£ 280 j (Serr. 
ON THE SUPPRESSION OF MONASTERIES IN ENGLAND. 
Tue. history of the human mind presents few examples of the triumph of 
principles appealing to its weakness, and institutions founded on its folly, like 
that which distinguishes the progress of the Papal usurpation; that gigantic 
tyranny which so long sat, like a night-mare, upon rising genius; and whose 
blighting influence fell, like the shade of the deadly Upas, upon all those better 
affections which sweeten, and those higher aspirations which dignify, humanity. 
That this dark superstition should have been enabled to spread itself over: lands 
which had once dwelt in the light of a purer morality and a more beautiful 
faith, is a fact which may be said to have a parallel in the history of that com- 
paratively harmless system of Theism which emanated from Mecca. But it is 
amongst the detested peculiarities of the Roman idolatry (distinguishing it from 
all other superstitions which ignorance has engendered or power enforced), 
that while they severally rose, like foul exhalations, amid the darkness of 
mental prostration (as did the religions of the Druids and Hindoos), or were 
imposed by the argument of the sword, (as was that of Mahomet) the 
Catholic religion alone made its way, by assuming those very weapons which 
had been furnished for the Christian warfare; and enlisting in its cause, those 
feelings which had grown up beneath the apostolic culture, and those principles 
which had previously come recommended to the heart, by credentials which it 
dared not, and a beauty which it would not reject. This was, indeed, inter- 
cepting in their course, and transmitting through a perverting medium, the rays 
of that day-spring which from on high had visited the world. It was poisoning, 
in their current, those living waters which flowed pure and unpolluted from 
their hallowed spring! 
It seems impossible that a superstition like that of the Romish church should 
have attained its engrossing ascendancy and universal diffusion, had it not been 
for the instrumentality of the monastic order; and (what may,at first sight, appear 
a paradox) it is equally certain that, by a singular dispensation, the same cause 
contributed to the overthrow of that idolatry which it had assisted to rear ;—an 
idolatry which seemed, in its very essence, to shut out the hope of a deliverance, 
by engaging in its service, and corrupting to its purposes, those principles from 
which alone a re-action could have been expected. We cannot sufficiently 
understand the advantages which were derived from the suppression of the 
monastic order in this country, without going one step higher to contemplate 
the benefits which were preserved to it by the original institution; and it is 
absolutely necessary to glance at the history of monkish influence, with 
reference to the character of the times in which it was exercised, and the 
causes which promoted its rise and fall, to enable us distinctly to see that 
the act by which Henry VIII. rooted it out of this land, was but opening 
up to mankind those treasures which its establishment and existence had pre- 
served through the tempests of those gloomy ages, in which they must other- 
wise have been totally wrecked. 
A long train of events contributed to the gradual decay of literature over 
Europe; but the ultimate and irretrievable cause of its total extinction sprung 
directly out of the barbarian conquests, in the loss of the Latin tongue. By a 
series of gradations, which it is alike painful and difficult to trace, this lan- 
guage, which appears to have been established in all the Roman provinces, 
became corrupted, and finally lost. This event was a shutting-up of the whole 
treasury of knowledge; and thus the accumulated learning of ages was at once 
hidden beneath the classic veil. The Latin language being still employed, long 
after its purity was gone, in all public instruments and records, and in the 
writings of those who, in that age, might be called learned, the use of letters, 
as well as of books, was forgotten. From the commencement of the seventh 
century (when the conquest of Alexandria by the Saracens prevented the 
importation of the Egyptian papyrus into Europe), to the close of the tenth 
century (about which time the art of making paper from rags was invented), 
no materials for writing could be procured excepting parchment, a substance 
