r those who lived for luxury and
pleasure and self-indulgence, there was the blackness of eternal death.

An awful conviction of this tremendous kind the clergy had effectually
instilled into the mind of Europe. It was not a PERHAPS; it was a
certainty. It was not a form of words repeated once a week at church; it
was an assurance entertained on all days and in all places, without any
particle of doubt. And the effect of such a belief on life and
conscience was simply immeasurable.

I do not pretend that the clergy were perfect. They were very far from
perfect at the best of times, and the European nations were never
completely submissive to them. It would not have been well if they had
been. The business of human creatures in this planet is not summed up in
the most excellent of priestly catechisms. The world and its concerns
continued to interest men, though priests insisted on their nothingness.
They could not prevent kings from quarrelling with each other. They
could not hinder disputed successions, and civil feuds, and wars, and
political conspiracies. What they did do was to shelter the weak from
the strong. In the eyes of the clergy, the serf and his lord stood on
the common level of sinful humanity. Into their ranks high birth was no
passport. They were themselves for the most part children of the people;
and the son of the artisan or peasant rose to the mitre and the triple
crown, just as nowadays the rail-splitter and the tailor become
Presidents of the Republic of the West.

The Church was essentially democratic, while at the same time it had the
monopoly of learning; and all the secular power fell to it which
learning, combined with sanctity and assisted by superstition, can
bestow.

The privileges of the clergy were extraordinary. They were not amenable
to the common laws of the land. While they governed the laity, the laity
had no power over them. From the throne downwards, every secular office
was dependent on the Church. No king was a lawful sovereign till the
Church placed the crown upon his head: and what the Church bestowed, the
Church claimed the right to take away. The disposition of property was
in their hands. No will could be proved except before the bishop or his
officer; and no will was held valid if the testator died out of
communion. There were magistrates and courts of law for the offences of
the laity. If a priest committed a crime, he was a sacred person. The
civil power could not touc