universal suspicion; but it is not only so that mischief was caused. The clergy throughout the Middle Ages were to a very great extent married, though against the law of the Church; and their unions, instead of being what they have admittedly since become in every Protestant country, a valuable moral force, providing a model of Christian family life all over the community, and associating family life intimately with the the profession of Christianity, were looked upon as sinful, winked at by authority in order to avoid worse things, but none the less made the subject of continual public denunciation. The moral influence of the clergy was weakened, and the marriage union was degraded by the notorious and commonly witnessed discord between the theory of the Church and the practice of its representatives.<ref>The evidence is collected and set out in Lea's "History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church."</ref.>
Christianity itself has taken a humaner tone as expounded by men who are themselves
