the Christian world had no fair chance at the beginning of the seventh century to escape the intellectual darkness which was settling on Europe. Gregory's books on morals were generally substituted in the room of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Pope Theodore 1st. gave out that he had recovered the lost copy of that work by a revelation of St. Peter and St. Paul, and thus enhanced its value to those who, from distant countries, sent for it to Rome, to make it the source and standard of their knowledge*. Abstracts and digests of it were industriously compiled for the use of students; and Gregory became the founder, master, and leader of the barbarous schools of the middle ages.

The limits of a note oblige me to refer my readers to the interesting history of the rise of school philosophy, given by Brucker, Period. II. Pars II. cap. ii. de Philos. Christ. Occident. tom. iii.

On the moral character of the monks, Fleury, a Roman Catholic, gives considerable information in his eighth discourse, prefixed to Vol. XX. of his Histoire Ecclesiastique.

L.-Page 167.

PROCLAMATION OF THE JUBILEE FOR THE PRESENT

YEAR OF 1825.

The Bull by which the present Pope has proclaimed the jubilee is so curious a document, that posterity will hardly believe it was really published in the last year of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. I wish to increase its

Mariana claims the honour of the revelation for Tajon, bishop of Saragossa. Hist. de España, L. vi. c. viii.

circulation as much as it may be in my power; for I am persuaded no arguments are so powerful against Rome as the authentic documents in which she breathes out her genuine spirit. I beg the attention of the reader to the catalogue of curious relics, by which the Pope tries to draw pilgrims to his capital; and to that part of the Bull where he addresses all Protestants, inviting them " to have one consentient mind with this (the Roman) Church, the mother and mistress of all others, out of which there is no salvation."

The translation which I use is taken from the Roman Catholic Laity's Directory for 1825.

LEO BISHOP,

SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD,

To all the faithful of Christ who shall see these presents, health and apostolical benediction.

In the merciful dispensations of the Lord, it is at length granted to our humility, to announce to you with joy, that the period is at hand, when what we regretted was omitted at the commencement of the present century, in consequence of the direful calamities of the times, is to be happily observed according to the established custom of our forefathers; for that most propitious year, intitled to the utmost religious veneration, is approaching, when christians from every region of the earth will resort to this our holy city and the chair of blessed Peter, and when the most abundant treasures of reconciliation and grace will be offered as means of salvation to all the faithful disposed to perform the exercises of piety which are prescribed. During this year, which we truly call the acceptable time and the time of salvation, we congratulate you that a favourable occasion is presented, when, after the miserable accumulation

of disasters under which we have groaned, we may strive to renew all things in Christ, by the salutary atonement of all christian people. We have therefore resolved, in virtue of the authority given to us by Heaven, fully to unlock that sacred treasure, composed of the merits, sufferings, and virtues of Christ our Lord, and of his Virgin Mother, and of all the saints, which the Author of human salvation has intrusted to our dispensation.

In this it becomes us to magnify the abundant riches of the divine clemency, by which Christ, preventing us with the blessings of sweetness, so willed the infinite power of his merits to be diffused through the parts of his mystical body, that they by reciprocal co-operation, and by the most wholesome communication of advantages flowing from faith, which worketh by charity, might mutually assist each other; and by the immense price of the blood of the Lord, and for his sake and virtue, as also by the merits and suffrages of the saints, might gain the remission of the temporal punishment, which the fathers of the Council of Trent have taught is not always entirely remitted, as is the case in baptism, by the sacrament of penance.

Let the earth, therefore, hear the words of our mouth, and let the whole world joyfully hearken to the voice of the priestly trumpet sounding forth to God's people the sacred Jubilee. We proclaim that the year of atonement and pardon, of redemption and grace, of remission and indulgence, is arrived; in which we know that those benefits which the old law, the messenger of things to come, brought every fiftieth year to the Jewish people, are renewed in a much more sacred manner by the accumulation of spiritual blessing through Him by whom came peace and truth. For if the lands that had been sold, and property that had passed into other hands, were reclaimed in that salutary year, so we

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recover now, by the infinite liberality of God, the virtues, and merits, and gifts, of which we are despoiled by sin. If then the chains of human bondage ceased to exist,-so at present, by shaking off the most galling yoke of diabolical subjection, we are called to the liberty of God's children, to that liberty which Christ has granted us. If, in fine, by the precept of the law, pecuniary debts were then pardoned to debtors, and they became discharged from every bond,-we are also exonerated from a much heavier debt of sins, and are released by the divine mercy from the punishments incurred by them.

Eagerly wishing that so many and such great advantages may accrue to your souls, and confidently invoking God, the giver of all good gifts, through the bowels of his mercy, in conformity to the exigency of the prescribed period, and the pious institutes of the Roman pontiffs, our predecessors, and walking in their footsteps,-we, with the assent of our venerable brethren, the cardinals of the holy Roman church, do, by the authority of Almighty God, and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own, for the glory of God himself, the exaltation of the Catholic church, and the sanctification of all Christian people, ordain and publish the universal and most solemn Jubilee to commence in this holy city from the first vespers of the Nativity of our most holy Saviour Jesus Christ, next ensuing, and to continue during the whole year 1825; during which year of the jubilee we mercifully give and grant in the Lord a plenary indulgence, remission, and pardon of all their sins, to all the faithful of Christ of both sexes, truly penitent and confessing their sins, and receiving the holy communion, who shall devoutly visit the churches of blessed Peter and Paul, as also of St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major, of this city, for thirty successive or uninterrupted (whether natural or ecclesiastical) days, to be counted, to wit, from the

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first vespers of one day until the evening twilight of the day following, provided they be Romans or inhabitants of this city; but if they be pilgrims or otherwise strangers, if they shall do the same for fifteen days, and shall pour forth their pious prayers to God for the exaltation of the holy church, the extirpation of heresies, concord of Catholic princes, and the safety and tranquillity of christian people.

And because it may happen that some persons who shall set out on their journey, or shall arrive in this city, may be detained in their way, or even in the city itself, by illness or other lawful excuse, or be prevented by death from completing the prescribed number of days, or perhaps even beginning them, and may be unable to comply with the premises, and visit the said churches, we will, in our desire of graciously favouring their pious and ready disposition as far as we can in the Lord, that the same, being truly penitent and confessing their sins, and receiving the holy communion, become partakers of the aforesaid indulgence and remission as fully as if they had actually visited the said churches on the days by us appointed; so that, though hindered by the necessities aforesaid, they may, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, obtain the effect of their desires.

These things we announce to you, beloved children, with a fatherly affection, that you, who labour and are burthened, hasten thither, where know for certain that refreshmay you ment awaits you. Neither is it allowable to remain indifferent and heartless about acquiring these salutary riches from the eternal treasures of divine grace which the most holy and indulgent mother, the church, throws open to you, whilst men are so eagerly intent on amassing earthly possessions, which the moth consumes or the rust eats away. And when, from the earliest times, there has been great and constant concourse of people, of every station, flocking from all parts of the globe, in