f making up for misdeeds was now brought into the Church; it was
thought that men might make satisfaction for their sins by paying money,
and that the effect would be the same if others paid for them after
their death. We may understand how this worked, from another story of
queen Fredegund, who seems to have been a perfect monster of wickedness.
She set two of her pages to murder a king, named Sigebert; and, by way
of encouraging them, she said that she would honour them highly, if they
came off with their lives; but that, if they were slain, she would lay
out a great deal of money in alms for the good of their souls!

As might naturally have been expected among such people, it came to be
very commonly thought that the observance of outward worship and
ceremonies was all that religion required. Pretended miracles were
wrought in great numbers, for the purpose of imposing on the ignorant;
and all, from the king downwards, were then ignorant enough to be
deceived by them. The superstitions which had begun in the fourth
century[54] continued to grow on the Church; such as the reverence paid
to saints, and especially to the Blessed Virgin, so that people allowed
them a part of the honour which ought to have been kept for God alone.
Among other such corruptions were the reverence for the _relics_ of
saints (that is, for parts of their bodies, or for things which had
belonged to them), and the religious honour paid to images and pictures.
These and other evils increased more and more, until, at length, they
could be borne no longer, and, in many countries, they caused the great
religious change which is called the _Reformation_.

[54] See page 90.

But nearly a thousand years had to pass before the time of the
Reformation; and, in the meanwhile, although much was amiss in the
Christianity which prevailed, it yet was the means of blessing and of
salvation. And there were never wanting good men who, although there
were many defects and errors in their opinions, firmly held and clearly
taught the necessity of a real living faith in Christ, and of a
thoroughly earnest endeavour to obey God's holy will.

PART II.

The state of Italy towards the end of the sixth century was very
wretched. Vast numbers of its people had perished in the course of the
wars by which Justinian's generals had wrested the country from the
Goths, and had again united it to the empire;[55] multitudes of others
had been destroyed by famine and pestil