, or excommunication. The
sword of excommunication has been the most terrible ever wielded by
human hand. When this pale horseman was careering over the world in the
zenith of his power, excommunication and interdiction were the terror of
individuals and the scourge of nations. At his word the rights of an
individual as king, ruler, husband or father, nay, even as a _man_, were
forfeited, and he was shunned like one infected with the leprosy. At his
command the offices of religion were suspended in a nation, and its dead
lay unburied, until its proud ruler humbled himself at the feet of the
ecclesiastical tyrant who bore rule over the "fourth part of the
earth."[4]

[Footnote 4: This tyranny of the Popes is well illustrated by the
quarrel that took place between Hildebrand (Pope Gregory VII.) and Henry
IV. of Germany. Gregory attempted to make certain reforms, but Henry
refused to recognize those innovations. Gregory excommunicated the
emperor, with the result that he was "shunned as a man accursed by
Heaven." His authority lost and his kingdom on the point of going to
pieces, Henry had but one thing to do--seek the pardon of the Pope. He
found the Pontiff at Canoosa, but Gregory refused to admit the penitent
to his presence. "It was winter, and for three successive days the king,
clothed in sackcloth, stood with bare feet in the snow of the court-yard
of the palace, waiting for permission to kneel at the feet of the
Pontiff and to receive forgiveness." On the fourth day he was granted
admittance to the presence of the Pope.

During the Pontificate of Innocent III. Philip Augustus, king of France,
put away his wife. Innocent commanded him to take her back and forced
submission by means of an interdict. This submission of a brave, firm,
and victorious prince shows the tremendous power wielded by the Popes in
that period.

The manner, also, in which Innocent III. humbled King John of England
affords another illustration of the power of the Popes. John caused the
vacant See of Canterbury to be filled, in accordance with the regular
manner of election, by one of his favorites. Innocent declared the
appointment void, as he desired that the place should be filled by one
of his friends. John refused to allow the Pope's archbishop to enter
England as Primate. Innocent then excommunicated John, laid all England
under an interdict, and incited Philip, king of France, to war, offering
him John's kingdom upon the very liberal co