were declared to be articles of faith, which no one should deny, on pain of anathema.

CHAPTER XIII.

ON THE FRUITS OF FAITH.

A.D. 680-1054.

ENTION has already been made of the great difficulties under which religion now laboured from the disorganisation of temporal governments, and the ravages of barbarians. During these ages, nothing was more frequent than the usurpation of ecclesiastical revenues by kings and feudal lords, or their desecration by the appointment of clergy who were incapacitated by youth or ignorance for the discharge of their duties, and who had nothing to recommend them but nobility of birth. These abuses occurred particularly within the dominions of the emperors in Italy, France, and Germany, where it had been the policy of Charlemagne and his successors to invest the bishops and monasteries with great territories and princely dignities, in the hope that these ecclesiastics would prove more faithful and obedient subjects than the temporal barons, whose turbulence they had found it so difficult to repress. Churches and monasteries were frequently burned or pillaged by the feudal chieftains, or by Saracens, Normans, and Danes. Thus the schools of learning were extinguished, discipline became relaxed amidst the general confusion; and while the clergy were in many places insufficiently educated, the laity fell into extreme ignorance and

degradation. We find grievous lamentations over such evils amongst the writers of these ages; yet there is every reason to believe that there was a spirit of repentance at work which could not fail to produce very salutary effects. Those bishops who, when assembled in solemn council, had the courage to proclaim before the world their own remissness, and to confess their sins, with resolution of amendment, could neither have been deficient in a knowledge of their duty, nor in a spirit of Christian humility and repentance.

Hervey, archbishop of Rheims, and eleven other bishops assembled at Troslé in France, A.D. 909, spoke thus: "As the first men lived without law and without fear, given up to their passions, so every one now doeth as he pleases, despising all laws human and divine, and the directions of the bishops. The powerful oppress the weak; violence against the poor, and the plunder of ecclesiastical possessions, are universal. And that it may not be imagined that we spare ourselves-we who ought to correct others- -we have indeed the name, but we do not fulfil the duties of bishops. We neglect preaching; we see those who are committed to our care abandon God and fall into sin, without addressing them and stretching forth our hands; and if we wish to reprove them, they say, as in the Gospel, that we bind on them heavy burdens, and will not touch them ourselves with the end of our fingers. Thus the Lord's flock perishes through our silence. Let us think what sinner has ever been converted by our discourses, or who has renounced debauchery, avarice, pride. Yet we shall render an account without ceasing of this business, which has been entrusted to us, in order that we may gain profit by it.""It has happened through our negligence, our ignorance, and that of our brethren, that there are

found in the Church an innumerable multitude of people of every sex and condition, who arrive at old age without ever being instructed in the faith, so that they are ignorant even of the words of the Creed and Lord's Prayer. If there should seem to be any thing good in their lives, yet how can they do good works without the foundation of faith?" These expressions, and the earnest exhortations of the synod, shew that there was still a spirit of real repentance in this part of the Church, notwithstanding the multitude of evils and sins.

That the clergy in those days had, at least, ample opportunities of knowing the obligations which their ministry imposed on them, cannot be doubted. The duties of the priesthood have never been better described, or more earnestly urged, than in the writings of St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory the Great, whose treatises on this subject were long read and admired in the Church. St. Gregory's book "on the Pastoral Care" was for many centuries after his death, and especially in the ages which we are now considering, the manual of the clergy in all the Western Church, and it was read and inculcated in many councils, as affording the most invaluable lesSt. Gregory represented to the clergy the great importance and responsibility of their office, and the danger of undertaking it without sufficient preparation. "No one presumes," said he, “to teach an art unless he has previously acquired it by diligent attention. How great, then, is the rashness of those who, without skill, undertake the pastoral office, since the care of souls is the art of all arts! Who does not know that the wounds of the mind are more difficult to be understood than those of the body? And yet those who are unacquainted with the spiritual precepts, are frequently not ashamed to profess themselves physicians of the heart, while

sons.

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those who are ignorant of the effects of drugs would blush to act as physicians to the body. Against such men the Lord complains by his prophet: They have reigned, but not by me; they have been princes, and I have not known it. They are self-appointed rulers, not made by God's will, who, devoid of virtues, uncalled of God, but influenced by their own desire, seize on, rather than obtain, the supreme rule. Those who know not the things of God are unknown of God; for St. Paul says, 'If any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.' This ignorance of pastors often corresponds with the deserts of their people; for though they are deprived of the light of knowledge through their own sins, yet by a terrible judgment their ignorance is made a stumbling-block to their followers. Hence the Truth itself saith in

the Gospel, 'If the blind lead the blind, shall they

not both fall into the ditch ?'

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"Others there are who examine the spiritual precepts with care and ability, but who in their lives trample on that doctrine which their understandings have discerned, who hastily teach what they have not learned by practice but by study, and who by their morals contradict what they themselves preach. Whence it may be, that while the shepherd walks through steep places, the flock also follows him to the precipice. For thus does the Lord complain against the ignorance of pastors, saying, When ye drank most clear water, ye have fouled the residue with your feet; and my flock eat that which ye have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet.' For the pastors 'drink most clear water,' when, with a sound understanding, they drink of the streams of truth; but to foul with their feet' the same water, is to pollute the studies of holy meditation by a sinful life. Unworthy persons would fly from the burden of such

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great guilt, if they would but anxiously dwell on that word of truth which saith, Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

St. Gregory afterwards reasons with those pious but timid men, who, through a desire of attending without any disturbance to their own salvation, refuse to undertake the office of the ministry, and declare themselves unworthy of it. To those who thus dissemble the truth, he quotes the words of our Lord: "A city set on a hill cannot be hid; and no one lighteth a candle, and putteth it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.' Hence he said to Peter, 'Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me?' who when he had straightway replied that he did love him, heard, 'If thou lovest me, feed my sheep.' If the care of the sheep is a sign of love, that man who abounds in virtue, and yet refuses to feed the flock of God, is found not to love the chief Shepherd. Hence Paul saith, If Christ died for all, then were all dead; and if he died for all, it remains that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.'" The following is his description of one who is fit to be a pastor:-" He then is by all means to be made an example of living, who, dead to all the passions of the flesh, already lives in the Spirit; who has set behind him worldly prosperity; who fears no adversity; who desires only what is within; to whose intentions readily responding, neither the body through weakness, nor the mind through scornfulness, is opposed; who desires not the possessions of others, but bestows his own; who through his mercy and kindness is quickly led to forgiveness,