However, it was undoubtedly during the interval in question, that a schism arose in the church, which eventually hastened the crisis of the Reformation beyond any one thing else, by dividing the house against itself. The famous Dunstan, who was born in the year 925, was the man to sow the Dragon’s tooth. As yet the different orders of ecclesiastics had lived in harmony. There were secular clergy, and there were regulars; but the latter had not hitherto taken kindly root in England. The great number of churches existing in this kingdom in the middle ages[67] (of which many traces yet remain in a name, where both the building itself and all tradition of it have passed away,) bespeaks the popularity of the secular clergy, for it is not probable that these churches were then served from the monasteries; and, moreover, the lodgement which the seculars effected in the religious houses, as the latter were from time to time evacuated of their inmates by the exterminating sword of the Danes, was the effect as well as the cause of their increasing influence. Accordingly Dunstan found many, if not all, of the monasteries, as well as the cathedrals, in the hands of the canons secular, who resided with their families, performing the daily service, and standing upon much the same footing as such persons now do in our collegiate churches.[68] The saint, however, was not satisfied with the state of disorganization and decay to which the monastic order was reduced--he determined upon its reformation. The Benedictine rule, now become popular throughout Europe, was chosen for his experiment, and the monks were set up against the canons and the clergy. Dunstan was not very scrupulous about the justice of the means he used to accomplish his end; if he could not find a way he could make one. He would enjoin the king (Edgar) for instance, as a penance, to suppress the seculars and introduce the monks into the churches in their stead. It is in vain that synods are held wherein the grievances of the ecclesiastics thus violently ejected are propounded; it is in vain that their sufferings excite the sympathy of the nobles and the monarch who plead for their restoration. “That be far from you,--that be far from you,” were the inexorable words which issued from a crucifix in the council-chamber, for Dunstan had called in the supernatural to his help. A second effort is made in behalf of these deprived ministers. Again the saint commits the decision of his cause to heaven, though less innocently than before. The building where they met is shaken; the floor, at least that part of it which was occupied by the adversaries of Dunstan, sinks from under their feet; and whilst Dunstan and his friends continue to sit in safety, the rest are destroyed or disabled in the ruin. There is much in both these adventures to fasten suspicion upon the saint; for Dunstan, like Cromwell and many more, began his career, in all probability, as a