We have seen the barbarians raising their kings upon a buckler when investing them with the dignity of royalty. The Church substituted the ceremony of anointing. In this ceremony was contained the idea of Christian sovereignty, and of the sacred compact entered into between the monarch and his people; while the Church, receiving the promises of each, stands forward henceforth as the holy guardian of the rights of both parties. I shall say more hereafter of this attitude of the Church towards kings and people; at present I am occupied with a subject which naturally precedes it-her work in laying the foundation of Christian government in Europe; for it was her work, and we owe to her all that we now possess of good order and civilisation. If the work was not more perfect, it was not the fault of the Popes or Bishops. The idea was perfect, being divine; the realisation was imperfect, being earthly. The perverse wills and fierce passions of men interfered with its full development at any time, and the heresy of Protestantism afterwards checked its progress still more lamentably. The Popes then laboured to impress on kings and people their mutual obligations, sanctioned by religion, and confirmed by reciprocal engagements; and the anointing with holy oil was a ceremony well calculated to teach this new view of royalty. Thus we see Pope Stephen II., when he repaired to the court of Pepin to beseech him to come forward as the defender of the Church, anointing both the king and his sons. To shew you that in so doing he had alone in view the disinterested object of which I have just spoken, and not the desire to gratify a king whose help he needed, I must tell you that Pepin was at that time seriously meditating the sin of divorcing his lawful wife Bertrada, that he might marry another woman. Now, did the Pope pretend to be ignorant of this design, or connive at its execution? Quite the reverse; he made such urgent remonstrances with the king, that Pepin abandoned his design and retained his wife.

Thus you see that, while endeavouring to lead the people to respect their kings, the Pope was labouring to make the kings more worthy of such respect. For it would be greatly to mistake both the origin and design of this cere

mony of anointing, if you were to suppose it to be a mere invention and device to fortify the power of kings and place them above earthly law, by investing them with a sacred and irresponsible character. Far from it: the comparatively modern doctrine of the "divine right of kings" is something altogether different. It arose in later ages, and when kings, mistaking their true interests, were endeavouring to free themselves from the spiritual control of the Holy See, and get all power and that irresponsible power-into

their own hands; when, in fact, the spirit was at work which produced Protestantism. For the doctrine of the "divine right of kings," as it is called (a theory invented to sanction their irresponsible use of power), is essentially a Protestant doctrine; just as that of the "sovereignty of the people," understood in the same absolute and unqualified sense, is also a Protestant and antichristian production. The worship of mere might and power, as if it were nothing less than divine, whether embodied in the person of one powerful individual or of a dominant majority, is, I repeat it, uncatholic and antichristian.

The idea of Christian monarchy, on the other hand, which the Popes were labouring to introduce, quite excluded the notion of absolute power. I might quote the letters of many of the Popes to the sovereigns of those days. in proof of this. Thus we find St. Gregory the Great writing to Childebert, king of the Franks, and his mother Brunehaut, in these words: "The way to please the King of kings, that is to say, the Almighty Lord, is to keep your power within bounds, and to be well persuaded that it is not lawful for you to do every thing which your power may enable you to do." To a Spanish king the same Pope writes: "Your government of your subjects ought to be tempered with great moderation; for then is a kingdom well governed when the glory of ruling does not rule in the soul." And even when writing to those incorrigible tyrants, the Greek emperors, his language is not dissimilar: "There is this difference between the kings of the nations and the emperors of the republic, that the kings of the nations rule over slaves, and the emperors of the republic over freemen." And if such was their language to the Eastern emperors,

who were absolute sovereigns, and affected the state of Asiatic despots, much more did they labour to impress the same lesson on the chiefs of the young monarchies which had sprung up out of the ruins of the Roman empire. The early quasi-elective character of all these monarchies lent itself in the first instance to their design, or rather they availed themselves, with a holy prudence, of the materials before them; just as we shall see them, in the following Tract, taking hold of the great idea of the Roman empire, which had not yet perished in men's minds, to turn it to a Christian account. The Church availed herself of the right of election, which among the Germanic tribes was combined in an irregular manner with a regard to hereditary claims, both to require on the part of the monarch pledges of good government and the maintenance of the Catholic faith, now the religion of the people he was called to govern; and at the same time to give the election itself a sacred character by pouring holy oil on the head of the sovereign, and so to insure to him the respect of his subjects by teaching him first to respect himself. Thus she impressed on men that right, not might, formed the essence of Christian government; that if kings had rights to exercise, subjects had also rights to be respected; and that there was a God over all, witnessing, in His Church, the holy promises they mutually gave each other.

I will conclude by giving you the solemn words of two kings, which will satisfactorily shew you that the lesson, if not always acted upon, had been inculcated, and in due time was understood and acknowledged. My first extract is from the words of the oath taken by Charles the Bald, the great-grandson of Pepin, at his consecration. He thus addresses the people: "Seeing that the venerable bishops have declared, conformably to your unanimous assent, that God hath chosen me for your defence, your welfare, and your government, and seeing you have acknowledged the same by your acclamations; know that with the aid of the Lord I will maintain the honour and worship of God, and the reverence due to holy churches; that with all my power and ability I will insure to each of you, according to his rank, the protection of his person and the preservation of

his honours and dignity; that I will maintain for each his rights, both ecclesiastical and secular; and this, in order that each of you may render to me the honour befitting a king, and the obedience which is due to me, and may concur with me in preserving and defending the kingdom which I hold of God, as your ancestors have done for my predecessors, with fidelity, with justice, and with reason.' It was not till he had solemnly pronounced these words that the oil of consecration was poured upon his head, and the blessing of Heaven invoked upon him. The second quotation I shall make is from the laws of our own St. Edward the Confessor: "The king, who is the vicar of the sovereign Lord of all, hath received his institution to rule the kingdom of the earth, and to defend from all injury the people of the Lord and holy Church. If he fails to do this, he shall not retain the name of king, but, as Pope John attests, he loses the royal dignity."

Such, then, was the Christian idea of sovereignty, which it was the glory of the Catholic Church, and of the Pope, as the head of that Church, to have substituted for the barbarous notion of power and of force. You see also that the "divine right of kings" as understood and taught by the Church was a very different thing from the Protestant doctrine on that subject, which is, in fact, a mere disguised idolatry of power, not a reverence for right, and therefore a return in another shape to the old barbarous and heathen idea. The "divine right," in these early Christian ages, when nations did not disdain to sit as disciples at the feet of the Father of Christendom, had nothing in common with the doctrine of modern courtiers. Instead of giving to kings an unlimited and irresponsible power, it conveyed a solemn and awful commission, for which they knew that they must answer at a heavenly tribunal. Nor could they well forget that the authority they possessed, though received, it is true, from the God by whom kings reign, and who is the fountain of all power, was derived to them immediately through the will and consent of their people, and that tyranny, therefore, had some reason to dread an earthly account as well as a future retribution.