Whatever were the causes of this appalling state of things, it is difficult to reconcile it with the claim that the Christian Church is a Divine institution. Yet it would not be true to say that no virtue existed. Even in the Church there were good and sincere men who strove earnestly to check the tide of iniquity. And those whom the Church hounded to death far surpassed it in purity of life. The poor persecuted heretics were noted for their blameless conduct, their singular industry, their self-sacrifice and endurance, which formed a lesson to the orthodox. “Ignorant and toiling men and women--peasants, mechanics, and the like--dimly conscious that the system of society was wrong, that the commands of God were perverted or neglected, that humanity was capable of higher development if it could but find and follow the Divine Will; striving, each in his humble sphere, to solve the inscrutable and awful problems of existence, to secure in tribulation his own salvation, and to help his fellows in the arduous task--these forgotten martyrs of the truth drew from themselves alone the strength which enabled them to dare and to endure martyrdom.”[8] The earnest and devoted ministers of the Church, the virtuous and humble believers among the laity, were as drops in the ocean of evil; and it was popularly believed that Antichrist was ruling in the world, and that the awful Day of Judgment was at hand. _Clerical Celibacy._ The great question whether priests should or should not be permitted to marry caused the deepest agitation in the Church for many hundreds of years. As early as the fourth and fifth centuries the Church decided it in the negative, but this and many later prohibitions were nullified by the liberty which it allowed in practice. The early Church had so great a horror of the matrimonial state that some theologians seriously doubted whether the salvation of married persons came within the possibilities of the Divine scheme.