Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/41

 the Church was racked by inward throes convulsing her very heart, which reduced her to the condition of a house torn asunder within itself. Until such time as a sentence of reversal, accompanied by deliberate rejection of this precedent in the emergency of an analogous crisis, shall have been pronounced by the Church against what then was done, this incident must be taken therefore in evidence of what the Roman Establishment would hold it to be not contrary to its principles to sanction, in the event of equally critical circumstances coming once more into play. The Council of Constance is distinguished from every other Council by its convocation having been due, not to the individual impulse of a Pontiff, but to the spontaneous instinct of society in general, panting for repose from confusion and discussion, and exhausted by the evils flowing from the great schism. All the landmarks of legitimacy had become removed, and an Egyptian darkness enveloped society, rival pretenders to the Papacy circulating freely in the world without its being possible to arrive at a conclusion who was legitimate and who was spurious. Against such a bewildering state of things