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Greek fire, was employed by the orientals, especially in sea fights: but all agree that it was not our gunpowder. A work is still preserved in the University of Oxford, England, written in the ninth century by one Gracchus, who describes a compound nearly resembling that of which we are treating.

No invention has perhaps exerted a more powerful, and I believe a more beneficial influence on the destinies of the world, than that of this terrific agent. It has entirely changed the aspect of war. It has affected fortification, ship building, and has wholly changed military tactics. Besides its beneficial influence on internal improvements, it has, strange to say, softened and mitigated the horrors of war, and greatly diminished the number of those who fall in battle. Armies formerly engaged in mortal combat face to face, and fought for whole days, often returning to the combat, nor was victory obtained until one or the other army was nearly annihilated; men now fight at a distance, and the contest is soon decided. Thousands fell formerly, where hundreds fall now. Compare any great ancient battle with any decisive modern engagement, and you will be convinced of the truth of this remark. Take for example two of the most decisive engagements recorded in history: the battle of Waterloo, and that between Poictiers and Tours in 732, when Charles Martel defeated the Saracens. In the former, the total amount of killed and wounded on both sides was about 55,000, of whom perhaps not half were killed; whereas in the latter the Saracens alone had 100,000 - some say 300,000 killed. 16. Stone Coal, which has since proved so extensively useful, in private residences and in manufactories, was discovered in England in 1307.

17. The Arabian arithmetical Numbers were introduced into Europe by the famous Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II., about the year 991. Thus the foundation of arithmetic was laid, and the science of mathematics began from this time to be extensively studied. Algebraic calculation was also introduced into Europe by the Italians, in 1412.1

18. Though the ancient Greeks and Romans were acquainted with Glass, yet they seem never to have used it in windows. This improvement in the comforts of life, was generally adopted in Europe in the Middle Ages. The first mention of glass windows occurs in writers of the third and fourth century.

19. A method of staining glass was generally known and employed during that period, which has since been lost. Efforts were made during the last century in Germany and France to revive this beautiful art, but with very imperfect success. The solemn and mellow light of the old Gothic churches, which tends to inspire us with pensive, yet pleasing emotions, is owing to the use in them of stained glass.

1 The Arabians have the credit of these inventions. They also excelled in medicine. They learned much from the works of the ancient Greek authors, whom this active and enterprising people translated. This is about all that can be said in favor of the literature of the fanatical followers of Mohammed, at least in its relation to the European literature of the Middle Ages. Yet some authors would wish to convey the impression that what we do not owe to the Chinese, we have derived from the Arabs!

20. The chef sufferings of Europe during the Middle Ages grew out of the neglect of Agriculture. The monks applied themselves early to this useful art, and taught others how to practice it. The monasteries were generally situated in remote and desert places; the monks reclaimed the soil, drained the marshes, fertilized even the rocky mountain tops, and improved whole districts. They also taught the people other useful arts. Thus, when the people of Sussex in England were perishing with hunger during a famine, in 605, Bishop Wilfrid at the head of his monks, plunged into the sea in presence of the assembled multitudes, and thus opened to them a new source of subsistence, of which their ignorance or druidical superstitions had hitherto deprived them.'

21. The monks also cultivated Botany, and studied the medical qualities of plants. The clergy were in many places the only physicians. It is a remarkable feature in that age, that every pursuit was referred to, or connected with, religion. The names of flowers were taken from some supposed aptitude to recall religious reminiscences. The passionflower, the marygold, and others are examples of this. How beautiful and poetical the turn of thought, which suggested the idea of the Floral Calendar, by which the plants, in their different times of flowering, marked the division of time, and pointed to the holy festivals of religion ! This was truly giving to the flowers a language, which spoke of God and his saints of religion · of Heaven!

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"What a lovely thought to mark the hours,

As they floated in light away;

By the opening and the folding flowers,

That laugh unto the summer's day!"

22. The Clock was invented in the Middle Ages. The invention is prior to the twelfth century, though the author of it is not clearly known. The phrase, "the clock has struck," was common in the twelfth century. Some award the honor of the invention to the famous Gerbert, already mentioned, who certainly put up a clock for Otho the Great, at Magdeburg, about the year 1000. Others ascribe it to the Italian monk Pacificus, and others to the Abbott William, of Hirschau in Germany. It is probable that they all contributed their share to the invention, at nearly about the same time. It is a remarkable fact in the history of human knowledge, that in its progress many learned men in different places hit simultaneously upon the same invention. Every scholar has heard of the controversies between the friends of Gallileo and Huygens about the application of the pendulum to clocks; between Newton and Hook and the Bernouillies, about the first discoverer of the laws of attraction; and between Newton and Leibnitz about the authorship of the fluxional or integral calculus. Before the invention of clocks, the sun-dial, the hour-glass, and the Clepsydron, constructed on the principle of water dripping through a small orifice,- were the only instruments used for measuring time.

1 See Burke's Works, Vol. II, p. 514, et seq.

23. In the thirteenth century, Painting was revived in Italy by Giunta of Pisa, Guido of Sienna, and the great Cimabue of Florence. Thus was commenced that great Italian school of painting, which afterwards produced a Raphael, a Titian, a Michael Angelo, a Domenichino, a Hannibal Caracci, and a Leonardo da Vinci.

24. Silk was almost unknown to the ancients. Among the unpardonable extravagances of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus, in the third century (A. D. 222), historians enumerate his having had a garment entirely of silk! The silk worm was brought from the East Indies or China to Constantinople in 552, and the Italians first introduced its culture into Europe in the twelfth century. Roger, king of Sicily, deserves to be mentioned, as the first who called the attention of Europe to this subject. The silk manufactures of Italy, France, and Flanders flourished to a wonderful extent in the thirteenth and following centuries, and the beautiful specimens of gold lace, and splendidly flowered and variegated silks of that period, equal, if they do not surpass, anything of the present enlightened days. Many of them may be seen in the old cathedrals and museums of Europe.

25. Those ages had the merit of originating and carrying to the greatest perfection, a new style of Architecture. Who has not admired the splendid specimens of Gothic architecture still visible throughout Europe; specimens which, even in the ruins, which the fanatical vandalism of the sixteenth century has left of many of them, in England, Ireland and Scotland, are imposing still! How massive, and yet how light, is that order of architecture. How complicated the parts, and yet how simple the effect of the whole! The massive walls and the vast pilasters, as well as the pointed arch, the delicate creeper, the clustered column, and the fairy tracery,-all contribute their parts to the effect. Take for example, the famous cathedral of Pisa, with its leaning tower, or rather the latter only. Can modern skill and architecture rear a pile like that: upwards of 200 feet high, six stories high besides the basement and pinnacle, with 209 beautiful marble columns encircling it, and leaning between fifteen and twenty feet from the perpendicular! It was built by William of Norimberg and Bonanno of Pisa, in the twelfth century, and has been standing for more than six hundred years.

Let men of the present day build an edifice like this; let it stand six hundred years, and then, if it be still firm and uninjured, they may sneer at the darkness of the Middle Ages!

V. LITERATURE AND THE CATHOLIC CLERGY.

WHAT HAVE THE CATHOLIC CLERGY, AND ESPECIALLY THE MONKS, DONE FOR LITERATURE ?

Modern history unfair—A great conspiracy against the truth-Whence this unfairness in English writers-Robbery and sacrilege-Origin of modern mammonism-Persecution of slander-What Protestants have said in favor of the Monks-Leibnitz-Ellendorf-Edmund Burke-Raising up the lowly-Giving asylum to the oppressed-Bishop Tanner-Mallet-Drake-Sharon TurnerBates-Quarterly Review-Origin of Libraries-Ancient Christian Libraries-Cathedral and Monastic Libraries-Monks transcribing books-And collecting them into libraries-Care of books enjoined by rule-Zeal of monks in saving books-Principal monastic collections of ManuscriptsScarcity of books-Agency of the Universities-Religious women engaged as copyists-Writing with golden and silver ink-Illuminated margins-The Scriptorium— Means of augmenting Libraries-Encouragement afforded by Roman Pontiffs-What we owe to patient monastic laborSummary of what the Clergy and Monks have done for literature.

SINCE the time of the self-called reformation, the very fountains of history have been polluted. Writers with violent prejudices have been too much in the habit of viewing the history of the good old Catholic times through the gross and distorting medium of their preconceived opinions; and the result has been, that the pictures they have drawn of those times have scarcely one light or shade true to nature. So false are these, in fact, and so hideously deformed, "Ut nec caput, nec pes uni reddatur formæ ; "nor head, nor foot is placed aright."

Without taking the trouble to consult the original documents, they have, in most cases, blindly and servilely copied one another's statements; and thus error has been perpetuated from generation to generation. The public taste in regard to every thing Catholic has been so long, and so deeply, and so widely vitiated, that it requires some moral courage nowa-days to depart from the beaten track of error, and to tell the whole truth, according to the records of faithful history. The man who undertakes this laudable task, runs the risk of having his production treated with neglect by the community, and abandoned to the moth and dust of some neglected shelf. Books, to be purchased and read, must pander to popular prejudice; and hence it is that the infection has spread so widely. Avarice in book-makers and book-publishers has been a fruitful source of historical errors, and consequent popular deceptions. To convince ourselves that this is not an exaggerated or unfair statement, we have only to open any of our works of popular literature, in the English language. From the primer and first books of history

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taught in our preparatory academies, up to works on philosophy and science used in our colleges, almost all are tainted with this stain of prejudice. It is the seasoning which gives them zest. Perhaps, too,just to infuse into the tender minds of children a holy horror of "Popery," the pages of school-books will be occasionally adorned with beautifully executed wood cuts, representing some scene of horror, in which priests and monks are exhibited as exulting over the agony of tortured victims ! "Popish cruelty, monkish ignorance and superstition, the tyranny, the corruptions and abominations of the Church of Rome, the poor priest-ridden people, the avaricious exactions of the Popes," and a thousand such malicious exhibitions of cant, crowded together often without measure or reason,meet our wearied eye at every page. It is unhappily but too true, then, as the accomplished De Maistre has well said, that during the last three hundred years, history has become a great conspiracy against truth. This is especially the case with historical works written in the English language, in which, as William Cobbett has bluntly, but truly said, "there are more lies than in books written in all other languages put together."

Whence this combination against truth among English writers? Whence this deep and abiding prejudice against Catholicity, transmitted as a fatal and poisened heritage from England to America? To detect its source, we need only glance at the history of the so called reformation in England.

At the beginning of this revolution, the Catholic Church was immensely rich. The property of the churches and of the monasteries had been accumulated during centuries of Catholic charity and liberality. The Church, however, held it only in trust, for the benefit of the public, and especially of the poor. It had been bestowed for this special purpose. The Catholic bishops and clergy, having no families to provide for, naturally left their property to the Church, or for charitable purposes. The spirit, and even the letter, of the canon law compelled them to do this. The poor were thus supported out of a fund, which the piety of ages had created for their benefit. There was then little pauperism, and there were no poor laws in England. The charity and the liberality of the Catholic Church, which was ever the tender mother of the poor, supplied the place of legal enactments and of heavy taxation for their support. Well, when the storm of the reformation broke over England, this vast property was seized upon by the officials of Henry VIII., who pounced upon it, as a falcon on its prey. It exchanged hands. It was violently torn from the Church and from the poor, and given to the courtiers and courtesans. In one instance, Henry VIII. gave a. church estate to a woman, who had made a pudding to suit his royal taste! Sir Miles Partridge won a ring of church bells from him, by a throw of the dice! During his reign, and that of his son and successor, Edward VI., the work of sacrilegious spoliation was begun and consummated.

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