Wherein lay the attraction of the Catharan doctrine and system? For evidently they were attractive, as their great and rapid spread over Europe shows. It is at first difficult to discern anything attractive in teaching so austere; and if the Catharan promised a reward in heaven, so also did the Catholic. In his case purgatory had first to be faced, but then the ordeal on earth was less exacting. There would appear to be two explanations, the one high-minded, the other the reverse. In its early days the gospel of Catharism probably made to some a lofty appeal. It denounced palpable clerical abuses, repugnant to the moral consciousness. The austerity of its ethical principles seemed to point to a higher standard of living in days when any outstanding examples of asceticism, whether in the Church or outside it, evoked admiration. In its hatred for the evil spirit of materialism, in its detestation particularly of that worst of human passions, cruelty, there was an element of nobility which finds a response in the instinct which we to-day call humanitarian.[41] In so far as its appeal was of this nature, it was sincere and fine. Unhappily, however, Catharism unquestionably developed another appeal of a wholly different character, which resulted almost inevitably from the complete impracticableness of its ideal. A creed that approved of suicide and denounced marriage stands self-condemned. It was at war with the very principles of life itself. The ascetic rule it enjoined was one ‘more honoured in the breach than the observance.’ There was taint of unhealthiness and corruption in a rule so hopelessly at variance with nature; while a creed which, if it meant anything, held as its highest hope the speediest possible destruction of all human life, was devoid of the balance and sanity which is essential in any doctrine that is to be of any practical service in the world. Such a religion as Catharism could not harmonize with the most elementary facts of life and human nature. The consequence was—and herein lies the greatest condemnation of the sect—that it went on proclaiming an impracticable ideal while admitting that it was impracticable, sanctioning a compromise, itself antithetical to its essential dogma, whereby alone the heresy was able to continue at all. The compromise is seen in two practices—the distinction made between the Perfected and the Believers and the postponement of the Consolamentum, or complete initiation, until the end of life. The Believers—the great bulk of the adherents of the creed—might do pretty well as they liked, in fact ignore all the Catharan precepts of conduct, might marry, have riches, make war, eat what they chose, provided only they were prepared to receive the Consolamentum before they died. Such an arrangement is merely the apotheosis of the system of the death-bed repentance, it is an encouragement to insincerity and hypocrisy. This does not mean that most, or necessarily even many, Cathari were hypocrites.