There were four branches of the Church Catholic keeping their Bishops, the Greek, the Roman, the English, the Swedish; but none of these were in outward communion the one with the other, though still owning one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, and waging the same fight with the Devil and his works. The Roman Church was spread over all Italy, Spain, France, and great part of Germany, and tried to force down all differences of opinion by cruel and bloody means, caring more for unity than for truth, and boasting of being the only Catholic Church, instead of only one branch of it. The Lutheran doctrine was taught in Norway, Denmark, and many parts of Germany, and the Calvinist teaching gained a great hold in Holland, Scotland, and on such French as were not Roman Catholic. The Greek Church meanwhile stood fast through much tribulation in the Turkish dominions, and had gradually won the whole great Russian Empire, where, as the people ceased to be barbarous, they became most devout members of the ancient unchanging Greek Catholic Church.
"Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes."--_Isaiah_, liv. 2.
Just as the Reformation was beginning, fresh lands were being found beyond the Atlantic Ocean, where the knowledge of the Gospel might reach. Christopher Columbus, a gallant Genoese mariner, and deeply religious man, was full of the notion that by sailing westwards he might come round to India, and thence make a way for winning back the Holy Land. After much weary waiting, and many entreaties, he obtained three little ships from Queen Isabel of Spain; and with them, in the year 1492, came to the islands which he named the West Indies, lovely places, full of gentle natives with skins of a dark ruddy colour, wearing, for their misfortune, golden ornaments. To get gold was the great longing of the Spaniards, and they did not care what cruelties they used so that they could obtain it. The Pope, finding in the prophecies that the isles of the sea should belong to the Church, considered that this gave him a right to give them away to whomsoever he pleased; so he made a grant of all to the west to the Spaniards, all to the east to the Portuguese. Thereupon great numbers of the Spaniards went over to America; they conquered the two great empires of Mexico and Peru, and settled in the West-Indian Islands, robbing the poor natives of their gold and silver, making slaves of them, and hunting them with blood-hounds when they tried to run away. Many good priests who went out as missionaries did all they could to hinder these horrors, but in vain; and when at last the poor delicate Indians began to dwindle away and die off, the plan was resorted to of bringing negroes from Africa to work in their stead. Though it was a good man who thought of it, in the hope of saving the Indians and making the negroes Christians, it came to most horrible cruelty, and was a disgrace to Christian Europe.