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    perfect security , we may be unjust and ungenerous for ever . Next to reliance on Him whose protection we can then only claim with a cheerful mind when we have sought no dishonourable means of safety , our strongest ground of security is , the essential difference between a state of light and one of darkness . There may , no doubt , be fluctuations , France , passing from bigotry to scepticism , appeared a short time ago to have returned to bigotry again . But Once more the dark wave seems to be retiring , and the coast will be left , we trust , tranquil , yet not stripped as before of its safeguards and

    Ornaments , by this last effort of the retreating waters . ¦ It is surprising that those who are fond of tracing the enormous tyrannies of the crusading times to the spirit of Catholicism , do not seem to perceive that the original error was nearly as . great with regard to the proper limit of civil as of spiritual power . It is proved by the frequent opposition of the monarch and the nobles to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction , that in the very darkest times the infallibility 0 f the church was a doctrine held alternately by all parties according to convenience , but questioned in turn by all when

    strength co-operated with interest against it . Brought up , however , m this reli g ion , knowing little of any other , finding it a useful instrument in rivetting the chains of the lower people , and doubtless connecting many devout feelings with its pomps and ceremonies , it was from thence alone that they derived both motive and rule of duty ; and when the gratification of the lust of power , or the certainty of obtaining salvation ; was held out by a persecuting church as the reward for participating in her deeds , the doctrine of Infallibility was gladly recurred to . But , meanwhile , the spirit

    of despotism was , at least equally with the spirit of religious bigotry , at Enmity with the best interests of the human race—a spirit of over-governing and -over-managing . Together with this may be reckoned the extreme selfishness of the religious spirit of those times , a quality which , however , is by no means confined to Catholicism , but is apparent in every sect or party , ( in whatever period or country it may appear , ) which sets out with preferring some fancied interest of its own to the interests of others ; which

    can , in short , keep any other sect in a state of abasement , because it apprehends injury to itself from allowing an equality of power and privileges . - In that part of M . Sismondi's interesting History which contains the reign of St . Louis , ( Vols . VII , and VIII ., ) there seems , in the midst of much judicious remark , one erroneous sentiment , upon which we would make a few observations . Has not this historian fallen into the error of confounding

    * ' le desir de faire son salut * ' with a character w essentiellement pieux" ? ( Vol . VII . p . 14 . ) ** Seeing , " says he , " in what manner Louis proceeded , we are led frequently to observe that a pious king is not the best of legislators , and that he would have been guided much more surely by the pursuit of the greatest good of his subjects than by the desire to accomplish his own salvation . " Piety and the mere , desire of salvation are here used as synonymous terms , though there seems a wide and essential difference

    between them . Piety is the uncalculating , intuitive approach of human affections towards the Creator . The desire of salvation is an afterthought . In the first case there is an immediate intercourse / between the creature and his Creator ; in the next , the idea is of conditions and rules and contingencies . Now , the prevailing spirit of the crusading times appears to nave been in a great . measure a selfish one . Historians have generally allowed themselves to be swayed by the popular and romantic view of these enterprises ; but Sismondi fully admits that , after the first of them , ( we rather

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    308 Sismondi on St . Louis and the Crusades .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1828, page 308, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2560/page/20/