[Sidenote: Variations in Italian ideas.] Notwithstanding the assertion of Rome, the essential ideas of the Italian system had undergone unavoidable modifications. An illiterate people, easily imposed upon, had accepted as true the asseveration that there had been no change even from the apostolic times. But the time had now come when that fiction could no longer be maintained, the divergence no longer concealed. In the new state of things, it was impossible that dogmas in absolute opposition to reason, such as that of transubstantiation, could any longer hold their ground. The scholastic theology and scholastic philosophy, though supported by the universities, had become obsolete. With the revival of pure Latinity and the introduction of Greek, the foundations of a more correct criticism were laid. An age of erudition was unavoidable, in which whatever could not establish its claims against a searching examination must necessarily be overthrown. [Sidenote: The Reformation: its history.] We are thus brought to the great movement known as the Reformation. The term is usually applied in reference to the Protestant nations, and therefore is not sufficiently comprehensive, for all Europe was in truth involved. A clear understanding of its origin, its process, its effects, is perhaps best obtained by an examination of the condition of the northern and southern nations, and the issue of the event in each respectively. [Sidenote: The preparatory state of Germany, France, England.] Germany had always been sincere, and therefore always devout. Of her disposition she had given many proofs from the time when the Emperor Otho descended into Italy, his expedition having been, as was said, an armed procession of ecclesiastics resolved to abate the scandals of the Church. The Councils of Constance and Basle may be looked upon as an embodiment of the same sentiment. The resolution to limit the papal authority and to put a superior over the pope arose from a profound conviction of the necessity of such a measure. Those councils were precursors of the coming Reformation. In other countries events had long been tending in the same direction: in Sicily and Italy by the acts of Frederick II.; in France through those of Philip the Fair. The educated had been estranged by the Saracens and Jews; the enthusiastic by such works as the Everlasting Gospel; the devout had been shocked by the tale of the Templars and the detected immoralities in Rome; the patriotic had been alienated by the assumptions of the papal court and its incessant intermeddling in political affairs; the inferior, unreflecting orders were in all directions exasperated by its importunate, unceasing exactions of money. In England, for instance, though less advanced intellectually than the southern nations, the commencement of the Reformation is perhaps justly referred as far back as the reign of Edward III., who, under the suggestion of Wiclif, refused to do homage