We have left to the last one most important question in considering the moral influence of the Church. Surely, the sanctity of the marriage tie is one of the foundation stones of morality and of civilization; upon it rests the home, where woman has always found her greatest and surest happiness. The Church had been struggling for centuries, and was to struggle some time longer, to make effective its opposition to marriage among the clergy. Among the secular priests, those not connected with a monastic order, marriage or concubinage had not by any means ceased, and we find even bishops leading scandalous lives. But the Church continued to fulminate its decrees, and the evil grew slowly less and less, till it existed only among the lower orders of the clergy and in out-of-the-way places. Monks and nuns alike took the three vows of poverty, of chastity, and of obedience. We are not concerned with the general question of whether or not priests should be married, or whether or not it is wisdom to force the observance of a vow of perpetual chastity upon young men and women who may have taken such a vow without duly considering their own temperaments, or who have been compelled to take it against their wills. Despite the scandals,--scandal has always a noisy tongue,--there should be no doubt that in the great majority of cases the vow of chastity was sincerely kept. Within its own limits the Church discouraged and was soon utterly to forbid marriage; what did it do to sanctify and to protect marriage outside of the ranks of the clergy?