Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/32

24 round the characters of the Fathers or of the Emperors, so the history of the Middle Ages, with all their crimes and virtues, revolved (it is at once the confession of their weakness and their strength) round the character and policy of the Popes. What good they did, and what good they failed to do; by what means they rose, and by what they fell, during that long period of their power,— is the main question by which their claims must be tested.

And now a new revolution was at hand, almost as terrible in its appearance, and as trying in its results, as any that had gone before. The fountains of the great deep were again broken up. New wants and old evils had met together. The failure of the Crusades had shaken men's belief in holy places. Long abuses had shaken their belief in Popes, bishops, monasteries, sacraments, and saints. The revival of ancient learning had revealed truth under new forms. The invention of printing had raised up a new order of scribes, expounders, readers, writers, clergy. Institutions, which had guided the world for a thousand years, now decayed and out of joint, gave way at the moment when they were most needed. Was it possible that the Christian Church should meet these trials as it had met those which had gone before? It had lived through the fall of Jerusalem; it had lived through the Ten persecutions; it had lived through its amalgamation with the Empire; it had lived through the invasion of the barbarians: but could it live through the