In this essay he writes as follows:--"These were happy, glorious days, when Europe was still a Christian continent, the home of the one, undivided Christian religion.... The wise head of the Church rightly set himself against the bold cultivation of the human mind at the cost of religious faith, and against untimely and dangerous discoveries in the domain of science. Thus he forbade the scientists to maintain openly that this earth is an insignificant planet, for he knew well that men would lose, along with their respect for their earthly home, respect for their heavenly home and their fellow-men, that they would choose limited knowledge in preference to unlimited faith, and would acquire the habit of despising everything great and wonderful, as being simply the result of lifeless law." We could almost suppose ourselves to be listening to the sermonising of a parish-clerk of the eighteenth century. And yet we are sensible of the poet's consistency. Poetry, which led Schiller back to Greece, leads Novalis back to the Inquisition, and induces him, like Joseph de Maistre, to side with it against Galileo. Of Protestantism he says: "This great spiritual disruption, which was accompanied by disastrous wars, was a notable proof of the harmfulness of knowledge, of culture--or at least of the temporary harmfulness of a certain degree of culture.... The schismatics separated the inseparable, divided the indivisible Church, and presumptuously dissociated themselves from the great Christian communion, in which, and through which alone, true, lasting regeneration was possible.... A religious peace was concluded, based upon principles which were as foolish as they were irreligious; for the continued existence of so-called Protestantism was equivalent to the establishment of a self-contradiction, namely, permanent revolutionary government.... Luther treated Christianity arbitrarily, mistook its spirit, and introduced a new letter, a totally new doctrine, that of the sacred and supreme authority of the Bible. This, unfortunately, meant the interference in religious matters of a perfectly foreign, entirely earthly science, namely, philology, the destructive influence of which is thenceforward unmistakable.... The popularisation of the Bible was now insisted upon, and its contemptible matter and the crude abstract sketch of a religion provided by its books had a remarkable effect in frustrating the inspiring, revealing activity of the Holy Spirit.... The Reformation was the death-blow of Christianity.... Fortunately for the Church, there came into existence at this time a new religious order, on which the expiring spirit of the hierarchy seemed to have bestowed its last gifts. This order gave new life to the old forms, and with wonderful intuition and determination set about the restoration of the Papal power. Never before in the world's history had such a society been known.... The Jesuits were well aware how much Luther owed to his