ey were
distributed over the floor. They were thinking about the great mediaeval
conception that the church is the judge of the world. Becket objected to
a priest being tried even by the Lord Chief Justice. And his reason was
simple: because the Lord Chief Justice was being tried by the priest.
The judiciary was itself sub judice. The kings were themselves in the
dock. The idea was to create an invisible kingdom, without armies or
prisons, but with complete freedom to condemn publicly all the kingdoms
of the earth. Whether such a supreme church would have cured society we
cannot affirm definitely; because the church never was a supreme church.
We only know that in England at any rate the princes conquered the
saints. What the world wanted we see before us; and some of us call it
a failure. But we cannot call what the church wanted a failure, simply
because the church failed. Tracy struck a little too soon. England had
not yet made the great Protestant discovery that the king can do no
wrong. The king was whipped in the cathedral; a performance which I
recommend to those who regret the unpopularity of church-going. But the
discovery was made; and Henry VIII scattered Becket's bones as easily as
Tracy had scattered his brains.

Of course, I mean that Catholicism was not tried; plenty of Catholics
were tried, and found guilty. My point is that the world did not tire
of the church's ideal, but of its reality. Monasteries were impugned not
for the chastity of monks, but for the unchastity of monks. Christianity
was unpopular not because of the humility, but of the arrogance of
Christians. Certainly, if the church failed it was largely through the
churchmen. But at the same time hostile elements had certainly begun to
end it long before it could have done its work. In the nature of
things it needed a common scheme of life and thought in Europe. Yet
the mediaeval system began to be broken to pieces intellectually, long
before it showed the slightest hint of falling to pieces morally. The
huge early heresies, like the Albigenses, had not the faintest excuse in
moral superiority. And it is actually true that the Reformation began
to tear Europe apart before the Catholic Church had had time to pull
it together. The Prussians, for instance, were not converted to
Christianity at all until quite close to the Reformation. The poor
creatures hardly had time to become Catholics before they were told
to become Protestants. This explains