7. RETROSPECT.

Let me now go back to events from which all this came forth, and see whether Germany and Northern Europe owe not all their troubles to half-way measures, and to their blind refusal to proceed as England did in the line of Restoration. Let us note how, by refusing to hear the voice of Wiclif, they incurred the revolutions of Luther and the despotism of Laynez. Wiclif's light had not been hidden under a bushel: it began to illuminate Europe before he died. The Universities of Europe were a great exchange for the commerce of learning and of thought. From the Moldau young scholars came to the Isis; Oxford and Prague were in close relations in Wiclif's day, and when Anne of Luxembourg, "the good Queen Anne," arrived in England to marry King Richard, she was attended by a retinue of learned youth and accomplished men. These found Wiclif and his doctrines the talk of the Court, the Church, and the Universities. The "great Evangelical Doctor" had just published his Bible, and manuscript copies were multiplied. It is known that Queen Anne herself became a Bible reader, and a lover of Wiclif's name and person. She survived him for ten years, and on her death her attendants returned to Prague with Wiclif's books, and impressed with his great idea of giving free circulation to the Holy Scriptures. In A. D. 1397 came back from Oxford that brilliant youth, Jerome of Prague, a Bohemian knight. He brought with him books and parchments, copied by his own

hand from Wiclif's writings. He showed them to John Huss, destined to be the Wiclif of Bohemia; but he was no Wiclif then. After reading one of the proscribed books, he advised Jerome to burn. it, or to toss it into the Moldau; no doubt a sacrifice to the local saint, St. John Nepomucene, whose bridge spans that river, the "proud arch" of Campbell's poetry. But from that moment the study of the Evangelical Doctor became more general, and it electified Bohemia. The century of discovery and invention opened with this movement. Huss was now confessor to King Wenzel's second wife, Queen Sophia of Bavaria; he was the most faithful and eloquent of court preachers, and the rising man.

8. THE MISTAKE OF GERSON.

Happy had it been for Germany and for Bohemia too had these master spirits been allowed to open and control the Continental Reformation. It would then have proceeded, probably, as in England, upon the lines of Restoration; for these illustrious. men were Catholics, not sectarians, and to the last they prompted no subversive measures. I love them as Anglicans at heart; by which I mean true Catholics, who would have guided their fellow Catholics of Europe into the paths of Nicene revival and orthodoxy. But just here things took a decisive turn in another direction. The justly celebrated Gerson, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Paris, eminent for his learning and his piety, gained the control of the reforming demands of

Europe. The Popes of Avignon and of the schism that followed, for one hundred and fifty years, had kept the churches and the nations in perpetual broils, demonstrating the folly of pretending that the Paparchy was a bond of unity. Moreover, the vices of these popes and antipopes, with their licentious courts, had become an abomination that "smelled to heaven." No words can do justice to their immoralities, except those of their contemporaries, who not only saw them, but shared them. The groans of the Latin churches were universal; an outcry for a reformation of the Church "in its head and its members." Gerson was in no respect in advance of his age; he was a Gallican, but a Scholastic and a fanatical Nominalist; he was the honest dupe of the canon law, which means of the forged Decretals. He accepted, therefore, an ideal papacy; not at all the Paparchy as it then existed. As a Gallican, he fell back upon the principles of Frankfort, supposing that, if the Popes could be put back to what Charlemagne found them, all would be well. His great scheme was to make Councils supreme; to empower them to depose a bad Pope and elect a new one; and, in general, to recognize no other supreme authority in Christendom. How plausible! Here was the great Nicene doctrine saddled, and, as it proved, rendered abortive, by the Decretalist whim that there must be a Pope of some sort. However, so far and no further could Gerson and the Gallicans proceed. It was progress for the Latin churches in general. It was the old, ill-conceived position of poor, puzzled Hincmar, and the Anglicans had adopted this

same idea under Anselm and the Normans. Just here also stood Sir Thomas More and dear old Bishop Fisher, when the tyrant Henry took their heads off for not going further while he was disposed to do so. In other respects Henry and they stood together; they learned this policy of Gerson.

9. SCHOOL GRUDGES.

There was another clog of which we cannot now comprehend the immense significance. Wiclif was a Realist, and Realism was fashionable with all who had learned from him. Gerson was a bigoted Nominalist, and therefore hated the name of Wiclif, attributing to the Realists all the mischief of his writings. Puritans and Cavaliers never hated one another more passionately than did these rival schools, each inspired by the odium theologicum to the verge of frenzy against opponents. Gerson's scheme of reform included, therefore, two antagonistic schemes. He drew a line thus: (1.) There must be no reformation of doctrine, and all reproach of "Wiclifism" must be put away by stringent measures. (2.) This point secured, the authority of councils must be asserted, and practically carried out, to any extent found necessary. Such were the ideas that called the Council of Pisa (A. D. 1407), designed for a cleansing of the Augean stables of the Paparchy. There were now two rival popes, and Europe was a very hell between them, everywhere embroiled in quarrels political and religious. Who was Pope and who

was Antichrist? One nation was tied to a French pope, another held to his rival. Gregory had Rome in actual possession, and felt that nine points of the law were with him. But such were his oaths and perjuries, his protestations and his subterfuges, that finally his cardinals, all save seven, turned upon him and appealed to a General Council. They professed to fear that he would assassinate them all. They became Gallicans all of a sudden, and said, "We appeal from the Pope to Jesus Christ, of whom he is vicar; from the Pope to a Council, to which it belongs to judge the sovereign pontiff; from the present Pope to a future Pope, authorized to redress what his predecessor has unwarrantably enacted."

IO. PISA.

Behold that ancient cathedral hard by the leaning tower in Pisa. There the Council was opened, with august ceremonial, on the Feast of the Annunciation, A. D. 1409. John Gerson was there in person to press his doctrines with admirable force and logic. D'Ailly, Archbishop of Cambrai, was, next to him, the leader; a genius who anticipates Bossuet in the sobriquet of " the Eagle" of France. As the result, both popes were deposed, and the Roman See declared vacant. All their bulls, anathemas, and excommunications were declared null and void. They proceeded to an election, and Philargus of Milan, a good old man, was proclaimed Pope, as Alexander V. This was brought about by the legerdemain of Balthasar Cossa, who