Note 85 — LECTURE III.

The learned author appears to intimate that the distractions of the Papacy, consequent on its political struggles for temporal power, hinder the salutary influence which it might otherwise exercise in the suppression of evil doctrines. The Translator feels it due to himself to state here, once for all, that he has no sympathy whatever with such a view of the influence of the Papacy. On the contrary, he is disposed to attribute to the Church of Rome most of the evils which afflict, not Italy only, but all the countries over which she has any power. Perhaps, having "felt the weight of too much liberty" in his own Church, the excellent author, fundamentally sound in his own views of Christian doctrine, as is proved abundantly by his writings, has been led by a natural reaction to give too much weight to the opposite principle of authority. The concluding pages of his former work, La Vie Eternelle, indicate a mind too painfully and sensitively averse to all controversy with a corrupt Church, in consideration of the acknowledged excellences of many of her individual members,—her Pascals, Fénélons, Martin Boos, Girards, Gratrys, and Lacordaires.—Translator.