United States or Kenya ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was there that the most active and most eloquent of the reforming monks had appeared, had preached, and had founded or regenerated a great number of monasteries. It was there that, at first amongst the clergy, and then, through their example, amongst the laity, Christian discipline and morals had resumed some sway.
As a promoter of monasticism, he clashed with the interests of an enfeebled clergy and a corrupt laity. Nothing could swerve him from his course. False monks might draw terrible rebukes from him, but the conviction that the soul could be delivered from captivity to the body only by mortification remained unshaken.
Those gentlemen are very skillful in making the most of the vices and the weaknesses of the laity. I hope you have read and informed yourself fully of everything relative to that affair; it is a very important question, in which the priesthood of every country in Europe is highly concerned.
And I do teach reading and writing to all who come into our regular school, and I make them read passages to verify my teaching. At the same time, I feel that the Protestant complaint of "shutting up the Bible from the laity," is the complaint of educated persons, able to read, think, and reflect. 'The main difficulty is, of course, to secure a supply of really competent teachers.
Some of the clergy, I perceive, say with heat that preaching is not cold and dull. Better let the laity testify. There is Mr. P. again. Yours ever, To Rev. Henry W. Bellows. WASHINGTON, Dec. 11, 1851. . . . HAVE you seen the "great Hungarian"? Great indeed, and in a way we seem not to have thought of.
Farther, it is this same deadly error which is the root and substance of popery. There is no one abuse of the Romish system which may not be traced to the original and very early error of drawing a wide distinction between the clergy and the laity; of investing the former in such a peculiar degree with the attributes of the church that at last they retained them almost exclusively.
Certain it is that here at the baths, where the concourse of ecclesiastics and laity is great, you are the topic of the day. Our displeasure is unutterable, since all this reflects dishonourably upon the sacerdotal estate and office. It will be said of us that we are enriched and promoted not to the end that we may lead blameless lives, but that we may procure the means to indulge our pleasures.
Can you point to a single papal country which is not enveloped in the black cloud of superstition and crime? To Italy, and Spain, and Portugal, the dark ages have not passed away; neither will they, till liberty of conscience is allowed, and the Bible permitted in the hands of the laity.
One step gained in advance, proved, in every case, but the prelude to another; and the establishment of a Latin ritual and an unmarried clergy, was soon followed by the refusal of the cup in the administration of the Lord's Supper to the laity. In 1350, the cup was withdrawn.
His eyes wandered curiously over Ernest, as Ernest had often noticed them wander before: the words were about Church discipline, but somehow or other the discipline part of the story had a knack of dropping out after having been again and again emphatically declared to apply to the laity and not to the clergy: once indeed Pryer had pettishly exclaimed: "Oh, bother the College of Spiritual Pathology."
Word Of The Day