ncing a religion which they had embraced with
reluctance, several bishops were appointed to reside among them, schools
also were erected, and monasteries founded, that the means of
instruction might not be wanting. The same precautions were employed
among the Huns in Pannonia, to maintain in the profession of
Christianity that fierce people whom Charlemagne had converted to the
faith, when, exhausted and dejected by various defeats, they were no
longer able to make head against his victorious arms, and chose rather
to be Christians than slaves" (p. 170). The grateful Church canonized
Charlemagne, the brutal soldier who had so enlarged her borders; "not to
enter into a particular detail of his vices, whose number
counter-balanced that of his virtues, it is undeniably evident that his
ardent and ill-conducted zeal for the conversion of the Huns,
Frieslanders, and Saxons, was more animated by the suggestions of
ambition, than by a principle of true piety; and that his main view in
these religious exploits was to subdue the converted nations under his
dominion, and to tame them to his yoke, which they supported with
impatience, and shook off by frequent revolts. It is, moreover, well
known, that this boasted saint made no scruple of seeking the alliance
of the infidel Saracens, that he might be more effectually enabled to
crush the Greeks, notwithstanding their profession of the Christian
religion" (p. 171). Thus was Christianity spread by fire and sword, and
where-ever the cross passed it left its track in blood. While the
soldiers thus converted the heathen, "the clergy abandoned themselves to
their passions without moderation or restraint; they were distinguished
by their luxury, their gluttony, and their lust" (p. 173). To these
evils was added that of gross deception, for a bad clergy used bad
weapons; false miracles abounded in every direction; "the corrupt
discipline that then prevailed admitted of those fallacious stratagems,
which are very improperly called _pious_ frauds; nor did the heralds of
the gospel think it at all unlawful to terrify or to allure to the
profession of Christianity, by fictitious prodigies, those obdurate
hearts which they could not subdue by reason and argument" (p. 171). The
wealth of the Church increased year by year. "An opinion prevailed
universally at this time, though its authors are not known, that the
punishment which the righteous judge of the world has reserved for the
transgression