and science of the age, and his
subsequent residence in Rome, where he found an inconceivable ignorance
and immorality, were not lost upon his future life. He established a
school at Rheims, where he taught logic, music, astronomy, explained
Virgil, Statius, Terence, and introduced what were at that time regarded
as wonders, the globe and the abacus. He laboured to persuade his
countrymen that learning is far to be preferred to the sports of the
field. He observed the stars through tubes, invented a clock, and an
organ played by steam. He composed a work on Rhetoric. Appointed Abbot
of Bobbio, he fell into a misunderstanding with his monks, and had to
retire first to Rome, and then to resume his school at Rheims. In the
political events connected with the rise of Hugh Capet, he was again
brought into prominence. [Sidenote: His reproaches against the Church.]
The speech of the Bishop of Orleans at the Council of Rheims, which was
his composition, shows us how his Mohammedan education had led him to
look upon the state of things in Christendom: "There is not one at Rome,
it is notorious, who knows enough of letters to qualify him for a
door-keeper; with what face shall he presume to teach who has never
learned?" He does not hesitate to allude to papal briberies and papal
crimes: "If King Hugh's embassadors could have bribed the pope and
Crescentius, his affairs had taken a different turn." He recounts the
disgraces and crimes of the pontiffs: how John XII. had cut off the nose
and tongue of John the Cardinal; how Boniface had strangled John XIII.;
how John XIV. had been starved to death in the dungeons of the Castle of
St. Angelo. He demands, "To such monsters, full of all infamy, void of
all knowledge, human and divine, are all the priests of God to
submit--men distinguished throughout the world for their learning and
holy lives? The pontiff who so sins against his brother--who, when
admonished, refuses to hear the voice of counsel, is as a publican and a
sinner." With a prophetic inspiration of the accusations of the
Reformation, he asks, "Is he not Anti-Christ?" He speaks of him as "the
Man of Sin," "the Mystery of Iniquity." Of Rome he says, with an
emphasis doubtless enforced by his Mohammedan experiences, "She has
already lost the allegiance of the East; Alexandria, Antioch, Africa,
and Asia are separate from her; Constantinople has broken loose from
her; the interior of Spain knows nothing of the pope." He says, "How