y, the government of that
Church which I speak of, with its questionable means to gain power, its
opposition to the free circulation of the Bible, its interference with
popular education, its prelatical assumptions, its professed allegiance
to a foreign potentate, though as wise and beneficent as Pio Nono or the
reigning Pope.

In the time of Leo there were none of these things. It was a poor,
miserable, ignorant, anarchical, superstitious age. In such an age the
concentration of power in the hands of an intelligent man is always a
public benefit. Certainly it was wielded wisely by Leo, and for
beneficent ends. He established the patristic literature. The writings
of the great Fathers were by him scattered over Europe, and were studied
by the clergy, so far as they were able to study anything. All the great
doctrines of Augustine and Jerome and Athanasius were defended. The
whole Church was made to take the side of orthodoxy, and it remained
orthodox to the times of Bernard and Anselm. Order was restored to the
monasteries; and they so rapidly gained the respect of princes and good
men that they were richly endowed, and provision made in them for the
education of priests. Everywhere cathedral schools were established. The
canon law supplanted in a measure the old customs of the German forests
and the rude legislation of feudal chieftains. When bishops quarrelled
with monasteries or with one another, or even with barons, appeals were
sent to Rome, and justice was decreed. In after times these appeals were
settled on venal principles, but not for centuries. The early Mediaeval
popes were the defenders of justice and equity. And they promoted peace
among quarrelsome barons, as well as Christian truth among divines. They
set aside, to some extent, those irascible and controversial councils
where good and great men were persecuted for heresy. These popes had no
small passions to gratify or to stimulate. They were the conservators of
the peace of Europe, as all reliable historians testify. They were
generally very enlightened men,--the ablest of their times. They
established canons and laws which were based on wisdom, which stood the
test of ages, and which became venerable precedents.

The Catholic polity was only gradually established, sustained by
experience and reason. And that is the reason why it has been so
permanent. It was most admirably adapted to rule the ignorant in ages of
cruelty and crime,--and, I am inclined