90 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book i.

became the great business of life—the only realbusiness—all things else were playthings for chil-dren. This was the mighty, universal law, absorbingor comprehending all other laws, civil, criminal, ec-clesiastical, military, political, international. Theseall were mere gewgaws, or primers in comparison.Nor was there any exception even for the clergy;since they were men too! as pious and learned asyou will, but still men—like ourselves in substance,mere mortal men, and bound to worship Christand prepare for doomsday, make their souls, andget in order for salvation.

Put Satan to flight, is what is of importance.There is but one way to do this—come on thecrusade. The rest is tinsel; crown or tiara, alikeall tinsel. So the priests, far from inciting theirparishioners, had only to follow them, and wereobliged to follow them whether they wished it ornot; nor when the Pope convened the councils, waseither of them his own doing. His Holiness couldnot have acted otherwise. Certainly a largeportion of the wisest and most religious of theclergy of all ranks beheld these puritanical tumultswith disapprobation, and feared for the contami-nating effect of such a mixture of both sexes, and ofthe most devout aud pure young people with theimpure, repentant, and perhaps not repentant re-