Show written for this paper AFTER THE in a former article we spoke of the 9 great reat wealth of the medieval church and pointed out the fraud by which much of that wealth was accumulated we ment ionel also that the dominant ambition of the church was to obtain power and promised that at some future time we might peradventure find a moments leisure in which to consider this phase of her past history now that political excitement is over for one more season we will take advantage of a breathing spell and peep for a moment into the past to view the ambitions that animated and oppressed men a thousand years ago for it if we seek we shall find that we are not the only race or age which has been harassed by political or religious passions close upon the foot prints of the music of history hi so far as we can trice trace them ever since the fall of adam lies the story 0 of mans allure ments and disappointments the onslaught of his evil the continued triumph of his good the slow but sure conquest of the forces of against the fierce of the triumph of the faithful zealous gabriel against the ambitious hosts of lucifer and we shall find that so closely together lie the tangled threads of good and evil as to all but baffle mans anxious endeavor to wind them into proper shape hape what then may we expect to find in the situation when Jig ignorance norance superstition avarice bigotry oppression in in one word unrighteousness are the forces that steer the helm of history these we find the dominant characteristics of the dark ages to have been not a pleasant P prospect not such a view as the soul seeks to assure her peace it is true but such as it is its contemplation will perhaps provide a lesson we will now proceed to investigate the judicial phase of the catholic church of the centuries extending from about say the sixth to the twelfth alter christ we find that the clergy were early exempted from the jurisdiction of the civil courts but that they however frequently trespassed upon the prerogatives of the latter the statutes of justinian and Charle mangne forbade the trial of ecclesiastics by temporal magistrates except in cases of crime and even then they could not be sentenced without the concurrence of their bishops vr or by an appeal to the emperor but even this was yielded in time and the episcopal courts usurped little by little and under various pretenses almost all i judicial uricial functions presuming to legislates in councils beyond ecclesiastical matters and invading the province of the state we must not evade nor belittle any phases of what may at first blush appear wholly condemnable it is true that in studying the history of these chese usurpations we find much to blame tv tu much may also be found to extenuate these ecclesiastical interferences the clergy which about the sixth century came ame to include the monastic orders were alone familiar with letters and were therefore appointed to perform political lotical correspondence and to draw up irris forms of law their exclusive knowledge of the arts and sciences introduced them to the notice of the royalty and nobility whose households they entered as tutors and their general intellectual superiority gave them precedence as counselors and ministers to kings this was largely true as early as the times of the roman emperors it was but natural that this intellectual prestige should increase with the increase of intellectual darkness that flooded the world after the disruption of the roman empire by the barbarian invasions some writers find nothing but evil in the work and authority usurped by the church of rome in the middle ages others find much good each sees according to his point of view and the faith that is within him the protestant and liberty loving spirit of our age ana land finds ahe the search for good much as the seeking after a needle in a even that which we have just pointed out as deserving to be placed to the credit side of this account we find so profound and eminent a writer as the rev john todd denouncing in no measured terms another striking ipg instance says he of the perversion ot of mind and the abuse of the human intellect and heart is the church no one created mind apparently could ever have invented a scheme of delusion of gration de of the soul the intellect ct the whole man so perfect and complete as is this what minds must have been employed in shutting out the light of heaven and in burying the manna which fell in showers so extended what system to gather all the books in the world and put them all within the stone walls of the monastery and cloister to crush schools except in these same monasteries in which they trained up men to become more and more imore skilful in doing the work of ruin to ko delude the world with ceremonies and the bible was taken away and religion muttered her rites in en an unknown tongue and all this the result of a settled plan to debase the intellect and mock poor human nature I 1 I 1 we love the above writer outthink but think him bim too radical in this sweeping denunciation cia tion we believe that at least the first cause of the shutting up of all the books in the world within the stone walls of the monastery was the savage attacks of the northern barbarians who would have destroyed them by fire but for this protection As time wore on however and the nations had recovered from the anarchical invasions of bar barian conquest and ru lethe intellectual subservience and ignorance ie norance of the people was undoubtedly taken advantage 40 and we find after all too much j justification in the bitter exclamation of bodd and when the reformation held up all these abominations to light what a masterpiece was the last plan laid aid to stifle the reason fo forever reverl the inquisition it was reared throughout the christian world the decree by a single blow prescribed between sixty and seventy printing presses and excommunicated munica ted all who should ever read anything which they might produce A philosopher who like galileo could pour light upon science and astonish the world by his discoveries must repeatedly tall fall into the cruel mercies of the inquisition toe the ingenuity of hell secured tasked to invent methods by which the human mind might be shut up in egyptian darkness and never has a catholic community been known to be other than degraded ignorant superstitious ious and sunken let light in and all who receive it rush to infidelity but what a mass of mind has been and still is employed iri id upholding the system and what a loss has it produced in quenching in everlasting darkness the uncounted millions ot of glorious minds which have been destroyed by it it if I 1 could find it in any heart to anathematize any order of men and I 1 hope I 1 can not it would be those who are thus taking away the key of knowledge and preventing all within the compass ot of their influence from the great object for which they were created this is is sweeping and alas much is too true but guizot says that nothing tortures history more than logic and we are often surprised to find that actual results of erratic principles are not always so grave as might be logically apprehended so in this case A spit spirit t of protest natural to lo the human heart hear kept alive a spark ot of independence and love ot of liberty that finally set ablaze not the fires of the inquisition baj buthe the day dawn of truth of manhood and a purer worship of christ in the reformation some reproach the middle age church for her organized existence believing that religion has no right to exercise exterior authority auth brity which is almost sure to rt result sult when thus organized organize ci we have no space here to discuss this subject but we have pointed out in a former article that this organization was an essential factoring fac factor torin in the temporal sal of the invaded countries when the empire fell under the goths goehs and other northern migrations in that time of dire anarchy the church still gave men some form of law to cling unto and her policy was after all democratic as well as vigorous lor for she invited the capable of all degrees to share her offices ot of trust atie ane poorest lad might hope to tb occupy her highest chair and still she was ambitious and oppressive guizot with all his kind words for her with all his defense and apology tor for her says what she undertook to govern was human thought human liberty private morals individual opinions and we claim that in the exercise of her usurped authority she was arrogant crafty and unscrupulous caring little what laws jaws were violated human or divine so long as it was required to accomplish her designs thus when the sons of louis the debonair rebelled against their father they received the backing of the pope who hoped thereby to dethrone the latter hallam thinks that this gave the papacy a taste of trampling on crowned heads w which it became eager to repeat later in the quarrels of these same sons of louis charles the bald and louis of bavario set a bad example to future popes by requesting a council ot of bishops to sit in judgment on their conquered brother lathain Loi Lo hain thain who was adjudged by t lem as unworthy to sit upon a throne the council extending their authority lurther by commanding the reigning princes to divide his territories among themselves on condition that they would rule better than he had done here was a precedent of ecclesiastical deposition complemented by royal establish ment than which it would have been difficult ito to mount higher for surely the kingmaker king maker and the king destroyer is greater than the king charles the bald could not justly complain when in later years he was himself deposed by the same authority his subjects absolved from their allegiance and his crown presented to his brother of bavaria thus the rights of sovereigns were falling into a precarious condition while ecclesiastical power was becoming correspondingly despondingly ly increased in one instance we read ot of a king boson who ruled over the kingdom of arles aries by special ecclesiastical appointment in which the nobility ol of the land had bad no voice this however hallam believes to have been a forged account invented to give pretext as ore to asur lations pat ions thus in england in 1141 the bishops of winchester presumed to appoint the occupant of the throne indeed we find examples of pontifical king making as tar back as the first union of rome with the vigorous young kings of the north pepin the short referred his case to the pope and at his bidding deposed and banished Chil deric III the last of the while he took his kingdom and charlemagne in received the imperial crown from the hands of pope leo III the pope also exercised unwarranted authority over metropolitan bishops having established himself as the highest court of appeal he further declared that each individual bishop was amen able to rome only and encouraged all to make a direct appeal to the holy see instead of the regular metropolitan this blow struck at the root of ecclesiastical equality and gave the pope unprecedented ce and unwarranted dignity the principle was stoutly resisted however by them whose dominion was invaded among the strongest champions of Gal liean freedom against ultra mo tane usurpations was hingmar Hin cmar arch bishops of rheims whose influence was almost equal to that ot of any pope at this time it will be remembered civil power was almost prostrated by the quarrels of the sons ol of louis I 1 the and though hingmar a bold and esteemed statesman often coming out best man in his struggles with the holy see the latter perceived that in in consequence of these civil this was a good time to establish the independence and authority of the pope the of isidore since known as the false were suddenly announced they purported to be the decrees of the earliest bishops of rome and claimed supreme appellant jurisdiction for the roman see as having received that authority from jesus christ the generation in which they were produced seems to have been too ignorant to detect the utter historical fraud upon which they were based but subsequent critics laid it ridiculously bare hallam t says that I 1 cupon upon these spurious was built the great fabric of papal supremacy over we ane different national churches a fabric that has stood after its foundation crumbled ble beneath neath it for no one has pretended to deny for the last two centuries that the impost imposture urie is too oo 00 Oal palpable pable for any but the most ignorant ages to credit we may gather something of the nature of this gigantic fraud from the words of daubigny the historian ot of the reformation in this collection of pretended decrees of the popes the most ancient bishops the contemporaries of tacitus and spoke the latin ozithe ninth century the customs and constitutions of the franks were gravely attributed to the romans of the time of the emperors popes quoted the bible in the latin translation of st jerome who lived one two or three centuries ceni uries after them and victor bishop of rome in the year wrote to who was archbishop of alexandria in the im impostor who had forged this collection strove to make out that all the bishops derived their authority from the bishop ot of rome who derived his immediately i from jesus christ these spread an indefinite gloom and terror over the kingdoms and churches ot of europe A superstitious dread of the popes power spread through the ignorant minds of the people and none seemed fully settled as to the extent or limit of his power and will to inflict torture or distress upon individuals or nations but the brooding shadows gathered deeper as the setting of the sun until gross darkness covered the minds of the people and the pope became by shameless forgery the master of the western world the protestations of 0 hingmar and his ecclesiastical colleagues were unavailing the continuous and unscrupulous encroachments encroach ments of the holy see wore away I 1 the rock of their strength the superstitious fanaticism of the people the opposition on of the monastic orders whom the pope had won to his side by exempting them from the jurisdiction of their rightful bishops but ut above all their own mutual jealousies operating with telling force against their efforts tor for freedom until they were at length compelled to yield to papal despotism thus successful over the churches the holy see now directed greater attention to the subjugation of the state As be lore fore hinted the demoralization of the latter by the broils brails of the princes would have rendered this corn com prat ively easy but for the mire of utter vice and degradation into which the papal chair itself was fallen in the ninth and tenth centuries we find the latter often disposed of by immoral women to their paramours par amours and favorites and the grossest immoralities practised practiced in a court and by the occupants of a throne that pretended to be highest of any on earth that aimed to govern all other sovereigns and claimed to represent the sovereign god the papal office bt b came a bone of contention between the lords of the italian feudalism being bestoy bestowed ved in tenure as a sort of or princely dower upon the house that proved itself strongest in the t derivative of gaul was a term used to distinguish ahe he equal rights of bishops against the despotic pretensions of rome known as ultramontane over the mountains contest in this the house of tuscany generally gained the in 1033 Theophyl act a scion of the noble family ot of tuscany a boy of twelve years brought up in in vice and debauchery was placed upon the papal throne with the title of benedict IX his manhood did not belie his early promise adultery murder extortion and tyranny in his sale of the sacred office to a relative john whose papal title became gregory VI the disgusted people had already resolved to depose |