PROPHECIES RESPECTING THE PAPAL POWER.

imperial coronation of Charlemagne, the government of Rome and Italy was exercised in the name of the successors of Constantine. The liberty of Rome, which had been oppressed by the arms and arts of Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred and fifty years of servitude, from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian. By the Cæsars, the triumphs of the Consuls had been annihilated: in the decline and fall of the empire, the God Terminus, the sacred boundary, had insensibly seceded from the Ocean, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates; and Rome was reduced to her antient territory from Viterbo to Terracina, anst from Narni to the mouth of the Tyber."

"When the sovereignty of the Greek Emperois was extinguished, the ruins of Rome presented the sad image of depopulation and decay: her slavery was an habit, her hberty an accident; the effect of superstition, and the object of her own amazement and terror. The want of laws could only be supplied by the influence of religion, and their foreign and domestic counsels were moderated by the authority of the Bishop of Rome. His alms, his sermons, his correspondence with the kings and preintes of the west, his recent services, their gratitude, and oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the first magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian humility of the Popes was not offended by the name of Dominus, or Lord; and their face and inscription are still apparent on the most antiept coins. Their temporal dominion is now confirmed by the reverence of a thousand years; and their noblest title is the free choice of a people whom they had redeemed from slavery."

In the year 754, Pepin King of France, increased the Papal dominious surprisingly, by the gift of provinces, principalities, and cities.

liberality, and revive the name of the great.. Constantine. According to the legend, the. first of the Christian Emperors was healed of. the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism by St. Silvester, the Roman Bishop. His royal proselyte withdrew from the seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared his resolution of founding a new capital in the east; and resigned to the Popes the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the west. This fiction was productive of the most beneficial effects. The Greek princes were convicted of the guilt of usurpation; and the revolt of Gregory was

the claim of his lawful inheritance. The

sovereignty of Rome no longer depended on the choice of a fickle people; and the succeSSOTS of St. Peter and Constantine were invested with the purple and prerogatives of the Cæsars."

Thus did the mystery of iniquity begin to work, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness. Thus was the sovereign Pontiff mighty in power, but not by his own power; and thus did he practise and prosper, and through his policy he caused craft to prosper in his hand. Thus Rome acquired a new seat and dominion in this patrimony of St. Peter, which has continued for above a thousand years. The beast appeared to be wounded to death, but the deadly wound inflicted by the sword of Odoacer, King of the Heruli, was healed, after the Roman empire had received such an injury in one of its heads, or forms of government (that is the sixth) as left no probable prospect that Rome should ever more rise to power and empire. And all the world. wondered after the beast: for this event of a new and extraordinary form of government, dirers from all others-"this sacerdotal monarchy," as Gibbon calls it, excited the astonishment of mankind in the succeeding ages of its aggrandizement.

He made a new grant of the Exarchate, and "After the Pope's return from Avignou, the of Pentapolis, to the Roman Pontiff, and his successors in the apostolic See of St. Peter. keys of St. Peter were guarded by the sword of And thus was the Bishop of Rome raised to the St. Paul. Rome was commanded by an impreg rank of a temporal Prince." The splendid nable citadel: the use of cannon is a powerful donation was granted in supreme and obsolute | engine against popular seditions: a regular dominion, and the world beheld for the first time a force of cavalry and infantry was enlisted unChristian Bishop invested with the prerogativesofader the banners of the Pope; his ample retemporal prince; the choice of magistrates, the venues supplied the resources of war; and, exercise of justice, the imposition of taxes, from the extent of his domain, he could bring and the wealth of the palace of Ravenna. down on a rebellious city an army of hostile Before the end of the eighth century some neighbours and loyal subjects. Since the union of the Dutchies of Ferrara and Urbino, apostolical scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the Decretals, and the Dona- the Ecclesiastical State extends from the Metion of Constantine, the two magic pillars of diterranean to the Adriatic, and from the conthe spiritual and temporal monarchy of the fines of Naples to the banks of the Po; and as Popes. This memorable donation was intro- early as the sixteenth century, the greater duced to the world, by an epistle of Adrian the part of that spacious and fruitful country acFirst, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the || knowledged the lawful claims and temporal sovereignty of the Roman Pontifis. Their claims were readily deduced from the genuine er fabulous donations of the darker ages: the saccessive steps of their final settlement would engage us too far in the transactions of Italy, and even of Europe; the crimes of Alexander the Sixth, the martial operations of Julius the Second, and the liberal policy of Leo the Tenth, theme which has been adorned by the pens of the noblest historians of the times. In the first period of their conquests, till the expe- || dition of Charles the Eighth, the Popes might successfully wrestle with the adjacent Princes and states, whose military force was equal, or inferior, to their own."

Power was indeed given unto him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations for the Pope

assumed the prerogrative of being the supreme sovereign of the Christian church, and exercised for many ages an uncontrolled and universal authority. The kings gave their power and strength unto him, as previous to the Reformation all the monarchs of the west acknowledged him as their superior and lord, and, as his vassals, submitted to his power and caprice. Iu the seventh century, Pope Zechary I. deposed Childeric, King of France, the last of the Merovingiau race, and absolved his sujects from their oaths of allegiance. In the eighth cen tury, Paul I. excommunicated Constantines Copronymus, the Greek Emperor, because he endeavoured to abolish the worship of images.

[To be continued.]

THE MAID OF THE INN:

OR,

THE GOLDEN FLEECE.

Golden Fleece was purchased, and the trade of the house carried ou.

Darmstadt is in the high road to Dresden; almost every traveller stopt at the inn, and was so well pleased with his entertainment, that he never failed to recommend the Golden Fleece to his friends.

In the village of Darmstadt, in the Electerate of Saxony, was the well known inn of the Golden Fleece. This inn had long been kept by a veteran invalid, who had retired from the service of the Elector with a pension, and something in his perse, gained from the spoils of war. Andrew Risbourgh, the name of the innkeeper, had better luck than his comrades; for whilst of the regiment to which he belonged, not more than fifty men had survived, and those fifty could not reckon uplity. baove than a score of legs and a dozen arms amongst them, Andrew had come safely out of the wars, with a trifing wound, from which he felt no other effect than a periodical twitch in the wet months of autumn.

Andrew was about fifty years of age when be bought the stock and trade of the Golden

Fleece.

The military were constantly marching upon this road, and Andrew's house was the favourite post of refreshment and convivia

Mary, at the age of eighteen, was extremely pretty, very neat in her person, active, good humoured, and obliging. She was at once mistress and bar-maid; with the help of another servant she did all the business of the house, and Andrew was called upon for little exertion, but to carry in the first dish of a

He had obtained his garrison dis-dinner, and recommend the wine by drinking

charge a few months before, and had just completed the thirtieth year of his military servitude, which entitled him to a pension from the government, and exempted him from all contribution to taxes and state imposts.

The family of Risbourgh consisted of a daughter, an only child. Mary, which was ber name, had been brought up in the family of a Saxon nobleman, and officiated about the person of an elderly woman of rank, who left ber upon ber death a few valuable remembrances, consisting of jewels and some plate. Mary joined her little fortune to her father's pension, and by this filial contribution the

the first glass.

Mary in this situation had many suitors: she was known, moreover, to have some small fortune, besides being mistress of the Golden Fleece, and heiress of Andrew. For twenty miles round the neighbourhood of Darmstadt, Mary was the toast of the young and old; and the "Maid of the Inn" was a name almost as constantly repeated over the wine as the names of the Elector and the Archduke Charles of Austria. Mary, though solicited by a train of suitors, many of whom spent almost all their money in the inn for the sole purpose of winning her affections, had hitherte resisted them all; not that her heart was insensible || gant. Banishment from her native province, and cold, but because it was the property of another-of Frederick Zittaw, a young farmer, in the forest of Darmstadt.

Zittaw was not esteemed in the neighbourhood; he was a singular, and to all appearance, a mysterious man; his age did not exceed thirty-five, but he would not confess himself so old; he had an erect carriage, was tall and boney, of a very dark complexion, piercing look, and a fine set of teeth. He was slow and hesitating in his speech, and did not often elevate his eyes. Zittaw had been settled in the forest about five years; he had come nobody knew from whence: all that the people could tell was, that he had purchased the lease of his farm at an auction, and had brought his stock from Bohemia. His farm was known not to be a very profitable concern, which proceeded in part from his inattention (for he was paach given to the sports of the field, and the pleasures of the table) and partly from the very high ternis at which he rented it. His landlord was the well known Baron of Darmstadt, a man who racked his tenants unmercifully; restrained them from all pleasures and rural enjoyments; put into severe execution the laws for protecting game, and was in every respect such a tyraut and a hunter, that the first Nimrod was a merciful and moderate man when compared to the Baron.

the desertion of a father whom she dearly loved, poverty and distress, were all evils too light to weigh in the same scale with affection for her lover.

After an interview one fine summer's evening in a paddock behind the Golden Fleece, Mary returned to her home silent, pensive, and disturbed. The house was full of guests, but Mary had lost her usual vivacity and offi ciousness; the bells rung, the waiter was called, the guests wondered, Andrew was astonished, but nothing could dispel the care and deep reflection which seemed seated on the countenance of Mary. Andrew inquired the cause; Mary gave no answer. When the house was cleared of the visitors at the customary hour of night (for in Saxony all houses of entertainment must be closed at a fixed time) Mary retired to her chamber, where, instead of undressing, she began to adorn herself with more than usual gaiety. She took out of a box, which she had preserved with great care, all the valuable trinkets and jewels which the lady of rank, to whom we have alluded, had left her upon her death. These jewels were very valuable: she put on her necklace, her ear-rings, and her bracelets, and disposed of various pius, brooches, and smaller trinkets, within the thick ringlets and curls of her hair; and then dressing herself ia virgin white, she sallied out of the Golden Fleece, hefore day-light, and long ere any person in the village was stirring. She bid adieu to her home with a melancholy serenity; shed tears as she looked back upon the village, buried in sleep and tranquillity; but resolved to shew her lover the strength of her affection, by the fortitude with which she resigned every thing for his sake.

Zittaw had the misfortune to offend the Baron, by falling under the suspicion of killing a hare upon his domain: the fact, indeed, was not proved against him, or he might have been imprisoned, perhaps hanged; but he had incurred a violent suspicion, and received notice to deliver up his farm on the next rent day. Mary, though aware of her lover's situation, did not on that account hesitate to accept an offer of marriage, which he made her, and an invitation to accompany him to settle in his native country, Bohemia. There was one impediment only, it was Andrew Risbourgh. If there was one man whom Andrew hated more than another, it was Zittaw; and if there was one man whom Zittaw hated more than another it was Andrew Risbourgh. The honest man well knew of the attachment | hood of Darmstadt, he had invited Mary to

Zittaw met her at the appointed spot. The reason of this elopement is easily conjectured. Zittaw's rent-day had arrived, which was the day likewise of his quitting his farm. He had made no provision, por did he ever intend to pay his rent: he had secretly disposed of his stock, had sold every thing valuable, and left a naked possession for his landlord. Having determined to stay no longer in the neighbour

subsisting between Mary and Frederick, and had often, warmly and passionately, cautioned her against him.

Mary loved her father tenderly, but her duty was languid when engaged against her affections; she donted on Zittaw to distrac-shewn to him, and of which he knew the

accompany him to his native province in Bohemia, where he had engaged to marry her;" and with the assistance of what he hitaself had saved from the wreck of his farm, and the sale of Mary's valuable jewels (which she had often

tion; confided every thing to him; believed bim to be as innocent as herself; and resolved to comply with his wishes, however extrava

worth) it was his proposal to purchase a good house of trade, and commence innkeeper. Mary assented to the plan; had engaged to Her lover walked so fast, that Mary could scarcely keep up with him, but she scorned to betray weariness. Zittaw was very silent, and plunged deep in thought during their journey through the forest; sometimes when she addressed him, he answered her in a tone of coldness which chilled the poor girl's heart. Mary was both hurt and surprised; the tears started in her eyes; but she did not choose to complain of his coldness. Her fondness suggested a thousand excuses for him, and ber innocence was a stranger to suspicion. Their road now lay through an intri-animal he had secreted! this confirmed their