Of tremendous influence in all states and conditions of women and men is the enforced celibacy of the clergy, an institution due, with all its consequences of good and of evil, to the energy and iron will of Pope Gregory VII. It is true that among the ancient Hebrews the marriage of the high priest, and even of the priests in general, to a divorced woman or to a widow, or, in fact, to any woman not a virgin, had been forbidden. The New Testament, however, knows no such ordinance. Several apostles, especially Saint Peter, were married. The Latin Church, however, since the eighth century, insisted more and more upon the celibacy of the clergy; but, nevertheless, it remained the rule for the clergy in Germany, France, and Upper Italy to be married. During the tenth century the moral decay among the clergy and the fear of its increase, if the ordinances of celibacy were enforced, left priestly marriage undisturbed. But the theory of the greater sanctity of the priestly state, and the mediæval spirit of the mortification of the flesh, as well as the growing conviction that only the sacraments administered by spiritually pure priests without carnal knowledge of woman had a saving grace and force, and prepared the way for the final stroke of entirely abolishing priestly marriage. As the power of the Papacy increased, and as the necessity for an army of instruments severed from the binding ties of family life and consequent dependence upon the secular powers became ever more pressing, the great Gregory VII. ventured the decisive and final decree of 1074, according to which every married priest who administered the sacrament at the altar, and every layman who accepted it from his hand, should be excommunicated, Amid a fearful storm of protest, the order for priestly celibacy was carried out in Germany. But the overwhelming power of Gregory VII. and the weakness of the emperor, which drove the princes and bishops into the arms of the Pope, lessened the resistance, though for centuries the storm did not subside, and in the north of Germany it continued far into the fourteenth century. Celibacy became a strong weapon in the hands of the Papacy; it subjected the priesthood absolutely to the Church, and withdrew its members from subjection to the secular power; but celibacy did not at least during the first centuries redound to a higher morality of the clergy. The complaints of their immorality increased with the firm establishment of celibacy, and after the fourteenth century actually fill the literature of Germany. These complaints are indeed one of the primary forces and agencies in bringing about the great revolution against the Church, known in history as the Reformation. It is no less true, however, that, with the counter reformation within the Ancient Church, a purifying influence was exerted upon the clergy, that the Reformation was to the Church a blessing in disguise, and that no doubt celibacy had its redeeming features, inasmuch as it made the