Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/188

198 to this is the Pope's chief endeavor. And so it must remain to be.”

That Gregory VII., himself, perfectly believed in the ideal of the papal power, which he thus described, is shown by his whole life, which was an incessant combat for the realization of this ideal; is proved by his steadfast conduct under the abuse and peril of life, to which he was more than once subjected in consequence; is proved, finally, by his last words on his death-bed, far from Rome, where he desired to have made the chair of St. Peter the centre of the world:

“I have loved righteousness, and hated ungodliness; therefore I die in exile!” A bishop who was present, replied:

“My lord, thou canst not die in exile, because thou hast, in the place of Christ and the Apostles, made, by divine ordination, the people of the earth thine inheritance, and the whole world thy possession!” But these beautiful words were spoken to a corpse. They were unheard by Gregory. He had already gone to hear the judgment of God.

The system by which Gregory VII. designed to purify and elevate the church, and into which entered, as one of the principal means, the disseverance of the priesthood from marriage and family-life, was carried out by his successors, and finally attained the triumphant establishment, which the strong will of Gregory, and the disordered state of the world, had prepared for it. Perhaps there might be no other means of bringing it, still in its minority, to order and unity,—at least in the outward. Perhaps that powerful ruling