moned his last council, from which, amid the ruins of the smoking city, and the curses of its inhabitants, he fulminated afresh his impotent excommunications against Henry and Guibert. He then retired, under the protection of Guiscard, to Salerno. There, in melancholy exile, his mind seems to have preyed upon itself. A famine had added pestilence to the horrors of civil war; and of that pestilence Gregory was among the first victims. He closed his career of crime on the 25th of May 1085, in the twelfth year of his pontificate and the 65th or 66th of his age. On the 17th of July, his atrocious ally, Robert Guiscard, expired before Cephalonia, ridding the earth of a brigand only less execrable than the Great Monk whose career we have been retracing.

6

And now where shall we look for the temporal sovereignty of the Popes,-for the Papal monarchy of which Gregory is represented to have been the founder? It cannot be said to have died with him, for it had melted away in his hands. Rome still acknowledged as its sovereign the German Cæsar, who received the crown of Italy at the hands of the Roman bishop, not in virtue of his pretended power to bestow crowns at his pleasure, but as ratifying the election of the Roman people, which was still deemed a requisite formality. As monarch of Germany and Lombardy, the title of the emperor was previously complete; but he was not the legitimate sovereign of the Roman empire, till he had been crowned by the primate in the old metropolis of the world. On this rested the Papal supremacy. But the temporal sovereignty of the Popes was not at this period established in Rome itself. Six and thirty of Gregory's successors, Gibbon tells us, maintained an unequal contest with the Romans: their age and dignity were often violated; and the churches, in the solemn ' rites of religion, were polluted with sedition and murder. The vanity of sacerdotal ambition is revealed in the involuntary confession, that one emperor was more tolerable than twenty. Nor was even the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Roman bishop at this time universally admitted. The clergy of Milan, who had for two centuries contested the supremacy of Italy with the Roman pontiff and the archbishop of Ravenna, still maintained their independence; and in England, and even France, the papal supremacy was of a very equivocal description. William the Conqueror, although he invaded this country with the sanction of Pope Alexander and Hildebrand, peremptorily refused to let any of his bishops obey the summons to attend a synod at Rome, and openly contemned the papal decrees. The following is given as a letter which he addressed to the Pontiff *.

6

6

This letter, Mosheim refers to as extant in the Miscellanea of Baluzius, and given by Collier, in the documents of his Ecclesiastical History.

"To the most excellent Pastor of the Church, the King of the Angles and Duke of Normandy sends greeting.-Hubert, thy legate, O religious father! on thy behalf, has admonished me to remain faithful, not only to thyself, but thy successors, and to think better about the money which my predecessors used to pay to St. Peter. I have granted the second, but not the first. I have never sworn allegiance, nor will I; because I do not find that my predecessors ever promised it. The money was negligently collected, whilst I was three years in France; and now that I am returned to my kingdom, I send it you : the rest will be communicated to you by Lanfranc, through your legates. Pray for us, and for our kingdom; for we have loved your predecessors, and we love you above all love, and desire to obey you." This letter was far from being satisfactory to Gregory, who cared less for money than for homage.' pp. 328-9.

With regard to the famous Dictates of Hildebrand,' which are supposed to exhibit the universal authority and supremacy of the Popes at this period, they may have been substantially the pretensions which Gregory put forth at the height of his power and in the intoxication of apparent success; but nothing can be more absurd than to suppose them ever to have been received by the Romish Church, or to regard them as an authentic exposition of the sentiments of the times. For instance, the XIth, There is only one power in the world, that of the pope,' could never have been propounded by Hildebrand himself as true in any sense; and that the Pope alone could ordain a clerk of any 'Church,' is a maxim too ridiculous to have been put forth by any one. The whole bears the marks of being either an ignorant misrepresentation of Hildebrand's pretensions, or a stupid forgery of after times. That the matter of the greater part of these sentences may be found, as Mosheim remarks, in Gregory's epistles, is saying nothing in favour of their authenticity; since every fiction of the kind must have some portion of truth to give it plausibility; but, as an historical document, it has no pretensions to genuineness, and receives a sufficient confutation from subsequent history.

Protestants, as well as Romanists, from opposite motives, have prodigiously magnified the power of the Popes, estimating it by the wild and inordinate pretensions of some two or three individual pontiffs, rather than by any historic evidence of their actual supremacy. This was at no time completely established in the Latin world, and was always rejected by the kingdoms of the Eastern Church. What is it now? Sacerdotal power, by whomsoever exercised, is an intolerable and degrading tyranny, for it assumes to domineer over the consciences of men. But priests have not always been tyrants and persecutors; and on the other hand, the blood of martyrs has not been shed by Papists alone. The Court of Rome never claimed more or other power than did the English Star Chamber; nor did the crusade against the

Albigenses exceed in horrible injustice and cruelty the treatment of the Irish by the Protestant English. The Presbyterians of Geneva have in recent times exhibited a spirit as intolerant as the Papists of a darker age; and Infidelity is not less disposed to persecute the Church of God, than is fanatical Bigotry. Arbitrary power, be it that of monarch, or pope, or republican oligarchy,to whatever church or creed it may ally itself, Pagan, Christian, or Mussulman,—is the same hateful evil; and it only requires to come into combination with religious enthusiasm or fanatical superstition, to kindle into the character of a persecutor. Liberty, which otherwise is treated simply as a rebel, is then proceeded against as a heretic.

Of the volume before us, the extracts we have given, preclude the necessity of our adding much. Using the word in its proper sense, and not by way of disparagement, we may characterize it as a highly respectable performance; not distinguished by any peculiar critical acumen or felicities of composition, but exhibiting much careful investigation, extensive reading, and correct sentiment. If not the work of a practised author or of a profound politician, it yet displays a scholarship graceful in the gentleman.

Art. II. 1. Report of the Board of Managers of the Pennsylvania Colonization Society. With an Introduction and Appendix. 8vo. pp. 48. Price 1s. 6d. Philadelphia and London, 1831.

2. Report of the Proceedings of the African Education Society: instituted at Washington, Dec. 28, 1829. With an Address. 8vo. pp. 16. Washington, 1830.

3. Liberia Herald. July 6, 1830. Vol. I. No. 5. Monrovia.

4. North American Review. No. lxxvi. July, 1832. Art. American Colonization Society.

5. Four Essays on Colonial Slavery. By John Jeremie, Esq. Late first President of the Royal Court of St. Lucia. 8vo. pp. 124. London, 1831.

6. The Anti-Slavery Record. No. 5. Sept. 1, 1832. Price 1d.

IN

N our Number for January last, we gave some account of the Africo-American Colony on the Windward Coast of Western Africa, which has received the name of Liberia. We have now before us what is something better than a mere curiosity, the fifth Number of a Liberia weekly newspaper*. In the article referred to, we took occasion to advert to the object and principles of the

*The Editor of the paper is Mr. Russwurm, a coloured man of good education, who graduated at Bowdoin College (Me.), in 1826.

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American Colonization Society; and we remarked, that there seemed to exist a much stronger wish to get rid of the free-coloured population, than to meliorate the condition of the slaves. While applauding, as we could not but do most sincerely, the philanthropic intentions of the Society, we asked, in all simplicity, What is to be the fate of the slave population of America? And we supplied the answer which, we imagined, the republicans of the Southern States would return to such an inquiry: 'Get rid of the free black population by all means, but talk of emancipation at 'your peril.'

These remarks were misconstrued, we regret to find, as implying an unkind suspicion with regard to the purity of the motives by which the friends of African colonization in America are actuated; or, at least, as casting blame upon them for the prudent course they have taken, in not mixing up the question of emancipation with that of emigration. This was not our meaning; for we were not unaware of the difficult path the Society had to tread, the political considerations which rendered it necessary to abstain from agitating, as a Society, the slavery question, and the consequent expediency of strictly confining their attention to their avowed object. Suspicions, alarms, and complaints have been raised in the slave-holding states by the very plan of colonization. On the other hand, some of the most efficient friends of the measure have been, and are, slave-owners and residents in the midst of a slave population. Under these circumstances, it would have been unwise and improper to make any article of faith on the subject of slavery the ostensible basis of their proceedings, or to exact any test from those who were disposed to cooperate in the specific scheme. Whatever dissatisfaction we may feel with the state of the law and of public morality, in reference to slaves and slavery, in America, we have no fault to find with the Colonization Society; we have no particle of remaining doubt as to the sincere desire of its projectors and principal supporters to eradicate slavery itself from the American soil; and we ' esteem them very highly in love for their works' sake.'

In the last Number of the North American Review, we find a long article advocating the object of the Society, and defending its policy; from which, as an authentic exposition of the principles of its supporters, we shall, in justice, extract so much as will enable our readers to understand the true state of the case.

In the first place, then, the Society, as a society, recognizes no principles in reference to the slave system. It says nothing, and proposes to do nothing, respecting it. The object to which their attention is to be exclusively directed is, to promote and execute a plan for colonizing (with their consent) the free people of colour.

But though the Society, as such, recognize no principles, they do recognize opinions upon the subject in question; and these opinions

they do not seek to conceal. They have invariably disclosed, though 387 never urged them, on all suitable occasions.

So far as we can ascertain, the supporters of the Colonization policy generally believe, 1. That Slavery is a moral and political evil. 2. That it is in this country a constitutional and legitimate system, which they have neither inclination, interest, nor ability to disturb. 3. That neither the commencement nor the continuance of this system is generally chargeable to (on) the Slave-holders or the slaveholding states. 4. That the Governments and the individuals immediately and personally concerned in the system, and they alone, have the right to manage and modify it as they choose. 5. That it is their interest, and also peculiarly in their power, in reference to slavery, to promote the Society's design.'

Each of these propositions will require a brief comment, in order to shew what is the actual state of the law, and of opinion, in America, and wherein they differ from the state of things in this country and its colonies.

That slavery is a moral and political evil,' may be admitted in terms, by many who still regard it as a necessary evil, or an evil to be tolerated, or not a greater evil than pauperism and other inevitable concomitants of certain stages of society. The language is tame and equivocal. Those persons only will feel that slavery is such an evil as ought not to be suffered to exist, who regard the holding of men in bondage as not simply an evil, but a wrong. In all moral evil, criminality must be involved; if, therefore, slavery is a moral evil, it is, on the part of those who tolerate it, a crime. We will not go so far as to say, slave-holder is to be regarded as criminal, for the sin does not that every lie at his door; and he may be doing his part to mitigate the injustice, and to pave the way for the abolition of the evil. Laws which are essentially unjust, which inflict political grievances, or actual oppression, must be morally wrong; but personal criminality does not attach to the individual who is the involuntary instrument of executing such laws, or whose conduct is necessarily governed by them; who, therefore, acts legitimately. Bad laws cannot legitimate themselves, but, by legitimating the acts committed under them, they assuredly preclude, to a certain degree, blame in the individual. Unjust wars are criminal, but we do not blame the soldier, the pay-master, or the contractor. English game-laws are detestable; but the crime does not attach The to the magistrate.

The case is altogether changed, when the slave-holder, or when any one becomes the abettor of laws that perpetuate injustice and oppression, and the opponent of measures of redress. By his own act, he then becomes a transgressor of those moral obligations which are prior and superior to all human legislation. In the former case, the slave-holder finds himself involved,