whom a line of military pontiffs, military in spirit, if not in act, were the proud pretended successors: "Put up again thy sword into its place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." From what has been already stated, some conclusion may be drawn respecting the morals of the middle ages. The impostures which were frequently countenanced and even practised by the clergy, and the palpable falsehoods which were propagated by them in the legendary tales of the saints, evince a most deplorable disregard of truth, the very first of virtues. There is scarcely anything that strikes the reader more forcibly, on looking into the records of this dark period, than the general moral obtuseness of feeling which prevailed relative to the guilt of practising deception and telling lies. Connected with this disregard of truth was an equal disregard of the principles of justice. Complaints were made, as early as the sixth century, of bishops who had appropriated to their own use endowments conferred on the church, and who were guilty of various acts of injustice and oppression. Instances of unjust conduct abound in the annals of monkish historians, and sometimes acts of shameful perfidy are recorded, as if they were by no means immoral. In the history of Ramsey Abbey, there is related a strange anecdote of a bishop who made a Danish nobleman drunk, that he might cheat him out of an estate--an exploit which the ecclesiastical historian records with much approbation.[2] In further illustration of the want of truth and justice, on the part of many of the clergy, may be noticed the notorious prevalence of simony, that evil with which the famous Hildebrand so vigorously grappled. It is not in its spiritual character, as a sin of most heinous magnitude against the Head of the church, that we notice it now, but as a crime against the laws of society. Ecclesiastical benefices were in fact social trusts--trusts to be employed for the good of mankind; and, therefore, when they were made mere matters of bargain and sale, an entire disregard to public rights was openly proclaimed. But the heaviest element of social guilt in the sin of simony, is to be found in the practice of perjury which it invariably involved. Ecclesiastical law severely condemned simony, and looking at the law we might imagine that the practice was never tolerated; but looking only at the practice so common among churchmen, and so little checked, except now and then by some bold reformer, we might suppose no law against it was in existence.