang out responsive with her versatile Cervantes and her inexhaustible Lope de Vega. England, in her activity, answered with the one universal voice of Shakspeare. Bacon was the English, Descartes the French philosopher, both, but especially the latter, being at once deliverers and lawgivers to the human intellect. It was for America as well as for Europe that these marvellous works were wrought. |