16th resembled more that of the 12th than of the 14th

century.

:

The causes of the Reformation in Germany may be summed up thus the classical learning and the sceptical spirit, or spirit of free inquiry, the corruption of the clergy, the exactions of the Roman Curia, and the national sympathies of the Germans.

The corruption of the Church and monastic orders was not worse at the date of the Reformation than it had been in the days of St. Francis. The minor orders founded by him preached as strongly against the corruption in the Church without respect for persons as ever the Protestant reformers; but inasmuch as, although its abuses provoked their indignation, the theory of the Catholic Church perfectly fell in with their ideas, the result of their efforts was internal reform, not a schism.

In the 15th century the study of the classics had been revived. The learned flung themselves into classical pursuits with an enthusiasm which we cannot now understand. Classicism became the fashion in language, literature, philosophy, and art. In the literary capitals men played the characters of Greeks or Romans. Good society, even at the Roman Court, was anything but Christian. All the presumptions and traditions of the Middle Ages were assailed, Gothic art perished, and the scholastic theology was exploded; the doctrines, ceremonies, and practices of the Church found no immunity-they were all put upon their trial. The conservative spirit of reverence for the past was never at a lower ebb, not even during the French Revolution itself. Meanwhile, the ignorant and corrupt mass of the German clergy had contrived to get into collision with both the educated and more religious portion of the nation; and the Papal government then degraded into a

petty but most ambitious Italian state, grasped money with both hands, to be expended in Rome or squandered in Italian intrigues. The profligate sale of indulgences exploded the mine which had been prepared for many years.

The

It was long before the "protest" crystallized into affirmative doctrines. But the entire religious movement was influenced by that characteristic of the German nature, in which it differs most conspicuously from the Celtic, selfcompleteness, self-confidence, and individualism. Protestant spirit denied the powers claimed by the Catholic Church as a divinely commissioned corporation, depreciated the benefits of sacraments and outward and external acts, such as pilgrimages or penances, and forced each man, alone and unfortified by rites or ceremonies, to face the great question of his future life, and himself, as best he might, to discover how he could escape from the wrath

to come.

In Ireland none of the causes which had produced the Reformation as yet existed. There was no university in the island, there was no knowledge of the revived classical literature, there was no learned or sceptical class whatsoever; so far from a portion of the clergy doubting the authority of the schoolmen, the vast majority had probably never heard of their existence; the spirit of doubt had not been awakened, and every tittle of the creed, ceremonies, traditions, and, to some, superstitions which had been handed down from their fathers was, as yet, received without hesitation and believed to be divine. As to the corruptions of the Roman Court and the exactions of the Curia, the Irish Church was ignorant of them; from the far western island the sacred city loomed mystical and wondrous, as distant mountain peaks seem in an haze. The ecclesiastical taxgatherer seldom resorted to the distant

and impoverished island. Macchiavelli bitterly remarks that the religious faith of Christian nations was in the direct ratio of their distance from Rome; of this sarcastic witticism the Irish Church was the chief example.* The Irishman of this period saw no reason why he should distrust or dislike the Pope or the doctrines of the Catholic Church; but, had even the ground been prepared for the new doctrine, the Reformation, as it was then preached on the Continent, would have been presented to both Celts and English in the precise mode most distasteful to each.

To the Teutonic mind society is an aggregate of free individuals; to the Celt the individual seems to exist only as a member of a society, living for and in his tribe, his chief, and family. The Church was to him in things divine, what his tribe was in things temporal. He existed spiritually, merely as a member of the divine society to whose protection he trusted, by its rights he was fortified, to its creeds and ceremonies he clung with childlike simplicity. To him the destruction of his Church must have seemed as terrible as the dispersion of his tribe. It was not in his nature to stand apart from others, self-reliant and alone.

Although the descendants of the Anglo-Norman and Saxon colonists still retained much of the English character, as the subsequent reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles proved, to them any assault upon the authority of the

*

"La quale religione se ne' principi della republica cristiana si fusse manteunta secondo che dal Datore d'essa ne fu ordenato, sarebbero gli stati e le republiche cristiane più unite e più felici assai ch' elle non sono. Ne si può fare altra maggiore coniettura della declenazione di essa, quanto e vedere come quelli popoli che sono più propinqui alla chiesa romana, capo della religione nostra, hanno meno religione."-De' Discorsi, Lib. i. cap. 12.

Church must have been peculiarly hateful. The English settlers in Ireland were under the joint protection of Church and King. In their hours of danger, if the King supported or was expected to support them with material aid, so was the Church ever ready to launch its excommunications against the hated Irish enemy. More even than this, it was through the Church the King claimed to be the lord of Ireland. A Pope had authorized the invasion, and given to the King of England an ostensible title. The estates, rights, and legal position of the English colonists, all ultimately rested on the great doctrine of Papal supremacy. To question this was to strike at the root of the English society in Ireland.

To comprehend the religious and social effects of the introduction of the Reformed Church, by Henry VIII., it is necessary to understand the religious condition of the country, and to attempt to realize what must have been the results of the denial of the Pope's supremacy, the dissolution of the monasteries, the abolition of the public and customary rites and ceremonies of the Church, and the substitution of an English Protestant and official episcopacy for the former Catholic bishops.

LECTURE III.

REIGN OF HENRY VIII.-CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND POLICY.

On the 11th June, 1534, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald renounced the King's authority, and went into ostentatiously open rebellion. This insurrection, though apparently most formidable, did not possess in itself any element of success. The first necessity for a rising is a probable cause to justify an appeal to arms, not merely some reason of policy not comprehended by the masses, nor the pretence that thus some future, perhaps problematical, evil may be averted; but either the insurgents must propose to remove some evil which affects every man, or many men, in their ordinary life; or they must appeal to some sentiment which will find an echo in the hearts of the masses. The Geraldine could not protest against the evil government of England, or promise to the masses justice and order. The English Government had been the tool of the Geraldine; by them and for their interest the executive had been wielded; for its evil doings they were of all the most responsible. They could not appeal to any sentiment of nationality, for there was no Irish nation; and in the season of their power they had ever aimed to render their faction and allies dominant over the other inhabitants of the island. The only object