Already too, within the Church this sense of brotherhood was making itself felt on the industrial side as well as where more directly spiritual duties were concerned. It seems to have been recognised in the Christian Society that every brother could claim the right of being maintained if he were unable to work. Equally it was emphasised that the duty of work was paramount on all who were capable of it. "For those able to work, provide work; to those incapable of work be charitable." This aspect of the matter finds a singular emphasis in a second century document known as "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," in which this sense of industrial brotherhood finds very significant expression. Speaking of visitors from other Churches it is directed that "if any brother has a trade let him follow that trade and earn the bread he eats. If he has no trade, exercise your discretion in arranging for him to live among you as a Christian, but not in idleness. If he will not do this, that is to say, to undertake the work which you provide for him, he is trafficking with Christ. Beware of men like that." On this side of its life therefore, the Church came very near to being a vast Guild where with the highest sanction rights and duties were intermingled in due proportion, and that true social unity established, which while it refuses privileges bestows protection. On these foundations the organisation was reared, which like some great Cathedral dominated that stretch of centuries usually known as the Middle Ages. We could all of us hold forth on its drawbacks and evils, yet its benefits were tremendous. For one thing it created an aristocracy wholly independent of any distinction of blood or property. Anyone might become an Archbishop if only he had the necessary gifts. Still more anyone might become a Saint. The charmed circle of the Church's nobility was constantly recruited from every class, and was therefore a standing and effectual protest against the flimsier measurements of Society and the more ephemeral gradations of rank. Obviously this process found as great a scope in England as elsewhere. It was the Church which was the most potent instrument in bringing together Norman and Saxon as well as master and slave. For, as Macaulay has said with perfect truth, it creates an aristocracy altogether independent of race, inverts the relation between the oppressor and the oppressed, and compels the hereditary master to kneel before the spiritual tribunal of the hereditary bondman.... So successfully had the Church used her formidable machinery that, before the Reformation came, she had enfranchised almost all the bondmen in the kingdom except her own, who, to do her justice, seem to have been very tenderly treated[29].