medieval Church applies less to individuals than to the system which produced them--a system which was incompatible not only with the rights of individuals, but with the progress of humanity in civilization and happiness. What, then, was the moral condition during the Middle Ages of the organization which made these extravagant claims to supremacy? To us who live in the twentieth century it may appear very plain that priestly domination could not be favourable to improvement in morals or in knowledge. Prevent people from thinking, and you prevent them from improving. They lose the desire to improve; they become incapable of improvement; they neither know nor care for the pleasures of knowledge; they relapse into a state resembling that of animals. Can it be supposed that this has no effect upon their morals? And the class which puts forward the claims in question becomes equally debased. Selfishness, ignorance, and cruelty become as marked in the shepherds as in the flocks they are supposed to lead, with the additional vice of a tyrannical arrogance born of class privilege and the claim to superhuman authority. The religious extortion that went on impoverished the people and demoralized the clergy. After King John’s surrender to the Pope, England was bled for the benefit of foreign ecclesiastics to the extent of thrice the income of the Crown. Throughout Europe the administration of justice was shockingly corrupt, and was not improved by the Papal practice of granting letters authorizing the exercise of judicial functions by any one who could pay the fees. Not only were these letters frequently forged, but it was easy for unprincipled persons to pretend that they possessed them, and such was the danger of raising objections that few of the victims dared to dispute their validity. In Rome itself there was a factory for the production of these interesting forgeries; but, though it was suppressed by Innocent III, the practice continued, and to the people the consequences were the same whether the letters were genuine or false. With such a system it is not surprising that the Bishops fleeced their own flocks with little scruple.