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.
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