of his cardinals was in saddest contrast with that which became the chief spiritual guides of Christendom. Although personally temperate, Leo enjoyed and encouraged portentous feats of gluttony in others, indulged in practical jokes of the coarsest kind, and found cynical amusement in seeing human nature reduced to the lowest level of animalism. Pleasure in its varied forms was the main object of his life, and he pursued it incessantly along the paths which men in their blindness think will lead to it in every form of sport, in card-playing, in comedies, in profuse liberality and the most frivolous amusements. The richest bankers in Rome vied with each other in extravagance, and the record of entertainments given by Agostino Chigi and Lorenzo Strozzi reads like a page from Suetonius in the reigns of Caligula or Nero. Even their imperial magnificence was barbarous in comparison with the villas and stabling designed and decorated by Raffaelle, and, as Dr. Creighton affirms, never since the days of Cleopatra had been such poetry of profusion as when the silver plates and dishes at one of Chigi's dinners to the Pope were thrown, as soon as they had been used, into the Tiber; the astonished guests being ignorant that they fell into nets, and so would be afterwards recovered. Yet the highest madness of luxury was attained by Strozzi, who, in the carnival of 1519, gave a dinner to four cardinals, a number of Florentine friends, two buffoons, and three courtesans. This strangely assorted company was first ushered into a room hung with black, with four skeletons in the four corners, and a death's head, concealing some roast pheasants, on the table. Thence they were conducted to a dining-room, and as soon as food was placed before them there was a shock like an earthquake, and it disappeared. Presently, two spectral forms, resembling two of the guests, flitted through the chamber, and the terrified cardinals slunk hurriedly away. Strange to say, amidst such excesses the cultivation of literature and art became general, and the glory of the Renaissance reached its highest point at Rome during the reign of Leo. The most distinguished scholars entered the Pontiff's services; the greatest of modern artists, Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, worked for him in Rome or at Florence; literature. in all its branches, even comedy in the full licence of a licentious age, enjoyed his patronage. Libraries were formed, and Greeks employed to collect manuscripts from which the choicest classic authors became the common property of all learned Europe. As some measure of the effect which Leo's encouragement of letters produced, it may be noted that the names are on record of 120 poets resident in Rome. 'Before such a multitude of bards,' Dr. Creighton writes, 'criticism is reduced to respectful silence.' The forms which the new birth or the new learning took respectively in Germany and Italy suggest a comparison between their greatest representatives, Raffaelle and Luther, which is worked out in one of Dr. Creighton's most striking passages as follows: 'The life of Raffaelle expresses the best quality of the spirit of the Italian Renaissance-its belief in the power of culture to restore unity to life and implant serenity in the soul. It is clear that Raffaelle did not live for mere enjoyment, but that his time was spent in ceaseless activity, animated by high hopes for the future. But his early death on April 6, 1520, was the end of the reign of art in Rome, and the reign of literature soon ceased as well. The foreboding soul of Michael Angelo was more far-seeing than Raffaelle's joyous hopefulness. Not the peace of art, but the sword of controversy was to usher in the new epoch. Italy was no longer to be the teacher of the world; nor was Rome to be the undisputed centre of Christendom, from which religion and learning were alike to radiate forth to other nations. The art of Raffaelle is the idealization of the aims of the Italian Renaissance, which in its highest form strove to improve man's life by widening it, and was not concerned with the forms of existing institutions, but with the free spirit of the cultivated individual. It is a strange contrast that, as the star of Raffaelle set, that of Luther rose. Both were men of great ideas; both had a message which has not ceased to be heard throughout the ages. Raffaelle pointed to a future in which human enlightenment should reduce to harmony and proportion all that had been fruitful in the past; Luther claimed a present satisfaction for the imperious demands of conscience awakened to a sense of individual responsibility. Luther lived long enough to know that the power to which he appealed could not be confined within the limits which he had laid down for it, and that the future would be filled with discord. Raffaelle's dream vanished into thin air, only to form again and float with new meaning before the eyes of coming generations. That Raffaelle's pencil had just ceased to glorify the Papacy when Luther arose to bespatter it with abuse, is a symbol of the tendencies which long divided the minds of men. The ideal of Raffaelle was not necessarily opposed to that of Luther. Only the human frailty of impatience, or the base promptings of self-interest, lead men to set futile limitations upon the elements for which they are willing to find a place in their harmony of the universe. Raffaelle took the Church as it was, and recognized its eternal mission to mankind—a mission which was to increase in meaning when interpreted by the increased capacity of the human mind. The frescoes of the "Sala della Segnatura" are as much opposed to the exclusive domination claimed by the Medieval Church, as is Luther's assertion of Christian freedom. But Raffaelle spoke in a pagan tongue, with which ecclesiastical authorities were familiar; and he asked for no immediate exertion on their part. Luther arose, like some prophet of old, and sternly demanded that they should set their house in order forthwith. It was inconvenient to do so; it was undesirab'e that authority should be reminded of its duties by individuals, however excellent. So at a time when liberty of thought and opinion was universally practised, the Church suddenly furbished up weapons which had been long disused, and proceeded to crush the man who refused to unsay his convictions at her bidding. The liberality, the openmindedness, the cultivated tolerance of Leo X.'s Court did not go beyond the surface, and disappeared the instant self-interest was concerned. Men might say and think what they pleased, so long as their thoughts did not affect the Papal revenues. As Luther's meditations led to practical suggestions, he was peremptorily ordered to hold his tongue. Many had been treated in like manner before, and had obeyed through hopelessness. Luther showed unexpected courage and skill, and met with an unexpected answer to his appeal to the popular conscience to judge between the Papacy and his right to speak. When once the revolt was declared, many questions were raised, about which opinions may differ. But the central fact remains, that the authority which bade Raffaelle speak, bade Luther be silent. The Church which could find room for poets, philosophers, and artists as joint exponents of the meaning of life, refused to permit a theologian to discuss the basis of a practice which had obviously degenerated into an abuse. Doubtless Leo X. and his advisers saw nothing contradictory in this. The Pope wished to live peaceably, and to do his duty rather better than his immediate predecessors; the theologians of the Papal Court were willing that the theology of the past should be superseded, but not that it should be directly contradicted. In all the list of men of learning who graced the Papal Court there was no one found to understand the issue raised by Luther, or suggest a basis of reconciliation' (pp. 179-180). The remaining pages of the work before us, full as they are of interest, do but serve to enforce the lesson of these concluding sentences with fuller illustration and further minuteness of detail. The irony of fate has rarely been more forcibly displayed than in the utter helplessness of the two Infallibilities who occupied the throne of the fisherman after Leo, and in the indignities which they suffered at the hands of their nominal upholders. All the genuine worth of Adrian, all the Medicean craft of Clement, were powerless to retrieve a position which had been reared into theoretical omnipotence and practical impotence. A certain pathos attaches to the story of Adrian's endeavours, with feeble but well-intentioned efforts, to cope with evils that only a giant's strength could strangle. But even misfortune has scarce power to invest with dignity the irresolution and duplicity, the shiftiness and cowardice which brought on Clement the crowning misery of the sack of Rome. Henceforth the relation of national Churches to the Papacy became a question of convenience, and was governed by reasons of political expediency. The German revolt was still unsubdued, and further but as yet unexpected disaster was impending. ART. V. MR. GLADSTONE ON THE True and False Conceptions of the Atonement. By the Right IN our last number we had occasion to make some comments upon Mr. Gladstone's article in the Nineteenth Century for August on the subject of heresy and schism. The same periodical contained in September a contribution in which the distinguished author discussed a question which is no less interesting and no less pressing at the present time than his former subject, and in which still more momentous consequences to the Christian Faith are perhaps involved. No thoughtful mind which has begun to consider theological inquiries can fail either to be attracted or to be repelled by the doctrine of the Atonement. The consideration of it has formed a turning-point in the opinions of many in the present restless period of religious thought. With its truth or its falsity the whole Christian system is bound up. A reference to this doctrine which was made by a writer of great literary powers as having been a principal factor among the causes which led to her rejection of Christianity forms the starting-point of Mr. Gladstone's article. The circumstances to which its particular form is thus due marks its general character. It is evidently intended to be less a complete theological statement than an attempt to meet certain current difficultics; and its aim is to appeal to those who are, to a large extent, outside the influence of orthodox writings of an ordinary type. To understand it properly the writer's own words must be kept in mind. 'I waive no tittle of the authority which belongs to the established doctrine of the Atonement; but only abstain from modes of speech and argument which could find no possible access to the minds of 1 See Annie Besant: an Autobiography, p. 99. We have read parts of this book with a sense of the deepest pity; but we should welcome, for more reasons than one, information that its circulation is small. such as follow the methods adopted by the writer of this autobiography' (p. 320). Mrs. Besant had spoken of God' 'accepting a vicarious suffering from Christ and a vicarious righteousness from the sinner.' In defending what he believes to be the true sense of the first phrase Mr. Gladstone puts aside the second; and it is obvicus that there is no necessary connexion between the suffering of Christ being vicarious and the non-existence of righteousness in those who are benefited by it. He next repudiates statements, such as are sometimes incautiously made, according to which so long as the debt to God is paid it does not matter who pays it, and points out that in considering the willingness with which our Lord accepted the position of Redeemer it must not be forgotten that the Agony in the Garden shows that this was a conditioned willingness,' and that 'He accepted it because there was something deep down in the counsels and in the very nature of the Divine Being which made it indispensable,' or that 'injustice is not the less injustice because there may be a willing submission to it' (p. 321). After a statement of the truly vicarious character of Christ's sufferings as 'an atonement-at-onc-ment-vicariously brought about by the intervention of an innocent person,' and an explanation of the term 'forensic,' Mr. Gladstone lays down a series of propositions which are intended to show the truth of his contention that the Atonement, rightly understood, 'does not involve the idea of injustice' (p. 322). It may be convenient that we should quote the greater part of these propositions. '1. We are born into the world in a condition in which our nature has been depressed or distorted or impaired by sin; and we partake by inheritance this ingrained fault of our race. '2. This fault of nature has not abolished freedom of the will, but it has caused a bias towards the wrong. 3. The laws of our nature make its excellence recoverable by Divine discipline and self-denial, if the will be duly directed to the proper use of these instruments of recovery. 4. A Redeemer whose coming was prophesied simultaneously with the fall, being a person no less than the Eternal Son of God, comes into the world, and at the cost of great suffering establishes in His own person a type, a matrix so to speak, for humanity raised to its absolute perfection. 5. He also promulgates a creed or scheme of highly influential truths, and founds therewith a system of institutions and means of grace, whereby men may be recast, as it were, in that matrix or mould which He has provided, and united one by one with His own |