IV. INFIDELITY II. ROMAN RENAISSANCE 121

forms in which this faithlessness manifested itself, it is necessary to distinguish justly between that which was the consequence of respect for Paganism, and that which followed from the corruption of Catholicism. For as the Roman architecture is not to be made answerable for the primal corruption of the Gothic,¹ so neither is the Roman philosophy to be made answerable for the primal corruption of Christianity. Year after year, as the history of the life of Christ sank back into the depth of time, and became obscured by the misty atmosphere of the history of the world,-as intermediate actions and incidents multiplied in number, and countless changes in men’s modes of life and tones of thought rendered it more difficult for them to imagine the facts of distant time,-it became daily, almost hourly, a greater effort for the faithful heart to apprehend the entire veracity and vitality of the story of its Redeemer; and more easy for the thoughtless and remiss to deceive themselves as to the true character of the belief they had been taught to profess. And this must have been the case, had the pastors of the Church never failed in their watchfulness, and the Church itself never erred in its practice or doctrine. But when every year that removed the truths of the Gospel into deeper distance, added to them also some false or foolish tradition; when wilful distortion was added to natural obscurity, and the dimness of memory was disguised by the fruitfulness of fiction; when, moreover, the enormous temporal power granted to the clergy attracted into their ranks multitudes of men who, but for such temptation, would not have pretended to the Christian name, so that grievous wolves entered in among them, not sparing the flock;² and when, by the machinations of such men, and the remissness of others, the form and administration of Church doctrine and discipline had become little more than a means of aggrandising the power of the priesthood, it was impossible any longer for men of thoughtfulness

¹ [See above, p. 5, and Vol. VIII. p. 98.]

² [Acts xx. 29.]

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