statesman as well as priest,--marvellous for
his activity, insight into human nature, vast executive abilities, and
dauntless heroism. He comprehended the only way whereby Christendom
could be governed, and unscrupulously used the means of success. He was
not a great scholar, or theologian, or philosopher, but a man of action,
embracing opportunities and striking decisive blows. From first to last
he was devoted to his cause, which was greater than himself,--even the
spiritual supremacy of the Papacy. I do not read of great intellectual
precocity, like that of Cicero and William Pitt, nor of great
attainments, like those of Abelard and Thomas Aquinas, nor even an
insight, like that of Bacon, into what constitutes the dignity of man
and the true glory of civilization; but, like Ambrose and the first Leo,
he was early selected for important missions and responsible trusts, all
of which he discharged with great fidelity and ability. His education
was directed by the monks of Cluny,--that princely abbey in Burgundy
where "monks were sovereigns and sovereigns were monks." Like all
earnest monks, he was ascetic, devotional, and self-sacrificing. Like
all men ambitious to rule, "he learned how to obey." He pondered on the
Holy Scriptures as well as on the canons of the Church. So marked a man
was he that he was early chosen as prior of his convent; and so great
were his personal magnetism, eloquence, and influence that "he induced
Bruno, the Bishop of Toul, when elected pope by the Emperor of Germany,
to lay aside the badges and vestments of the pontifical office, and
refuse his title, until he should be elected by the clergy and people of
Rome,"--thus showing that at the age of twenty-nine he comprehended the
issues of the day, and meditated on the gigantic changes it was
necessary to make before the pope could be the supreme ruler of
Christendom.

The autocratic idea of Leo I., and the great Gregory who sent his
missionaries to England, was that to which Hildebrand's ardent soul
clung with preternatural earnestness, as the only government fit for
turbulent and superstitious ages. He did not originate this idea, but he
defended and enforced it as had never been done before, so that to many
minds he was the great architect of the papal structure. It was a rare
spectacle to see a sovereign pontiff lay aside the insignia of his
grandeur at the bidding of this monk of Cluny; it was grander to see
this monk laying the foundation o