od. But it is only for periods that
humanity can endure the atmosphere of these high altitudes of morality. The
early Christians attempted a community of goods, but they were unequal to
it for more than a generation. The discipline of Catholicism was assisted
by superstition,--it remained vigorous for many hundreds of years, but it
languished at last; and although there was so great virtue in a living
idea, that its forms preserved the reverence of mankind unabated, even when
in their effect and working they had become as evil as they once were
noble; yet reverence and endurance were at length exhausted, and these
forms were to submit to alteration in conformity with the altered nature of
the persons whom they affected.

I have already alluded to the abuse of "benefit of clergy;"[344] we have
arrived at the first of those many steps by which at length it was finally
put away,--a step which did not, however, as yet approach the heart of the
evil, but touched only its extreme outworks. The clergy had monopolised the
learning of the middle ages, and few persons external to their body being
able to read or write, their privileges became co-extensive, as I above
stated, with these acquirements. The exemption from secular jurisdiction,
which they obtained in virtue of their sacred character, had been used as a
protection in villainy for every scoundrel who could write his name. Under
this plea, felons of the worst kind might claim, till this time, to be
taken out of the hands of the law judges, and to be tried at the bishops'
tribunals; and at these tribunals, such a monstrous solecism had
Catholicism become, the payment of money was ever welcomed as the ready
expiation of crime. To prevent the escape of the Bishop of Rochester's
cook, who was a "clerk," parliament had specially interfered, and sentenced
him without trial, by attainder. They now passed a general act, remarkable
alike in what it provided as in what, for the present, it omitted to
provide.[345] The preamble related the nature of the evil which was to be
remedied, and the historical position of it. It dwelt upon the assurances
which had been given again and again by the ordinaries that their
privileges should not be abused; but these promises had been broken as
often as they had been made; so that "continually manifest thieves and
murderers, indicted and found guilty of their misdeeds by good and
substantial inquests, and afterwards, by the usages of the common la