was enjoying the amusements of the palace, while the suppliant Emperor was kept for three days with bare feet, and head uncovered, girt with sackcloth round his shivering limbs, that the holy father might have the satisfaction of witnessing his humiliation; and at last he only received absolution on the condition that he was to lay aside all regal honours until a congress should decide his fate. But the arrogant Pope had gone too far, the feelings of the man and the Emperor were roused, and the reproaches of his vassals urged him to vindicate his honour and his rank. Henry re-assumed the ensigns of royalty, and his enemies proclaiming another Emperor, war ensued; Henry was in the end victorious, and as soon as he felt his kingdom again his own, marched to Rome, and Gregory would have found the end which his conduct perhaps had merited, had he not in time effected his escape. Henry placed another Pope in St. Peter's chair, and Gregory ended his turbulent unchristian life in exile, and yet after his death was had in honour, even by those who had felt his tyranny and insolence.

Even in this century, when the whole earth, to a careless observer, seems slumbering under the dominion of an anti-christian pope and an anti-scriptural religion, there appear some few who protested against this state of things, and dissented from the follies, the vices, the superstition of the times. Some even shed their blood

for the doctrines they professed, but I do not know enough of those doctrines to give you an account of them, nor do I believe they are known even to the best-informed narrators of ecclesiastical history.

CENTURY XII.

ABELARD AND BERNARD THE CATHARI.

THE Cross had been once again displayed on the towers of Jerusalem, and the crescent of Mahomet sank before the enthusiasm of the chivalrous Crusaders. But in a short time the Saracens, recovering from their confusion and alarm, rallied their forces, and after defeating the Christians in Syria and Palestine, threatened once more the Holy City. Europe trembled for its fate, but by dear-bought experience, her princes, her heroes, and her people, had learnt the folly of endeavouring a second, and, it seemed, a fruitless crusade. The pope was unable now to kindle the flame of enthusiasm, a more ardent spirit was needed, and this appeared in the celebrated Bernard, Abbot of Clairval. He left his convent to plead for the holy sepulchre; his ardour, his eloquence, and his enthusiasm awoke the slumbering zeal of Europe, and kindled it, in Germany and France, into a flame. Kings and princes heard his appeals, and listened to his assurances of success from heaven in the sacred

work: Bernard was considered as a prophet inspired by heaven, and at his words monarchs and armies set out for the recovery of the Holy Land. Philip of France, Richard of England, the Emperor Frederic, with almost all of the warlike nobility or youth of Europe, pressed eagerly forward to reap immortal laurels, and secure immortal bliss upon the fields of Palestine. The event might have been anticipated: it proved that Bernard's hopes and assurances and prophecies were alike fatal and untrue. The Eastern churches in the end fell beneath the followers of Mahomet, or were destroyed in the contentions of their European brethren, and the name and the power of Christians vanished for centuries from Jerusalem.

Bernard after this shone as the most distinguished luminary of the twelfth century; his preaching was universally admired; and he has since ranked high among the saints of Rome. Perhaps his next labour was of a more useful description, than preaching up the Crusades: but, in order to show you what this was, I must introduce you to another person, already too well known, but one whom, I fear, was a very bad and dangerous man ;-this was Peter Abelard, a man of great genius, learning, and accomplishments, but puffed up with a spirit of vain philosophy and of self-sufficiency. Abelard seems no very uncommon character: naturally confident and presumptuous, he was elated by the applause bestowed on his genius and talents, and in a

spirit of youthful presumption believed himself capable of accomplishing whatever he undertook; imagining his genius sufficient to master all difficulties. Such a spirit, brought to the study of profane literature or the sciences, might indeed, by its ardour, have conquered difficulties, and ascended the heights and dived into the depths of human learning; but, brought to the study of the Scriptures, where the wisdom of man is foolishness, it but led the presuming, self-sufficient student to depart from the pure and simple doctrines of the Gospel, and to prefer the novelty of error to the certainty of truth. Abelard's story affords a warning to confident, presumptuous youth, and shows us all, the necessity of Divine assistance, in revealing to us the lovely simplicity of the Gospel.

Abelard, deeming himself adequate to unravel all Scripture mysteries, scorned to implore the aid of the Spirit of God, without whose illumination the mind of man may wander in darkness, even where all is light; for "the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not." He declared, that a man of genius had need to seek no other help to understand the Scriptures, than the energy of his own mind. With rash selfconfidence, after studying the prophet Ezekiel a single night, he presumed to declare himself equal, by the exertion of his own genius alone, to the complete explanation of those deep prophecies, and actually lectured upon them in public. In those