Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

DISCIPLINE.
83
were, strictly speaking, the only married ones, for
there was no legal form by which, when once
ordained, a mass-priest could be married. From
first to last the thing was a terrible abuse, tolerated
in the beginning through dearth of priests, and
existing in spite of the canons. St. Dunstan
waged war against it to the teeth, and later on it
formed a salient feature in St. Anselm's laborious
crusade.
This relaxation belongs, as I have said, to a later
period, though the Danish invasions were one of its
most prominent causes, and the scourge began in
the eighth century. The shadow of Adam's fall
must necessarily darken the pages of Church history.
The living stones are men, not angels, who \
would mar God's perfect work if the gates of hell
were allowed to prevail.