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cil at Trent. But, before this Council met, war had once more broken out between the Emperor and France. Even in this war Paul III. contrived to preserve neutrality; and he was thus, after its termination, enabled to arrive at a definite understanding with Charles V. as to a course of common action with regard to the German Protestants. Thus the year 1545, in which the Pope's grandson, Cardinal Farnese, concluded at Worms with the Emperor this all-important league, constitutes a momentous epoch in the religious as well as in the political history of Europe. The compact was designed to settle the subjects of supreme importance to the contracting parties respectively-namely, the future of the Church in Germany and the future of the Farnese family. The Protestants were to be forced to submit to the true doctrines of the Church, to be promulgated by a General Council at Trent; and the Emperor was to take care of the Farneses. At the same time the Emperor insisted upon a thorough reformation of those practices in the Church which the Popes themselves had condemned, and in which his practical eye saw her real weakness, while he was but moderately anxious for reiteration of dogmas with which the associations of his life had already rendered him sufficiently familiar. In the following year Charles signed the capitulation binding him to make war upon the German Protestants, in which war the Pope had promised to support him with both troops and subsidies. The Council of Trent commenced its sittings, and the Emperor his war. the league between Pope and Emperor was still-born. They quarrelled as to They quarrelled as to the order of proceedings at the Council; they quarrelled as to the amount of the Papal subsidies; and in the last place, they fatally quarrelled in respect of the other subject of their original compact. Instead of Pier Luigi Farnese, the Pope's son, or of his relative Ottavio, Gonzaga, an inveterate enemy of the Papal family, had been appointed by the Emperor Governor of Milan; and it soon became manifest that the Spanish influence was to remain paramount in Italy, and the ambition of the Farneses unfuland the ambition of the Farneses unful: filled. French intrigues fanned the flame of discontent aroused by these proceed

But

ings, and thus a mixture of political and personal motives drew the Pope further and further away from the interests of the defender of the orthodox faith, till at last it drove him into the arms of the French King, and-truth almost compels us to add-into those of the Moslem allies of that unscrupulous sovereign.

Meanwhile a single year had sufficed to overthrow the power of the League of Schmalkalden. The fatal day of Mühlberg deprived John Frederick of Saxony of his electorate and of his liberty; and a base trick (for no other designation properly characterizes the proceeding which, as M. Maurenbrecher justly observes, "contributed more than anything else to make the Spanish Charles odious to the German nation") delivered the other leader of the Protestants, Landgrave Philip of Hesse, into the victor's hands. The consequence of these successes was the promulgation of the Interim. Among all the measures of Charles V., none has been the subject of more frequent dispute than this. In our opinion, a thinner gloss of toleration. never covered a more decided act of force. Some historians consider that many of the expressions of the Interim were sufficiently vague to have allowed of their acceptance by the Lutherans, without the latter doing any violence to their consciences. The marriage of the clergy, e.g., was permitted, and the cup was conceded to the laity in the Eucharist. Indeed the Catholic Estates avowed their intention of refusing to accept these portions of the edict, at least until the General Council should have

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given its decision on these particular points of dogma; whereupon Charles pointed out to them the strictly temporary character of the measure. came law on May 15th,1548. The Pope the efforts of the Emperor to induce never sanctioned it, notwithstanding all him to use his dispensatory power. And yet such was the energy of Charles V., supported by the effects of his successes, the Interim upon the great majority of that he actually succeeded in forcing words of M. Maurenbrecher, "to have the Protestants, and seemed, in the accomplished the first greatest, and most difficult steps towards the subjection of German Protestantism."

Thus ended the first act of the strug

gle between the Emperor and the Protestant princes. Of the second act the hero is no longer Charles V., but Maurice of Saxony. Neither friendly nor hostile writers have been chary in their acknowledgements of his extraordinary gifts as a politician and a general. But neither the undoubted fact that to him German Protestantism owes its rescue from virtual extinction, and, that his consummate skill and brilliant audacity achieved a triumph to which the blundering honesty of his unfortunate kinsman John Frederick could never have attained, neither the fame of his splendid exploits in the the field nor the pious veneration paid by the noblest scholastic foundations in Germany to the memory of their princely founder, can remove from the name of Maurice the stain of a double, we should rather say of a treble, treason. He betrayed the cause of his religion for the sake of an Electorate, and that of his Emperor and benefactor in order to assure his own sovereign independence; and, lastly, together with his Torgau associates, he sold a German province to a foreign king as the prince of his support in a purely German quarrel. True, Maurice is not the only German prince against whom such a charge as the last can be established; but he was in so far more culpable than even Bernhard of Weimar, that, in the case of the latter, the French alli ance was a necessity, and moreover a necessity scarcely of his own seeking. It is satisfactory to find M. Maurenbrecher avow, though with a certain reluctance, the weight of guilt attaching to Maurice and his associates in the matter of the cession of Metz, Toul, and Verdun:

In truth, the plaint of German patriotism against these princes is a just one. It is, and remains, a humiliation for a nation to

have to tear off limbs from its own body in order to pay for foreign aid; this is the ancient curse which rests upon every attempt to attain to liberty by the help of strangers. I acknowledge the weight of this accusation, which the feeling of every German is justifed in hurling against these acts of the League of Princes, and against its leader Maurice. I believe that it will be difficult

to arouse in our nation an enthusiasm for a

prince who resorted to such means for freein Germany from the Hispano-Catholic yoke.

But, while reprobating the crooked paths

by which Maurice proceeded to his ends, it is impossible to avoid acknowledging the importance of the results achieved by him. Morality refuses to allow the proposition that the end justifies the means; but it is the duty of history to recognize the value of a success independently of the method of its accomplishment. The great result of Maurice's campaign-carried on with almost unparalleled skill and determination from the day of the sham capitulation of Magdeburg to a sham besieger-was the Peace of Passau, a treaty amounting to little short of a rehabilitation of the Augsburg Confession in lieu of the Interim. No doubt European politics operated favorably for the success of the German Protestants. The aid of France, whose monarchs have generally had their price had been purchased, however dearly; the foreign policy of England, under Warwick's regency, had been dictated by the ascendency at home of Protestant sympathies. Lastly, the keys of St Peter had, after the brief interval of the papacy of Julius III., been in keeping of a pontiff who had neither promises of friendship to break nor declarations of neutrality to modify-of Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, who (once more to quote the historian of the Popes) "detested the Emperor as Neapolitan and Italian, as Catholic and as Pope, and in whose soul there existed no other passions than that of reform of the Church and his hatred of Charles."

The Peace of Passau marks the final

failure of the long struggle of Charles V. against the German Protestants. Not long afterwards he sought-and, as we now know, sought in vain-rest and peace in the retirement of San Yustè. In Germany he left to his successors the heritage of a terrible, though a noble, political mistake. He had identified the interests of the Hapsburgs with an uncompromising support of the orthodox faith. This fact it needed more than the bonhomie of a Maximilian II. to invalidate more than the imbecility of a Rudolf II. to obscure. When, under the tuition of the Jesuits, the tradition was resumed by Ferdinand II., two results were inevitable-the virtual establishment of religious liberty, and the virtual. ruin of the German Empire.

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L'AUTO-DA-FE.

Is the hush of the winter midnight-
In the hush of the sleeping house-
When no weird wind stirs in the gloomy firs,
The spirits of storm to rouse.

When never a glint of moonlight
Gleams from the great black sky,

By the red fire's glow, as it smoulders low,
We crouch, my letters and I.

My letters, they lie where I tossed them,
On the crimson hearthrug there,
Still, vivid, and bright, in the ruddy light,
As cobras in their lair.

I push the hair from my forehead,
That burns and throbs so fast,
Thinking the while, with a strange dull smile,
Of the task I must do at last.

Who knows but I, the comfort

Those foolish letters have been?

The depth and scope-the strength and hopeOf those "leaves" that are always "green?"

Who knows but I, how sadly,

To-morrow, I and my dream,

By the ashes grey will weep and say, "Woe's me for that vanished gleam.

"The gleam of idle gladness,

The glimmer of memories bright,

That hid in each line of those letters of mine
Those letters I burn to-night?"

Ah well! the dream was a folly;
Its joy was an idle thing,

Its hope was a lie, and its loyalty
Died of a whisper's sting.

So a kiss-the last-to my letters.
A resolute hand, and-there!

Do the sad dark eyes of my Paradise
Meet mine through the fierce flame's flare?
-Temple Bar.

COMING PLEASURES.
SHADOW-LEAVES of rugged elms,
Thrown on cool green meadow plants;
Light beyond, and flowered realms,
Passing bees' deep organ-chants.
Plumes of air that touch the cheek
Like a rose, as soft and brief;
Happy thoughts that need not speak,
Lapped in rest and love's belief.

Rippling stream by sun and shade,
Golden-meshed, or amber deep;
Song of bird, and tinkling blade,
Where the distant corn they reap.

Such an hour is coming, sweet,
Banishing the anxious frown-
Fanning ache and troubles heat-
Bringing heavenly angels down.

SPRING'S CHANGES.

AGAIN the floweret on the bank

Its white stars shows; in foremost rank
Again the crocussed April comes
Ere cold winds cease, or wild-bee hums.
The first link of the emerald year
With subtle change doth now appear;
Earth turns on her brown coverlet
A few green folds; begins to net
Her belt of flowers; the thrushes call
To ope the sun's high turquoise hall;
The running sparkling rivers show
At morn and eve a rosier glow;
The Day a longer pleasure takes,
E'en in the forest's leafless brakes:
The Spring's light fingers sweetly play
In the boy's heart her music gay.
The revel comes of joyous life,
Like the first waves in limpid strife
Playfully racing to the sand,

At some soft summer wind's command.
The old world once again returns,
Renews the fire that ever burns
On Heaven's cerulean hearth above;
And golden light is warm as love;
The old is new, the new is old;
The chestnut leaves again unrolled;
The squirrels in the beech-woods dark,
The lambs about the swarded park,
The echoing calls of new-come birds,
The Easter feast, the Easter words;
The same again, yet long desired;
The world of them is never tired.

But Change has played with human thoughts,
And rearranged them in her sports.
The heart's old longing still appears;

The mind more solemn grows with years.

Dear are the hills, the meadows green,
The sky's deep blue, the waters' sheen;
The little flower appeals to chords

That wake the tears, and know not words;
The voice of the old years is heard ;
The depths within are deeply stirred.
A strange desire o'erpassing things
That are achieved by mortal wings,
Now seeks the unexplained, unseen,
The mysteries which have ever been;
It marks the clearer sounds of Time,
And sighs for some eternal clime;
It looks afar and yet is blind;
Its strength is like a mighty wind
Pent in by mightier caves of rock,
Till Nature feels the final shock,

-Chambers's Journal.

HEART'S EASE.

A SIMPLE flower for such a magic name.
The leaves of royal purple, matched with yellow;
Yielding no perfume, humbled, hardy, wild,
Yet with a fame not Amaranth can follow.

No opiate sleep is treasured in its stem,
No precious balsalm with enchanted powers;

It bears no scent of Eden in its buds, render it a ready help to any student of the ScripNor gathers hues from rainbow-colored showers. tures, and deserving the careful examination of

It lends no brighter glory to the spring;
It casts no solace o'er the winter-snow;
But all unheeded 'mid the statelier growths,
Its tripple blossoms innocently grow.

That gives its value, which its name implies,
Dives would pour his gold in streaming floods
To buy a leaflet; and one-half the world
Would life-long search for it through fields and
woods.

BRIEF NOTES ON BOOKS. Christocracy; or Essays on the Coming and

the youth of our country. It affords, in a condensed form, what would cost them much research to obtain."

Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects. By Sir J. F. W. HERSCHEL, Bart., K.H. London and New York: A. Strahan.-This is one of the few reproductions from the pages of our periodicals which thoroughly deserve separate existence. The distinguished and now venerable author has long stood among the highest representatives of English science; when he therefore condescends, or rather undertakes, to make science familiar, we have every reason to place absolute reliance on his teaching. Sir John Herschel is a graceful writer as well as a profound physical philosopher, and these lectures combine deep science and pleasant illustration in a manner of which there are few

them. Take an example:

Kingdom of Christ, with Answers to the Principal examples, often as the effort is made to combine Objections of Postmillenarians. By JOHN T. DEMAREST & WILLIAM R. GORDON. New York: A. Lloyd. 1867-These joint authors are highly respected ministers in the Reformed Dutch Church. They are intelligent, conscientious and earnest believers in what is known among theologians as the Millenarian theory of the Second Coming and Kingdom of Christ, and they herein expound and vindicate that theory in a dispassionate, logical and Scriptural manner. On the whole we have here probably the best exposition and defence of Millenarianism that has been made. It is well for those who do not hold these views to see what can be said in their favor, and especially by such candid and able men as the authors of this volume are admitted to be.

The Berry Pickers of Wisconsin. Philadelphia.

Presbyterian Publication Committee, New York: A. D. F. Randolph.-This is a wholesome and lively story that will interest the younger members of the household, and do good service in the Sunday-school library.

Bible Pictures; or Life-Sketches of Life-Truths. By GEORGE B. IDE, D.D. Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 1867.-Dr. Ide is one of the ablest and most eloquent writers in the denomination to which he belongs; and the present volume will not detract from his well-earned reputation. He aims in it to illustrate the teachings of the Bible by the analogies of nature, and the passing scenes and events of every day life, and in this he succeeds, and has produced an interesting and valuable work.

The Descriptive New Testament. With Notes. By INGRAM COBBIN. Edited by Rev. D. Mead, Illustrated with numerous Engravings. New York: Clark & Mead. 1867.-This work has been before the public for some years, but is now brought out in a new and very tasty edition. The Notes are brief and mainly descriptive, and the illustrations well adapted to illustrate the text. It is a neat, compact and not expensive commentary on the New Testament. We agree with the opinion ex-pressed by it at the time it was first published by Theodore Frelinghuysen, Drs. Spring and Hawes, and others: "The Descriptive Testament, containing explanatory notes, especially designed for the study of youth, by Ingram Cobbin, combines an amount of valuable information on matters connected with the New Testament, that will

"Now, to make this clear, I must go a little out of my way and say something about the first principles of geology. Geology does not pretend to go back to the creation of the world, or concern itself about its primitive state, but it does concern itself with the changes it sees going on in it now, and with the evidence of a long series of such changes it can produce in the most unmistakeable features of the structure of our rocks and soil, and the way in which they lie one on the other. As to what we see going on now. everywhere, and along every coastline, the sea warring against the land, and everywhere overcoming it; wearing and eating it down, and battering it to pieces; grinding those pieces to

We see

powder; carrying that powder away, and spread

ing it out over its own bottom, by the continued effect of the tides and currents. Look at our chalk cliffs, which once, no doubt, extended across the Channel to the similar cliffs on the French coast. What do we see? Precipices cut down to the sea beach, constantly hammered by the waves and constantly crumbling: the beach itself made of the flints outstanding after the softer chalk has been ground down and washed away; themselves grinding one another under the same ceaseless discipline; first rounded into pebbles, then worn into sand, and then carried further and further down the slope, to be replaced by fresh ones from the same source.

"Well, the same thing is going on everywhere round every coast of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Foot by foot, or inch by inch, month by month, or century by century, down every— thing must go. Time is as nothing in geology. And what the sea is doing, the rivers are helping it to do. Look at the sand-banks at the mouth of the Thames. What are they but the materials of our island carried out to sea by the stream? The Ganges carries away from the soil of India, and delivers into the sea, twice as much solid substance weekly as is contained in the great pyramið of Egypt. The Irawaddy sweeps off from Burmah sixty-two cubic feet of earth in every second of time on an average, and there are 86,400 seconds in every day, and 365 days in every year; and so on for the other rivers. What has become of all that great bed of chalk which once covered all the weald of Kent, and formed a continuous_

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