years converging. A second Gregory could not have worn. the mitre six months. No college of cardinals, or fortress of St. Angelo, or inherited sanctity, could have saved him. The Roman States would have had a liberal Pope, or the chair of St. Peter would have been left vacant.

What are, and what probably will be, the consequences of his elevation, or what change will be effected, either under his guidance, or in opposition to his will ?

First, the idea of the Pope's infallibility as a temporal or a spiritual prince has been rudely assailed, and can with. difficulty ever regain its ascendency. The absurdity of it is subjected to constant and most humiliating tests. So doubtful has it become, so ill fitted is it to meet the sudden emergencies of the present times, so extensively is its inefficiency known and canvassed, that its former strenuous advocates, as it should seem, must abandon it.

Secondly, the adoption of those civil and municipal reforms in the States of the Church, and throughout Italy, which are most urgently needed. The days of misgovernment, of legalized oppression, of exclusive aristocratic pretension, and of a wretched serfdom, converting some of the fairest districts in the world into a desert, are fast passing away. Rome, if she would retain a tithe of her power, must practise the lessons of industry and a wise economy.

Thirdly, the separation of the civil and ecclesiastical power. This is virtually effected already. The Pope at the present moment is an ecclesiastical sovereign, and no more. It is not the cardinal legate who governs Bologna ; it is the citizens themselves. It is not the Pope who sends his troops into Lombardy, or who disbands the Swiss guard, or exiles the Company of Jesus; it is public opinion, acting through laymen at Rome. The country of Brutus and

Cicero and Rienzi, which, three years ago, was a despotism as absolute as any which existed on earth, is now virtually a republic.

*

Fourthly, the immediate introduction, to some extent, of Protestant opinions, of free discussion on matters of religion, and of an unrestricted press. The light has hitherto been systematically shut out. For ages an embargo has been laid on every thing which would disturb the Catholic belief. The ports and custom-houses of Italy have sought to exclude Protestant opinions, as zealously as they would the infection of the plague. But this peremptory exclusion, it is to be hoped, is at an end. The Index Expurgatorius will, probably, be hereafter nothing but an historical curiosity on the shelves of the Vatican. Even should the hopes of the friends of civil liberty be disappointed, and the Austrian supremacy be again restored in Lombardy, still it would be difficult, if not impracticable, to reinstate the old system of Papal exclusiveness. Vienna herself feels the quickening breath of freedom. This beautiful land, there is good reason to believe, will not again become the theatre of Jesuit intrigue and of inquisitorial cruelty. Whether monarchy, in a limited form, again obtain the ascendency or not, the cause of Protestant liberty has received an accession of strength which must ere long sweep away all obstacles.

* Three or four years ago, a gentleman found it impossible to procure a Bible in the vernacular tongue at any of the book-shops in Rome. In 1846-7, no copy of an Italian Bible could be found for sale in several of the largest cities of the country, except that of Martini, which is in several volumes octavo. Now it is stated in the public prints, that parts of the Bible, the Westminster Assembly's Catechism, and extracts from the writings of Vinet and of other Protestants, are translated into Italian and freely distributed.

Fifthly, we may also hope that some of the more objec tionable and comparatively modern features of the Roman Catholic system will be abandoned. An economical or civil reformation must modify, in a variety of ways, some of the practices and doctrines of the Papacy. Certain usages and articles of belief cannot endure the ordeal which emancipated reason, popular education, or an enfranchised Bible would of necessity establish. The right of private judgment in matters of religious belief always accompanies the diffusion of the Scriptures, and must with the blessing of Heaven essentially reform, if it does not gradually destroy, the Catholic hierarchy.

The degree of freedom which the Vaudois, who dwell in the mountains of Piedmont, after ages of persecution, now enjoy, and which has made a hundred Alpine valleys break forth into singing, is but an earnest, we trust, of that perfect liberty in Christ, which shall ere long prevail from sea to sea, and from the Lombard Plain to the utmost South. Then it will be, indeed, fair Italy, — sublime and graceful in outward nature, with the larger air, the purple light, and a sun sinking into the sea with a lustre peculiarly his own, full of old reminiscences that stir the soul to its depths, the parent of freedom, the home of art, the nurse of genius in its noblest forms, the guardian of those whose "dust is immortality," where sleeps on Ravenna's shore one who spake of "things invisible to mortal eye," where was revealed to another all deathless ideals of beauty, where apostles and martyrs still repose united to Jesus, where Ambrose sung, and Augustine saw the vision of the city of God, whose very soil is instinct with thought, whose "ashes are yet warm," how fair she will be, when there are no sad contrasts in her moral

and religious state, when the spirit that once evangelized the Eternal City shall again pervade her plastic, susceptible, and most interesting people, when, from all her vine-crowned hills and delicious valleys, the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy!

SLAVERY IN ANCIENT GREECE.*

THERE has not been any attempt, within our knowledge, to investigate thoroughly the condition of Grecian Slavery.† The ancient historian, for the most part, concerned himself only with the freeborn citizen. He had in general no sympathies to expend in behalf of the great prostrate multitude, who toiled and died unseen. We have allusions, incidental notices, paragraphs scattered here and there in the long records from Hesiod down to the historians of Byzantium. The thoughtful tragedian sometimes drops a tear for the poor slave, and the comic poet raises a laugh at his expense, but no Xenophon was found to lift the curtain and detail the features of that system, which deprived at least two thirds of the population of Greece of all political importance, and, in a great measure, of happiness itself. In the following pages we propose to collect and embody such facts and

* This Essay was published in the Biblical Repository for January, 1835, and was afterwards republished in Great Britain.

The German work of Reitemeier excepted, which we have not been able to procure. So far as we know, he is the only author who has written formally on the subject.