Italy too had its Protestants; but Italy killed them; managed to extinguish Protestantism. Italy put up silently with Practical Lies of all kinds; and shrugging its shoulders, preferred going into Dillettantism and the Fine Arts. The Italians, instead of the sacred service of Fact and Performance, did Music, Painting, and the like:-till even that has become impossible for them; and no noble Nation sunk from virtue to virtù, ever offered such a spectacle before. He that will prefer Dillettantism in this world for his outfit, shall have it; but all the gods will depart from him; and manful veracity, earnestness of purpose, devout depth of soul, shall no more be his. He can if he like make himself a soprano, and sing for hire; and probably that is the real goal for him.

But the sharpest-cut example is France; to which we constantly return for illustration. France, with its keen intellect, saw the truth and saw the falsity, in those Protestant times; and, with its ardour of generous impulse, was prone enough to adopt the former. France was within a hairsbreadth of becoming actually Protestant. But France saw good to massacre Protestantism, and end it in the night of St. Bartholomew 1572. The celestial Apparitor of Heaven's Chancery, so we may speak, the Geinus of Fact and Veracity, has left his Writ of Summons; Writ was read;—and replied to in this manner. The Genius of Fact and Veracity accordingly withdrew; —was staved-off, got kept away, for two hundred years. But the Writ of Summons had been served; Heaven's Messenger could not stay away forever. No; he returned duly; with accounts run up, on compound interest, to the actual hour, in 1792;-and then, at last, there had to be a "Protestantism; and we know of what kind that was! -F. III. 8.

REVIVAL OF ROMANISM.

POPERY cannot come back, any more than Paganism can, which also lingers in some countries. But,

indeed, it is with these things as with the ebbing of the sea: you look at the waves oscillating hither, thither on the beach; for minutes you cannot tell how it is going; look in half an hour where it is,-look in half a century where your Popehood is! Alas, would there were no greater danger to our Europe than the poor old Pope's revival! Thor may as soon try to revive. And withal this oscillation has a meaning. The poor old Popehood will not die away entirely, as Thor has done, for some time yet; nor ought it. We may say, the Old never dies till this happen, Till all the soul of good that was in it have got itself transfused into the New. While a good work remains capable of being done by the Romish form; or, what is inclusive of all, while a pious life remains capable of being led by it, just so long, if we consider, will this or the other human soul adopt it, go about as a living witness of it. So long it will obtrude itself on the eye of us who reject. it, till we in our practice too have appropriated whatsoever of truth was in it. Then, but also not till then, it will have no charm more for any man. It lasts here

for a purpose.

Let it last as long as it can.

FORMULAS.

-H. IV.

WHAT we call 'Formulas' are not in their origin bad; they are indispensably good. Formula is method, habitude; found wherever man is found. Formulas fashion themselves as Paths do, as beaten Highways, leading towards some sacred or high object, whither many men are bent. Consider it. One man, full of heartfelt earnest impulse, finds-out a way of doing somewhat,were it of uttering his soul's reverence for the Highest, were it but of fitly saluting his fellow-man. An inventor was needed to do that, a poet; he has articulated the dim-struggling thought that dwelt in his own and many hearts. This is his way of doing that; these are his footsteps, the beginning of a 'Path.' And now see:

the second man travels naturally in the footsteps of his foregoer, it is the easiest method. In the footsteps of his foregoer, yet with improvements, with changes where such seem good; at all events with enlargements, the Path ever widening itself as more travel it;―till at last there is a broad Highway whereon the whole world may travel and drive. While there remains a City or Shrine, or any Reality to drive to, at the farther end, the Highway shall be right welcome! When the City is gone, we will forsake the Highway. In this manner all Institutions, Practices, Regulated Things in the world have come into existence, and gone out of existence. Formulas all begin by being full of substance; you may call them the skin, the articulation into shape, into limbs and skin, of a substance that is already there: they had not been there otherwise. Idols, as we said, are not idolatrous till they become doubtful, empty for the worshipper's heart. Much as we talk against Formulas, I hope no one of us is ignorant withal of the high significance of true Formulas; that they were, and will ever be, the indispensablest furniture of our habitation in this world. -H. V.

FORMS.

ALL substances clothe themselves in forms: but there are suitable true forms, and then there are untrue unsuitable. As the briefest definition, one might say, Forms which grow round a substance, if we rightly understand that, will correspond to the real nature and purport of it, will be true, good; forms which are consciously put round a substance, bad. I invite you to reflect on this. It distinguishes true from false in Ceremonial Form, earnest solemnity from empty pageant, in all human things. -H. VI.

VOLTAIRE AND SUPERSTITION.

INTOLERANCE, animosity call forward no cause; and least of all beseems the cause of moral and religious

truth. A wise man has well reminded us, that 'in any controversy, the instant we feel angry, we have already ceased striving for Truth, and began striving for Ourselves.' Let no man doubt but Voltaire and his disciples, like all men and all things that live and act in God's world, will one day be found to have worked together for good.' Nay that, with all his evil, he has already accomplished good, must be admitted in the soberest calculation. How much do we include in this little word: He gave the death-stab to modern Superstition! That horrid incubus, which dwelt in darkness, shunning the light, is passing away; with all its racks, and poison-chalices, and foul sleeping-draughts, is passing away without return. It was a most weighty service. Does not the cry of "No Popery," and some vague terror or sham terror of 'Smithfield fires,' still act on certain minds in these very days? He who sees even a little way into the signs of the times sees well that both the Smithfield fires, and the Edinburgh thumb-screws (for these too must be held in remembrance) are things which have long, very long, lain behind us; divided from us by a wall of Centuries, transparent indeed, but more impassable than adamant. For, as we said, Superstition is in its death-lair: the last agonies may endure for decades, or for centuries; but it carries the iron in its heart, and will not vex the world any more. -M. Voltaire.

RELIGION IN DANGER.

THAT, with Superstition, Religion is also passing away, seems to us a still more ungrounded fear. Religion cannot pass away. The burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky; but the stars are there, and will reappear. On the whole, we must repeat the often repeated saying that it is unworthy a religious man to view an irreligious one either with alarm or aversion; or with any other feeling than regret, and hope, and

brotherly commiseration. If he seek Truth, is he not our brother and to be pitied? If he do not seek Truth, is he not still our brother, and to be pitied still more? Old Ludovicus Vives has a story of a clown that killed his ass because it had drunk up the moon, and he thought the world could ill spare that luminary. So he killed his ass, ut lunam redderet. The clown was well intentioned, but unwise. Let us not imitate him, let us not slay a faithful servant, who has carried us far. He has not drunk the moon; but only the reflection of the moon, in his own poor water-pail, where too, it may be, he was drinking with purposes the most harmless.

-M. Voltaire.

MOVEMENT AND CHANGE.

ALL human things are, have been and forever will be, in Movement and Change;-as, indeed, for beings that exist in Time, by virtue of Time, and are made of Time, might have been long since understood. In some provinces, it is true, as in Experimental Science, this discovery is an old one; but in most others it belongs wholly to these latter days. How often, in former ages, by eternal Creeds, eternal Forms of Government and the like, has it been attempted, fiercely enough, and with destructive violence, to chain the Future under the Past; and say to the Providence, whose ways with man are mysterious, and through the great deep: Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther! A wholly insane attempt; and for man himself, could it prosper, the frightfullest of all enchantments, a very Life-in-Death. Man's task here below, the destiny of every individual man, is to be in turns Apprentice and Workman; or say rather, Scholar, Teacher, Discoverer: by nature he has a strength for learning, for imitating; but also a strength for acting, for knowing on his own account. Are we not in a world seen to be Infinite; the relations lying closest together modified by those latest discovered and lying farthest asunder? Could you ever spell-bind