could not be carried into effect), that a general council should
be made the permanent religious parliament of the whole continent,
with the pope as its chief executive officer. Had that intention been
accomplished, there would have been at this day no conflict between
science and religion; the convulsion of the Reformation would have been
avoided; there would have been no jarring Protestant sects. But the
Councils of Constance and Basle failed to shake off the Italian yoke,
failed to attain that noble result.

Catholicism was thus weakening; as its leaden pressure lifted, the
intellect of man expanded. The Saracens had invented the method of
making paper from linen rags and from cotton. The Venetians had brought
from China to Europe the art of printing. The former of these inventions
was essential to the latter. Hence forth, without the possibility of a
check, there was intellectual intercommunication among all men.

INVENTION OF PRINTING. The invention of printing was a severe blow to
Catholicism, which had, previously, enjoyed the inappreciable advantage
of a monopoly of intercommunication. From its central seat, orders could
be disseminated through all the ecclesiastical ranks, and fulminated
through the pulpits. This monopoly and the amazing power it conferred
were destroyed by the press. In modern times, the influence of the
pulpit has become insignificant. The pulpit has been thoroughly
supplanted by the newspaper.

Yet, Catholicism did not yield its ancient advantage without a struggle.
As soon as the inevitable tendency of the new art was detected, a
restraint upon it, under the form of a censorship, was attempted. It was
made necessary to have a permit, in order to print a book. For this, it
was needful that the work should have been read, examined, and approved
by the clergy. There must be a certificate that it was a godly and
orthodox book. A bull of excommunication was issued in 1501, by
Alexander VI., against printers who should publish pernicious doctrines.
In 1515 the Lateran Council ordered that no books should be printed but
such as had been inspected by the ecclesiastical censors, under pain of
excommunication and fine; the censors being directed "to take the utmost
care that nothing should be printed contrary to the orthodox faith."
There was thus a dread of religious discussion; a terror lest truth
should emerge.

But these frantic struggles of the powers of ignorance were unavailing.
Intellectu