Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/55

II] his goodness, but of his sins; and we can there judge how wonderfully the history of the Church has gained by such a frank disclosure: how thin, how pale in comparison, would that biography have been, had the darker side been suppressed and the bright side only exhibited. Such a completeness of view we are almost driven to take when we explore, not one, but all the sources whence our knowledge can be drawn. We may still lament that the story of the lion is so often told only by the man; that the lives and opinions of heretics can be traced only in the writings of the orthodox; that the clergy have been so often the sole historians of the crimes of the laity. But we shall have learned at least to know that there is another side, even when that side has been torn away or lost. We shall acquiesce in the judgment of Fleury when he sums up the character of Constantine, by telling us that we may safely believe all that Zosimus the pagan says in his praise, and all that Eusebius the bishop says to his blame. We shall often find some ancient fragment or forgotten parchment, like that which vindicates Edwy and Elgiva from the almost unanimous calumny of their monastic enemies. We shall see that in the original biographies of Becket, partial though they be, enough escapes to reveal that he is not the faultless hero represented to us in modern martyrology.

The mere perusal of the indiscriminate praise and abuse lavished on the same person by two opposite