Surely such a power, whether we view it as an institution or as a religion, cannot be despised, even by the narrowest and most fanatical Protestant.  It is too grand and venerable for sarcasm, ridicule, or mockery.  It is too potent and respectable to be sneered at or lied about.  No cause can be advanced permanently except by adherence to the truth, whether it be agreeable or not.  If the Papacy were a mere despotism, having nothing else in view than the inthralment of mankind,—­of which it has been accused,—­ then mankind long ago, in lofty indignation, would have hurled it from its venerable throne.  But despotic as its yoke is in the eyes of Protestants, and always has been and always may be, it is something more than that, having at heart the welfare of the very millions whom it rules by working on their fears.  In spite of dogmas which are deductions from questionable premises, or which are at war with reason, and ritualism borrowed from other religions, and “pious frauds,” and Jesuitical means to compass desirable ends,—­which Protestants indignantly discard, and which they maintain are antagonistic to the spirit of primitive Christianity,—­still it is also the defender and advocate of vital Christian truths, to which we trace the hopes and consolations of mankind.  As the conservator of doctrines common to all Christian sects it cannot be swept away by the hand of man; nor as a government, confining its officers and rules to the spiritual necessities of its members.  Its empire is spiritual rather than temporal.  Temporal monarchs are hurled from their thrones.  The long line of the Bourbons vanishes before the tempests of revolution, and they who were borne into power by these tempests are in turn hurled into ignominious banishment; but the Pope—­he still sits secure on the throne of the Gregories and the Clements, ready to pronounce benedictions or hurl anathemas, to which half of Europe bows in fear or love.

Whence this strange vitality?  What are the elements of a power so enduring and so irresistible?  What has given to it its greatness and its dignity?  I confess I gaze upon it as a peasant surveys a king, as a boy contemplates a queen of beauty,—­as something which may be talked about, yet removed beyond our influence, and no more affected by our praise or censure than is a procession of cardinals by the gaze of admiring spectators in Saint Peter’s Church.  Who can measure it, or analyze it, or comprehend it?  The weapons of reason appear to fall impotent before its haughty dogmatism.  Genius cannot reconcile its inconsistencies.  Serenely it sits, unmoved amid all the aggressions of human thought and all the triumphs of modern science.  It is both lofty and degraded; simple, yet worldly wise; humble, yet scornful and proud; washing beggars’ feet, yet imposing commands on the potentates of earth; benignant, yet severe on all who rebel; here clothed in rags, and there revelling in palaces; supported by charities, yet feasting the princes of the earth;