and monks of Abingdon.' There is much in the Chronicon which Mr. Stevenson has so ably edited, to sustain his views as to the prominent and important influence of Abingdon in the distinctive movements of the Benedictine order during its second period; and it is natural enough that the editor of such a Chronicle should put his own abbot, Ethelwold, in the first place among the representative men' of the institute during that era; but, on the whole, we still prefer Dunstan as the type and representative of Benedictine life at the time in question. More stern and exact than in its youthful times, necessarily less genial, open, and free, the institute had to restore itself; to rebuild on its old faith, to come back, if possible, to first principles. We should like to have contributed something towards a study of Dunstan's character, and to have traced the execution of his task, his successes and failures, as he worked from his monastic centre, the venerable and storied Glastonbury. We should like to have shown how the affairs of the order brightened, and then how they became dim amid the dissolving scenes which opened the way for the Norman epoch; and then we might have brought Lanfranc into the light, and examined his character and life as illustrative of the third era, the last days of the Benedictine rule in England. It would have been instructive to watch the brethren in their course through that part of the period in which they honestly fulfilled the purpose of their rule; to mark the first evidence of neglected duty, and see how religious houses became nurseries of evil; to observe them, as they 'sank steadily into that condition which is inevitable from the constitution of human nature, among men without faith, wealthy, powerful, and luxuriously fed, yet condemned to celibacy, and cut off from the common duties and common pleasures of ordinary life;' and, indeed, to follow their fortunes up to the point, at which, by the significant permission or arrangement of Providence, a royal suit on the matrimonial question resulted in the overthrow of the system whose first principles violated the Divine ordinance of marriage. But we must abstain, and be satisfied with a reference to the Chronicles of Abingdon, as affording most instructive lessons on the virtues and vices of the Benedictine order through each and every period of its English existence. There is little at present in Abingdon to show what it once was. But its Chronicle remains to tell, not merely in an incidental way, of England's early days, the aspect of her soil, the social condition of her people, the advance of agriculture, the tenure and descent of property, real and personal, the development and operation of law, and the growth of the constitution,-but chiefly how the Benedictines

worked out their principles at every stage of their history; how by labour, done as a religious duty, they gave a character to the face of the country; how they lent a helping hand to the Saxon serf and the Norman villain; how they filed the bondman's chain; how they taught the children of the poor, and sometimes lifted them above their birth; how they stood between the oppressor and his victim, pleaded in law courts, cheered the prison cell, exercised the healing art, set up dispensaries, and anticipated the benevolent plans of later times; how, too, they gathered and pursued and multiplied the materials of scholarship, acted as Scripture readers at home, and as missionary associations for the salvation of the heathen; while they kept alive within their retreats the flame of spiritual life, and fed their devotion with portions of the sacred page, with the writings of the fathers, and with the sweet and lofty hymns which some of them composed and others set to music. Nor let there be any wonder at finding vital piety in connexion with a system so clearly wrong in principle, and so incurably evil in tendency; for while it is not uncommon for the Divine Governor to bring out of the worst evils the most effectual means of advancing His gracious designs, it appears also to be a law, that corrupt systems may admit of so much good as will bring their evils into strong relief, so that they may be cured either by reform or destruction. And what would have been the fate of Monachism in the Christian world ere this, had those who reaped the benefit of the Reformation faithfully sustained and carried on this movement in which they had embarked? When Protestants, however, gave place to mutual jealousies, and, falling into comparatively hostile sections, lost sight of their great object amidst squabbles for secularities, or hasty efforts to surround themselves with civil immunities and ecclesiastical authority and power, they became gradually disqualified for filling up the ground which the entire destruction of the ancient systems would have left vacant. Nor, perhaps, will Providence ever entirely remove an unworthy organization, even though it merits a speedy and final overthrow, until they who are called to supply its place with something better are altogether ready for their work. Painful as the admission is, Protestants, for a long period, seemed to be getting rather less than more prepared for their place and calling. The isolation, apathy, intolerance, rationalism, and earthliness, which still prevail so widely both on the Continent and in this country, have afforded Rome a plausible argument in favour of that renewed Monachism which, in some quarters, is now cpenly proclaimed as the best and, indeed, the only check for the swelling floods of worldliness and unbelief.

Many of the ancient orders have risen from the dead; and are sustaining their claims, in harmony with modern associations, on both sides of the Channel. The Benedictines are alive again among us. There are brotherhoods and sisterhoods once more gathering strength in some of the old haunts; at York, for instance, and Worcester, and Hereford, and Hammersmith, and Colchester, and Ramsgate, in Stafford, and in Somerset. The ancient order has the smallest number of working centres; but it is flanked and backed by nearly two hundred establishments belonging to later branches of the monastic family. Are the Benedictines to enter upon a fourth period of rule in England? It must not be thought impossible. Familiar as some are with little but the free, open, and unsuspecting life of this Protestant land, they become too liable to self-gratulation; and learn to look upon systems like Monachism as things of the past, to be viewed with curiosity, or wonder, or with contempt. Had Monachism been the creature of circumstances peculiar to one age, and which could never recur, it might not revive; but, in fact, the system belongs exclusively neither to Brahma, nor Buddha, nor Rome; it is rather the offspring of human nature; and, therefore, its renewal never ceases to be possible anywhere, while human nature remains as it is. The present rise of ascetic communities into partial popularity is a reaction akin to that from which such things first arose. It is a reaction from the growing tendency of the Christian Church to fraternize with the world, and to lose sight of its spiritual and heavenly calling amidst the incessant activities of the age.

ART. III.-1. Euvres de PHILIPPE DE MARNIX DE ST. ALDEGONDE: précédés d'une Introduction par ALBERT LACROIX. Six Vols. Bruxelles: Fr. Vanmeenen. 1857-60.

2. Fondation de la République des Provinces Unis. Par MARNIX ST. ALDEGONDE. Vol. V. des Euvres complètes de EDGAR QUINET. Paris: Pagnerre. 1857.

THE Netherlands have been famed for ages as the 'cock-pit of Europe,'-the arena on which kings have fought out their quarrels, or oppressed nations have struggled with their rulers, to assert and maintain their rights, and shake off the yoke of regal and priestly tyranny. For tyranny and imposture of every kind, Papal or other, there is no security but in the ignorance and brutishness of their victims. The slumber of the dark ages had been rudely shaken at the dawn of the Reformation,

and the revival of letters. The nations of Europe awoke to the consciousness of their duties and of their rights, to the sense of what was due to their Maker, their rulers, and themselves; and then commenced the momentous conflict maintained by the Netherlands for eighty years, with varying fortune and final success, in defence of the rights of conscience and of civil liberty, against the combined efforts of Spain and Rome for the extinction of both.

Philip II. had succeeded to the throne of Spain, and to the sovereignty of the Netherlands, on the abdication of his father, Charles V., in October, 1554. The one object of his reign and of his life was the subjugation of the souls and bodies of his subjects to the Church of Rome, and the extermination of heresy and heretics throughout his dominions by all means, and at whatever cost. The craft and subtlety of his nature found ample scope in the prosecution of his infernal task.

William of Orange had early penetrated the insidious designs of Philip and the court of Rome. He encouraged the States to resist the introduction of the Inquisition, and devoted himself to the preservation of the liberties of the Netherlands from the ruin that menaced them. As statesman, governor, and commander, he was a match for the most subtle and formidable of his enemies. But the war upon which they were about to enter was, essentially, a religious war. The truths of revelation, as well as the rights of man, and the progress of society, were involved in the issue. The subtle falsehoods of Romish casuistry were to be unmasked, and the doctrines of the Gospel to be defended by tongue and pen; whilst perfidious policy was foiled in the cabinet, and force repelled by force in the field. At this time there was in training a champion for the service of the Church and of his country, and, for William of Orange, a coadjutor, counsellor, and bosom friend, in the person of Philip de Marnix, Count of Sainte Aldegonde;-to whose character, deeds, and writings, as presented to us by M. Quinet and his colleague, M. Lacroix, we invite the attention of our readers.

Philip de Marnix was born at Brussels in 1538. The house in which the early years of his life were passed still exists.* His father was a gentleman of Savoy, and by his mother he was connected with Burgundy and Holland. The Seignory of St. Aldegonde, from which he derived his title, is situate in Hainault, some few miles from Savoy. 'Marnix

thus united in his origin,' observes M. Quinet, 'the Savoyard, the Walloon, the Frenchman, and the Dutchman. Combining in his character the moral vigour and pith of Savoy, the penetra

* No. 2, Place du Musée.

Education of Marnix.

345

tion and picturesque imagination of the country of Froissart and Comines, with the strong sense and imperturbable perseverance of Holland; his whole life was one continuous effort to unite and reconcile these races. His education was completed at Geneva, under the eye of Calvin and Theodore Beza, who, in after life, were his cherished friends and advisers. From this source he derived that energy of conviction which rendered his spirit invincible to the end. Here, too, he imbibed the spirit of the Renaissance, the period of the revival of letters, and his singular mastery of the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew languages. Calvin taught him the secret of that emancipated French tongue,-clear, terse, and incisive,-which he was hereafter to apply with so much force to affairs of state; and with all this mingled the ineffaceable impression of a republic, drawing from the Reformation the breath of life, and already impregnated, in 1558, with the spirit of Rousseau.' (Pp. 14, 15.)

Marnix returned into Belgium, at the age of twenty-one, a confirmed Protestant and a republican. Here the first spectacles that met his view were the scaffold and the stake, in full operation, carrying into execution the barbarous edicts of Philip for the utter extirpation of heresy and heretics, under the ruthless direction of Granvelle, Archbishop of Arras, who was commissioned to enforce the decrees of the Council of Trent. spirit in which Philip's instructions to Granvelle were framed, our readers will judge, from the King's recently published correspondence with the Spanish ambassador at the Court of Pope Pius V., at Rome, of which M. Quinet presents us with the following extract:

Of the

'You will assure His Holiness that I will try to arrange the matter of religion in the Netherlands, if it be possible, without recourse to force, because that means will involve the total destruction of the country; but that I am determined to employ it nevertheless, if I cannot in any other manner regulate everything as I desire; and in that case I will be myself the executor of my intentions, so that neither the peril that I may run, nor the ruin of these provinces, nor that of the other states that remain to me, may hinder me from accomplishing that which a Christian prince, fearing God, is bound to do for His holy service, and the upholding of the Catholic faith.'— Correspondance de Philippe II.

The sympathy of Marnix with the sufferers, and his indignation against their persecutors, led him into secret correspondence with the leading Reformers at home and abroad, carried on with a zeal and activity which, ere long, attracted the notice of the Inquisitors, and obliged him to flee the country. The more VOL. XVI. NO. XXXII.

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