such high matters to direct that some poor tenant on
one of his estates should be excused from paying a part of his rent, or
that relief should be given to some widow or orphan who had written from
a distance to ask his help.

The bishops of Rome had by degrees become very rich. They had estates,
not only in Italy and Sicily, but in Africa, in France, and even in
Asia. And the people who managed these estates were employed by Gregory
to carry on his other business in the same countries, and to report the
state of the Church to him from all quarters. Very little of his large
income was spent on himself. We may have some notion of the plain way in
which the great bishop lived from one of his letters to the steward of
his estates in Sicily. "You have sent me," says Gregory, "one wretched
horse, and five good asses. I cannot ride the horse because he is
wretched; nor the good beasts, because they are but asses." He lived
chiefly in the company of monks and clergy, employing himself in study
with them. And, in the midst of all the business which took up his time,
he wrote a number of books, of which some are very valuable. He was also
famous as a preacher. Among his sermons are a set of twenty-two on the
prophet Ezekiel, which he had meant to carry further. But he was obliged
to break off by the attacks of the Lombards, as he told his people in
the end of the last sermon--"Let no one blame me," he says, "if after
this discourse I stop, since, as you all see, our troubles are
multiplied on us. On every side we are surrounded with swords; on every
side we dread the danger of death which is close at hand. Some come back
to us with their hands cut off; we hear of some as being taken
prisoners, and of others as slain. I am forced to with-hold my tongue
from expounding, since my soul is weary of my life (_Job_ x. 1). How can
I, who am forced daily to drink bitter things, draw forth sweet things
to you? What remains for us, but that in the chastisement which we are
suffering because of our misdeeds, we should give thanks with weeping to
Him who made us, and who hath bestowed on us the spirit of adoption
(_Rom._ viii. 15)--to Him who sometimes nourisheth His children with
bread, and sometimes correcteth them with a scourge--who, by benefits
and by sufferings alike, is training us for an eternal inheritance?"

Gregory laboured zealously in improving the education of the clergy, and
in reforming such disorders as he found in his Churc