of seduction, carried our Lord up into an exceeding high mountain, where there was a survey of all the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof, and pointing out these the tempter said,--“_All this I will give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me_.” This argument, as we know, did not succeed with our Lord; but it succeeded only too well with those who came after Him. The marriage of worldly power and glory, to an essentially spiritual and unworldly religion, gave birth to that last and most potent adulteration which we have called SECULARISM. There is no necessity, of course, that a modern bishop should be a poor man, any more than an ancient patriarch; Christian ethics do not forbid a man to have a fat purse any more than a full stomach; but as a Christian may not live an epicure mainly for the sake of his stomach, so neither {261} may he live for the sake of his purse. And then there is a great difference between the effect of worldly prosperity in individuals and in institutions. An individual may be a man of exceptional virtue, and in the face of many temptations may become more virtuous the more he is exposed; but institutions are composed of the majority, and οἱ πολλοὶ κακοί, the majority are not heroes. It was natural, therefore, to expect, that as the Christian Church in its first epoch possessed a principal element of purity in the poverty and the social insignificance of its members, so one great occasion of its corruption would emerge as soon as the profession of the once despised faith became the high-road to wealth, the badge of social worth, and the guarantee of political power, whether, “as at Constantinople, the attempt was made to imperialize the Church, or, as at Rome, the Church waxed into the dimensions of an empire.”[261.1] But it was not at Rome or Constantinople only that the Church was thus secularized. Wherever official position in a prosperous and popular church presents an open career to persons desirous of making a respectable livelihood, there must always be a class of people, more or less numerous, who are ready to say in their hearts, though they may not dare everywhere to say it openly,--“_Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a bit of bread_.” Only the means by which this bit of bread may be obtained depends always to a great extent on the character of the patrons; and the corruption of the church office-bearers will always be greater where the appointment to valuable benefices is a mere civil right, {262} belonging to private individuals, than where it remains with its original depositaries, the congregations of the Christian people. No doubt where popular election exists in a church there will always be a danger of divisions, and a sort of ecclesiastical demagogy or mean subserviency to the passions and prejudices of the majority can scarcely be avoided; but this is a less evil than open simony, and the usurpation of apostolic functions by men who do not, like St.