It is evident that John's decree against "The Crime of Falsification" did not directly forbid chemistry, nor alchemy in the proper sense of the word, nor did it in any way interfere with the study of substances to {127} determine their composition, or the synthesis of materials to produce others, provided there was no pretense of making gold and silver in order to obtain genuine gold and silver from ignorant dupes. There seems to be no doubt that had the famous scheme to obtain gold from sea water, which caused serious loss to so many foolish and even poor people a few years ago, come up during the time of John XXII., he would have prevented it from being so lucrative to its promoters, by publicly denouncing them and promulgating a law for their punishment. It may be considered that excommunication was not a very severe penalty for such dishonest practices, and that the sharpers who gave themselves to such a profession, which would be about that of the confidence or green goods men of our time, were not likely to be affected much by this merely religious deprivation. It must not be forgotten, however, that in those ages of faith, excommunication became an extremely telling social punishment. It was forbidden that anyone, even nearest and dearest friends, should have anything to do with the one excommunicated until the ban was removed. It was bad enough in a town where everyone belonged to the same church, and all went to church frequently, to be forbidden to go there; it was infinitely worse, however, to have everybody who passed refuse to greet you or have relations of any kind with you. President Hadley, of Yale, said, not long since, that social ostracism is the only effective punishment for such manifest extra legal irregularities, which are yet not so essentially criminal as to bring those guilty of them under legal punishment. The sentence of excommunication was an effective social ostracism--the {128} completest possible. This is an aspect of excommunications usually missed, but well deserving of study by those who resent the use of such an instrument by ecclesiastical authorities. Just as soon as the man repented of what he had done and promised to do so no more, he was received back into the Church, and the ostracism ceased, so long as he did not relapse into his forbidden ways.