[86] The unmarried state of the clergy was in itself one of the chief causes of sexual excess. The enormously numerous clergy became a perilous plague for female morality in town and village. The peasants endeavored to preserve their wives and daughters from clerical seduction by accepting no pastor who did not bind himself to take a concubine. In all towns there were brothels belonging to the municipality, to the sovereign, to the church, the proceeds of which flowed into the treasury of proprietors.
[87] Draper.—Intellectual Development of Europe, 498.
[88] Men in orders are sometimes deceived by the devil that they marry unrighteously and foredo themselves by the adulteries in which they continue. Institutes of Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical, 437.
There is ground for the assumption that the Canon which bound all the active members of the church to perpetual celibacy, and thus created an impenetrable barrier between them and the outer world, was one of the efficient methods in creating and sustaining both the temporal and spiritual power on the Romish Church. Taine.—English Literature.
[89] All steps are necessary to make up the ladder. The vices of men become steps in the ladder one by one as they are remounted. The virtues of man are steps indeed, necessary not by any means to be dispensed with, yet though they create a fair atmosphere and a happy future, they are useless if they stand alone. The whole nature of man must be used wisely by the one who desires to enter the way. Seek it by plunging into the mysterious and glorious depth of your inmost being. Seek it by testing all experience, by utilizing the senses in order to understand the growth of meaning of individuality and the beauty and obscurity of those other divine fragments which are struggling side by side with you and from the race to which you belong.—Light on the Path, Rule XX.
[90] “What in the world makes you look so sullen?” asked the young man as he took his arm and they walked towards the palace. “I am tormented with wicked thoughts,” answered Eugene gloomily. “What kind? They can easily be cured.” “How?” “By yielding to them.” Dialogue in Balzac’s Pere Goriot.
[91] 1st Corinthians VII, 36.
[92] Limbrock.—History of the Inquisition.
[93] Carema reported that the parish priest of Naples was not convicted though several women deposed that he had seduced them. He was, however, tortured, and suspended for a year, when he again entered his duties.
[94] Lea.—Sacerdotal Celibacy, p. 422.