Chapter 12

Gaul was conquered by another Teuton race called Franks, who were very fierce heathen at first, but were afterwards converted. Their great leader, Clovis, married a Teuton lady named Clotilda, a Catholic Christian. She was very anxious to lead him to the truth; and at last, in a great battle, he called out in prayer to Clotilda's God; and when the victory was given to him, he took it as a sign from Heaven, and on coming home was baptized, and built the Church of Notre Dame at Paris, which is said to be just as long as the distance to which King Clovis could pitch an axe.

Spain was conquered by a set of Arian Goths; but a Frank princess, great grandchild to Clotilda, brought her husband, the young prince, to a better way of thinking; and though they were persecuted, even to the death, their influence told upon the rest of the family; and the younger brother, who came to the throne afterwards, brought all Spain to be Catholic.

It was something like this with England, where Bertha, another Frank princess, worked upon her husband, Ethelbert, King of Kent, to listen to Augustin, whom Pope Gregory the Great had sent to preach the Word to the Saxons, recollecting how he had once been struck by the angel faces of the little Angle children, whom he had found waiting to be sold for slaves in the marketplace. From Kent, the sound of the Gospel spread out throughout England; and before one hundred years had passed, all the Saxons and Angles were hearty Christians, and sent out the missionary, St. Boniface, who first converted the Teutons in Germany. So, though it would have seemed that the great rush of heathen savages must have stifled the Christian faith, it came working up through them, till at last it moulded their whole state and guided their laws; but this was long in coming to pass, and for many centuries they were very savage and fierce.

St. Gregory the Great was one of the very best of the Popes, very self-denying, and earnestly pious, and doing his utmost to train the Romans in self-discipline, and to soften the Teutons. He put together a book of seven services, to be used by devout people in the course of each day; and he arranged the chants which are still called by his name, though both they and the services are much older. A little before his time, St. Benedict had made rules for the persons who wished to serve God, and to live apart from the world. They lived in buildings named monasteries, or convents; the men, who were called monks, under the rule of an abbot, the women, nuns, under an abbess. They took a vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience; lived and worked as hard as possible, and spent much time in prayer and doing good, teaching the young, giving medicine to the sick, and feeding the poor. They would fix their home in a waste land, and bring it into good order, and they went out preaching and convening the heathen near. Everyone honoured them; and in the worst times, they were left unhurt; their lands were not robbed, and in those savage days, little that was gentle or good would have been safe but for the honour paid to the Church.

LESSON XXIX.

MAHOMET.

"God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie."--2 _Thess_. ii. 11.

The Eastern Empire was not broken up like the Western. The emperors reigned at Constantinople in great state and splendour, in palaces lined with porphyry and hung with purple, and filled with gold and silver. The Greeks of the east had faults the very contrary to those of the Teutons of the west. Instead of being ignorant, rude, and savage, they were learned, courtly, and keen-witted; but their sharpness was a snare to them, for what they were afraid to do by force, they did by fraud, and their word was not to be trusted. In matters of faith too, they were too fond of talking philosophy, and explaining away the hidden mysteries of God; so there sprang up sad heresies among them, chiefly respecting the two Natures of our blessed Lord; and though there were councils of the Church held, and the truth was plainly set forth, yet great numbers were led away from Catholic truth.

Long ago, the Lord of the Church had warned the Churches of Asia by His last Apostle, that if they should fall from their first faith, He would remove their candlestick--that is, take away the light of His Gospel. The first warning they had was, when the Persians broke out in great force, came to the Holy Land, robbed the churches at Jerusalem, and carried away the true Cross, which had been put in a gold case, and buried under ground in hopes of preserving it. They afterwards went on to the very banks of the Bosphorus, and seemed likely to take Constantinople itself; but the emperor, Heraclius, who had hitherto been very dull and sleepy, suddenly woke up to a sense of the danger, and proved himself an able warrior, hunting the Persians back into their own country, and rescuing the Cross, which he carried up the hill of Calvary again upon his own shoulders.

But a worse foe was growing up among the wild sons of Ishmael in Arabia. Nobody can tell what kind of religion these wandering tribes had in the old times, except that they honoured their father, Abraham, still circumcised their sons, and believed in one God, though they paid some sort of worship to a black stone, which was kept at Mecca. Some bad learnt a little Christianity, some had picked up some notions from the Jews; but they cared for hardly anything, except their camels, horses, and tents, and had small thought beyond this life. Among these men there arose, about the year 600, a person named Mahomet. He had at first been servant to a rich widow, whom he afterwards married. Either he fancied, or persuaded others that he believed, that the angel Gabriel spoke to him in a trance, and told him that he was chosen as a great prophet, to announce the will of God, and restore the faith to what it had been in Abraham's days. He caused all that he pretended to have been told by the angel, to be set down in writings, which were called the Koran, meaning the Book, the first sentence of which was, "There is no God but one God, and Mahomet is His prophet." Mahomet blasphemously pretended to be as much greater a prophet than our Lord, as our Lord was than Moses. He ordered prayers and fastings and washings at set times, forbade the least drop of wine to be touched, and commanded that not only no image should be adored, but that no likeness of any created thing should exist, promising that all who strictly obeyed all these rules, should be led safely over a bridge, consisting of a single hair, and enter into a delicious garden, full of fruits, flowers, and fountains, there to be waited on by beautiful women. He gave men leave to have four wives, and did nothing to teach them real love, purity, or devotion; and thus his religion suited the bad side of their nature, and he persuaded great numbers to join him. Indeed no unbeliever is so hard to convert as a Mahometan.

Some of the Arabs being offended at the new teaching, wanted to put him to death; and he fled from his home at Mecca. On his way he was so closely pursued as to be forced to hide in a cave. His enemies were just going to search the cave, when they saw a spider's web over the mouth, and fancied this was a sign that no one could have lately entered it, so they passed by and left him safely concealed. In his anger at this persecution, be declared that the duty of a true Mahometan was to spread his religion with the sword; and calling his friends round him, they fought so bravely that he won back Mecca, and conquered the whole of Arabia. They did not persecute Christians, but they kept them down and despised them; and any Mahometan who changed his religion, was always put to death. Mahomet called himself Khalif, and ruled for ten years at Mecca, where he died and was buried. Mahometans go on pilgrimage to Mecca, and always turn their faces thither when they pray at sunrise or sunset, throwing water over themselves, or sand if they cannot get water.

The Khalifs who came after Mahomet, went on conquering. The chief tribe of the Arabs was called Saracens; and this was the name given to the whole race whom God had sent to punish the Christian world. The Holy City itself, and all the sacred spots, were permitted to fall into their hands; and though they did not profane the churches, the Khalif Omar built a great mosque, or Mahometan place of worship, where the Temple had once been, so as quite to overshadow the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

They conquered Persia, and spread their religion through that country, putting down the fire worshippers; they seized almost all Asia Minor, where the heretical Christians too easily became Mahometans, and they obtained possession of Egypt, and the great library at Alexandria, where they burnt all the collection of books, because they said, "If they taught the same as the Koran, they were useless, if otherwise, they were mischievous." Then from Egypt they spread all along the north coast of Africa, where the Roman dominion had once been, and were only grieved that the waves of the Atlantic Ocean kept them from going further to the west.

In Spain the Gothic king, Rodrigo, mortally offended one of his nobles, who, in revenge, called in the Saracens to punish him; and the whole kingdom fell a prey to these Mahometan conquerors, except one little mountainous strip in the north, where the brave Christians drew together, and fought gallantly for their Church and their freedom through many centuries. It almost seemed as if these terrible Saracens, who bore everything down before them, were intended to conquer all Europe, and crush down the Church there as they had done in the east; but God was with His people, and He raised up a great warrior among the Christian Franks. Charles Martel, or Charles of the Hammer, so called, because he always went into battle with a heavy iron hammer, led the Franks against the Saracens, when they came up into the South of France; and in the year 732 gave them at Tours the first real defeat they had yet met with. It turned them back completely, and they never came north of the Pyrenees again; but all over the west of Asia and north of Africa, the first places where Christianity had spread, the heavy dark cloud of Mahometanism settled down, and has never been removed.

LESSON XXX.

THE FIRST SCHISM.

"While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat." --_St. Matt._ xiii. 25

Is the West there was no heresy as there was in the East. The simple Teutons believed what they were taught, and grew softened by little and little, as their clergy gained more influence over them. The clergy were usually bred up in the convents, and there read the good old books which had come down from learned times, St. Jerome's Latin Bible, and the writings of the holy Fathers of the Church, from St. Clement, the friend of St. Paul, down to St. Gregory the Great. Each monastery had a few of such books, as well as of the Liturgy, or Communion Service, and Breviary, or Daily Service; and they were worth much more than their weight in gold. The monks used to copy them out, and adorn the borders and first letters of the chapters with beautiful colours and gilding; but such writing took a long time, and when it was done, few but the clergy could read. Except the clergy, only such persons as were partly Roman by birth had any notion of Latin, or cared to read at all; and so changed were things now that the new race were the conquerors, that to be a Roman was thought quite contemptible, and in France there was a less heavy punishment for killing a Roman than for killing a Frank. The fierce Teuton nobles thought nothing but war worth their attention, and yet they were very devout, and would weep bitterly over their sins. They gave richly to churches, founded convents, and paid great honour to clergymen, and to everything belonging to religion.

Sometimes this honour began to run into idolatry. They treated relics, that is, remains, or things that had belonged to holy persons, as having some sacredness of their own, and fancied that they would save him who carried them from harm. And when they glorified God for His saints in Heaven, and thought of the Communion of saints, they began to entreat their prayers, and the more ignorant would even pray to the saints themselves, as if they could by their own power grant the things that were asked. The blessed Virgin was more sought in this manner than any other saint. The pictures and images of saints, and the crucifix or figure of our blessed Lord on His Cross, which stood in all the churches, often had lights burning before them, and people kneeling round in prayer, till there was danger that, in their ignorance, they might be bowing down to the likeness, and breaking the Second Commandment.

One of the Greek emperors named Leo, was much displeased at this practice, and tried to put a stop to it. There was a great uproar at Constantinople, and many profane things were done and said, which shocked the western branch of the Church. At last the Greeks made a rule that there might be pictures of sacred subjects in their churches, but no images, and to this they have kept ever since. The Latins would not agree to this, and kept both images and pictures; and thus began a feeling of distrust between the two branches.

The great Frank king, Charles le Magne, grandson of Charles Martel, was a very religious man, and did a great deal to convert the heathens in Germany, and spread the power of the Church. He saved Rome from some dangerous enemies, and made the Pope a sort of prince over the city; and the Pope, in return, crowned him Emperor of Rome, though without any right to give away that title. He died in 814, and after his time all the Christian west suffered horribly from the Teuton heathens, who lived in Norway and Denmark, and who used to come down in their ships and ruin and ravage all the countries round, especially England and France. They loved nothing so well as burning a convent; and such a number of learned monks and their books perished under their hands, that the world was growing more ignorant than ever, when our good King Alfred rose up in 880, taught himself first, and then his people; and though he died early, left such good seed behind him, that at last his Saxons converted their enemies themselves, and Norway and Denmark became Christian too, through kings who had learnt the faith in England. But all the errors grew the faster from the ignorance of the people; and at Rome, where there was plenty of learning, the power the Pope enjoyed had done little good, for it made ambitious men covet the appointment, and they ruled their branch of the Church so as to ensure their own gain, more than for the sake of what was right. The Patriarchs of Constantinople greatly disapproved of this, and made the most of all the differences of opinion and practice. When the Council of Constantinople had added to the Nicene Creed the sentence which asserts the Godhead of the Third Holy Person of the Ever Blessed Trinity, the third clause had been "Who proceedeth from the Father." Of late the Western Church had added the words "and the Son." Now though the Greeks believed with all their hearts that the blessed Spirit doth come forth from the Father and the Son, yet they said that the Latins ought not to put words into the Creed that no Council had yet authorized; and thus a great dispute arose. Besides, the Popes had begun to think themselves universal Bishops, heads over all other Patriarchs; and to this the Patriarch of Constantinople would not submit, and rightly said that from the old times all Patriarchs had been equal, and had no right to take authority over one another. At last matters ran so high, that the Pope sent three legates or messengers, who laid on the altar of St. Sophia an act breaking the communion between the two Churches, and then shook off the dust from their feet. This was in the year 1056, a very sad one, for here was the first great rent in the Church, the first breach, and one that has never been repaired, for the Greeks will not, to this day, hold communion with anyone belonging to the Western Church, nor will the Roman Church with them; and after the first happy thousand years when the Church was one outwardly as well as inwardly, thus began the time when her unity has become a matter of faith, and not of sight. But it is our duty to believe that all good Christians are joined together, because they are joined to our blessed Lord, as the boughs of a tree belong to one another by their union with the root, though they may grow apart on different branches.

There were many other differences. The Greeks and Latins reckoned the time of keeping Easter in different ways, and had not the same way of shaving the heads of their clergy. Besides, the Greeks thought that when St. Paul said an elder might be the husband of one wife, he meant that a parish priest _must_ be married; so if a clergyman's wife died, they put him into a convent, and took away his parish. The Roman Catholics said, on the contrary, that the clergy were better unmarried; and by-and-by they forbade even those who were not monks to have wives; and in process of time a far more serious evil gradually arose in the Western Church. The clergy said that there was no need for the people to partake of the Cup at the Holy Eucharist, so they were cut off from that privilege, though our Lord had said, "Drink ye ALL." The clergy said it was all the same whether the people drank of it or not, since Flesh and Blood were one; but this was thinking for themselves, and over explaining, and so by-and-by they lost the real spiritual devout way in which they ought to have reverently spoken of that great and holy mystery, and thought of it in a manner that answered better to their mere human understanding.

LESSON XXXI.

THE MIDDLE AGES.

"Surely the isles shall wait for Me."--_Isaiah_, ix. 9.

It is not easy to make out exactly the ten kingdoms to which the Roman dominion was said in Daniel to give place, because sometimes one flourished, sometimes another; sometimes one was swallowed up, sometimes a fresh one sprang forth; but there can be no doubt that the ten horns mean the powers of Europe, which have always been somewhere about that number ever since the conquest by the Teuton nations.

By the time the first thousand years had past, the "little leaven" had thoroughly "leavened the whole lump;" and the ways of thinking, the habits, laws, and fashions, of the western people, were all moulded by Christian notions. The notions were not always really Christian, nor did the people always act up to them; but they meant so to do; and though there was some error, yet there was also the sincere saving Truth, which made those who followed it holy, and led them to salvation. Perhaps the greatest mistake was the craving to see, instead of only to believe; and this led to peoples' putting their trust in many things besides the Merits of our blessed Lord--in relics, in images of saints, in the intercessions of the blessed Virgin, and above all, in the Pope's promises.

The Popes were Patriarchs of Rome, and had thus some right over the Churches founded from thence. They used to send the Primate, or chief Archbishop, of each country, a pall or scarf, woven of the wool of lambs which they had blessed on St. Agnes's Day. Many questions were sent to them to be decided. At first the right way of choosing a bishop was, that the clergy and people of the place should elect him, and the king give his consent; but when the Pope's power increased, ambitious men used to bribe the people to elect them; and affairs grew so bad, that at last the Emperor Otho, of Germany, came to Rome, put down the wicked Popes, and took the choice quite into his own hands. This was wrong the other way; and after two or three reigns, the great Pope, Gregory VII., after a fierce struggle with the emperor, Henry IV., set matters in order again, and obtained that, as the Roman people were not to be trusted with the choice, it should be put into the hands of the clergy of the parish churches at Rome, who were called Cardinals, and have ever since had the election of the Pope in their hands. They wear purple and crimson robes and hats, in memory of the old Roman purple of the emperors.

It had been thought by almost the whole of the Western Church, ever since they had lost their communion with the eastern branch, which might have kept them right, that the Pope stood visibly in our Lord's place as Head of the Church, and that he was infallible, namely, so inspired by the Holy Spirit, that he could no more fall into error than a General Council could. So he stood at the head of all the Archbishops and Bishops, Abbots and clergy, of the west; and whenever a difficulty arose, it was sent to him to be settled. He ruled likewise over the consciences of all men and women. If they sinned, the being cut off from the Church, excommunicated, as it was called, was the most terrible punishment that could befall them; and if a king or country were very wicked indeed, the Pope could lay them under an interdict, namely, deprive them of every office of religion, shut up the church doors, and forbid all service.

Sometimes these threats were of great benefit. It was good for the kings to be forced to think of what was right, to be stopped from making cruel wars, from misusing their people, or living in sinful pleasure; but the Popes did not always use their power rightly; they would become angry, and excommunicate people for opposing them, and not for doing what was wrong, and they did not bethink them of our Lord's saying, that His Kingdom is not of this world. Still the Church was working great good. Holy people were bred up, some in convents, some in the world: St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, who taught her people to say grace at their meals; St. Richard, the good humble Bishop of Chichester; and that glorious French monk, St. Bernard, whose holy life and beautiful preaching made him everywhere honoured.

Great alms were given to the poor, and almost all our most beautiful churches and cathedrals were built by devout kings, nobles, or bishops, who gave their wealth for God's glory. These were built so as to be almost as symbolical as the Temple had been. They were usually in the shape of a cross, in honour of the token of our Salvation; the body was called the nave, or ship, because of the Ark of Christ's Church; the doors stood for repentance, as the entrance; the Font, just within, showed that none could enter save by the Laver of Regeneration; the holiest part was to the east, as looking for the Sun of Righteousness. This portion is called the chancel, and belongs to the clergy, as the Sanctuary did to the priests of old; but the people are not as of old cut off, but draw near in faith, to taste of the great Sacrifice commemorated upon the Altar. The eagle desk for the Holy Scripture, shows forth one Gospel emblem; the Litany desk is for times of repentance, when the Priest may mourn between porch and altar. The dead rested within and around, in the shadow of their church, and constant services were celebrated, that so the gates might ever be open.