policy of the European states, and stamped the character of modern science, down to our own days, when though its influence has not been so exclusive and undivided, as at an earlier period, it has been still the main and stirring cause of all the great political changes, and all the new and astonishing events of our age. We must endeavour to view this great Revolution with the impartial eye of the historian, and labour duly to comprehend and judge it in all its manifold bearings, and in all its remote consequences; and if we should feel inclined to lament and deplore the long continuance of this unhappy division in the great European family, we should remember that such a feeling of regret, however innocent and natural in our own bosoms, and in our own conviction, can furnish no adequate criterion for an historical decision. At any rate, we should in no case immoderately repine at such an event, and murmur against Destiny, that is to say, the ruling Providence which permits the occurrence of such evils. The permission by God of a mere human, unsanctioned enterprise, nay, of a mighty, general, protracted, and incurable division among mankind--a system of opposition with all its unhappy consequences, its moral impediments, and its political disasters; such a permission forms, as I have already observed, the great enigma of history--the wonderful secret of the divine decrees in the conduct of mankind, as well as in the conduct of individuals. Perhaps this great enigma will then only be perfectly unravelled, and the mystery which hangs over this subject, then only be perfectly dispelled, when this mighty Revolution shall have been terminated, and brought to a close. Even now, the experience we have acquired, however imperfect and limited it may be, makes one thing evident; namely, that the influence of Protestantism has not been confined to those states and countries where it became predominant, and where it received a public and legal establishment. Far greater was the danger, far more fatal were the consequences, when an open rupture, a formal separation from the church did not take place, or had, if a temporary, at least no permanent existence--but where Protestantism, that is to say, the spirit of Protestantism, a like or a kindred set of opinions, was infused into the moral system of countries externally Catholic, and secretly instilled into the veins of the body politic, gradually corroded its vitals; till at last, amid a false and apparent repose, the long suppressed element of revolutionary innovation infected with its deadly virus, opinion, science, and lastly, government and society. The conscience in its enquiries after religious truth, to whatever decision it may come, only looks to the determination of a point of faith as the sole clue of its investigations. But in historical enquiries, this rigid intersecting line of faith forms no adequate rule of judgment. The experience of our own times, or that of the last generation has