[Footnote 1019: Moore's 'Life of Byron,' 8vo. ed. p.484.--Dante was a religious
as well as a political reformer. He was a reformer three hundred years
before the Reformation, advocating the separation of the spiritual from
the civil power, and declaring the temporal government of the Pope to
be a usurpation. The following memorable words were written over five
hundred and sixty years ago, while Dante was still a member of the Roman
Catholic Church:--"Every Divine law is found in one or other of the two
Testaments; but in neither can I find that the care of temporal matters
was given to the priesthood. On the contrary, I find that the first
priests were removed from them by law, and the later priests, by command
of Christ, to His disciples."--DE MONARCHIA, lib. iii. cap. xi.
Dante also, still clinging to 'the Church he wished to reform,' thus
anticipated the fundamental doctrine of the Reformation:-"Before the
Church are the Old and New Testament; after the Church are traditions.
It follows, then, that the authority of the Church depends, not on
traditions, but traditions on the Church."]
[Footnote 1020: 'Blackwood's Magazine,' June, 1863, art. 'Girolamo Savonarola.']
[Footnote 1021: One of the last passages in the Diary of Dr. Arnold, written the
year before his death, was as follows:--"It is the misfortune of France
that her 'past' cannot be loved or respected--her future and her present
cannot be wedded to it; yet how can the present yield fruit, or the
future have promise, except their roots be fixed in the past? The evil
is infinite, but the blame rests with those who made the past a dead
thing, out of which no healthful life could be produced."--LIFE, ii.
387-8, Ed. 1858.]
[Footnote 1022: A public orator lately spoke with contempt of the Battle of
Marathon, because only 192 perished on the side of the Athenians,
whereas by improved mechanism and destructive chemicals, some 50,000
men or more may now be destroyed within a few hours. Yet the Battle of
Marathon, and the heroism displayed in it, will probably continue to
be remembered when the gigantic butcheries of modern times have been
forgotten.]
[Footnote 111: Civic virtues, unless they have their origin and consecration in
private and domestic virtues, are but the virtues of the theatre. He who
has not a loving heart for his child, cannot pretend to have any true
love for humanity.--Jules Simon's LE DEVOIR.]
[Footnote 112: 'Levana; or, The Doctrine of Education.']
[Footnote 113: Speaking of the force of habit, St. Augustine says in his
'Confessions' "My will the enemy held, and thence had made a chain for
me, and bound me. For of a froward will was a lust made; and a lust
served became custom; and custom not resisted became necessity. By which
links, as it were, joined together [11whence I called it a chain] a hard
bondage held me enthralled."]
[Footnote 114: Mr. Tufnell, in 'Reports of Inspectors of Parochial School Unions in
England and Wales,' 1850.]
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