Had the Church been a serious moral
influence in Europe, had it been true to the message in virtue of which
it had grown rich and powerful, it would have protested unceasingly
against this reign of violence. It was not a great moral influence. The
grossness and illiteracy of the people, the appalling immorality of the
clergy and monks and nuns, and this almost entire failure to apply
Christian or ordinary human principles to the worst feature of the life
of Europe, are terrible offsets to the little good it achieved. Europe
was steadily educated and encouraged, century after century, in the
shedding of blood.
The Protestant is at times disposed to dismiss the whole sordid story
with the remark that this Roman Church was not Christianity at all. He
contrives to overlook the serious difficulty that, if the Roman Church
did not represent Christianity from the sixth century to the sixteenth,
there was, contrary to the promise of Christ, no Christianity in Europe
for a thousand years; and he surrenders all the wonderful art of the
Middle Ages (as he ought) to entirely non-Christian forces. That,
however, does not concern me here. The slightest recollection of history
would warn the Protestant that the Reformation brought no improvement
whatever, as far as this reign of violence is concerned.
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