The system of indulgences so carefully worked out by the Church produced the most various results throughout Europe. A death-bed gift to the Church atoned for an evil life; trifling religious observances were thought to secure not only remission of the pangs of Purgatory, but forgiveness of all sins committed after baptism. In short, all sin was condoned on the most favourable terms, and eternal salvation purchased for the price of a pair of boots. The bones or the dead bodies of saints were held to protect believers from all ills, and to ensure prosperity; even a single glance at the image of St. Christopher preserving one from disease or sudden death for the rest of the day. Some of the beliefs connected with the worship of the sacred wafer reveal a credulity which only carefully-fostered ignorance could render possible. A specimen wafer placed in a beehive to check disease among the bees was so highly appreciated by those intelligent insects that they built a little chapel around it, with windows, roof, and bell-tower all complete, and an altar inside, on which they reverently placed the wafer. A woman who crumbled a wafer over her cabbages to protect them from caterpillars was at once punished by incurable paralysis. _Simony._ The scandals connected with the sale of indulgences are too well known to need description, but the universal prevalence of simony is less generally realized. Simony is defined as “giving or receiving, or intending to give or receive, anything temporal for anything spiritual.”[1] The term is derived from Simon Magus, who is stated in _Acts_ viii, 18, 19, to have offered St. Peter money for the privilege of communicating the Holy Ghost. This abuse formed one of the great scandals in the Church, especially in the thirteenth century, and was so deeply rooted that the efforts of reforming Pontiffs like Gregory VII produced little result. Less conscientious Popes were such notorious offenders that the venality of the Papal court became a byword, and some vicars of Christ amassed enormous private fortunes by this dubious means.