3/6 Readings in European History The bishops. The priests and minor clerks. The monks and friars. The more you please to give the more 't will bring, Be it a purple cap or bishop's ring. And it need ne'er in any way alarm you That you are ignorant of everything To which a minister of Christ should cling, You will have revenue enough to warm you And, bear in mind, the lesser gifts won't harm you. Our bishops, too, are plunged in similar sin, For pitilessly they flay the very skin From all their priests who chance to have fat livings. For gold their seal official you can win To any writ, no matter what 's therein. Sure God alone can make them stop their thievings. 'T were hard, in full, their evil works to tell, As when, for a few pence, they greedily sell The tonsure to some mountebank or jester, Whereby the temporal courts are wronged as well, For then these tonsured rogues they cannot quell, Howe'er their scampish doings may us pester, While round the church still growing evils fester. Then as for all the priests and minor clerks, There are, God knows, too many of them whose works And daily life belie their daily teaching. Scarce better are they than so many Turks, Though they, no doubt, may be well taught it irks Me not to own the fullness of their teaching For, learned or ignorant, they 're ever bent To make a traffic of each sacrament, The mass's holy sacrifice included ; And when they shrive an honest penitent, Who will not bribe, his penance they augment, For honesty should never be obtruded But this, by sinners fair, is easily eluded. 'T is true the monks and friars make ample show Of rules austere which they all undergo, But this the vainest is of all pretenses.
