The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

;88 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY.marring and snbjugating it. He had no " narrow frith'" tocross ; but he hekl his way with as cautious a step and asdauntless a front as his great prototype. His path, moreespecially in its first stages, was bestrewn with the wrecksof a perished world, and scourged by those tempests whichattend the birth of new states. On this hand he shunnedthe whirlpool of the sinking empire, and on that guardedhimself against the fiery blast of the Saracenic eruption.There he buffeted the waves of tumultuous revolutions, andhere he planted his foot on the crude consistence of a youngand rising state. Now " the strong rebuff of some tumultuouscloud'" hurried him aloft, and," that fury stayed,"" hewas anon " quenched in a boggy Syrtis.''"' Now he was upborneon the shield of kings ; and now his foot trode upontheir necks. Now he hewed his way with the bloody brandand now, in more crafty fashion, with the forged document.Sometimes he wore his own shape, and showed himself asApollyon ; but more frequently he hid the hideous lineamentsof the destroyer beneath the fair semblance of anangel of light. Thus he maintained the struggle throughthe weary ages, till at last the thirteenth century saw" His dark pavilion spreadWide on the wasteful deep ; with him enthronedSat sable vested night, eldest of things.The consort of his reign ; and by them stoodOreus and Ades, and the dreaded nameOf Demogorgon."The scheme of Rome, viewed simply as an intellectualconception,is the most comprehensive and gigantic which thegenius and ambition of man ever dared to entertain.Thereis a unity and vastness about it, which, apart frpm its moralaspect, compels our admiration, and awakens a feeling ofmingled astonishment and terror. The depth of its essentialprinciples, the boldness of the design, the wisdom andtalent brought into play in achieving its realization, the perseveranceand vigour with which it was prosecuted, and the,marvellous success with which it was at last crowned, wereall equal, and were all colossal.It is at once the grandest and