Following this, Ruter gives an account of the penitents seeking salvation who had to proceed step by step. The first degree was to prostrate themselves in the avenues of the church building. Here they were called _flentes_. In the second degree they were allowed to enter the building and hear the sermon. Here they were called _audientes_. In the third degree they were allowed to unite in prayers offered in their own behalf. Here they were called _genuflectentes_. In the fourth degree they were allowed to approach the altar and were called _consistentes_. In the taking of these degrees the penitents were compelled to appear in sackcloth and ashes, and in some places the men were obliged to shave their heads and the women to wear veils. The duration of their penitence was regulated by the bishop. He could make the time of taking these degrees short, or extend it to any length. This was called an indulgence. This is shocking in the extreme. Where in the humble acts of Jesus and his apostles do you hear of such an order of things? Truly at this time the sun was darkened, and the moon did not give her light, and the stars had fallen. How true now appears the prophecy of Isaiah: “The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.” Isa. 63:18. Jesus says, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth,” and Paul says to the bishop to be “not greedy of filthy lucre”; and Peter says, “Taking the oversight not for filthy lucre’s sake”—and here before the close of the third century we find the bishops coming into possession of large estates through the revenues of the church, and as Cyprian has said of the bishops of this time, “Our principal study is to get money and estates.” We have before us Mosheim’s Church History. In speaking of the internal history of the church in the third century he says that “the bishops of Rome, Antioch and Alexandria had a kind of preeminence over all others, and particularly the bishop at Rome.” There was a change in the form of government and this change was followed by a train of vices. “Many of those who had the administration of the church affairs were sunk,” he says, “in luxury and voluptuousness, puffed up with vanity, arrogance and ambition; possessed with a spirit of contention and discord. They appropriated to their evangelical function the splendid ensigns of temporal majesty: a throne, surrounded with ministers, exalted above his equals, the servant of the meek and humble Jesus.... The titles of subdeacons, acolythi, ostairii, readers, exorcists, copiatæ, would never have been heard of in the church if its rulers had been assiduously and zealously employed in promoting the interest of truth and piety by their labors and their example.” He gives an account of the trouble in the church of Rome between Cornelius and Novatian, in the year 250, who were aspirants for the Roman See.