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instance, of a Venus pleading to Jupiter, in the Farnese palace, there is reverence, mingled with anxiety and grace, in the countenance of the pleading figure and it is an individual's face and form. It is not the faultless, inexpressive Grecian countenance, belonging to a class rather than an individual, such as represents Venus in the works of other painters. Apollos, Venuses, Apostles, Madonnas have, in fact, become, both in marble and on canvass, conventional figures, which the spectator refers not to any natural type of the beautiful within his own feeling, nor to any individualisation of nature's excellencies; but to an acquired taste — a taste which a century ago would have represented and have admired an Apollo in a full-bottomed wig, and a Venus in a hoop-petticoat and flounces, and now represents and admires them in costumes, attitudes, and style of countenances, quite as widely apart from the natural in any human beings we recognise, or have fellow-feeling with. Until sculptors and painters emancipate themselves, as our poets have done, from this classical imitation and prestige, and follow natural instead of conventional types, as Michael Angelo and Raphael have done, the sign-painter and gingerbread-baker may claim brotherhood in their arts.

CHAP. XXI.

CHURCH OF ROME.- -CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM.

THE power of ancient Rome in the meridian of her glory was not so wonderful as her subsequent and her present dominion over the mind of man. Physical power we can understand. We see its growth. We see its cause along with its effect. We see armies in front, and civil authority in rear. But this moral power, this government over the mind extending through regions more vast and distant than ever the Roman arms conquered, is the most extraordinary phenomenon in human history. The Papist claims it as a proof of the Divine origin and truth of his doctrine. The Protestant and the philosopher inquire what principles of human origin give this power over the minds of men such wonderful extension and durability. To compare the machinery of each establishment, the Catholic and Protestant, the means by which each of these churches works upon the human mind- an inquiry altogether distinct from any investigation or comparison of the scriptural foundations of their different doctrines — would be a noble subject for the philosopher and historian, and one belonging strictly to metaphysical and political science, not to theology. It would bring out many of the most hidden springs of mental action, would elucidate many of those great moral influences which have agitated nations, and which are sometimes dormant but never extinct in society; and would explain some of the most important historical events and social arrangements of Europe. A few observations upon the present state and working of the machinery of each

Catholic and Protestant lands, may turn the attention perhaps of the philosophic inquirer to this vast and curious subject.

Catholicism has certainly a much stronger hold over the human mind than Protestantism. The fact is visible and undeniable, and perhaps not unaccountable. The fervour of devotion among these Catholics, the absence of all worldly feelings in their religious acts, strikes every traveller who enters a Roman Catholic church abroad. They seem to have no reserve, no false shame, false pride, or whatever the feeling may be, which, among us Protestants, makes the individual exercise of devotion private, hidden - an affair of the closet. Here, and every where in Catholic countries, you see well-dressed people, persons of the higher as well as of the lower orders, on their knees upon the pavement of the church, totally regardless of and unregarded by the crowd of passengers in the aisles moving to and fro. I have Christian charity enough to believe, and I do not envy that man's mind who does not believe, that this is quite sincere devotion, and not hypocrisy, affectation, or attempt at display. It is so common, that none of these motives could derive the slightest gratification from the act-not more than a man's vanity could be gratified by his appearing in shoes, or a hat, where all wear the same. In no Protestant place of worship do we witness the same intense abstraction in prayer, the same unaffected devotion of mind. The beggar-woman comes in here and kneels down by the side of the princess, and evidently no feeling of intrusion suggests itself in the mind of either. To the praise of the Papists be it said, no worldly distinctions, or human rights of property, much less money payment for places in a place of worship, appear to enter into their imaginations. Their churches are God's houses, open alike to all his rational creatures, without distinction of high or low, rich or poor. All who have a soul to be saved come freely to worship. They have no family pews, or seats for genteel souls, and seats for vulgar

souls. Their houses of worship are not let out, like theatres, or opera houses, or Edinburgh kirks, for money rents for the sittings. The public mind is evidently more religionised than in Protestant countries. Why should such strong devotional feeling be more widely diffused and more conspicuous among people holding erroneous doctrines, than among us Protestants holding right doctrines? This question can only be solved by comparing the machinery of each church.

Although our doctrine be right, our church machinery, that is, our clerical establishment, is not so effective, and perhaps, from the very reason that our doctrine is right, cannot be so effective as that of the Catholics. In the Popish church the clergyman is more of a sacred character than it is possible to invest him with in our Protestant church, and more cut off from all worldly affairs. It is very up-hill work in the church of England, and still more so in the church of Scotland, for the clergyman to impress his flock with the persuasion that he is a better man, and more able to instruct them, than any other equally pious and equally well-educated man in the parish, whose worldly circumstances have given him equal opportunity and leisure to cultivate his mind; and in every parish, owing to the diffusion of knowledge, good education, and religious feeling among our upper and middle classes, there are now such men. The Scotch country clergyman in this generation does not, as in the last, stand in the position of being the only regularly educated, enlightened, religious man perhaps in his whole congregation. He has also the cares of a family, of a housekeeping, of a glebe in Scotland, of tithe in England, and, in short, the busisiness and toils, the motives of action, and objects of interest that other men have. It is difficult, or in truth impossible in our state of society, to impress on his flock that he is in any way removed from their condition, from their failings or feelings; and it would be but a delusion if he succeeded, for he is a human being in the

the same motives and objects with themselves in his daily life.

The

The machinery of the Roman Catholic church is altogether different, and produces a totally different result. The clergyman is entirely separated from individual interests, or worldly objects of ordinary life, by his celibacy. This separates him from all other men. Be their knowledge, their education, their piety, what it will, they belong to the rest of mankind in feelings, interests, and motives of action, he to a peculiar class. His avarice, his ambition, or whatever evil passions may actuate him, lie all within his own class, and bring him into no comparison or collision with other men. restriction of celibacy led, no doubt, to monstrous disorder and depravity in the age preceding the Reformation an age, however, in which gross licentiousness of conduct and language seems to have pervaded all society —but it is a vulgar prejudice to suppose that the Catholic clergy of the present times are not as pure and chaste in their lives as the unmarried of the female sex among ourselves. Instances may occur of a different character, but quite as rarely as among an equal number of our unmarried females in Britain of the higher educated classes. The restriction itself of celibacy is unnatural, and in our church is properly done away with; because we receive the elements of the Lord's Supper as symbolical only, not as being any thing else than bread and wine in virtue of the priestly consecration. The Papists, who receive the elements as transubstantiated by the consecration, require very naturally and properly that the priest should be of a sanctified class removed from human impurity, contamination, or sensual lusts, as well as from all worldly affairs, as far as human nature can by human means be. Both churches are right, and consequent in their usage and reasoning, according to their different doctrines. The Puseyites of the church of England alone are inconsequent; for if they claim apostolic succession, and apostolic reverence and authority for the clerical body, they should lead the apostolic

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