Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

AND
PRJ3MUNIRE.
brated act of Parliament which transferred the Papal
Supremacy to the person of the sovereign. As
many other points it was a choice between king and
Pope. A legislation, which strengthened the royal
haiul in a spiritual matter, could not work otherwise
than disastrously, and so the clergy found. Prce-
in un i re was an encroachment of the royal authority,
and by no means guaranteed either free elections or
deserving nominees. The Pope on his side ignored
the Statute, whenever the good of the Church required
it, that is, he still annulled elections, and
presented to sees, in the case of unsuitable nominations.
Edward III. outlived " his greatness and his
happiness. His ambitious designs upon France and
Scotland proved fallacious : both his noble queen,
Philippa, and the Black Prince predeceased him, and
he himself fell into unworthy hands. Before these
melancholy last years, the terrible Black Death appeared
in England (1348).
The dissoluteness of society had reached an appalling
height, and the historian searches in vain on
the prominent page of history for the ten just men
who might have saved England from civil war and
apostasy. Yet the saints were there, unseen by men,
well known to God. In the heart of this century,
so stirring, so full of an old power in a new form, the
\vorldliness proper to those who live in an age of
transition, a certain number of English maidens
were leading the austere life of anchoresses. One,
in particular, who is hardly even a name to many