Then the poor man went away, and sold his cloak and his coat and all that he had, and gave it to the cardinals and gate-keepers and chamberlains. But they said: What is this among so many? And they cast him beyond the gates, and he wept bitterly and could find naught to comfort him. Then came to the court a rich clerk, fat and broad and heavy, who in his wrath had slain a man. First he gave to the gate-keeper, then to the chamberlain, then to the cardinals; and they thought they were about to receive more. But the lord pope, hearing that the cardinals and servants had many gifts from the clerk, fell sick unto death. Then unto him the rich man sent an electuary of gold and silver, and straightway he was cured. Then the lord pope called unto him the cardinals and servants, and said unto them: Brethren, take heed that no one seduce you with empty words. I set you an example; even as I take so shall ye take.[43] Avaricious men were enabled by an incredibly bad system to make religion a public danger. Priests who led women astray on the plea that intercourse with holy men was not sinful, a depraved laity, religion severed from morals--these made up a state of society in which apprehensions existed that the wickedness of the clergy would provoke the people to rise against them, or perhaps even bring on the world the final visitation of Divine wrath. Good men asked why God did not intervene to save his Church from ruin. No intervention came. CHAPTER VI THE GENTLE ART OF WHITEWASHING If the Inquisition really was the beneficent institution which some of its apologists represent, it is singular that their defences should be so weak and their admissions so damaging. The line taken is, in the main, that heresy is a crime against social order, that the Holy Office embodied the tendencies of the age, that its methods were no worse than those of the secular powers--were, indeed, an improvement upon them, and that no special reproach can be directed against the Church on the score of inhumanity. It is claimed that the practice of the Inquisition, though rigorous at the outset from the necessities of the case, was modified by experience in the direction of mildness and mercy, and that the frequent appeals to Rome implied the certainty of an indulgent hearing.