state-craft
even on the Papacy when it returned to Rome. But again at the close of
the Renaissance, when Italian independence had collapsed, the Church
aspired to spiritual supremacy; and at this epoch she recompensed her
Spanish ally by aiding and abetting in the enslavement of the peninsula.
Still the Roman Pontiff, who acted as generalissimo of the Catholic
armies throughout Europe, was now more than ever recognized as an
Italian power.

VII.

In his review of Ranke's _History of the Popes_ Lord Macaulay insists
with brilliant eloquence upon the marvelous vitality and longevity of
the Roman Catholic Church. He describes the insurrection of the
intellect against her rule in Provence, and her triumph in the Crusade
which sacrificed a nation to the conception of mediaeval religious
unity. He dwells on her humiliation in exile at Avignon, her
enfeeblement during the Great Schism, and her restoration to splendor
and power at the close of the Councils. Then he devotes his vast
accumulated stores of learning and his force of rhetoric to explain the
Reformation, the Catholic Revival, and the Counter-Reformation. He
proves abundantly what there was in the organism of the Catholic Church
and in the temper of Papal Rome, which made these now reactionary powers
more than a match for Protestantism. 'In fifty years from the day on
which Luther publicly renounced communion with the Papacy, and burned
the bull of Leo before the gates of Wittenberg, Protestantism attained
its highest ascendency, an ascendency which it soon lost, and which it
never regained.' This sentence forms the theme for Lord Macaulay's
survey of the Catholic Revival. Dazzling and fascinating as that survey
is, it fails through misconception of one all-important point. Lord
Macaulay takes for granted that conflict in Europe, since the
publication of Luther's manifesto against Rome, has been between
Catholicism and Protestantism. Even after describing the cataclysm of
the French Revolution, he winds up his argument with these words: 'We
think it a most remarkable fact that no Christian nation, which did not
adopt the principles of the Reformation before the end of the sixteenth
century, should ever have adopted them. Catholic communities have, since
that time, become infidel and Catholic again; but none has become
Protestant.' This is tantamount to regarding Protestantism as something
fixed and final in itself, as a permanent and necessary form of
Christianit