spiritual, and this
was a poor exchange for the power of the clergy, if it led to violence
and rapine. It is to maintain law and order, justice and safety, that
all governments are established.

Hildebrand saw and lamented the countless evils of the day, especially
those which were loosening the bands of clerical obedience, and
undermining the absolutism which had become the great necessity of his
age. He made up his mind to reform these evils. No pope before him had
seriously undertaken this gigantic task. The popes who for two hundred
years had preceded him were a scandal and a reproach to their exalted
position. These heirs of Saint Peter wasted their patrimony in pleasures
and pomps. At no period of the papal history was the papal chair filled
with such bad or incompetent men. Of these popes two were murdered, five
were driven into exile, and four were deposed. Some were raised to
prominence by arms, and others by money. John X. commanded an army in
person; John XI. died in a fit of debauchery; and John XII. was
murdered by one of the infamous women whom he patronized. Benedict IX.
was driven from the throne by robbery and murder, while Gregory VI.
purchased the papal dignity. For two hundred years no commanding
character had worn the tiara.

Hildebrand, however, set a new example, and became a watchful shepherd
of his fold. His private life was without reproach; he was absorbed in
his duties; he sympathized with learning and learned men. He was the
friend of Lanfranc, and it was by his influence that this great prelate
was appointed to the See of Canterbury, and a closer union was formed
with England. He infused by his example a quiet but noble courage into
the soul of Anselm. He had great faults, of course,--faults of his own
and faults of his age. I wonder why so _strong_ a man has escaped the
admiring eulogium of Carlyle. Guizot compares him with the Russian
Peter. In some respects he reminds me of Oliver Cromwell; since both
equally deplored the evils of the day, and both invoked the aid of God
Almighty. Both were ambitious, and unscrupulous in the use of tools.
Neither of them was stained by vulgar vices, nor seduced from his course
by love of ease or pleasure. Both are to be contemplated in the double
light of reformer and usurper. Both were honest, and both were
unscrupulous; honest in seeking to promote public morality and the
welfare of society, and unscrupulous in the arts by which their power
was gaine