everlasting burnings, without
expiations,--a creed so cruel as to undermine the health, and make life
itself a misery! Think of a spiritual despotism so complete that
confessors and spiritual fathers could impose or remove these
expiations, and thus open the door to heaven or hell!

And yet this despotism was the logical result of a generally accepted
idea, instead of the idea being an outgrowth of the despotism, since the
clergy, who controlled society by working on its fears, were themselves
as complete victims and slaves as the people whom they led. This idea
was that the soul would be lost unless sins were expiated, and expiated
by self-inflicted torments on the body. Paul taught a more cheerful
doctrine of forgiveness, based on divine and infinite love,--on faith
and repentance. The Middle Ages also believed in repentance, but taught
that repentance and penance were synonymous. The asceticism of the
Church in its conflict with Paganism led to this perversion of apostolic
theology. The very idea that Christianity was sent to subvert,--that is,
the old Oriental idea of self-expiation, seen among the fakirs and sofis
and Brahmins alike, and in a less repulsive form among the
Pharisees,--became once again the ruling idea of theologians. The
theologians of the Middle Ages taught this doctrine of penance and
self-expiation with peculiar zeal and sincerity; and fear rather than
love ruled the Christian world. Hence the austerity of convent life. Its
piety centred in the perpetual crucifixion of the body, in the
suppression of desires and pleasures which are perfectly innocent. The
highest ideal of Christian life, according to convent rules, was a
living and protracted martyrdom, and in some cases even the degradation
of our common humanity. Christianity nowhere enjoins the eradication of
passions and appetites, but the control of them. It would not mutilate
and disfigure the body, for it is a sacred temple, to be made beautiful
and attractive. On the other hand the Middle Ages strove to make the
body appear repulsive, and the most loathsome forms of misery and
disease to be hailed as favorite modes of penance. And as Christ
suffered agonies on the cross, so the imitation of Christ was supposed
to be a cheerful and ready acceptance of voluntary humiliation and
bodily torments,--the more dreadful to bear, the more acceptable to
Deity as a propitiation for sin. Is this statement denied? Read the
biographies of the saints of