explain another point insisted on by Lord
Macaulay--namely, that those nations in which Protestantism took root
have steadily advanced, while the decay of Southern Europe can be mainly
ascribed to the Catholic Revival. The one group of nations have made
progress, not indeed because they were Protestants, but because they
were more obedient to the Divine Mind, more in sympathy with the vital
principle of movement, more open to rationalism. The other group of
nations have declined, because Catholicism after the year 1530, wilfully
separated itself from truth and liberty and living force, and
obstinately persisted in serving the false deities of an antiquated
religion.

VIII.

Few periods in history illustrate the law of reaction and retrogression,
to which all processes of civil progress are subject, more plainly and
more sadly than the one with which I have been dealing in these volumes.
The Renaissance in Italy started with the fascination of a golden dream;
and like the music of a dream, it floated over Europe. But the force
which had stimulated humanity to this delightful reawakening of senses
and intelligence, stirred also the slumbering religious conscience, and
a yearning after personal emancipation. Protestantism arose like a stern
reality, plunging the nations into confused and deadly conflict,
arousing antagonisms in established orders, unleashing cupidities and
passions which had lurked within the breasts of manifold adventurers.
The fifteenth century closed to a solemn symphony. After the middle of
the sixteenth, discord sounded from every quarter of the Occidental
world. Italy lay trampled on and dying. Spain reared her dragon's crest
of menacing ambition and remorseless fanaticism. France was torn by
factions and devoured by vicious favorites of corrupt kings. Germany
heaved like a huge ocean in the grip of a tumultuous gyrating cyclone.
England passed through a complex revolution, the issue of which, under
the sway of three Tudor monarchs, appeared undecided, until the fourth
by happy fate secured the future of her people. It is not to be wondered
that, in these circumstances, a mournful discouragement should have
descended on the age; that men should have become more dubitative; that
arts and letters should have seemed to pine upon unfertile ground. The
nutriment they needed was absorbed by plants of fiercer and ranker
growth, religious hatreds, political greeds, relentless passions burning
in the hear