what was required was the complete amputation of the rotten mass. In
their judgment it was better to leave things as they were until a
thorough eradication could be accomplished, and this, at the time, was
obviously impossible. Not understanding, perhaps, how much human affairs
are developed according to law, and how little by the volition of
individuals, they liberally conceded that Catholicism had been the
civilizing agency of Europe, and had become inwoven with the social
fabric for good or for evil. It could not now be withdrawn without
pulling the whole texture to pieces. Moreover, the curtain of papal
authority, which at one time enveloped all Europe in its ample folds,
had, in the course of these late events, been contracted and stretched
across the Continent, dividing the northern and southern nations from
each other. The people of the south saw on its embroidered surface
nothing but forms of usefulness and beauty, they on the north a
confusion of meaningless threads. But the few who considered it as a
whole, and understood the relations of both sides, knew well enough that
the one is the necessary incident of the other, and that it is quite as
useless to seek for explanations as to justify appearances. To them it
was perfectly clear that the tranquillity and happiness of Christendom
were best subserved by giving no encouragement to opinions which had
already occasioned so much trouble, and which seemed to contain in their
very constitution principles of social disorganization.

[Sidenote: Influence of the nature of the Reformation.] A reason for the
sudden loss of expansive force in the Reformation is found in its own
intrinsic nature. The principle of decomposition which it represented,
and with which it was inextricably entangled, necessarily implied
oppugnancy. For a short season the attention of Protestantism was
altogether directed to the papal authority from which it had so recently
separated itself; but, with its growing strength and ascertained
independence, that object ceased to occupy it, becoming, as it were,
more distant and more obscure. Upon the subordinate divisions which were
springing from it, or which were of collateral descent from the original
Catholic stock, the whole view of each denomination was concentrated.
The bitterness once directed against the papacy lost none of its
intensity when pointed at rivals or enemies nearer home. Nor was it
alone dissensions among the greater sects, opposit