111. Milner's Ch. Hist., vol. iii, cent. x, ch. i. The only thing which seems to console the learned doctor in respect to this terrible condition of the church is that the scripture predicted this awful state, and the truth of scripture was "vindicated by events of all others the most disagreeable to a pious mind."--Ibid. 112. Acts xx: 27-30. 113. II Tim. iv: 1-4. 114. II Peter i: 21. 115. II Peter ii: 1-3. 116. Tim. iv: 1, 2. 117. That is, that the day of Messiah's glorious coming is at hand. 118. Letteth and let are the old English equivalents of hindereth and hinder. The student will remember that Shakespeare makes Hamlet say to those who seek to prevent him following the ghost of his father when beckoned to private interview--"Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen. By heaven I'll make a ghost of him that lets me"--i.e. that hinders me. 119. II Thes. ii: 1-12. 120. Isaiah xxiv: 4-6. 121. Gal. iii. 8, 19, 24, 25. 122. Heb. xiii: 20. 123. Rev. xiv: 6, 7. {203} PART III. THE REFORMATION {205} SECTION 1. The Age of Darkness.--We have not found it necessary to our purpose to dwell upon the particular events of ecclesiastical history from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries. Those were the days of spiritual darkness of this earth. The papal power was supreme, and with an iron hand it ruled the nations. Some idea of its arrogance and power may be conjectured from the fact that in the eleventh century[1] Henry IV, of Germany, the greatest temporal monarch in the world, in that age, stood for three days together in mid-winter, bare headed, and bare footed, and meanly clad, at Canossa (a town in Italy where the pope was temporarily residing), professing himself a penitent in order to obtain absolution from the Roman pontiff, Gregory VII. His offense was persisting to sell ecclesiastical offices in his empire contrary to the edicts of the pope. [See note 1, end of section.] [2]