very large demands and claims, one's feelings
of gratitude rapidly and permanently take a very different character. A
proverb tells us not to look a gift horse in the mouth. But when there is
grave doubt whether the horse ever existed, and when an immense price is
afterwards demanded for the gift, proverbs of that kind do not appeal to
us very strongly. The claims upon us of mediaeval Rome, mischievous as
they were absurd, were based on evidence much of which was so fictitious,
that we are more than justified in scanning closely the beginnings of any
of the evidence. Time after time one is reminded, in looking into these
claims, of the retort of a lay ruler, referring to the forged donation by
the first Christian Emperor to the bishops of Rome. Asked by the Pope for
his authority for the independent position he maintained, "you will find
it," he said, "written on the back of the donation of Constantine."

Nor, again, would it disturb me in the least, if convincing evidence were
discovered, in favour of much which I think at best doubtful on the
evidence as now known. Benefits conferred lay the foundation of gratitude,
not of subservience. The descendants, and representatives, of those who
conferred them, have in our eyes all the interest attaching to descendants
of benefactors. But when the Popes--say of the Plantagenet times--on the
strength of the past or of the supposed past, lorded it over the English
people, and carried out of England, every year, to be spent in no very
excellent way in Italy, sums of money that would seem fabulous if it were
not that no one at the time contested their accuracy, the English people
found them, and frankly told them so, an intolerable nuisance. The demands
of the Popes were so ludicrous in their shamelessness, that when one of
them was read to the assembled peers, the peers roared with laughter. We
might perhaps forget such episodes as these. We might forget the
abominations which at times have steeped the Papacy and the infallible
Popes in earth's vilest vilenesses. We might dream, some of us did dream,
as young men, of drawing nearer to communion with the old centre of the
Western Church, while maintaining our doctrinal position. It was always
the fault of the Roman more than the Englishman that we had to part. And
now, late in time, in our own generation, the Roman has cut himself off
from us by an impassable barrier, the declaration of the divine
infallibility of the man who is th