it maintained the outward unity of the Church; it brought the nations into communication; it protected
the sanctity of marriage against the lust of princes; it moderated slavery; it softened the manners;
it inspired great enterprises; it promoted the extension of Christianity; it encouraged the cause of
learning and the cultivation of the arts of peace.
And even now the mission of the papacy is not yet finished. It seems to be as needful for
certain nations, and a lower stage of civilization, as ever. It still stands, not a forsaken ruin, but an
imposing pyramid completed to the very top. The Roman Church rose like a wounded giant from
the struggle with the Reformation, abolished in the Council of Trent some of the worst abuses,
reconquered a considerable portion of her lost territory in Europe, added to her dominion one-half
of the American Continent, and completed her doctrinal and governmental system in the decrees
of the Vatican Council. The Pope has lost his temporal power by the momentous events of 1870;
but he seems to be all the stronger in spiritual influence since 1878, when Leo XIII. was called to
occupy the chair of Leo X. An aged Italian priest shut up in the Vatican controls the consciences
of two hundred millions of human beings,—that is, nearly one-half of nominal Christendom,—and
rules them with the claim of infallibility in all matters of faith and duty. It is a significant fact, that
the greatest statesman of the nineteenth century, and founder of a Protestant empire, who at the
beginning of the Kulturkampf declared that he would never go to Canossa (1872), found it expedient,
after a conflict of ten years, to yield to an essential modification of the anti-papal May-laws of
1873, without, however, changing his religious conviction, or sacrificing the sovereignty of the
State; he even conferred an extraordinary distinction upon the Pope by selecting him as arbiter in
an international dispute between Germany and Spain (1885).^296 But it is perhaps still more
remarkable, that Leo XIII. in return sent to Prince Bismarck, the political Luther of Germany, the
Christ Order, which was never given to a Protestant before, and that he supported him in the political
campaign of 1887.
- How can we justify the Reformation, in view of the past history and present vitality of
the Papacy?
Here the history of the Jewish Church, which is a type of the Christian, furnishes us with a
most instructive illustration and conclusive answer. The Levitical hierarchy, which culminated in
the high priest, was of divine appointment, and a necessary institution for the preservation of the
theocracy. And yet what God intended to be a blessing became a curse by the guilt of man: Caiaphas,
the lineal descendant of Aaron, condemned the Messiah as a false prophet and blasphemer, and the
synagogue cast out His apostles with curses.
What happened in the old dispensation was repeated on a larger scale in the history of
Christianity. An antichristian element accompanied the papacy from the very beginning, and
culminated in the corruptions at the time of the Reformation. The greater its assumed and conceded
power, the greater were the danger and temptation of abuse. One of the best of Popes, Gregory the
Great, protested against the title of, "universal bishop," as an antichristian presumption. The Greek
Church, long before the Reformation, charged the Bishop of Rome with antichristian usurpation;
and she adheres to her protest to this day. Not a few Popes, such as Sergius III., John XII., Benedict
IX., John XXIII., and Alexander VI., were guilty of the darkest crimes of depraved human nature;
and yet they called themselves successors of Peter, and vicars of Christ. Who will defend the papal
(^296) Alexander VI., by a stroke of his pen, divided America between Spain and Portugal: Leo XIII., in 1886, gave the insignificant
Caroline Islands in the Pacific to Spain, but the free commerce to Germany.