near enough to distinguish objects, they were astonished to see that their opponents had no beards, and presently the word was passed that the place was defended by women, and that some serious trick was meant; so they advanced cautiously. Now it was said to be an article of the Turkish creed, that women have no souls, and that they were consequently incapable of doing any thing which requires serious thought and judgment; so they concluded that the men had placed their wives and daughters in the foreground to receive the shock of the battle, while they would annoy the besiegers from some safe hiding-place. Supposing, therefore, that they had only cowards and soulless women to meet, they raised a great shout, and rushed to the walls. But their shouts were in a twinkling changed to shrieks of pain, for the women saluted them with a storm of Greek fire, which killed many, and threw the rest into confusion. They advanced again, and the intrepid women poured upon them hot water, Greek fire, heated stones, and a well-directed discharge of all the artillery and fire-arms which could be gathered in the place. The Turks fled in the utmost terror, believing that the island was defended by evil genii just unchained. Their leaders succeeded in rallying them, and it was resolved to carry the place by storm, for they were sure that the women, if they were women, would run as soon as they could come to a close fight. But they made a fatal mistake; the same boiling and hissing shower of fire and water made them waver; the dead bodies lay in heaps under the walls; but the most intrepid pressed onward; they scaled the walls, and, ashamed of being beaten thus by women, fought desperately, and the Amazons met them like tigresses guarding their whelps. The contest was most bloody, but the women managed their knives as well as they did their kettles of boiling water, and the Turks fled, leaving a fourth of their number dead upon the field.

The hour had come, and the man. Pope Pius V. tried to arouse the sovereigns to a sense of their own danger, but his prayers were unheeded. He seemed to foresee the result of the approaching contest, and perhaps he thought that the Almighty had decreed the destruction of the infidels by a handful of Christians, as he did the downfall of the Midianites by three hundred of the children of Israel. He grew sanguine of success as its probabilities weakened; he had secured the coöperation of Spain, Genoa, and Venice, and with these he waited. for victory. The fate of Christendom was decided by one naval battle. The Christian fleet was commanded by Don

Re

John of Austria, who had for lieutenants Antonio Colonna, Barberigo, and Doria, the captains of the Roman, Venetian, and Genoese vessels. They met the enemy in the Gulf of Lepanto, and he did not hesitate to advance, for he expected an easy victory; indeed, he believed that the Christians would not risk an action. When the hostile fleets drew near each other, the standard, solemnly blessed by the Pope, was displayed from the commander's vessel, and the Christians knelt to implore the countenance of the God of battles. "Soldiers," exclaimed the admiral," behold your banner! it is the cross of Christ. member that you are fighting for yourselves, for your homes, for your country; above all, remember that you are the defenders of the Church of God. Onward, soldiers of Christ! follow your banner to victory." The fleets met with a great crash, and the battle begun, and raged furiously for five hours. The wind had favored the enemy, but when the engagement commenced it changed to the opposite quarter, and blew the smoke into the faces of the Turks. Then the right wing of the enemy was broken, the Pasha Ali was killed, and his standard was taken. Don John commanded the soldiers to raise the hymn of victory, and the battle became a scene of carnage. Europe was saved. This was the most complete victory ever obtained over the Turks. More than thirty thousand perished, four thousand were taken, and fifteen thousand Christian slaves were restored to liberty. A hundred and forty vessels were taken, and the rest of the Turkish fleet was sunk or burnt. The Turks had sacked many cities, and nearly all the spoils were in these vessels, and returned to Christian hands.

It is impossible to conceive the terror which seized the Turks, when the news reached Constantinople. If the Pope had been near Lepanto, that great capital would have been retaken by the Christian army. For the Turks, expecting that the victors would immediately besiege the city, ran to the hitherto persecuted Christian residents, confided to them the greater part of their treasure, and implored them to permit the free exercise of the Mahometan worship in Constantinople, on the payment of a yearly tribute. If Don John had appeared, the city would have yielded without a struggle. But he returned to Italy, and Constantinople was lost to Christendom.

St. Pius V. seemed to know that the enterprise would succeed, but he knew that only God could give the victory, and the day and night preceding the battle were spent in prayer. While the battle was raging at Lepanto, hundreds of miles distant, the

Cardinals were assembled at Rome.

Suddenly the Pope left his throne, and hastened to a window, where he stood for some time, with his eyes raised to heaven. Then he turned to his Cardinals, and said, "Let us give thanks to God for the victory which he is giving now to his people." God had shown him the event. The holy Pontiff declared that it was owing to the prayers of the Mother of God, and he added to the Litany the words, "Help of Christians," and, as a further commemoration of the event, he established a feast in honor of Our Lady of Victory, which is observed throughout the Christian world. And thus the Mahometan power, which had been steadily increasing for a thousand years, received a mortal blow. The Turks have done little since to disturb the peace of Europe; their military genius disappeared by degrees, until it became a mere longing of the Janizary for plunder, of the pirate for a lonely sail, of the assassin for blood."

The war lasted five hundred years, counting from the pontificate of Hildebrand, who conceived the plan of saving Christendom by carrying the war into the countries of the enemy, to the Crusade of Pius V. Europe was soon to be shaken to her centre by rebellion clothed in religious garments, by atheism, illuminism, and anarchy such as had never been seen before. It was necessary that the pressure from outside infidelity should not be overwhelming, for domestic confusion multiplied by successful invasion brings chaos, when the enemy is a barbarian, and the merciful God spared Europe such a wretched fate as overtook the Greek Empire. His chief instrument was the Holy See; it has been his instrument in conferring upon Europe all the real good she enjoys. Such is Christianity, and such are its legitimate children, true civilization, civil order, and science. Children forget their parents, scholars forget their masters, whilom slaves forget their liberators; what wonder that Europe, once a scholar, a child, and a slave, should forget its earliest and best friend? No matter. St. Peter did not look imprisonment and death in the face for the sake of an earthly reward, and his successors inherit his spirit. Pius IX. inherits it, else he would not be the first man of his age, but rather a poor, weak, ruined statesman. They say that the powers will restore him. Perhaps they may, but the surest power is that is that upon which the Pope is used to depend. It will be the prayers of his untold millions of children, that will ascend to heaven for him in the coming year of jubilee. God save Pius IX., as he leans upon the Rock of ages!

NEW SERIES. VOL. IV. NO. III.

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ART. II. The Christian Examiner and Religious Miscellany. Boston: Crosby & Nichols. March, 1850. IV.

Art.

THE number of The Christian Examiner - the literary and theological organ of the American Unitarians for March last contains an attempted defence of no-churchism, in reply to an Article on The Church against No-Church, published in our Review for April, 1845. The author of the defence is James Freeman Clarke, founder of the Church of the Disciples, formerly one of the conductors of a monthly magazine called The Western Messenger, and is known to our readers as the author of a remarkable discourse on The Church, as it was, as it is, and as it ought to be, reviewed at some length in this journal for July, 1848.

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The defence is not very remarkable for its solidity, and, though here and there a little clever, does not appear to us worthy of the high intellectual character aimed at by The Christian Examiner. If it were not for the esteem in which we have been accustomed to hold that periodical, as the organ of our old associates, and the possibility that some weak-minded persons might mistake the motive of our silence, we should pass it by unnoticed. Its author is not a man we should choose for our opponent, for we always wish for an opponent one who has some powers of discrimination, and some capacity to feel the force of an argument. But we have no choice in the case, and if the Unitarians are willing to make him their champion, and to risk their cause in his hands, we must accept him, and dispose of him as best we may.

The defence consists of two parts. The first is an enumeration and philosophical explanation of the various and extraordinary changes we are said to have undergone; the second repeats, without our answers, some of the objections we have from time to time raised against ourselves and refuted. The first part is the more racy, and appears to have been written con amore. It has one or two clever hits, but, unhappily, the more piquant portion is untrue, and the rest has been repeated so often in conversation and the public press, that it has an ancient smell, more likely to disgust than delight its readers. The story of our changes is an old story, not worth reproducing, even with variations. Who has not been told, that we were formerly in the habit of changing our views, and refuting ourselves, once

a quarter? The explanation of our changes suggested by Mr. Clarke is, no doubt, ingenious, but it reminds us of the joke which Charles the Second of England played off upon the learned members of the Royal Society, and it might be classed with D'Israeli's chapter on The History of Events that never happened. However, the author must be permitted to speak for himself.

"We intend to speak in this present article of Mr. Brownson, and of his argument for the Roman Church. Mr. Brownson is an active thinker, an energetic writer, and a man who has assumed an important position in American literature by years of steady labor. He has devoted himself during that time to the highest questions of philosophy, ethics, and theology, and has treated none of these subjects in a superficial or commonplace way. He has also belonged for a time, after a fashion of his own, to our communion. He has repeatedly created sensations by his ultraism on several subjects, and he finally astonished our community by going over from extreme Neology and Transcendentalism to Romanism of the most Ultramontane kind. Since then, he has occasionally addressed some arguments to his old friends, in behalf of his new Church. He has sometimes referred to our own periodical; and in April, 1845, addressed us, in a somewhat elaborate argument, inviting us to become members of the Church of Rome, or to show cause why we reject the invitation.

"For all these reasons, it would seem proper that we should take some notice of his writings. When a man of no mean abilities assumes such a position, it seems proper for a journal like ours to consider it. And, indeed, we should probably have weighed his arguments long before this time, had we not been expecting a reply from an abler hand, namely, from Mr. Brownson himself. We thought it hardly worth while to exert our ingenuity in exposing the fallacy of arguments, which, judging by experience, Mr. Brownson would himself be ready to confute in the course of a year or two. No man has ever equalled Mr. Brownson in the ability with which he has refuted his own arguments. He has made the most elaborate and plausible plea for Eclecticism, and the most elaborate and plausible plea against it. He has said the best things in favor of Transcendentalism, and the best things against it. He has shown that no man can possibly be a Christian, except he is a Transcendentalist; and he has also proved that every Transcendentalist, whether he knows it or not, is necessarily an infidel. He has satisfactorily shown the truth of Socialism, and its necessity in order to bring about a golden age; and he has, by the most convincing arguments, demonstrated that the whole system of Socialism is from the pit, and can lead to nothing but anarchy and ruin. He has defended the course of Mr. Dorr in Rhode Island, and argued before