bled in council,
"What must I do?" their answer was: "Obey the Pope; put away Agnes and
restore Ingelburgis." And, thanks to the severity of Innocent III.,
Philip repudiated the concubine, and restored Ingelburgis to her rights,
as wife and queen. Hear what the Protestant Hurter says, in his life of
Innocent: "If Christianity has not been thrown aside, as a worthless
creed, into some isolated corner of the world; if it has not, like the
sects of India, been reduced to a mere theory; if its European vitality
has outlived the voluptuous effeminacy of the East, it is due to the
watchful severity of the Roman Pontiffs--to their increasing care to
maintain the principles of authority in the Church."

As often as we look to England, that land of perfidy and deceit, we are
reminded of the words of Innocent III. to Philip Augustus. We see
Clement using them as his principles in his conduct towards the royal
brute Henry VIII. Catherine of Aragon, the lawful wife of Henry, had
been repudiated by her disgraceful husband, and it was again to Rome she
appealed for protection. Clement remonstrates with Henry. The monarch
calls the Pope hard names. Clement repeats, "Thou shalt not commit
adultery!" Henry threatens to tear England from the Church; he does it;
still Clement insists, "Thou shalt not commit adultery!" Fisher and More
go to bleed out their life at Tyburn; still the Pope repeats, "Thou
shalt not commit adultery!" Henry had two wives at the same time, and,
after _them_, took a new wife, and killed off his old wife, whenever his
beastly passion prompted. The enslavement of the people followed. Henry
made himself head of the Church, and bade the English nation recognize
him as such. The penalty of disobeying the tyrant was death. The mass of
the English yielded. This adulterous beast--this ferocious monster--they
accepted as their pope; and their children, following in their steps,
accepted his bastard brood--of either sex--as their popes; while the
only and true Pope, the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Jesus
Christ, was rejected by them. To such depths of servility and
degradation do apostate nations fall. The firmness of the Pope cost
England's loss to the Church. It cost the Pope bitter tears, and he
prayed to Heaven not to visit on the people of England the crimes of the
despot; he prayed for the conversion of the nation; but sacrifice the
sanctity, the indissolubility of matrimony, that he could never
do--abandon he