LECTURE VIII--THE CLERGY AND THE HEATHEN



I asked in my first lecture, 'What would become of the forest
children, unless some kind saint or hermit took pity on them?'

I used the words saint and hermit with a special purpose. It was by
the influence, actual or imaginary, of such, that the Teutons, after
the destruction of the Roman empire, were saved from becoming hordes
of savages, destroying each other by continual warfare.

What our race owes, for good and for evil, to the Roman clergy, I
shall now try to set before you.

To mete out to them their due share of praise and blame is, I
confess, a very difficult task. It can only be fulfilled by putting
oneself, as far as possible, in their place, and making human
allowance for the circumstances, utterly novel and unexpected, in
which they found themselves during the Teutonic invasions. Thus,
perhaps, we may find it true of some of them, as of others, that
'Wisdom is justified of all her children.'

That is a hard saying for human nature. Justified of her children
she may be, after we have settled which are to be her children and
which not: but of all her children? That is a hard saying. And yet
was not every man from the beginning of the world, who tried with his
whole soul to be right, and to do good, a child of wisdom, of whom
she at least will be justified, whether he is justified or not? He
may have had his ignorances, follies, weaknesses, possibly crimes: