threw a dim religious light on the tesselated pavement, suggestive of ecclesiastical origin. But there was one portion of the ancient dwelling place conspicuous above the rest-the grand old staircase, with its magnificently carved balustrades, black from age, which had almost an incongruous appearance there; it seemed scarcely in keeping with the height and breadth of the whole mansion. Somehow, the staircase was suggestive of an origin which might not have accorded with a mere secular habitation; and those who looked once, always looked again and pondered; it was so disappointing to think that such a superb staircase only led to a series of common-place sleeping chambers above. Truly, the eye might rest and the mind ponder on the dark oak carving, and on the gradual ascent; for tradition said the fortunes of the Irwin race were suspended on that ancient staircase. The timber had originally been procured from the ruins on the estate; a curse having been invoked on the family, because of cutting down an aged yew tree (how aged none living could tell) which overshadowed the graves of the holy men, whose once favoured monastic retreat lay in heaps around; arches, cloisters, graves, and Church, heaped together; desecrated and forgotten, except when folks exclaimed, "How beautiful the ruins are!" The curse was to the effect, that a son should not succeed a father, so long as the staircase remained in Irwin Hall; and strange to say, for nearly a century it had proved true. Strange also was a legend attached to a broken altar stone at the east end of the ruins; it declared that three men, wrights or carpenters by trade, passing through the hallowed precincts, were offended because this stone was in their way. They were not quite sober, and vainly strove to remove it; and at length, in sottish and impotent rage, broke the stone with fearful imprecations. Two of these men were drowned in crossing the river; and the third destroyed himself even within the consecrated precincts, where the broken altar stone remained as a memorial and a warning.

But the Irwins had been a heedless and unbelieving race, some scoffed, some laughed; but still, son had not succeeded father in a direct line since the period when the old yew tree fell

The fine pro

and the staircase arose. perty had come into their possession at the time of the so-called Reformation; when the monastery on the Irwin banks was demolished by the destroyer, indiscriminately with so many others. They had no scruples in appropriating the gift conferred on them, nor was the present possessor likely to be troubled with such scruples any more than his ancestors, seeing that he was a young man on the eve of marrying into the Colville family, famous for their detestation of papacy in all its branches, and every thing that savoured of it, of course including superstitious and traditionary lore. Miss Colville, the bride elect, was the pet daughter of a large circle, branching off into various directions from the old puritanic parent stem, but all tinctured, more or less, with puritan and intolerant doctrines; some of them indeed were anabaptists, some independents, but whatever sect they belonged to, all joined in heartily and ignorantly condemning Catholic usages. Miss Colville herself was a handsome girl, rather bold in manner as in beauty, a dashing equestrian, and of an hilarious disposition, which seemed only to find vent when in active exercise, such as riding, dancing, or walking afforded. Wise people turned up their eyes sagaciously, and repeated the trite saying, namely, that men generally fall in love (as it is termed) with their opposites; in this case, however, it was the young lady who had decidedly reversed the usual mode of proceeding, and had fallen in love, and made it very evident too, with the young gentleman, her opposite certainly in disposition and manner. Mr. Irwin was reserved, cold, and proud, even to frequent hauteur of demeanour, and of habits so indolent and luxurious that he barely stopped short of positive effeminacy-an effeminacy which might in time affect the mind, either for good or evil, according to the circumstances which might be developed in his career. A rather heavy, or inanimate countenance, was however redeemed from vacancy of expression, by eyes of peculiar darkness, depth, and feeling, eyes which seemed to be searching for something they had as yet not found, eyes which rested on the beautiful with tenderness, and which

doubtless, if they should find it, would flash with passionate emotions. Mr. Irwin had quietly suffered himself to be courted by Miss Colville and her family; and he found everything settled for him so comfortably, marriage seemed so easy and such a matter of course, that he was led into it irresistingly ; and rode, and walked, and listened to the country belle, without once acting the absurd part of an ardent lover, and sometimes almost forgetting he was an enviable betrothed. Every body knows that country folks will travel almost any distance to attend fêtes or balls, and that even the descendants of stern Cromwellian puritans have degenerated into pleasure seekers; and the Colvilles were by no means backward in their liking for such convivialities, and many miles would they go to attend a festive gathering. The marriage day was fixed, and a brilliant ball which took place previously at the country town assembly rooms, crowded by all the fashion and nobility of the shire, was of course graced by the presence of the fiancée, and her train of connections and friends; " for the rich have many friends"-an old and somewhat unfashionable comment, may be.

Miss

Colville was attended by her passive betrothed, but Mr. Irwin never danced; he rode with her, he walked with her, he listened to her laughter and jesting, and he smiled. But as to dancing, that was too much to exact from him; it was impossible to imagine Mr. Irwin dancing, notwithstanding his graceful bearing and slight form. So he stood leaning wherever he was not in the way, and looked on; but though he looked at the dancers, his eyes were dreary in their expression, and told more of toleration and endurance than of pleasure in the dazzling scene. Towards the middle of the evening, his countenance suddenly brightened, as he caught sight of a college friend who had just returned from the continent, and like himself was not dancing. Mr. Clinton was also watching the dancers, but with interest and pleasure depicted on his features, and he approached Mr. Irwin saying, "Is'nt she a lovely creature, quite in your style, I should think, Irwin; it is her first ball too, and she is wild with enjoyment. Look! how exquisitely she dances.'

"Who are you speaking of?" replied

Mr. Irwin, carelessly. "I don't see any lovely creature."

You're looking the wrong way-there -over there-near the pillars-that tall young girl in white, with a white rose in her dark hair."

Mr. Irwin looked in that direction, and did not withdraw his gaze; his eyes assumed the expression they always did when gazing on the beautiful in nature or art-nay, an expression they had never in life assumed before.

Mr. Clinton laughed and said, "Well Irwin, what do you think of her? She is an angel in a ball room, is she not ?" "Who is she?" was all the reply.

Why, she is the young sister of Miss Dormer, who is engaged to be married to your dear friend Cyril Northcote; but he cannot marry, poor fellow, until he gets a living, and Miss Dormer has nothing. You look surprised; didn't you know this? havn't you heard of Cyril lately?"

66

No, not very lately," replied Mr. Irwin uneasily; his conscience smote him for laziness or forgetfulness of his friend; lately his own affairs had so engrossed him. Besides, conscience whispered more than this; he had become entangled in a clique to whom one of Cyril Northcotes principles would be unwelcome; yet, opposed as they were in this respect, and in many others, they had been close friends at school, brothers at college, and had parted with mutual regret and esteem. Cyril Northcote was not a person to be patronised; Mr. Irwin was rich, Cyril Northcote comparatively poor; but neither thought of this; it had nothing to do with their friendship. Cyril was intended for holy orders, and for some time the friends had corresponded; but Mr. Irwin went abroad, and on his return met Miss Colville, and his mind no doubt was occupied. Mr. Clinton was communicative, and enlightened him on those points already alluded to.

"The Miss Dormers are of very good family," he went on to say, "the daughters of an officer, (who is, I believe, dying.) Miss Dormer isn't here; and Northcote, of course he isn't here; he never goes to balls: and that fair creature is Margeurite Dormer; and I only wish I had ten thousand a-year, I'd cast myself and my fortune at her feet speedily enough; but it's of no use looking and sighing; I'm

a poor fellow without a farthing, and she's

a Pearl for a diadem."

Mr. Irwin listened quietly, and then enquired, "Where is Northcote now? I'll write to him directly,"

"Northcote? He's at S- with his uncle, waiting till something turns up to enable him to marry. The Pearl will live with them of course when her father dies; that is if she doesn't marry; she's with the Pagets to-night-and such a lovely a lovely creature ought to marry gloriously I'm sure; she's wild with joy and young spirits; she has not a very bright home, and"-here Mr. Irwin was summoned to attend Miss Colville, and the conference broke off; but next day he wrote to his friend Cyril Northcote at S, and congratulated him on his prospects. Prospects!-poor fellow, he had not any very bright prospects that he knew of, but Mr. Irwin perhaps knew them better than he did himself. Had he not the prospect of matrimony before him? and with such experience as Mr. Irwin's of the bliss of courtship, could he fail to congratulate his friend? Or perhaps Mr. Irwin might allude to prospects ecclesiastical; for on the morning when his marriage with Miss Colville was duly solemnized, and when the marriage bells struck up a joy peal, at that same hour a letter arrived at S for Mr. Northcote, written on the previous day. It contained the offer of an appointment to a church ministration on the borders of Wales, until such time as Mr. Irwin was enabled to fulfil the earnest wish of his heart-a wish to bring Mr. Northcote to Irwin (both livings were in Mr. Irwin's gift) when the present pastor, an aged clergyman, should be called home in the course of nature.

Bright was Mr. Irwin's marriage morn; handsome the bride; and loudly rang the old Church bells; numerous were the bridesmaids, and gay the train of relatives and friends. The marriage ceremony was soon read over-too quickly some folks might think; but the Colvilles were used to this sort of way in marriage services, or christening services, or burial services, as every day common matters. So the bells pealed all day long-the good old Church bells, to and fro-to and fro-solemnlyslowly-as music travelling on the winds, and speaking to heaven as to earth. Ah! what do your iron tongues say when swing

ing to and fro, chiming of sacred things from the Temple of GOD, you celebrate this weekday gala? Who thought of prayer at this marriage ceremonial? Who amongst the crowd of relations and friends thought of a Rite holier still wherewith to conclude that solemn service-"until death do us part?" Death-when again those iron tongues shall find utterance-to and fro-to and fro-solemnly-slowly-and startling in tone, as the Levite trumpet, heaving on the breeze, then fading, till in the distance they reach the ear in fragmentary and broken notes.

Latymer Colville, a grand aunt of the "Those bells are cracked," said Mrs. family; "they didn't ring so when I was bride's, and the octogenarian of the Colville married; they rang right truly and grandly then.'"

"They're very loud to-day, mamma," replied Miss Tamasina, the eldest of Mrs. Latymer Collville's two daughters, spinsters of nearly three score," and that's the best you can say for them."

"They say something," whispered Miss Rosalia, the youngest sister. "I hear them-they say something-so sad-so

sad."

"Hush, Rosalia," uttered Miss Tamasina authoritatively, " don't be silly here, and talk such stuff."

"Hush, babies both," called out their mother, with a warning gesture, as if they were really children; to her they were so still; and for nearly sixty years of widowhood she had endeavoured to realize their continued infancy, only that Tamasina was a precocious and learned baby, and poor Rosalia a sort of "natural." Some silly people however assumed that Miss Rosalia was the wise one of the family. We shall see. Sorrow and circumstances had worked on her mind; but there were holy and beautiful spots untouched, and she was indeed a babe in faith and love.

C. A. M. W.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

Froome: Printed and Published for the Editor by W. C. & J. PENNY. London: WHITTAKER and Co., and CLEAVER, Vere Street.

And Sold at the Church Book Depository, Vicarage, Froome-Selwood.

VOL. IV. No. VIII.]

THE CHURCH'S BROKEN UNITY.

ROMANISM.

SANCTITY OF THE PAPAL POWER.

(Continued from page 100.) NE of the main pillars upon which rested the supreme power claimed by the Popes in the middle ages, was the strong religious enthusiasm kindled by the Crusades. For two whole centuries the Princes of Europe seemed to lose all care of their individual kingdoms in a chivalrous ardour for the glory of the Cross. Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre became alternately the possession of Infidels and Christians; and the greatest kings of the age were content to shed their blood, or achieve their glory as military knights, in the battle-field with Saracens and Turks. In their wars, both princes and people lost sight of every object but the triumph of their faith, and the Pope naturally became the prominent fomenter of their enthusiasm, and director of their councils. The feudal system, which led the vassals of every kingdom to place themselves under their own local sovereigns, led the sovereigns themselves, the more readily, to acknowledge the chief Sovereignty of the Pope. He it was who stood forward, either by himself or by those preachers whom he sent forth, such as S. Bernard and Peter the Hermit, to stir up the religious fanaticism of the multitude; and in the midst of that religious fanaticism, the accumulation of temporal power in the hands of the Pope was lost sight of in the anticipations of personal prowess, or the triumph of the Cross. But at the close of the thirteenth century, the seven crusades terminated;

[PRICE 3d.

and then, at last, the western world awoke as from a dream, and beheld the vast change which had spread itself over the nations. Intercourse with the East had opened, and civilized the minds of men. Those who had travelled as pilgrims, or marched as soldiers, into the hitherto unknown regions of Palestine, if they returned at all, returned with minds disabused of prejudice and chastened by suffering. Commerce was enlarged, many fresh paths of industry and trade were opened; and out of the horrible carnage of human life, which in every crusade was the result to those who flocked in fanatical crowds to the Holy Sepulchre, there arose, as is always the case in the chastisements of a merciful GOD, a more enlarged view, and a more enlightened estimate of the duties and privileges of mankind.

In proportion to this change which gradually worked itself over the nations of Europe, was the change with which the Papal power was regarded. We have seen the claims of supremacy successfully asserted in the reign of Innocent III. This Pope had taken a principal part in the fourth crusade, and his ideas of supreme authority, then so fully realized, were continued more or less successfully for the remainder of the thirteenth century. But that century brought the crusades to their close. It was just that period when the minds of men began to be opened and enlarged. It was just that century which had wrought the change which is alluded to. . It was not perceptible, but it was there; and so it happened that at that very period a man was raised to the Papacy whose singular audacity of character, and determination of purpose, seemed to fit him for another trial to test this great principle with the kings of the earth.

H

BONIFACE VIII. was elected to the Papal throne in the year 1291, just one hundred years after Innocent III. He had unscrupulously possessed himself of the throne by the compulsory resignation of Celestin V., a man of the most humble and chastened spirit, and one who was too evidently unfitted for the worldly position, which Popes were then expected to assume. He was a Bishop, not a king, but the Roman Church required a king, not a Bishop. Therefore Celestin was expelled, and Boniface usurped his place. All external forms in this resignation were indeed observed, but many were found to say, that the resignation of a Pope under such circumstances was not lawful, and therefore the title of Boniface was disputed. Celestin himself, in the humility of his retirement, was heard to say, in a prophecy of his successor, "He has entered like a fox, will reign like a lion, and will die like a dog." A prophecy which, as the reader will soon perceive, was found too true.

The character of Boniface was not long in manifesting itself. Among those who had disputed his title to the Papacy was the head of the Colonnas, a family at that time, even as it is still, among the principal aristocracy of the Roman people. That such a family (two of them at that time were Cardinals) should set themselves in opposition to Boniface was not to be suffered without danger. The Pope summoned them to his presence, but they denied his authority, and refused to appear. Upon which he declared the whole family infamous, excluded them and their posterity to the latest generation from all ecclesiastical dignities and offices, and compelled them to fly from Rome. Nor did his revenge stop here; for the Colonnas flying to Præneste, a city in which they had possessions, Boniface pursued them, attacked the city and the people which had given them shelter, and commanded that the city itself should be destroyed. His decree concerning the destruction of the city is given in the following terms:

"We decree that the city of Præneste be no longer a city, no longer be inhabited: that henceforth no man presume to build or dwell there. We deprive it of all the privileges, rights, and liberties that it has ever enjoyed, and have ordered it to undergo the fate of old Carthage in Africa, that is, that not one stone be left upon another."

Apud Raynald: ad. ann. 1298.

follow.

This little personal anecdote of pride and revenge will give us the key to the public transactions which were soon to Boniface had stepped into the Papal chair with the same ideas of power as those which had influenced Gregory perceive that the world had undergone a VII. and Innocent III. He did not change. He would, no doubt, have suc ceeded in those ages of a darker ignorance, however, he perceived not; but rushed on but he was now a century too late. This, to attack kingdoms and dethrone kings even as his predecessors. He would be the sole arbiter of the destiny of nations, and the supreme ruler of kings, even as those who had sat on the Papal throne centuries before him.

Edward I. was at that time King of England, and Philip IV., commonly called The Fair, King of France. They were the two most powerful kings of Europe, but unhappily engaged in war with each other. This war was displeasing to Boniface, and he sought to mediate beconduct, however, was so haughty and tween the two belligerent parties. His imperious in dictating the terms of peace that the influence which he otherwise, as a Christian Bishop might justly have exercised, was entirely thrown away. Philip stood in great need of supplies to carry on the war, and as great sums of money were at that time being carried out of the kingdom, as was supposed, for the benefit of the Roman See, Philip promulgated an ordinance strictly forbidding it. At the same time he laid a tax upon the clergy, and commanded them to supply money for the war from the revenues of the Church. Upon this, Boniface issued a Bull, well known among such documents by the initial words, "Clericis Laicos," in which he forbids the clergy of any kingdom to pay tribute to kings, and he orders that no loan or voluntary gift be allowed from the clergy to temporal princes, without the special sanction of the Pope. king, justly indignant at this attack upon his prerogative, replies by a manifesto, in which he declares that the Clergy certainly have many privileges attached to their sacred order, but that rendering unto Cæsar the things of Cæsar, was as much their duty as that of laymen, and that it was in fact to their interest that they should contribute a proportionate supply to the

The