s circumstance admits
doubtless of a sufficiently logical explanation. Rome was the spiritual
head of Christendom, but she was also a great temporal power, and to a
great extent the social metropolis of the world. This character
necessarily involved a vast deal of magnificent corruption.

In the course of the Middle Ages it is apparent that the clergy not only
continued to possess their share of the general unchastity, but to carry
it to excesses by which they alone were distinguished. The amount of
legislation bearing on this subject, recorded by Mr. Lea with immense
patience and care, is such as to defy memory and imagination, and almost
to challenge belief. There can be assuredly no better proof of the very
imperfect observation of the canons than this unceasing repetition of
them. By the time the Middle Ages had passed away, and the masses had
emerged into the comparatively brilliant light of the Renaissance,
sacerdotal unchastity had grown into an enormous evil. The disparity
between the theory of the priestly character and its actual form had
become too flagrant to be endured. Popular protests accordingly became
frequent. The abuse of those intimate relations into which the priest is
brought with the life of families, and that of the confessional more
especially, acquires horrible proportions. And as the question grows
more complex on the side of the people, so it grows more complex with
regard to the general government of the Church. This government had long
since made up its mind, with a firmness destined to be proof against
even the most formidable remonstrance, that, whatever might be the
manners of its servants, they were to remain inviolably single. The mere
ascetic and sentimental reason for celibacy had long been supplanted by
good logical and material reasons. A wife and children were speedily
found to be incompatible with the exclusive service of the Church. To it
alone, if the ambition of its great rulers was to be fulfilled, its
ministers were to be devoted. When, with the development of the feudal
system, the transmission of property and of functions from father to
sons became the groundwork of social order, ecclesiastical benefices
were disposed of in the same way as manors and baronies, to the utter
prejudice of the temporality of the Church. With this tendency the
Church waged a long and violent contest, in which she was finally
victorious. But she purchased her victory only at the price of the most