and clerks as occupying the place of the priests and Levites of the ancient church, set apart to minister in holy things like them, but not condemned to poverty or asceticism any more than they were. The difference told unfavourably for the parish clergy in the popular estimation; for the unreasoning crowd is always impressed by the dramatic exhibition of austerity of life and the profession of extraordinary sanctity, and undervalues the virtue which is only seen in the godly regulation of a life of ordinary every-day occupations. The lord monks were the aristocratic order of the clergy. Their convents were wealthy and powerful, their minsters and houses were the glory of the land, their officials ranked with the nobles, and the greatness of the whole house reflected dignity upon each of its monks. The friars were the popular order of the clergy. The Four Orders were great organizations of itinerant preachers; powerful through their learning and eloquence, their organization, and the Papal support; cultivating the favour of the people by which they lived by popular eloquence and demagogic arts. Between these two great classes stood the secular clergy, upon whom the practical pastoral work of the country fell. A numerous body, but disorganized; diocesan bishops acting as statesmen, and devolving their ecclesiastical duties on suffragans; rectors refusing to take priests' orders, and living like laymen; the majority of the parishes practically served by parochial chaplains; every gentleman having his own chaplain dependent on his own pleasure; hundreds of priests engaged in secular occupations. Between the secular priests and the friars, as we have seen, pp. 46 _et seq._, there was a direct rivalry and a great deal of bitter feeling. The friars accused the parish priests of neglect of duty and ignorance in spiritual things and worldliness of life, and came into their parishes whenever they pleased, preaching and visiting from house to house, hearing confessions and prescribing penances, and carrying away the offerings of the people. The parish priests looked upon the friars as intruders in their parishes, and accused them of setting their people against them and undermining their spiritual influence; of corrupting discipline, by receiving the confessions of those who were ashamed to confess to their pastor who knew them, and enjoining light penances in order to encourage people to come to them; and lastly, of using all the arts of low popularity-seeking in order to extract gifts and offerings from their people. We have already given one contemporary illustration of this from Chaucer, at p. 46 _ante_. We add one or two extracts from Piers Ploughman's Vision. In one place of his elaborate allegory he introduces Wrath, saying:--