Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian
amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday when
compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace
back in unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the
nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far
beyond Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the
twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But
the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and
the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy
remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and
youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth, to the
farthest ends of the world, missionaries as zealous as those who landed
in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the
same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her
children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the
New World have more than compensated her for what she has lost in the
Old. Her spiritual ascendancy extends over the vast countries which
lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which,
a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as
that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are
certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be
difficult to show that all the other Christian sects united amount to a
hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates
that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the
commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical
establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance
that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and
respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank
had crossed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in
Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And