THAT era in our world's history which men have agreed in calling the Dark Ages, is a phenomenon of wonder and interest. Scholars have explored its turbid stream of Philosophy and learning; historians have studied and recorded its annals; speculative philosophers have theorized and traced back its effects to their causes; and religionists have discussed its bearings on Faith and its relations to Prophecy. Nor is this surprising. No wonder men look with a kind of peculiar awe on what, at best, is an anomaly and a mystery. A few centuries before its dawn, the purest system of Faith which the world had ever known, was given to it, and the most solemn and glorious fact was displayed in Judea-the life and death of him who was both man and God. Why did not that pure system attract men more, and why did not that astounding fact fasten itself in men's minds and become the unchanging pole-star of their destiny and the intensest principle of their actions? After four thousand years of flickering twilight, the world was lighted up by the heavenly radience of the Sun of Righteousness. Who would have dreamed that so soon she would have broken away and plunged down again into her original darkness, rendered yet blacker by that celestial light which for a moment had burst upon it. But so it was, and poor weak man may never know the cause of it, may never say it was to reach this end-to achieve that result. There are obvious means by which it was immediately brought about, but the first great Why that thrilled in the Eternal Thought, man may never tell with certainty. It may have been to grant a temporary triumph to Ignorance and Sin, and thus more clearly to demonstrate the crowning power of Truth and Righteousness. Or as the husbandman's seed must lie in the cold damp earth ere it can bud and bear fruit, so it may have been necessary that Truth should be buried for a season beneath the load of ignorance and superstition which threatened to annihilate it, in order that its germ might take root in darkness ere it put forth boughs and blossoms which were to abide forever. But we cannot certainly say that it was so. Regard it as we will, it yet stands forth a strange, unprecedented phenomenon -a dark heavy cloud that slowly rolled up across the sky, and for a thousand years shut out the beams of the genial sun. It needs but a hasty glance at the Dark Ages, to detect the more prominent immediate causes of an effect so vast, and (humanly speaking) so lamentable, some of which had been long at work ere they showed themselves in their important results. Ever since the days of Socrates and Plato, Philosophy had been developing itself in divers systems and mongrel sects. Each presented itself to man, and in its own peculiar way, would lead him up to the chief good. The legitimate offspring of a Greek soil, transplanted into a Roman hot-bed, they seem to acquire new life and vigor, and spread out their wanton, unchecked branches on every side. The principles of the mighty masters-of him who quaffed the hemlock and died a christian martyr save in name, gave way to sophistry, and Reason had no better representative than hollow dialectics. They scorned the humble path of true Philosophy, and rushed foolishly into the absurdest speculations. Like the Ionian School, they pretended to discover the first element of all things, and came to about as ridiculous conclusions. Like Pythagoras, they discoursed mystically about numbers, harmony, and music. And vainly endeavoring to imitate "the gorgeous reveries of the starry-dreaming Plato," they carried speculation so far beyond the bounds of sense as to lose themselves in the limbo of absurdity. A Philosophy like this, so disastrous to all sensible and liberal truth, so inflated and yet so bigoted, could not but have very unfavorably affected the minds of men and the tolerant spirit of society. It prepared them for that tenacity with which they clung to their preconceived notions, for a pious horror of every innovation, and for that blind illiberality which manifested its silent but terrible effects in their haughty contempt of a Columbus, and in the dungeon to which they doomed a Galileo. No wonder the annals of Europe were dark for so many centuries! True earnest men often kindled a light for them, but they blew it out in their fanaticism! No wonder we call those the Dark Ages ! And if Ignorance and Superstition had usurped the place of true Philosophy, so also at first there were no bold spirits to bring it back and place it on its throne-no broad-breasted Alcides to cleanse the Augean Stables. No censorious Cato ruled the Forum, no Tully guided the Senate, no Seneca taught in the Schools. There was a fearful paucity of the great and good in those early days, and in place of the patriot Consul and honest Tribune, a Nero or a Caligula too often governed Rome. Fit warders they to usher in that dark era of which we speak! But not long were these influences to work unassisted. Hitherto in the annals of Europe, Britain alone of the northern tribes, had begun to figure, and she only as a conquered Roman province. But now the Arithmetic of nations was seized by a stronger though unpractised hand. The Goth dashed down his equation, in rude haste ciphered it out, solved the problem of European destiny, and then came bursting down upon astonished Rome like his own northern thunderbolt. Not once nor twice did those fierce warriors knock at the gates of the Eternal City, but again and again, like the ceaseless tide-wave of the lunatic ocean, the crested surge of their proud warfare swept the fair plains of Italy and Southern Europe. The crushed and vanquished Roman forever lost his manly spirit, for the "Scourge of God" moved through the land; and the hardy conqueror bore back to the rude clime from which he came, the luxuries and vices of his princely foe. Rome, pagan Rome then fell, and the bards made song for other lands, and the chilly North stretched out her shivering arm and thenceforth guided on the nations. Darkness rose up and did strife with light, and extinguished it because that light was not pure. And the Faith of that age was corrupt. It was a fearful lesson to the christian, and it took him centuries to learn it, that he must not league his faith with princes-so he was not taught by his master, so experience has fearfully warned him. Roman Constantine may have been honest, but he erred when he would have served God with his sword, and it has required the flame of many a persecution to purge this mistaken idea from the church. Out of this error has originated the Catholic Hierarchy. It grew up, the offspring of a strange amalgamation, the unnatural child of God and Cæsar. But there was more of Cæsar there than of God, and for the mild charities of christianity were substituted the fierce anathema-the cruel persecution. It professed the peace and liberty of the Gospel, and acted with the haughtiest pride of bigotry. It invited men to believe, and left them to the tender mercies of bitter persecution if they disbelieved. It endeavored to crowd Christ from his mediatorial throne and substitute the Virgin. It dignified and worshipped as God's viceroys, priests whose souls were blackened with debauchery, murder, and every crime which can drag men down to perditior. Money would purchase any favor, procure any indulgence, padon every sin. This was the Babylon of Revelationthis the gorged, yet ever insatiate monster that sucked up the lifeblood of true learning and piety. No wonder those were dark ages when the Papal Church ruled the hearts and consciences of menwhen frail mortality shook its impious arm in the face of Heaven, and dared to grasp the scepter of Omnipotence, and claimed to hold the keys which unlock Paradise and the prison-house of despair. age. It would be well to notice a few of the peculiar features of that We have time but for one. Dark deeds are done in Dark Ages; and who has not thrilled at the tale of the first crusaders? Who has not seemed to hear their clarion's peal, and mark the pride of their bannered hosts as in war's array they swept on toward Palestine? Peter the Hermit roused up Europe by his fanatic eloquence, and she madly sent her bravest and her best to plant the red cross where the crescent floated-over sad Jerusalem. Shall the insulting Turk longer bear sway over the grave of their Faith's great Author? So asked the monk of Amiens, and great Chivalry answered-No! And so the gallant knights are on their way to ask the Saracen why he rather than they should rule Jerusalem. It was a sufficiently earnest question, and the ink was red with which the Turk made answer. Some seek the cause of the Crusades in the effervescence of that chivalrous spirit which then prevailed so extensively in Europe; some in the grasping ambition of the Romish church, and the fanaticism of the priests; and others still in the policy of princes. But perhaps by uniting the three we shall obtain a more accurate result. The monarchs of Europe may have desired to check the Moslem's growing power, but they knew well how they could best rouse their people to the encounter. The first warning voice was that of a religious fanatic, but it touched a sympathizing chord in a thousand hearts. Hence princes plotted, religious fanaticism lent her aid, and chivalry came sheathed in armor to redeem the Holy Sepulchre and turn back the tide which threatened to desolate Europe. And so the gallant knight, "with spear in rest," pressed on; and the prince threw down his scepter and drew his sword; and the maiden bid her lover speed, and in Eastern wars approve his prowess and his love. There perished the flower of chivalrous knighthood; there the young prince lost realm and liberty; there the lover won trophies of his prowess and his love, but ne'er returned to lay them at the feet of beauty! There flashed the cimeter and crossed the sword. There, in the grim death-wrestle, turbaned and helmed heads went down together. There the Cross and Crescent waved over "Battle's magnificently-stern array," and sunk alternately in the conflict; while Frank and Turk, Christian and Infidel fell down in ghastly death together, "in one red burial blent." Drop the veil that we may look no more. Call it a Dark Age! OLD BOOKS. Out of the olde fieldes, as men saithe, RALPH. Chaucer. WE plead guilty to the charge of a reverence for antiquity. It may be wrong, but who does not know that affections and passions are often proof against reasonings. We love quietly to sit down even in the venerable presence of an old black-letter volume of ours, and let the thoughts which it suggests, flow freely. Its binding is certainly a rare specimen: it is done up in boards most emphatically. We will just glance at these singular indentures in its cover, and its five brass ornaments, not unlike buttons, so fancifully disposed one at each corner and their "big brother" in the center. Unlike the books of the present day it is not "weak about the vertebrae." Let us |