an once led to
irregularities of practice on the part of the church in order to
maintain its position, and on the part of the members to avoid the
harsh treatment of the church. Religious progress, except in
government-building, was not rapid, spirituality declined, and the
fervent zeal for the right and for justice passed into fanaticism for
purity.

This caused the church to fail to utilize the means of progress. It
might have advanced its own interest more rapidly by encouraging free
inquiry and developing a struggle for the truth. By exercising
liberality it could have ingratiated itself into the government of all
nations as a helpful adviser, and thus have conserved morality and
justice; but by its illiberality it retarded the progress of the mind
and the development of spirituality. While it lowered the conception
of religion, on the one hand, it lowered the estimate of knowledge, on
the other, and in all suppressed truth through dogmatic belief. This
course not only affected the character and quality of the clergy, and
created discontent in the laymen, but finally lessened respect for the
church, and consequently for the gospel, in the minds of men.

_The Church Becomes the Conservator of Knowledge_.--Very early in the
days of the decline of the Roman Empire, when the inroads of the
barbarian had destroyed reverence for knowledge, and, indeed, when
within the tottering empire all philosophy and learning had fallen into
contempt, the church possessed the learning of the times. Through its
monasteries and its schools all the learning of the period was found.
It sought in a measure to preserve, by copying, the manuscripts of many
of the ancient and those of later times. Thus the church preserved the
knowledge which otherwise must have passed away through Roman
degeneration and barbarian influences.

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_Service of Christianity_.[2]--The service of Christianity to European
civilization consists chiefly in: (1) the respect paid to woman; (2)
the establishment of the home and the enthronement of the home
relation; (3) the advancement of the idea of humanity; (4) the
development of morality; (5) the conservation of spiritual power; (6)
the conservation of knowledge during the Dark Ages; (7) the development
of faith; (8) the introduction of a new social order founded on
brotherhood, which manifested itself in many ways in the development of
community life.

If the church fell into evil habits it was on