Their materialization of religion.
With these pre-eminent merits, the monastic institution had its evils. Through it was spread that dreadful materialization of religion which, for so many ages, debased sacred things; through it that worse than pagan apotheosis, which led to the adoration—for such it really was—of dead men; through it were sustained relics and lying miracles, a belief in falsehoods so prodigious as to disgrace the common sense of man. The apostles and martyrs of old were forgotten; nay, even the worship of God was forsaken for shrines that could cure all diseases, and relics that could raise the dead. Through it was developed that intense selfishness which hesitated at no sacrifice either of the present or the future, so far as this life is concerned, in order to insure personal happiness in the next—a selfishness which, in the delusion of the times, passed under the name of piety; and the degree of abasement from the dignity of a man was made the measure of the merit of a monk.
END OF VOL. I.