2. "The first great consequence of the decline of priestly influence was the rise of toleration.... I suspect that the _impolicy_ of persecution was perceived before its wickedness. "--Ibid. 3. "While a multitude of scientific discoveries, critical and historical researches, and educational reforms have brought thinking men face to face with religious problems of extreme importance, _women have been almost absolutely excluded from their influence_."--Lechy. 4. "The domestic unhappiness arising from difference of belief was probably almost or altogether unknown in the world before the introduction of Christianity.... _The deep, and widening chasm between the religious opinions of most highly educated men, and of the immense majority of women is painfully apparent_. Whenever any strong religious fervor fell upon a husband or a wife, its first effect was to make a happy union impossible."--Ibid. 5. "The combined influence of the Jewish writings [Old Testament] and of that ascetic feeling which treated woman as the chief source of temptation to man, caused her degradation.... In the writings of the Fathers, woman was represented as the door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. She should be ashamed at the very thought that she is a woman. She should live in continual penance, _on account of the curse she has brought into the world_. She should be ashamed of her dress, _and especially ashamed of her beauty_."--Ibid. Appendix M. 1. "The writers of the Middle Ages are full of accounts of nunneries that were like brothels.... The inveterate prevalence of incest among the clergy rendered it necessary again and again to issue the most stringent enactments that priests should not be permitted to live with their _mothers or sisters_.... An Italian bishop of the tenth century enigmatically described the morals of his time, when he declared, that if he were to enforce the canons against unchaste people administering ecclesiastical rites, no one would be left in the Church except the boys."--Lecky. 2. In the middle of the sixteenth century ''the majority of the clergy were nearly illiterate, and many of them addicted to drunkenness and low vices.--Hallam, "Const. Hist, of Eng." 3. "The clergy have ruined Italy."--Brougham, "Pol. Phil." 4. "It was a significant prudence of many of the lay Catholics, who were accustomed to insist that their priests should take a concubine _for the protection of the families of the parishioners_.... It can hardly be questioned that the extreme frequency of illicit connections among the clergy _tended during many centuries most actively to lower the moral tone of the laity_.... An impure chastity was fostered, which continually looked upon marriage in its coarsest light.... Another injurious consequence, resulting, in a great measure, from asceticism, was a tendency to depreciate extremely the character and the position of woman."--Lecky. Appendix N.