Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/202

174 observations. Abstract ideas, despicable chimeras, and vain subtilties, explained in a coarse and barbarous style, formed the proud and useless science which resounded in their halls. From them, as from a dark chaos, the errors which went abroad were disseminated. If the information which relates to the general ignorance of nations, had not been transmitted to us by the most authentic testimonies, it would be difficult for us to persuade ourselves, that it attained the scandalous degradation of ordering the fathers who composed the council of Chalons, to correct the rituals with all possible care and exadtitude, from an apprehension least, in petitioning God for a favour, the ecclesiastics should demand precisely the contrary. At a period not so remote, a respectable Spaniard, Clemente Sanchez, wrote as follows: "As a punishment for our sins and transgressions, there are at this time many priests entrusted with the cure of souls, who are utterly ignorant how to teach the things that belong to our salvation."

This grievous scourge infested all Europe. When the doctrines of Luther first found their way into the North, the greater part of the clergy of Scotland believed him to be the author of the New Testament. The general synod of Russia having been convened in 1723, for the presentation of a bishop, said to the Czar Peter: "We can find none other than Ignorant persons to propose." The university of Paris worded in the following manner a receipt it gave to the congregation of St. Germain: tenemus nos plenarie pro pagatis; and the parliament published one of its edicts in the following terms: pagatores pagabant pagam die asignato pro pagatlone.

The lustre of the academy of St. Mark has never been nished