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Rh useful than its assailants now admit. The ecclesiastical republic afforded the only opening for intellectual talent—the mental, that counterbalanced the feudal, aristocracy; but for its decrees, the very name of peace would have been unknown in Europe; and mighty was the protection afforded to the weak, while charity and support to the poor was exercised on a scale far beyond the poor-rates and subscriptions of the present day. We are well prepared to allow that this vast authority was often directed to evil; but what human authority has not been abused?—and the Roman Church was a human institution, growing out of human circumstances and human exigencies. The moment its empire was no longer needed, that moment it was impugned. In vain persecution strove to keep down the fast-growing intelligence of the age. The authority was not required, and it fell before the more liberal faith which suited the period; while the habits of investigation and inquiry which men had acquired soon extended from religions to all other subjects.

There was also a second class among whom notions of freedom had sprung up in their most tangible and useful form—we allude to the mercantile ranks. For a long and stormy period after the downfall of the Roman empire, war