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 of some monastery, and a great proportion of the people were connected with the system either as members, or servants, or tenants. Marriage was stamped with the badge of moral inferiority; child-bearing was wrapped up in a doctrine of hereditary sin; the shadow of the Fall lay darkly on family life. There was a suggestion of evil concupiscence in the joys of home. All this ascetic sentiment was disallowed by the Reformation. By an uprising of the genuine human sentiments, too long suppressed by the artificial disciplines of the mediæval Church, but in the Bible frankly recognised and consecrated, the ill tradition was once for all broken. Christian marriage could not but benefit in the first place, and in the greatest measure, from the change.

II.—In the same direction worked the abrogation of the ascetic rule of clerical celibacy. We have already spoken of the immense mischiefs which followed to the clergy from this rule, by bringing them into