The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

;72 RISE OP THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY.getlier by a community of interest and feeling, superior inintelligence, and therefore in influence, to the rest of theempire, enormously rich, and exercising civil jurisdictionover extensive tracts and vast populations. It was impossibleto contemplate without misgivings, so numerous andcompact a phalanx. It must have struck every one, thatupon the moderation and fidelity of its members must dependthe repose of the empire and the world in time tocome. The emperors, secure, as they imagined themselves,in the possession of the supremacy, saw without alarm therise of this formidable body. They looked upon it as oneof the main props of their power, and felicitated themselvesnot a little in having been so fortunate as to entrench theirprerogative behind so firm a bulwark. The appointment toall ecclesiastical benefices was in the emperor's hands ; andin augmenting the wealth and grandeur of thedoubted not that they were consolidating theirclergy, theyown authority.It required no prophet to divine, that so long asthe imperial sceptre continued to be grasped by a stronghand and guided by a firm mind, which it had been sinceit came into the possession of the German race, no dangerwould arise ;but that the moment this ceased to be the case,the pontificate, already almost on a level with the empire,would obtain the mastery. Rome had been often baulkedin her grand enterprise ;but now her accommodating, patient,and persevering policy was about to receive its reward.The hour was near when her grandest hopes and herloftiestpretensions were to be realized,—when the throneof God's vicegerent was to display itself in its fullest proportions,and be seen towering in proud supremacy above allthe other thrones of earth.The emergency that might have been foreseen had arisen.We behold on the throne of the empire a child, Henry IV.and in the chair of St Peter, the astute Hildebrand. Wefind the empire torn by insurrections and tumults, whilstthe Papacy is guided by theclear and bold genius of GregoryVII.Savoy had the honour to give birth to this man.