"_Sooner or later_;" be this condition marked, in estimating the
spiritual policy of Rome. The body of reverends, which mediates
between God and men, finds its best flourish, in just such degree of
popular intelligence as suffices for comprehending the specious
arguments, on which rest the claims of Holy Mother Church; and such
amount of conscientiousness as galls the offender, till he has
purchased absolution. More intelligence generally prevailing, and
better appreciation of the divine law as a living rule of duty, would
abate the awe in which the priesthood is held, and diminish the
revenues accruing from mediating between offending man and his offended
Maker. But Christianity found the world sunk below this moderate
standard of intelligence and morals. The best flourish of the
priesthood required in the people cultivation of understanding and
conscience, up to the point of caring for their account in heaven's
record. So the faulty relation between priesthood and people did not
at once appear in the results; and, accordingly, the weight of the
qualification, _sooner or later_.

But in the early growth of society, considerations like the above have
been little attended to, compared with the obvious advantages of the
division of labor. As ordinarily each handicraft is best exercised by
those earliest and steadiest in their devotion to the trade; so it is
argued, universally, that the several departments of the public service
will be best attended to, by being left to their respective trades,
guilds, faculties, orders, or corporations, each strictly guarded from
unhallowed intrusion. So religion has been left to its official
functionaries, prescribing articles of belief and terms of salvation by
a divine right,--legislation to princes and nobles, equally claiming by
the same right to give law in temporals; and so of other general
interests.