his labors, and an unsullied name."

But those false, sophistical ideas which early entered into monastic
life, and which perverted the Christianity of the Middle Ages, presented
a powerful barrier against the instincts of nature and the ordinances of
God. Celibacy was accounted as a supernal virtue, and the marriage of a
priest was deemed a lasting disgrace. It obscured his fame, his
prospects, his position, and his influence; it consigned him to ridicule
and reproach. He was supposed to be married only to the Church, and
would be unfaithful to Heaven if he bound himself by connubial ties.
Says Saint Jerome, "Take axe in hand and hew up by the roots the sterile
tree of marriage. God permits it, I grant; but Christ and Mary
consecrated virginity." Alas, what could be hoped when the Church
endorsed such absurd doctrines! Hildebrand, when he denounced the
marriage of priests, made war on the most sacred instincts of human
nature. He may have strengthened the papal domination, but he weakened
the restraints of home. Only a dark and beclouded age could have upheld
such a policy. Upon the Church of the Middle Ages we lay the blame of
these false ideas. She is in a measure responsible for the follies of
Abélard and Héloïse. They were not greater than the ideas of their age.
Had Abélard been as bold in denouncing the stupid custom of the Church
in this respect as he was in fighting the monks of St. Denis or the
intellectual intolerance of Bernard, he would not have fallen in the
respect of good people. But he was a slave to interest and
conventionality. He could not brave the sneers of priests or the
opinions of society; he dared not lose caste with those who ruled the
Church; he would not give up his chances of preferment. He was unwilling
either to renounce his love, or to avow it by an honorable, open union.

At last his intimacy created scandal. In the eyes of the schools and of