his church, up to the present Pope, Pius VII. And this attri. bute of perpetual succession, you are, dear sir, to observe, is

oned pontiffs, owing to the prevalence of civil factions at Rome, which obstructed the freedom of canonical election: yet, in this list of names, there are ten or twelve, which do honour to the papal calendar, and even those who disgraced it by their lives, performed their public duty, in preserving the faith and unity of the church, irreproachably. In the mean tine a crowd of holy bishops and other saints, worthy the age of the aposties, adorned most parts of the church, which continued to be augmented by numerous conversions. In Italy SS. Peter Damian, Romuald, Nilus, and Rathier, bishop of Verona, adorned the church with their sanctity and talents, as did the holy prelates, Ulric, Woligang, and Bruno, in Germany, and Odo, Dunstan, Oswald, and Ethelwold, in England. At this time St. Adelbert, bishop of Prague, converted the Poles by his preaching and his blood; the Danes were converted by St. Poppo, the Swedes, by St. Sigifrid, an Englishman, the people of lesser Russia by SS. Bruno and Boniface, and the Muscovites by missionaries sent from Greece, but at a time when that country was in communion with the See of Rome.

CENT. XI.

During this age the vessel of Peter was steered by several able and vir tuous pontiffs. Silvester II was esteemed a prodigy of learning and talents. After him came John XVIII, John XIX, Sergius IV, Benedict VIII, John XX, Benedict IX, Gregory VI, Clement II, Damascus II, Leo IX, who has deservedly been reckoned among the saints, Victor II, Stephen X, Nicholas II, Alexander II, Gregory VII, who is also canonized, Victor III, and Urban II. Other defenders of virtue and religion, in this age, were St. Elphege and Lanfranc, archbishops of Canterbury, the prelates Burcard of of Worms, Fulbert and Iro of Chartres, Odilo an abbot, Alger a monk, Guitmund and Theophylactus. The crown, also, was now adorned with saints equally signal for their virtue and orthodoxy. In England shone St. Edward the confessor; in Scotland, St. Margaret; in Germany, St. Henry, Emperor; in Hungary, St. Stephen. The cloister also was now enriched with the Cisterchian order, by St. Robert; the Carthusian order was found. ed by St. Bruno; and the order of Valombroso, by St. John Gaulbeit While, on one hand, a great branch of the apostolic tree was lopped off, by the second defection of the Greek Church, and some rotten boughs were cut off from it, in the new Manicheans, who had found their way from Bulgaria into France, as likewise in the followers of the innovator Berengarius; it received fresh strength and increase from the conversion of the Hungarians, and of the Normans and Danes, who before had desolated England, France, and the two Sicilies.

CENT. XII.

In this century heresy revived with fresh vigour, and in a variety of forms, though mostly of the Manichean family. Mahometanism also again threatened to overwhelm Christianity. To oppose these, the Almighty was pleased to raise up a succession of as able and virtuous Popes as ever graced the Tiara, with a proportionable number of other Catholic champions to defend his cause. i hese were Paschal II, Gelasius II, Calixtus II, Honorius II, Innocent II, who held the second general council of Lateran, Celestin II, Lucius I, Eugenius III, Anastasius IV, Adrian IV, an Englishman, Alexander III, who held the third Lateran council, Lucius III, Urban II, Gregory VIII, Clement III, and Celestin III. The doctors of note were,

peculiar to the See of Rome: for in all the other chu ches, founded by the apostles, as those of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alex

In the first place, the mellifluous Bernard, a saint, however, who was not more powerful in word than in work; likewise the venerable Peter, abbot of Clugni, St. Anselm and St. Thomas, archbishops of Canterbury, Peter Lombard, master of the sentences, St. Otto, bishop of Bamberg, St. Norbort of Magdeburg, St. Henry of Upsal, St. Malachy of Armagh, St. Hugh of Lincoln, and St. William of York. The chief heresies, alluded to, were those propagated by Marsilius of Padua, Arnold of Brescia, Henry of Thoulouse, Tanchelm, Peter Bruis, the Waldenses, or disciples cf Peter Waldo, and the Bogomilians, Patarins, Cathari, Puritans, and Albigenses, all the latter being different sects of Manicheans. To make up for the loss of these, the church was increased by the conversion of the Norwegians and Livonians, chiefly through the labours of the above named Adrian IV, then an apostolic missionary, called Nicholas Breakspeare. Courland was converted by St. Meinard, and even Iceland was engrafted in the apostolic tree by the labours of Catholic missionaries.

CENT. XIII.

The successors of St. Peter in this age were Innocent III, who held the fourth Lateran council, at which four hundred and twelve bishops, eight hundred abbots, and ambassadors from most of the Christian sovereigns were present, for the extinction of the impious and infamous Albigensian or Manichean heresy. Honorius III, Gregory IX, Celestin IV, who held the first general council of Lyons, Alexander IV, Urban IV, Gregory X, who held the second council of Lyons, in which the Greeks renounced their schism, though they soon fell back into it, Innocent V, Adrian V, John XXI, Nicholas III, Martin IV, Honorius IV, Nicholas IV, Celestir V, who abdicated the pontificate and was afterwards canonized, and Boni. face VIII. The most celebrated doctors of the church were St. Thomas of Aquin, St. Bonaventure, St. Anthony of Padua, and St. Raymond ci Pennafort. Other illustrious supporters and ornaments of the church, were St. Lewis, king of France, St. Elizabeth, queen of Hungary, St. Hedwidge of Poland, St. Francis of Assisium, St. Dominic, St. Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, St. Thomas of Hereford, and St. Richard of Chichester. The chief heretics were the Beguardi and Fratricelli, whose gross immoralities Mosheim himself confesses. In the mean time Spain Was, in a great measure, recovered to the Catholic church from the Mahometan impiety; Courland, Gothland, and Estonia, were converted by Bald. win, a zealous missionary: the Cumani, near the mouths of the Danube, were received into the church, and several tribes of Tartars, with one of their emperors, were converted by the Franciscan missionaries, whom the Pope sent among them, not, however, without the martyrdom of many of them.

CENT. XIV.

Still did the promise of Christ, in the preservation of his church, contrary to all opposition, and beyond the term of all human institutions, coninue to be verified. The following were the head pastors, who succesvely presided over it; Benedict XI, Clement V, who held the general June of Vienna, John XXII, Clement VI, Innocent VI, Urban V, Gregory XI, Urban VI, and Boniface IX. Among the chief ornaments of the church, in this age, may be reckoned St. Elizabeth, queen of Portugal St. Bridget of Sweden, Count Elzear and his spouse Delphina, St. Nicholas of Tolentino, St. Catherine of Sienna, John Rusbrock, Peter, bishop of

andria, Corinth, Ephesus, Smyrna, &c. owing to internal dis sensions and external violence, the succession of their bishops Autun, &c. The Manichean abominations maintained and practiced by the Turlupins, Dulcinians and other sects, continued to exercise the vigi lance and zeal of the Catholic pastors, and the Lollards of Germany, together with the Wickliffites of England, whose errors and conduct were levelled at the foundations of society, as well as of religion, were opposed by all true Catholics in their respective stations. The chief conquests of the church in this century were in Lithunia, the prince and people of which received her faith, and in Great Tartary, where the archbishopric of Cambalu and six suffragan bishoprics were established by the Pope. Odoric, the missionary, who furnished the account of these events, is known him. self to have baptized twenty thousand converts.

CENT. XV.

The succession of Popes continued through this century, though among numerous difficulties and dissensions, in the following order: Innocent VII, Gregory XII, Alexander V, John XXIII, Martin V, Eugenius, IV, who heid the general council of Florence, and received the Greeks, once more, into the Catholic communion, Nicholas V, Calixtus III, Pius II, Paul II, Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII, and Alexander VI In this age flourished St. Vincent Ferrer, the Wonder-worker, both in the order of grace and in that of nature, St. Francis of Paula, whose miracles were not less numerous of extraordinary, St. Laurence Justinian, Patriarch of Venice, St Antonius archbishop of Florence, St. Casimir, Prince of Poland, the Venerable Thomas à Kempis, Dr. John Gerson, Thomas Waldensis, the learne English Carmelite, Alphonsus Tostatus, Cardinal Ximenes, &c. At thi period the Canary Islands were added to the church, as were, in a great measure, the kingdoms of Congo and Angola, with other large districts in Africa and Asia, wherever the Fortuguese established themselves. The Greek schismatics also, as I have said, together with the Armenians and Montholities of Egypt, were, for a time, engrafted on the apostolic tree, These conquests, however, were dampt by the errors and violence of the various sects of Hussites, and the immoral tenets and practices of the Adamites, and other remnants of the Albigenses.

CENT. XVI.

This century was distinguished by that furious storm from the north, which stripped the apostolic tree of so many leaves and branches in this quarter. That arrogant monk, Martin Luther, vowed destruction to the tree itself, and engaged to plant one of those separated branches instead of it; but the attempt was fruitless; for the main stock was sustained by the arm of Omnipotence, and the dissevered boughs splitting into numberless fragments, withered, as all such boughs had heretofore done. It would be impossible to number up all these discordant sects; the chief of them were, the Lutherans, the Zuinglians, the Anabaptists, the Calvinists, the Anglicans, the Puritans, the Family of Love, and the Socinians. In the mean time, on the trunk of the apostolic tree grew the following Pontiffs: Pius III, Julius II, who held the fifth Lateran Council, Leo X, Adrian VI, Clement VII, Paul III, Julius II', Marcellus II, Paul IV, Pius IV, who concluded the Council of Trent, where 281 prelates con demned the novelties of Luther, Calvin, &c., St. Pius V, Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, Urban VII, Gregory XIV, Innocent IX, and Clement VIII. Other supporters of the Catholic and apostolic church against the attacke

has, at different times, been broken and confounded. Hence the See of Rome is emphatically and for a double reason call

made upon her, were, Fisher, bishop of Rochester, sir Thomas More, Chance lor, Cuthbert Maine, and some hundreds more of priests and religious who were martyred under Henry VIII and Elizabeth, in this cause; also the Cardinals Pole, Hosius, Cajetan and Allen, with the writers Eckius, Cochleu, Erasmus, Campion, Parsons, Stapleton, &c. together with that constellation of great saints which then appeared, SS. Charles Eorromeo, Cajetan, Philip Neri, Ignatius, F. Xavier, F. Borgia, Teresa, &c. In short, the damages sus ained from the northern storm were amply repaid to the church, by innumerable conversions in the new eastern and western worlds. It is computed that St. Xavier alone preached the faith in 52 kingdoms or independent states, and baptized a million of converts with his own hand, in India and Japan. St. Lewis Bertrand, Martin of Valentia, and Bartholomew Las Casas, with their fellow missionaries, converted most of the Mexicans, and great progress was made in the conversion of the Brazilians, though not without the blood of many martyred preachers in these and the cther Catholic missions. David, emperor of Abyssinia, with many of his family and other subjects, were now reclaimed to the church, and Pulika, patriarch of the Nestorians in Assyria, came to Rome, in order to join the numerous churches under him to the centre of unity and truth.

CENT. XVII.

The sects, of which I have been speaking, were, at the beginning of this century, in their full vigour; and though they differed in most other respects, yet they combined their forces, under the general name of Protestants, to overthrow Christ's everlasting church. These attempts, however, like the waves of the troubled ocean, were dashed to pieces against the rock on which he had buiit it. On the contrary, they weakened themselves by civil wars and fresh divisions. The Lutherans split into Diaphorists and Adiaphorisis, the Calvinists into Gomarists and Arminians, and the Anglicans into Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, and Quakers. A vain effort was now set on foot, through Cyril Lucaris, to gain over the Greek churches to Calvinism, which ended in demonstrating their invioJable attachment to all the controverted doctrines of Catholicity. Another more fatal attempt, was made to infect several members of the church tself with the distinguishing error of Calvinism, under the name of Jansenism. But the successors of St. Peter continued, through the whole of the century, equally to make head against Protestant innovations, Jansenistical vigour, and casuistical laxity. Their names, in order, were these, Leo XI, Paul V, Gregory XV, Urban VIII, Innocent X, Alexander VII, Clement IX, Clement X, Innocent XI, Alexander VIII and Innocent XII. Their orthodoxy was powerfully supported by the Cardinals Bellarmin, Baronius and Perron, with the bishops Huetius, Bossuet, Fenelon, Richard Smith, and the divines Petavius, Tillemont, Pagi, Thomassin, Kellison, Cressy, &c. Nor were the canonized saints of this age fewer in number or less illustrious than those of the former, namely, St. Francis of Sales, St Frances Chantal, St. Cainillus, St. Fidelis Martyr, St. Vincent of of Paul, &c. Finally, the church continued to be crowded with fresh converts, in Peru, Chili, Terra Firma, Canada, Louisiana, Mingrelia, Tartary, India, and many islands both of Africa and Asia. She had alse the consolation of receiving into her communion the several Patriarchs of Damascus, Aleppo, and Alexandria, and also the Nesterian archbishops of Chaldæa and Meliapore, with their respective clergy.

d THE APOSTOLICAL SEE, and being the head See and centre of union of the whole Catholic church, furnishes the first claim to its title of THE APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. But you also see, in the sketch of this mystical tree, an uninterrupted series of other bishops, doctors, pastors, saints, and pious personages, of different times and countries, through these eighteen centuries, who have, in their several stations, kept up the perpetual succession, those of one century having been the instructors of those who succeeded them in the next, all of them following the same two-fold rule, Scripture and tradition; all of them acknowledging the same expositor of this rule, the Catholic church, and all of them adhering to the main trunk or centre of union, the apostolic See. Some of the general councils or synods likewise appear, in which the bishops from different parts of the church, under the authority of the Pope, assembled, from time to time, to define its doctrine and regulate its discipline. The size of the sheet did not admit of all the councils being

CENT. XVIII.

At length we have mounted up the apostolic tree to our own age. In this heresy having sunk, for the most part, into Socinian indifference, and Jansenism into philosophical infidelity, this last waged as cruel a war against the Catholic church [and O glorious mark of truth! against her alone as Decius and Dioclesian did heretofore: but this has only proved her internal strength of constitution, and the protection of the God of heaven. The Pontiffs, who have stood the storms of this century, were Clement Xl, Innocent XIII, Benedict XIV, Clement XIII, Clement XIV, Pius VI, as at the beginning of the present century Pius VIi has done. Among other modern supporters and ornaments of the church, may be mentioned the Cardinals Thomasi and Quirina, the bishops Languet, La Motte, Beaumont, Challoner, Hornyold, Walmesley, Hay and Moylan Among the writers are Calmet, Muratori, Bergier, Feller, Gother, Manning, Hawarden, and Alban Butler; and among the personages distinguished by their piety, the Good Dauphin, his sister Louisa the Carmelite nun, his heroical daughter Elizabeth, his other daughter Clotilda, whose beatification is now in progress, as those of bishop Liguori, and i aul of the cross, founder of the assionists; as also FF. Surenne, Nolhac and L. Enfant, with their fellow-martyrs and the venerable Labre, &c. Nor has the apostolical work of converting Infidels been neglected by the Catholic church, in the midst of such persecutions. In the early part of the century, numberless Bouls were gained by Catholic preachers in the kingdoms of Madura, Cochinchina, Tonquin, and in the empire of China, including the peninsula of Corea. At the same time numerous savages were civilized and baptized among the Hurons, Miamis, Illinois, and other tribes of North America. But the most glorious conquest, because the most difficult and most complete, was that gained by the Jesuits in the interior of South America over the wild savages of Paraguay, Uraguay and Parona, together with the wild Canisians, Moxos, and Chiquites, who, after shedding the blood of some hundreds of their first preachers, at length opened their hearts to the mi'd and sweet truths of the Gospel, and became models of piety and morty, nor less so of industry, civil order, and polity.