I. (i) The charge is a very common one: "Look at the extraordinary
wealth and splendour that this Church of the Poor Man of Nazareth
constantly gathers around her and ask yourself how she can dare to claim
to represent Him! Go through Holy Rome and see how the richest and most
elaborate buildings bear over their gateways the heraldic emblems of
Christ's Vicar! Go through any country which has not risen in disgust
and cast off the sham that calls herself 'Christ's Church' and you will
find that no worldly official is so splendid as these heavenly delegates
of Jesus Christ, no palaces more glorious than those in which they dwell
who pretend to preach Him who _had not where to lay His head!_

"Above all, turn from that simple poverty-stricken figure that the
Gospels present to us, to the man who claims to be His Vicegerent on
earth. See him go, crowned three times over, on a throne borne on men's
shoulders, with the silver trumpets shrilling before him and the ostrich
fans coming on behind, and you will understand why the world cannot take
the Church seriously. Look at the court that is about him, all purple
and scarlet, and set by that the little band of weather-beaten
fishermen!

"No; if this Church were truly of Christ, she would imitate Him better.
It was His supreme mission to point to _things that are above;_ to lift
men's thoughts above dross and gold and jewels and worldly influence and
high places and power; to point to _a Heavenly Jerusalem, not made with
hands;_ to comfort the sorrowful with a vision of future peace, not to
dabble with temporal matters; to speak of grace and heaven and things to
come, and _to let the dead bury their dead!_ The best we can do for her,
then, is to disembarrass her of her riches; to turn her temporal
possessions to frankly temporal ends; to release her from the slavery of