[196] “It is not for us now to say, ‘Like priest like people,’ for the people are not even so bad as the priest.” St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, preached the second Crusade against the Saracens, and was unsparing in his censures of the sins then prevalent among the Christian priesthood. His writings are voluminous, and by some he has been considered as the latest of the fathers of the Church.
[197] “A superior nature.”
[198] “We may admire ourselves, conscript fathers, as much as we please; still, neither by numbers did we vanquish the Spaniards, nor by bodily strength the Gauls, nor by cunning the Carthaginians, nor through the arts the Greeks, nor, in fine, by the inborn and native good sense of this our nation, and this our race and soil, the Italians and Latins themselves; but through our devotion and our religious feeling, and this, the sole true wisdom, the having perceived that all things are regulated and governed by the providence of the immortal Gods, have we subdued all races and nations.”—Cic. de. Harus. Respon. 9.
[199] The justice of this position is, perhaps, somewhat doubtful. The superstitious man must have some scruples, while he who believes not in a God (if there is such a person), needs have none.
[200] Time was personified in Saturn, and by this story was meant its tendency to destroy whatever it has brought into existence.—Plut. de Superstit. x.
[201] The primary motive power.
[202] This Council commenced in 1545, and lasted eighteen years. It was convened for the purpose of opposing the rising spirit of Protestantism, and of discussing and settling the disputed points of the Catholic faith.
[203] Irregular or anomalous movements.
[204] An epicycle is a smaller circle, whose centre is in the circumference of a greater one.
[205] To account for.