by the apostles, without
recognizing the necessity of unity in doctrines and discipline. Who in
that age could conserve this unity unless it were a great spiritual
monarch? In our age books, universities, theological seminaries, the
press, councils, and an enlightened clergy can see that no harm comes to
the great republic which recognizes Christ as the invisible head. Not so
fifteen hundred years ago. The idea of unity could only be realized by
the exercise of sufficient power in one man to preserve the integrity of
the orthodox faith, since ignorance and anarchy covered the earth with
their funereal shades.

The Protestants are justly indignant in view of subsequent encroachments
and tyrannies. But these were not the fault of Leo. Everything good in
its day is likely to be perverted. The whole history of society is the
history of the perversion of institutions originally beneficent. Take
the great foundations for education and other moral and intellectual
necessities, which were established in the Middle Ages by good men. See
how these are perverted and misused even in such glorious universities
as Oxford and Cambridge. See how soon the primitive institutions of
apostles were changed, in order to facilitate external conquests and
make the Church a dignified worldly power. Not only are we to remember
that everything good has been perverted, and ever will be, but that all
governments, religious and civil, seem to be, in one sense,
expediencies,--that is, adapted to the necessities and circumstances of
the times. In the Bible there are no settled laws definitely laid down
for the future government of the Church,--certainly not for the
government of States and cities. A government which was best for the
primitive Christians of the first two centuries was not adapted to the
condition of the Church in the third and fourth centuries, else there
would not have been bishops. If we take a narrow-minded and partisan
view of bishops, we might say that they always have existed since the
times of the apostles; the Episcopalians might affirm that the early
churches were presided over by bishops, and the Presbyterians that every
ordained minister was a bishop,--that elder and bishop are synonymous.
But that is a contest about words, not things. In reality, episcopal
power, as we understand it, was not historically developed till there
was a large increase in the Christian communities, especially in great
cities, where several presby