But this very difference of race exposed the clergy to great temptations. They were the only civilized men left, west of Constantinople. They looked on the Teuton not as a man, but as a child; to be ruled; to be petted when he did right, punished when he did wrong; and too often cajoled into doing right, and avoiding wrong. Craft became more and more their usual weapon. There were great excuses for them. Their lives and property were in continual danger. Craft is the natural weapon of the weak against the strong. It seemed to them, too often, to be not only natural, but spiritual also, and therefore just and right. Again, the clergy were the only organic remnants of the Roman Empire. They claimed their privileges and lands as granted to them by past Roman Emperors, under the Roman law. This fact made it their interest, of course, to perpetuate that Roman law, and to introduce it as far as they could among their conquerors, to the expulsion of the old Teutonic laws; and they succeeded on the whole. Of that more hereafter. Observe now, that as their rights dated from times which to the Teutons were pre-historic, their statements could not be checked by conquerors who could not even read. Thence rose the temptation to forge; to forge legends, charters, dotations, ecclesiastical history of all kinds--an ugly and world-famous instance of which you will hear of hereafter. To that temptation they yielded more and more as the years rolled on, till their statements on ecclesiastical history became such as no historian can trust, without the most plentiful corroboration. There were great excuses for them, in this matter, as in others. They could not but look on the Teuton as--what in fact and law he was--an unjust and intrusive usurper. They could not but look on their Roman congregations, and on themselves, as what in fact and law they were, the rightful owners of the soil. They were but defending or recovering their original rights. Would not the end justify the means? But more. Out of this singular position grew a doctrine, which looks to us irrational now, but was by no means so then. If the Church derived her rights from the extinct Roman Caesars, how could the Teuton conquerors interfere with those rights? If she had owed allegiance to Constantine or Theodosius, she certainly owed none to Dietrich, Alboin, or Clovis. She did not hold their lands of them; and would pay them, if she could avoid it, neither tax nor toll. She did not recognize the sovereignty of these Teutons as 'ordained by God.'