Among the first who tried heresy-making at Rome were Valentinus and Cerdo, whither they were followed by Marcion, to be confronted there by S. Polycarp, who was the means of reclaiming numbers from their teaching, as S. Irenæus says. Of Praxeas, Tertullian writes,† that he imported heresy into Rome, and turned out prophecy. By turning out prophecy, Tertullian meant that he discredited the prophecies of Montanus in the eyes of her bishop, who till then had patronised them. Worse things are reported of Pope Callistus by S. Hippolytus. In later times Pope Liberius was inveigled by the Arians into condemning S. Athanasius: Pope Zosimus, by the disciples of Pelagius, into supporting both him and them against the African Church: Pope Honorius, by the Monothelite leaders, into condoning Monothelism. Again, it was not S. Cyprian, but the excommunicate Felicissimus, that appealed to Pope Cornelius : not the bishops of Spain, but the deposed Basilides, who appealed to Pope Stephen: not S. Athanasius, who went to accuse the Eusebians, but the Eusebians who went to accuse S. Athanasius to Pope Julius. The African bishops never addressed Pope Zosimus on the subject of the profligate priest Apiarius, till they were forced to take action in self-defence. S. Augustine never addressed Pope Celestine on the subject of the offending Bishop of Fussala, till the action of the Pope forced S. Augustine to talk of resigning his see, if the appeal of the Bishop of Fussala was not dismissed.

There was another class of appellants of a higher order in the rival sees of Arles and Lyons, Milan and Ravenna, York and Canterbury, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople. These three last involved not merely national, but imperial interests. Perhaps not one of the first four General Councils would have been held but for questions of this kind: at all events questions of this kind engrossed attention in each. At Nicæa, the 6th Canon, only second in importance to the Creed itself, upheld the rights of the see of Alexandria, which had been. invaded. At Constantinople, the encroachments first of the Bishop of Alexandria, and then of the Bishop of Antioch, on the rights of that see, in ordaining to it had to be met by three Canons the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. At Ephesus the see of Alexandria triumphed with the aid of Rome, and the see of Constantinople was condemned in her Bishop. But at Chalcedon the see of Alexandria was condemned in turn, and Constantinople retorted upon Rome by getting her title synodically defined to be the second see of the world, with jurisdiction, in

point of fact, superior to the first. From this position Constantinople could never afterwards be dislodged by any efforts that Rome could make. Rome was humbled at the fifth Council, bowed to the dust at the sixth, where, for the first time in history, not, indeed, a living, but a dead, Pope was condemned and anathematised with other heretics. Then the tide turned. Within seventy years of the sixth Council, appeal was made to the Pope to abrogate the succession to a throne, and confirm a new dynasty. In less than fifty years afterwards, he was asked to crown and inaugurate the first Emperor of the West, detached from the East. The West, bursting into new life, wanted a centre, and found it in Rome. From that time the see was lost in the court, and appeals were merged in intrigue. Justice went to the longest purse, or the strongest arm.

'Talk of your founder,' says S. Bernard to his friend Pope Eugenius, Was it the case that there flocked to him from the whole world ambitious, covetous, simoniacal, sacrilegious, fornicators, incestuous, and other monsters of men of the same kind, that by his apostolical authority they might obtain or retain ecclesiastical honors ? The mode in which causes are now conducted is simply execrable, and would disgrace the very forum, let alone the Church.'*

It would be simple profanity to contend that our Lord, by any words that ever fell from His lips, intended to lend any countenance, direct or indirect, to such a system as this. It was Europe that, wanting to become great, endowed the Papacy, on condition of finding in it a willing ally for good or for ill; and the Papacy, nothing loth, endeavoured to square this with religion. In the attempt,' it made hypocrites of everybody, debased and degraded Christianity, made shipwreck of itself, and, as far as it could, of the Church, too. For it sacrificed every principle both of natural and revealed religion, of the law of Christ and of the law of conscience to its own temporal aggrandisement at home and abroad. Nothing but the inherent recuperative power of the teaching of Christ could have saved Europe from becoming pagan again under the teaching of the Papacy, which invented a Divine sanction for everything that could add in any way to its worldly possessions or worldly power. meddled in every political embroilment of the day; in the public quarrels between State and State; in the domestic quarrels between rulers and people; and always declared for the side most likely to benefit it most in the end. The West coveted the East, and the Papacy supplied a religious excuse for the war. It was under the proudest and most domineering of

'De Consid.,' iii. 14.

It

Popes

Popes-Innocent III.-and with his active co-operation, that the Christian metropolis, that had never been pagan, and bore the name of the first Christian emperor, was sacked by Christian knights, in the hope that might could purchase what right denied the fee-simple of the Eastern Church. It was Rome ―truculent, malignant, treacherous, hypocritical, self-seeking Rome-that directed the crusade which laid Constantinople in ruins that intrigued ever afterwards to keep the breach open by which the Turks entered at last: that is intriguing at this moment to keep them there still! Fortunately for Nemesis, Europe can take away what Europe has given: and we who have seen the temporal sceptre drop from the hands of Pio Nono, may live to see greater things before long. The foundation-stone of the Reformation was laid in the fall of Constantinople; and the second temple,' whose construction has been advancing in the hearts of men ever since, is only waiting for its recovery to be completed. There the antient law of the Church' first saw daylight, and is still embalmed: nor can Christendom be re-united till the reign of law has been re-established. 'Delenda est Carthago!' was the cry of the champions of old Rome when universal sovereignty was their ambition: Delenda est Roma!' must henceforth be our cry, who wish to see constitutional liberty restored to the Church, and Christendom reunited.

6

ART. V.-1. The Great Canal at Suez: its Political Engineering and Financial History. By Percy Fitzgerald, M.A. Two vols. London, 1876.

2. Histoire du Canal de Suez. Par Ferdinand de Lesseps. Paris, 1870.

3. The Suez Canal: Letters and Documents descriptive of its Rise and Progress in 1854-1856. By Ferdinand de Lesseps. Translated by N. D'Anvers. London, 1876.

4. Le Canal de Suez. Bulletin Décadaire de la Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez. No. 163. Juillet 2,

1876.

5. Affaires Etrangères. Documents Diplomatiques. Affaire du Canal de Suez (the French Yellow Book). Novembre, 1875. 6. Papers laid before Parliament. 1870, 1874, 1876.

7. Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. 1876.

N° recent public act has been so well received as the

purchase of the Suez Canal Shares. It was bold and original, in keeping with the qualities popularly ascribed to

Mr.

Mr. Disraeli, from whom the country expected some departure from commonplace. To use a metaphor with a high Parliamentary sanction, the lion was shaking the dewdrops from his mane. His drowsiness had at last come to an end. If nothing more, he had given a growl of awakening, an adsum, an acte de présence.

The surroundings furnished a scenery eminently dramatic. The whole year had been absorbed in what may be termed political finance, or financial politics. The Foreign Loans Committee, the collapse of South American Securities, the universal dulness of trade, the cheapness of silver, the Slav insurrections with their uncertainties, and, finally, the break-up of Turkish Credit, had darkened the horizon of commerce, industry, and speculation, which now covers so large a portion of society. For the despondent the purchase was a ray of light; for the speculator Egyptian would be up; for the trader and shipowner the tolls were to be lowered and freights raised ; for the politician it floated the Vanguard'; for the philanthropist it liberated the fugitive-slave; for the patriot it was a peaceful triumph. To every one the act came home with a feeling of pleasure and hope; pleasure somewhat damped, perhaps, by later events, but hope not to be entirely blighted. Everywhere the news was received with welcome. France, which had from the first resolutely stood by the energetic, persevering, and kindly author of the work, not only cordially accepted the reparation, but frankly recognised the advantage of English co-operation. When England,' said the daily organ of French Finance, the day after the purchase-' when England shakes off her political lethargy, when she ceases to say by her acts and words that Continental politics have become to her indifferent, France, it appears to us, has cause for congratulation rather than for fear.' From Germany and Italy, from Hungary and Austria, and from M. de Lesseps, in this respect a Continental Power, congratulations poured forth as for a national achievement.

The world is sufficiently acquainted with the early history of the Canal. On this M. de Lesseps' own letters and Mr. Fitzgerald's careful compilation throw much light. The early struggles of M. de Lesseps, his hopes, his disappointments, his daring and resource, the windings of diplomacy, the opposition of writers and of statesmen-all these form a remarkable chapter in the history of human error-a grammar of human energy and worldly knowledge. They are lessons to the philosopher, hopes to the forlorn, guides to the ambitious, and zest to the cynic. When Cardinal Henri, aged nearly eighty, declared that

not

6

not in his time should the Abbé de Bernis receive preferment, the latter replied, J'attendrai.' 'Time is on our side,' said Mr. Gladstone in 1866, when arguing for an extension of the franchise; and if our own statesmen have exemplified the wellworn saying of Oxenstiern, no one more than M. de Lesseps has successfully demonstrated the value of Montecristo's device -Wait and hope.'

The language with which M. de Lesseps accepted the purchase is worthy of his career. To-day,' he wrote, on the 29th of November-'to-day the English nation accepts in the Canal Company the part which had been loyally reserved for it at the outset; and if this act, once accomplished, can have a consequence, that consequence can, in my eyes, be, on the part of the British Government, no other than the renunciation of an attitude which for a long time has been hostile to the interests of the shareholders who founded the Maritime Canal, so energetic in their intelligent perseverance.

'I I consider, therefore, as a fortunate fact, this powerful unity of interest which will be established between French and English capital for the purely industrial and necessarily peaceful working of the universal Maritime Canal.'

With this letter we may take a fresh departure, and accept the oblivion in which M. de Lesseps has buried our former opposition. The chief motive of that opposition was the fear of the establishment of French territorial influence in Egypt. That fear was met by the arbitral decision of the late Emperor. Nor can there be any danger of its recurrence. Independently of proprietary rights, the interests of the French shareholder are inseparably bound up with those of the English shipper. One cannot exist without the other. Whatever the future of political combination, the nature of Englishmen must be wholly changed, and the configuration of the British Isles completely altered, before there can be any sensible diminution in the seafaring traffic of the British people. Yet, in justice to Lord Palmerston and other statesmen, it must be shown that their opposition was not entirely captious, nor founded on mere national jealousy. The privileges enjoyed by the Canal Company, until redeemed under the Emperor's decision, gave to a French interest overwhelming preponderance in Egypt. It possessed 150,000 acres of cultivable land, besides the property of the Ouady of 15,000 acres. It was vested with exemptions from customs, postal and telegraphic dues, and was master of the Sweet Water Canal, as well as of establishments along the banks of the Maritime Canal, which made that work a strip of Vol. 142.-No. 284. French

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