THE PRESENT THE IMAGE OF THE PAST.
Failure of the Reformation in Italy--Causes of this--Italian
Martyrs--Their great Numbers--Consequences of rejecting the
Reformation--The _Present_ the Avenger of the _Past_--Extract from
the _Siecle_ to this Effect--An "Accepted Time" for
Nations--Alternative offered to the several European Nations in the
Sixteenth Century--According to their Choice then, so is their
Position now--Protestant and Popish Nations contrasted.
Of the singular interest that attaches to Italy during the first days of
the Reformation I need not speak. The efforts of the Italians to throw
off the papal yoke were great, but unsuccessful. Why these efforts came
to nought would form a difficult but instructive subject of inquiry.
They failed, perhaps, partly from being made so near the centre of the
Roman power,--partly from the want of union and comprehension in the
plans of the Italian reformers,--partly by reason of the dependence of
the petty princes of the country upon the Pope,--and partly because the
great sovereigns of Europe, although not unwilling that the Papacy
should be weakened in their own country, by no means wished its
extinction in Italy. But though Italy did not reach the goal of
religious freedom, the roll of her martyrs includes the names of
statesmen, scholars, nobles, priests, and citizens of all ranks. From
the Alps to Sicily there was not a province in which there were not
adherents of the doctrines of the Reformation, nor a city of any note in
which there was not a little church, nor a man of genius or learning who
was not friendly to the movement. There was scarce a prison whose walls
did not immure some disciple of the Lord Jesus; and scarce a public
square which did not reflect the gloomy light of the martyr's pile. Much
has been done, by mutilating the public records, to consign these events
to oblivion, and the names of many of the martyrs have been
irretrievably lost; still enough remains to show that the doctrines of
the Reformation were then widely spread, and that the numbers who
suffered for them in Italy were great. Need I mention the names of
Milan, of Vicenza, of Verona, of Venice, of Padua, of Ferrara,--one of
the brightest in this constellation,--of Bologna, of Florence, of
Sienna, of Rome? Most of these cities are renowned in the classic
annals; all of them shared in the wealth and independence which the
commerce of the middle ages conferred on the Italian republics; all of
them figure in the revival of letters in the fifteenth century; but they
are encompassed by a holier and yet more unfading halo, as the spots
where the Italian reformers lived,--where they preached the blessed
truths of the Bible to their countrymen,--and where they sealed their
testimony with their blood. "During the whole of this century," that is,
the sixteenth, says Dr M'Crie, in his "Progress and Suppression of the
Reformation in Italy," "the prisons of the Inquisition in Italy, and
particularly at Rome, were filled with victims, including persons of
noble birth, male and female, men of letters, and mechanics. Multitudes
were condemned to penance, to the galleys, or other arbitrary
punishments; and from time to time individuals were put to death." "The
following description," says the same historian, "of the state of
matters in 1568 is from the pen of one who was residing at that time on
the borders of Italy:--'At Rome some are every day burnt, hanged, or
beheaded. All the prisons and places of confinement are filled; and they
are obliged to build new ones. That large city cannot furnish jails for
the number of pious persons which are continually apprehended.'"
I had time to ruminate on these things as I paced to and fro in the
empty midnight streets of Brescia. Methought I could hear, in the silent
night, the cry of the martyrs whose ashes sleep in the plains around,
saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge
our blood on them that dwell on the earth!" Yes; God has judged, and is
avenging; and the doom takes the very form that the crime wore. An era
of dungeons, and chains, and victims, has again come round to Italy; but
this time it is "the men which dwell on the" papal "earth" that are
suffering. When the Italians permitted Arnold, and thousands such as he,
to be put to death, they were just opening the way for the wrath of the
Papacy to reach themselves, which it has now done. Ah! little do those
who gnash their teeth in the extremity of their torments, and curse the
priests as the authors of these, reflect that their own and their
fathers' wickedness, still unrepented of, has not less to do with their
present miseries than the priestly tyranny which they so bitterly and
justly execrate. In those ages these men were the _tools_ of the
priesthood; in this they are its _victims_. Thus it is that the Present,
in papal Europe, and especially in Italy, rises stamped with the
likeness of the Past. The _Siecle_ of Paris, while the _Siecle_ was yet
free, brought out this fact admirably, when it reminded the champions of
Popery that the horrors of the first French Revolution were not new
things, but old, which the Jacobins inherited from the Papists; and went
on to ask them "if they have forgotten that the Convention found all the
laws of the Terror written upon the past? The Committee of Public Safety
was first contrived for the benefit of the monarchy. Were not the
commissions called revolutionary tribunals first used against the
Protestants? The drums which Santerre beat round the scaffolds of
royalists followed a practice first adopted to drown the psalms of the
reformed pastors. Were not the fusilades first used at the bidding of
the priests to crush heresy? Did not the law of the suspected compel
Protestants to nourish soldiers in their houses, as a punishment for
refusing to go to mass? Were not the houses burned down of those who
frequented Protestant preaching? Were not the properties of the
Protestant emigrants confiscated? Did not the Marshal Nouilles order a
war against bankers? Was not the law of the maximum, which regulated
prices, practised by the regency? Was not the law of requisition for the
public roads practised to prepare the roads for Queen Marie Leczinska?
It is true, many priests perished in the Terror, but they were men of
terror perishing by terror,--men of the sword perishing by the sword."
I could not help feeling, too, when reflecting upon the state of
Brescia, and of all the towns of Italy, and, indeed, of all the
countries of Europe, that to nations, as well as individuals, there is
"an accepted time" and a "day of salvation," which if they miss, they
irremediably perish. If they enter not in when the door is open, it is
in vain that they knock when it is shut. The same sentiment has been
expressed by our great poet, in the well-known lines,--
"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their lives is bound
In shallows and in miseries."
The sixteenth century started the European nations in a new career, and
put it in the power of each to choose the principle of will or
authority,--the compendious principle according to which both Church and
State were governed under the Papacy, or that of law,--expressing not
the will of one man, but the collective reason of the nation,--the
distinctive principle of government under Protestantism. The century in
question placed government by the canon law or government by the Bible
side by side, and invited the nations of Europe to make their choice.
The nations made their choice. Some ranged themselves on this side, some
on that; and the sixteenth century saw them standing abreast, like
competitors at the ancient Olympic games, ready, on the signal being
given, to dart forward in the race for victory.
They did not stand abreast, be it observed. The several competitors in
this high race did not start on equally advantageous terms. The rich and
powerful nations declared for Popery and arbitrary government; the weak
and third-rate ones, for Protestantism. On one side stood Spain, then at
the head of Europe,--rich in arts, in military glory, in the genius and
chivalry of its people, in the resources of its soil, and mistress,
besides, of splendid colonies. By her side stood France,--the equal of
Spain in art, in civilization, in military genius, and inferior only to
her proud neighbour in the single article of colonies. Austria came
next, and then Italy. Such were the illustrious names ranged on the one
side. All of them were powerful, opulent, highly civilized; and some of
them cherished the recollections of imperishable renown, which is a
mighty power in itself. We have no such names to recount on the other
side. Those nations which entered the lists against the others were but
second and third-rate Powers: Britain, which scarce possessed a
foot-breadth of territory beyond her own island,--Holland, a country
torn from the waves,--the Netherlands and Prussia, neither of which were
of much consideration. In every particular the Protestant nations were
inferior to the Papal nations, save in the single article of their
Protestantism: nevertheless, that one quality has been sufficient to
counterbalance, and far more than counterbalance, all the advantages
possessed by the others. Since the day we speak of, what a different
career has been that of these nations! Three centuries have sufficed to
reverse their position. Civilization, glory, extent of territory, and
material wealth, have all passed over from the one side to the other. Of
the Protestant nations, Britain alone is more powerful than the whole of
combined Europe in the sixteenth century.
But, what is remarkable also, we find the various nations of Europe at
this hour on the same side on which they ranged themselves in the
sixteenth century. Those that neglected the opportunity which that
century brought them of adopting Protestantism and a free government are
to this day despotic. France has submitted to three bloody revolutions,
in the hope of recovering what she criminally missed in the sixteenth
century; but her tears and her blood have been shed in vain. The course
of Spain, and that of the Italian States, have been not unsimilar. They
have plunged into revolutions in quest of liberty, but have found only a
deeper despotism. They have dethroned kings, proclaimed new
constitutions, brought statesmen and citizens by thousands to the block;
they have agonized and bled; but they have been unable to reverse their
fatal choice at the Reformation.