Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

358 THE HOLY
successor, and could be exercised only at his bidding.
Hierarchies might have failed, would have failed,
had it not been for the Central See of Christendom;
for in the course of these periods we have seen arbi-
^^^"i^^^^^i
trary and cringing metropolitans and worldly bishops.
Both were held in check by the successors of St.
Gregory the Great, who could judge metropolitans
and their suffragans alike. Before the British con-
stitution had matured its strong republican element,
the Holy See encouraged the liberty of the subject
by opposing an undue exercise of the royal power.
" We cry out to the successor of Peter, to the
Vicar of the Crucified," wrote John of Salisbury in
1167.l How had this cry been made all through the
ages of our history
That first and typical Englishman, St. Wilfrid,
twice 2 undertook the journey to Rome in order to
obtain the justice which was refused him here. In
the eleventh century a great Archbishop of Canterbury,
St. Anselm, fought single-handed a depraved
king and a whole hierarchy. Eockingham gave him
the measure
f
of his brethren in the Episcopate. They
would have yielded up their spiritual inheritance at
the bidding of William Eufus ; therefore spoke the
Primate, " I will resort to the Chief Shepherd and
the Prince of all".3 The battle of investitures and
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of homage, representing the liberty of the Church,
1 Johannis Saresberiensis Epistolce, p. 25.
- His first journey was in early youth for his education
3 Rule, Life of St. Anselm, ii. p. 58 -