end.

[Sidenote: Development of casuistry.] Auricular confession led to an
increasing necessity for casuistry, though that science was not fully
developed until the time of the Jesuits, when it gave rise to an
extensive literature, with a lax system and a false morality, guiding
the penitent rather with a view to his usefulness to the Church than to
his own reformation, and not hesitating at singular indecencies in its
portion having reference to married life.

[Sidenote: Attitude of Innocent III.] Great historical events often find
illustrations in representative men. Such is the case in the epoch we
are now considering. On one side stands Innocent, true to the instincts
of his party, interfering with all the European nations; launching forth
his interdicts and excommunications; steeped in the blood of French
heretics; hesitating at no atrocity, even the outrage and murder of
women and children, the ruin of flourishing cities, to compass his
plans; in all directions, under a thousand pretences, draining Europe of
its money; calling to his aid hosts of begging friars; putting forth
imposture miracles; organizing the Inquisition, and invading the privacy
of life by the contrivance of auricular confession.

[Sidenote: Attitude of Frederick II.] On the other side stands Frederick
II., the Emperor of Germany. His early life, as has been already
mentioned, was spent in Sicily, in familiar intercourse with Jews and
Arabs, and Sicily to the last was the favoured portion of his dominions.
To his many other accomplishments he added the speaking of Arabic as
fluently as a Saracen. He delighted in the society of Mohammedan ladies,
who thronged his court. His enemies asserted that his chastity was not
improved by his associations with these miscreant beauties. The Jewish
and Mohammedan physicians and philosophers taught him to sneer at the
pretensions of the Church. [Sidenote: His Mohammedan tendencies.] From
such ridicule it is but a short step to the shaking off of authority. At
this time the Spanish Mohammedans had become widely infected with
irreligion; their greatest philosophers were infidel in their own
infidelity. The two sons of Averroes of Cordova are said to have been
residents at Frederick's court. Their father was one of the ablest men
their nation ever produced: an experienced astronomer, he had translated
the Almagest, and, it is affirmed, was the first who actually saw a
transit of Mercury across the sun; a volum