duty. It was their business to move among the people, preaching to them, in their own tongue, wherever an audience could be collected. The scandal under which the Church was labouring because of her wealth could not apply to these, who lived by begging alms. Their function was not to secure their own salvation, but that of other men.

nic.

St. Dominic was born A.D. 1170. His birth and life were St. Domi adorned with the customary prodigies. Miracles and wonders were necessary for anything to make a sensation in the West. If his was not an immaculate conception, he was free from original sin. He was regarded as the adopted son of the Virgin; some were even disposed to assign him a higher dignity than that. He began his operations in Languedoc; but, as the prospect opened out before him, he removed from that unpromising region to Rome, the necessary centre of all such undertakings as his. Here he perfected his organization; instituted his friars, nuns, and tertiaries; and consolidated his pretensions by the working of many miracles. He exorcized three matrons, from whom Satan issued forth under the form of a great black cat, which ran up a bell-rope and vanished. A beautiful nun resolved to leave her convent. Happening to blow her nose, it dropped off into her handkerchief; but, at the fervent prayer of St. Dominic, it was replaced, and in gratitude, tempered by fear, she remained. St. Dominic could also raise the dead. Nevertheless, he died A.D. 1221, having worthily obtained the title of the burner and slayer of heretics. To him has been attributed the glory or the crime of being the inventor of "the Holy Inquisition." In a very few years his order boasted of nearly five hundred monasteries, scattered over Europe, Asia, Africa.

St. Francis, the compeer of St. Dominic, was born A.D. 1182. St. Francis. His followers delighted to point out, as it would seem not without irreverence, a resemblance to the incidents that occurred at the birth of our Lord. A prophetess foretold it; he was born in a stable; angels sang forth peace and goodwill in the air; one, under the form of Simeon, bore him to baptism. In early life he saw visions and became ecstatic. His father, Peter Bernardini, a respectable tradesman, endeavoured to re

Authoriza

tion of these Orders.

Influence derived

Orders.

strain his eccentricities, at first by persuasion, but eventually more forcibly, appealing for assistance to the bishop, to prevent the young enthusiast from squandering his means in alms to the poor. On that functionary's gently remonstrating, and pointing out to Francis his filial obligations, he stripped himself naked before the people, exclaiming, "Peter Bernardini was my father; I have now but one father, He that is in heaven." At this affecting renunciation of all earthly possessions and earthly ties, those present burst into tears, and the good bishop threw his own mantle over him. When a man has come to this pass, there is nothing he cannot accomplish.

It is related that, when application was first made to Innocent to authorize the order, he refused; but, very soon recognizing the advantages that would accrue, he gave it his hearty patronage. So rapid was the increase, that in A.D. 1219 it numbered not fewer than five thousand brethren. It was founded on the principles of chastity, poverty, obedience. They were to live on alms, but never to receive money. After a life of devotion to the Church, St. Francis attained his reward, A.D. 1226. Two years previously to his death, by a miraculous intervention there were impressed on his person marks answering to the wounds on our Saviour. These were the celebrated stigmata. A black growth, like nails, issued forth from the palms of his hands and his feet; a wound from which blood and water distilled opened in his side. It is not to be wondered at that these prodigies met with general belief. This was the generation which received as inestimable relics, through Andrew of Hungary, the heads of St. Stephen and St. Margaret, the hands of St. Bartholomew and St. Thomas, a slip of the rod of Aaron, and one of the water-pots of the marriage at Cana in Galilee.

The Papal Government quickly found the prodigious advanfrom these tage arising from the institution of these mendicant orders. Vowed to poverty, living on alms, the hosts of friars, begging and barefoot, pervaded all Europe, coming in contact, under the most favourable circumstances, with the lowest grades of society. They lived and moved among the populace, and yet were held sacred. The accusations of dissipation and luxury so

forcibly urged against the regular clergy were altogether inapplicable to these rope-bound, starving fanatics. Through them the Italian government had possession of the ear of Europe. The pomp of worship in an unknown tongue, the gorgeous solemnities of the Church, were far more than compensated by the preaching of these missionaries, who held forth in the vernacular wherever an audience could be had. Among the early ones, some had been accustomed to a wandering life. Brother Pacificus, a disciple of St. Francis, had been a celebrated Trouvère. In truth, they not only warded off the present pressing danger, but through them the Church retained her hold upon the labouring classes for several subsequent centuries. The Pope might truly boast that the Poor Men of the Church were more than a match for the Poor Men of Lyons. Their influence began to diminish only when they abandoned their essential principles, joined in the common race for plunder, and became immensely rich.

tion of

confession.

Not only did Innocent III. thus provide himself with an Introducecclesiastical militia suited to meet the obviously impending auricular insurrection, he increased his power greatly but insidiously by the formal introduction of auricular confession. It was by the fourth Lateran Council that the necessity of auricular confession was first formally established. Its aim was that no heretic should escape, and that the absent priest should be paramount even in the domestic circle. In none but a most degraded and superstitious society can such an infamous institution be tolerated. It invades the sacred privacy of life,-makes a man's wife, children, and servants his spies and accusers. When any religious system stands in need of such a social immorality, we may be sure that it is irrecoverably diseased, and hastening to its end.

ment of

Auricular confession led to an increasing necessity for casu- Developeistry, though that science was not fully developed until the casuistry. time of the Jesuits, when it gave rise to an extensive literature, with a lax system and a false morality, guiding the penitent rather with a view to his usefulness to the Church than to his own reformation, and not hesitating at singular indecencies in its portion having reference to married life.

Attitude of
Innocent
III.

Attitude of
Frederick

II.

His Mo

tendencies.

Great historical events often find illustrations in representative men. Such is the case in the epoch we are now considering. On one side stands Innocent, true to the instincts of his party, interfering with all the European nations; launching forth his interdicts and excommunications; steeped in the blood of French heretics; hesitating at no atrocity, even the outrage and murder of women and children, the ruin of flourishing cities, to compass his plans; in all directions, under a thousand pretences, draining Europe of its money; calling to his aid hosts of begging friars; putting forth imposture miracles; organizing the Inquisition, and invading the privacy of life by the contrivance of auricular confession.

it.

On the other side stands Frederick II., the Emperor of Germany. His early life, as has been already mentioned (p. 25 of this volume), was spent in Sicily, in familiar intercourse with Jews and Arabs, and Sicily to the last was the favoured portion of his dominions. To his many other accomplishments he added the speaking of Arabic as fluently as a Saracen. He delighted in the society of Mohammedan ladies, who thronged his court. His enemies asserted that his chastity was not improved by his associations with these miscreant beauties. The Jewish hammedan and Mohammedan physicians and philosophers taught him to sneer at the pretensions of the Church. From such ridicule it is but a short step to the shaking off of authority. At this time the Spanish Mohammedans had become widely infected with irreligion; their greatest philosophers were infidel in their own infidelity. The two sons of Averrhoes of Cordova were residents at Frederick's court. Their father was one of the ablest men their nation ever produced: an experienced astronomer, he had translated the Almagest, and, it is affirmed, was the first who actually saw a transit of Mercury across the sun; a voluminous commentator on the works of Plato and Aristotle, but a disbeliever in all revelation. Even of Mohammedanism he said, alluding to the prohibition which the Prophet had enjoined on the use of the flesh of swine, "That form of religion is destitute of everything that can commend it to the approval of any understanding, unless it be that of a hog.” In the Sicilian court, surrounded by such unholy influences,

Italian He cultivates light

the character of the young emperor was formed. poetry, destined for such a brilliant future, here first found a literature and heresy. voice in the sweet Sicilian dialect. The emperor and his chancellor were cultivators of the gay science, and in the composition of sonnets were rivals. A love of amatory poetry had spread from the south of France.

go on a

and then

With a view to the recovery of the Holy Land, Honorius III. had made Frederick marry Yolinda de Lusignan, the heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem. It was not, therefore, to be wondered at that Frederick's frivolities soon drew upon him the indignation of the gloomy Pope Gregory IX., the very first act of whose pontificate was to summon a new crusade. To the exhortations and commands of the aged Pope the Em- Refuses to peror lent a most reluctant ear, postponing from time to time crusade, the period of his departure, and dabbling in doubtful nego- goes. tiations, through his Mohammedan friends, with the Sultan of Egypt. He embarked at last, but in three days returned. The octogenarian Pope was not to be trifled with, and pronounced his excommunication. Frederick treated it with ostensible contempt, but appealed to Christendom, accusing Rome of avaricious intentions. Her officials, he said, were travelling in all directions, not to preach the Word of God, but to extort money. "The primitive Church, founded on Presumes poverty and simplicity, brought forth numberless saints. The the pontifiRomans are now rolling in wealth. What wonder that the cal governwalls of the Church are undermined to the base, and threaten utter ruin." For saying this he underwent a more tremendous excommunication; but his partisans in Rome, raising an insurrection, expelled the Pope. And now Frederick set sail, of his own accord, on his crusading expedition. On reaching the Holy Land, he was received with joy by the knights and pilgrims; but the clergy held aloof from him as an excommunicated person. The pontiff had dispatched a swift-sailing ship to forbid their holding intercourse with him. His private His friendship with negotiations with the Sultan of Egypt now came to maturity. the Sultan, The Christian camp was thronged with infidel delegates: some came to discuss philosophical subjects, some were the bearers of presents. Elephants and a bevy of dancing-girls were

VOL. II.

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to rebuke

ment.