Page:Christian Marriage.djvu/113

Rh were the result of the new circumstances under which the imperial legacy of civilisation, ecclesiastical and civil, was accepted and developed in the West. The faith and morals of the Gospel had to be presented intelligibly to uncivilised nations, and a system of ecclesiastical discipline strong enough to bring barbarians under control had to be created. This is the explanation and the excuse of the two grand features of mediæval Christianity, the Papacy and the Monastic system. Every thing was materialised. The clergy became priests; the spiritual claim of the hierarchy became a frankly political claim to secular supremacy. The sacraments became means of grace in the most literal sense of the phrase, conveying their supernatural gift apart from the moral condition of the recipient. A spirit of systematic and mechanical sacramentalism penetrated every part of the religious system, that is, every part of the whole scheme of human life, for the Church gathered all things within its scope.