hments had been injured, not by
fines and exactions,--for oppression of this kind had been terminated by
the statutes of provisors,--but because, except at rare and remote
intervals, they had been left to themselves, without interference and
without surveillance. They were deprived of those salutary checks which
all human institutions require if they are to be saved from sliding into
corruption. The religious houses, almost without exception, were not
amenable to the authority of the bishops. The several societies
acknowledged obedience only to the heads of their order, who resided
abroad; or to the pope, or to some papal delegate. Thus any regularly
conducted visitation was all but impossible. The foreign superiors, who
were forbidden by statute to receive for their services more than
certain limited and reasonable fees, would not undertake a gratuitous
labour; and the visitations, attempted with imperfect powers[480] by the
English archbishops, could be resisted successfully under pleas of
exemption and obedience to the rules of the orders.[481] Thus the abbeys
had gone their own way, careless of the gathering indignation with which
they were regarded by the people, and believing that in their position
they held a sacred shield which would protect them for ever. In them, as
throughout the Catholic system, the sadness of the condition into which
they had fallen was enhanced by the contrast between the theory and the
degenerate reality. Originally, and for many hundred years after their
foundation, the regular clergy were the finest body of men of which
mankind in their chequered history can boast. They lived to illustrate,
in systematic simplicity, the universal law of sacrifice. In their three
chief vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they surrendered
everything which makes life delightful. Their business on earth was to
labour and to pray: to labour for other men's bodies, to pray for other
men's souls. Wealth flowed in upon them; the world, in its instinctive
loyalty to greatness, laid its lands and its possessions at their feet;
and for a time was seen the notable spectacle of property administered
as a trust, from which the owners reaped no benefit, except increase of
toil. The genius of the age expended its highest efforts to provide
fitting tabernacles for the divine spirit which they enshrined; and
alike in village and city, the majestic houses of the Father of mankind
and his especial servants towered up i