Further on, and in relation to the decree of Pope St. Gregory, we find: “It is impossible to conceive of (_sic_) presumption surpassing that which inspired this, or to imagine a more absolute disregard of the rights of sovereigns. It was a declaration of war by the church upon the state. Disobedience to it was absolutely unavoidable under the existing system of feudal tenure,” etc. After what has been given of the history of this controversy it is but a work of supererogation to show that each one of the statements in these three sentences is a separate and distinct falsehood. St. Gregory excommunicated and debarred from entrance into the church the simoniacal holders of bishoprics or abbacies, as also every emperor, duke, marquis, count, knight, or other person who should presume to confer the investiture of a bishopric or other _ecclesiastical_ dignity; he finds no fault with the temporal homage or service due on account of secular estates, whether pertaining to the incumbent or to the prelature. Being head (not of a sect nor of _a_ church, but) of the church, he was not, like a titular archbishop of Canterbury, a mere figure-head, whose presence served to give a false show of authority to ecclesiastical decrees made by a collection of laymen, perhaps not even Christians; and his excommunication must consistently strike all the accomplices in a most nefarious work. It is impossible for a Catholic to conceive how the pope could have acted otherwise than he did, since the church knows to this day, and will till the end of time know, no different rules to apply to those of her members who are highest in temporal dignity from those which affect the poorest inmate of the almshouse. The state had now for nearly a century been making war upon the church; and as to the impossibility under feudal tenure of anything but disobedience to the decree of His Holiness, we see in point of actual fact that the matter was quietly and satisfactorily settled by the withdrawal on the part of the state of the offensive and impious claim to confer investiture _in spiritualibus_. No one found any fault with the purely temporal homage, and it was only when, by seizure and sale of cross and crosier (with which, according to the rude ideas of many people in that age, was involved the spiritual authority), the king put forth a claim to the power of appointing bishops, that the church withstood him to the face. He strove to usurp a spiritual power which never belonged to him or to any other temporal authority. We can all see in history what has been the fate of those sects of Protestantism which, for the sake of mere existence or of temporary courtly favor, have given up the rights and powers that would have been inherent in them, were they a church. Their doctrines are a mass of doubt and contradiction. Their ministry, having neither authority nor message to the world, consists of dumb dogs that bark not. Perhaps Anglicanism has been the most successful of them. Is