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I observed that the ecclesiastical system is similar to ours, and there is a great profusion of creeds. To my surprise I noted, in my long journey, that such a variety did not interfere with true progress, but was compatible with the purest kind of life and the highest order of civilization. The people are deeply devoted to their unseen God, and their sacrifices are astonishing.
The real concession the only one was in the case of the ecclesiastical prisoners the Abbot of Nervessa and the Canon of Vicenza whom his Holiness persisted in claiming.
The papacy was intimately allied with the Roman Empire, with the empire of Charlemagne, and with the German or Holy Roman Empire revived by Otto. In this last the ecclesiastical element was of paramount importance, but the emperor was the supreme authority.
To that end, the ecclesiastical support of the English Bishops and the political support of Francis were requisite. Wolsey played upon the guilelessness of Fisher of Rochester, till he persuaded the saintly bishop that the confirmation of the marriage was the one thing desired that the Queen's opposition was due to an unfortunate misconception, and entirely opposed to her own interests.
It became bankrupt when, under Winckelmann's direction, a return was made to the antique school. Another example is supplied in the painting belonging to the first quarter of this century. Art was regarded merely as a means and instrument of mediaeval religious feeling, and consequently ecclesiastical subjects alone were chosen for its themes.
The old ecclesiastical props of privilege are gone. There is no use any longer in quoting or misquoting Scripture to prove that God wills the mass of mankind to be always poor and always dependent on the rich. The very peasant has now broken that spell and will no longer believe the rector if he tells him that this world belongs to the squire and that justice is put off to the next.
He saw her enslaved in ecclesiastical bondage to the Papal see, and at the mercy of the avarice and caprice of Rome.
But there was nothing more in these features than the adaptation of mechanical skill to vaster requirements; there was nothing intended to be, or felt to be, especially ecclesiastical in any of the forms so developed; and the inhabitants of every village and city, when they furnished funds for the decoration of their church, desired merely to adorn the house of God as they adorned their own, only a little more richly, and with a somewhat graver temper in the subjects of the carving.
It was at the instance of the ecclesiastical authorities that Jesus was arrested, and they condemned Him to death; but they were not at liberty to carry out their sentence: they had to take Him before Pilate, who chanced at the time to be in the city, and he tried the case over again, they of course being the accusers at his bar.
The pretensions of the ultramontane clergy are, indeed, remarkable enough to attract the attention of others besides the liberals of Bavaria. They assume an influence and an importance in the ecclesiastical profession, or rather an authority, equal to that ever asserted by the Church in its strongest days.
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