All these things Nivelon is supposed to do or must get done. What wonder (considering mortal frailty) that many men who seek the episcopate for temporal advantage often bring their great office into contempt? It is true that sometimes very worldly young clerics, when once elected, are sobered by their responsibilities and become admirable prelates. There is a story of a college of canons which decided to elect to the vacant bishopric a fellow member "who was excellent in mother wit," but who, when they sought him to tell of his honor, was actually dicing in a tavern. Forth they dragged him, "weeping and struggling," to the cathedral, and thrust him into the episcopal chair. Once enthroned, however, he proved sober and capable, thus proving how, despite his original sins, "the free gift of virtue which had come upon him (by consecration) shaped the possibilities of an excellent nature." [Sidenote: Evil and Luxurious Prelates] This is all very well, but the sacred honor does not always work such reformation. The monks never conceal the faults of the rival branch of the clergy. A monkish preacher has lately declaimed: "The bishops surpass as wolves and foxes. They bribe and flatter in order to extort. Instead of being protectors of the Church, they are its ravishers." Or again, "Jesus wore hair cloth; they silken vestments. They care not for souls, but for falcons; not for the poor, but for hunting dogs. The churches from being holy places have become market places and haunts for brigands." Most of this is mere rhetoric, and such sweeping generalizations are unjust. If the majority of bishops are not ascetics, neither are they rapacious libertines. Nevertheless, even as one ill-ruled abbey brings contempt on many austere establishments, so a few faithless bishops bring scandal on the whole episcopate. Some years ago Pope Innocent III had to denounce a South French bishop as "serving no other God but money, and having a purse in place of a heart." This wretch was charged with selling Church offices, or leaving them vacant in order to seize their incomes, while the monks and canons under him (says the Pope) "were laying aside the habit, taking wives, living by usury, and becoming lawyers, jongleurs, or doctors."[125]