For centuries the papal cry to each succeeding monarch had been, "Give, give; endow, endow; and the blessed Peter shall surely send you victory over your enemies, prosperity in this world, and a place near himself in heaven." This cry was in a great measure answered about the beginning of the ninth century. The above extracts will give the reader some idea of the spoils which came to the clergy from the victories of Charles in Germany. It was chiefly out of these thirty-three years of internecine war, that the great feudal hierarchical system arose. Innumerable thousands were slain to make room for the bishops and abbots—an ecclesiastical aristocracy. Up rose the princely palaces of these great ecclesiastics all over the conquered land: but their foundations were laid in cruelty, injustice, and blood.
Though more than a thousand years have passed away since the great patron of the church died, the palaces still live and are thickly planted all over Europe. But the heart sickens at the thought of the origin of these avowed palaces of peace; especially if we bear in mind the true character of the gospel, and that the ministers of Christ should ever seek to manifest the spirit of the meek and lowly Jesus. The souls, not the property, of men should be their object. "We seek not yours, but you" should be their motto; going forth taking nothing of the Gentiles. But the example of Christ had been long forgotten. The church sank to the level and spirit of the world when she was united by Constantine to the State. This was her great fall, from which her painful inconsistency flows. The love of the world, of absolute power, of universal dominion, then took possession of her whole being. Misled by Satan, on whose throne (Rev. 2.) she sits, the shameless iniquity of her course can only be accounted for on the ground of his blinding power. All means, in her sight, were justifiable which had for their object the advancement of the Roman See.