Salvian (p. 216),' when the state knew not where to stow, or how to spend its inexhaustible revenues, it was no wonder if it spent a good part in these vain diversions. But now, reduced as we are, we yet addict ourselves to the same. Miseri jam sumus,

et necdum nugaces esse cessamus :-beggarly triflers still.' This subject leads our author to mention what is a material circumstance in the evidence I am now adducing, and to which, as indicative of the preceding condition of the church, the reader's attention should be particularly directed. The roman world had lately, and almost every where, suffered the severest calamities; provinces had been ravaged, cities overthrown, and all the miseries of war and anarchy endured. Had then these afflictions wrought no reform? No,' says Salvian- the very contrary has everywhere happened.'

'But surely we who were corrupted by prosperity, have been reformed by adversity? and those who, during a long peace, had learned intemperance, have become sober in trouble?'

Let the reader observe that the prevailing profligacy of christians is here assumed to have been the characteristic of that long period of public tranquillity which the church had enjoyed. Salvian's evidence is thus carried up into the midst of the nicene era. But there is even more in this statement than appears.-It may without limitation be affirmed, that, even if there be at any time a declension of piety in the church, yet if the substance of it remain, and if more than a few, in all quarters, are alive—although not so much alive as they should be, to the momentous realities of the christian faith, a time of public calamity, of fear and suffering, refreshes the zeal, and reanimates the faith of the sincere. These, arousing themselves to a new assiduity in the exercises of devotion, and in the labours of charity, awaken others also; and a season of spiritual renovation ensues. What is true of the individual christian, is true of the church, and precisely for the same reasons. Affliction brings forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness.' If it be not so in any case, the darkest suspicions, as to the previous character, whether of the individual, or of the community, are warranted. Those who, in a time of calamity, plunge into deeper sensualities, whatever they may have called themselves, are no christians. May not as much as this be universally

affirmed? Has not this been always the admitted criterion of religious character?-Whoever is hardened and rendered openly profligate by affliction, is no better than a heartless professor: the christian is he who, in trouble, thinks upon his ways, and turns his feet into the path of God's testimonies.' Apply this test then to the NICENE CHURCH-apply it to the mass of christian people in various quarters, that had been trained under the great divines from whose writings 'church principles' are now to be drawn for our benefit.

Let Salvian say what had been the general effect of tribulation upon the very churches over which the nicene bishops had presided, and in which many of them had, according to the dark notions of that age, faithfully laboured.-These assiduous and sincere men had consecrated all their eminent talents to the work of enhancing, in the people's view, the mysterious and infallible efficacy of the sacraments; they had solemnly assumed, for the church, the highest authority, and for the clergy, as her representatives and organs, all the reverence that could be claimed, or rendered, short of adoration: they had cherished all those wholesome' impressions, which impel men to bow before whatever has become associated with religion -the memories and the relics of the saints-churches and sacred spots; and, to crown all, these zealous men had commended the ascetic philosophy, as the summit of christian perfection. They had enjoyed signal advantages for promulgating, and for firmly establishing, these principles, and for giving the sanction of time to these practices. What is the result? Even making a large allowance for a degree of sluggishness, or worldliness of temper, affecting christians generally, as the consequence of external case, and an abundance of earthly good, was there found, within the church, such a substratum of genuine piety as needed only a season of affliction to quicken it into life and power?

Salvian shall reply. Is it so,' he asks, 'that the communities which had become immoral during prosperity, have begun to return to purity of conduct under affliction? Is it so that the drunkenness* which had grown during a time of tranquillity and abundance,

⚫ Basil, a century before, roundly charges the christian' people of his times with the grossest intemperance, and profligate luxury. See the Homily 'Against Drunkenness and Excess.'

has declined, at least, amid the ravages of war? Italy has been drenched with blood; but have the vices of Italy been forsaken? Rome herself has been besieged, and taken (an. 410); but have the roman people ceased to be blasphemous and outrageous (furiosi)? Barbarian hordes have inundated the provinces of Gaul, but, as to their abandoned manners, are not the people of Gaul as guilty as ever? The Vandals have passed over into Spain (an. 412) and the condition of Spain is indeed changed; but not her pravity of morals. And lastly, lest any part of the world should be free from these terrible evils, war has traversed the seas.-Sardinia and Sicily, our store-houses, have fallen, and Africa too—the soul of the state-but have these countries been reformed?... Far from it. What was it that happened at Carthage? (an. 430.) Even while the noise of war was ringing around the walls, the church of Carthage maddened in the circus, and luxuriated in the theatre! At the same moment some were being slaughtered without, and some practising lewdness within;-a part of the people in bondage with the enemy, a part in the bondage of their vices! .... the clash of arms without the walls, and within a confused din of conflicts and of shows.'

Salvian goes on, and with eloquent indignation, to describe the horrors and the infatuation that had attended the devastation of Gaul, and of which he had been an eye-witness :- Vidi ego illic res lacrymabiles.' . . . . ' Quod ipse vidi, et sustinui..... Nam dum bibunt, ludunt, mochantur, insaniunt, Christum negare cœperunt.' P. 229. No description of similar scenes, anywhere found on the page of history, presents darker colours than the one which our author furnishes. It is the picture of a people long brutalized by the grossest sensualities; and yet fanatical, and at length overtaken by public calamities without having in reserve virtue enough to impart dignity to misfortune. So lost to all public feeling were the people of all classes, that they neither apprehended their danger, nor took any means to avert it. Totum incuria et segnities, totum negligentia et gula, totum ebrietas et somnolentia possidebant.'

But how does this evidence affect our argument?—I have now before me the massy volumes of the Gesta Dei per Francos,' from which many descriptions as revolting as those of Salvian

might be gathered. An historian, when satisfied of the authenticity of those narratives, would assume it as sufficient proof of an extreme corruption of the social system at that time such a corruption as can never affect a people suddenly ;-it is the product of causes that have been long in operation. A season of public confusion does but bring out to the eye a state of the moral mass which tranquillity had concealed. So Salvian's evidence must be regarded as strictly pertinent to our present inquiry, as to the FACT of the alleged pre-eminent sanctity of the christian community in the nicene age.

Before we pass on, it may be proper to notice the fact that the mad propensity to indulge in the lascivious pleasures of the theatre, and the horrid excitements of the circus, was no novelty among those calling themselves christians. The traces of this inconsistency are frequent, and a protest against it may be found in most of the Fathers, from Chrysostom, up to Clement of Alexandria. It is manifest that the church-going folks addressed by the former, were, to a very great extent, addicted to these forbidden pleasures -perhaps not less so than those of Salvian's time. Let the reader turn, as an instance, to Chrysostom's first homily on Matthew. 'There,' that is, in what Le calls, the 'satanic theatres,'' there, oi TOAλol, the many, pass whole days, who grudge to tarry but a little while in the church, where God himself is speaking.' And let the candid reader say whether a pleasure-loving, luxurious people, taught as they were, to trust to the efficacy of sacraments, was not likely to become such as Salvian reports his contemporaries to have been at once fanatical, atheistic, and in the last degree debauched? These things are connected by a close connexion of cause and effect.

'Religionem novimus; ignorantiâ non excusamur,' says Salvian; but it was a religion the very same, as to its moral tendency, as that which, in modern times, has made the people of Spain, and of Spanish America, what they are. In his times, as in our own, absolution, granted as a matter of course to those who, while confessing, were meditating new crimes, produced-what else can it produce? a profligacy that knows no bounds. Does the following remonstrance belong to the fifth century, or to the nineteenth, and to Spain and Ireland? Whencesoever it proceeds, to what

age soever it belongs, it is the proper comment upon the doctrine and practice of absolution, according to 'church principles.' 'Sic fatentur ut in ipsa confessione non doleant. Idem enim nunc est animus in fatentibus, qui in agentibus fuit. duit flagitia committere, sic nunc omninò non pœnitet, flagitiosa fecisse.'

Sicut tunc non pu

Were I to quote the pages now before me, even softening as far as possible every offensive phrase, these numbers would be condemned as crammed with obscenities; and not fit to be looked at by decent folks.' Be it so; but whence come these unpleasing materials? They come, let my critics hear it, and if they will not take it on my word, I will resort to other means for proving it, they come from the SINK whence church principles' have also been drawn up! But the revivers of church principles say, ' Can we not take the principles, and leave the filth? You may do so when you have disproved the allegation, which all history establishes, that the impurity is the direct, the invariable, and the inevitable product of such doctrine.

Let my opponents listen to my honest witness, who challenges. contradiction in asking, 'Quis non se barathro sordidissimæ colluvionis immersit? Quis conjugii fidem reddidit? immò quantum ad passivitatem libidinis pertinet, quis non conjugem in numerum ancillarum redegit?' p. 245.

We come here to a point that might soon be settled among honest men, and concerning which, as I am apt to think, honest men will soon be of one opinion-leaving any other opinion to a class of persons not I hope very numerous in this land of manly ingenuousness.-The first characteristic of the christian morality is its tendency to purify and bless the domestic economy (God's noblest work on earth) and it has been found to do this always, and wherever christian principles have been taught, faithfully, and in simplicity. Woman is at once lifted from her degradation : man must rise with her: home is blessed; nay, home is created, for there is none where woman is not pure and honoured; children fondly reverence their mother, and receive the rudiments of heavenly truth from her loving, and loved lips: they are trained in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.' Are these things only golden dreams? - Whether men of the cloister, or ascetic