The visible State on earth

We turn to the Church, the moral element which pervades the Middle Ages. Amidst the crash of the falling empire, as darker grew the storm which swept over the visible State on earth, more and more the better spirits turned their eyes towards a Kingdom above the earth. They turned, as the great Latin father relates, amidst utter corruption to an entire reconstruction of morality; in the wreck of all earthly greatness, they set their hearts upon a future life, and strove amidst anarchy and bloodshed to found a moral union of society.

Hence rose the Catholic Church, offering to the thoughtful a mysterious and inspiring faith; to the despairing E and the remorseful a new and higher life; to the wretched, comfort, fellowship, and aid; to the perplexed a majestic system of belief and practice — in its creed Greek, in its worship Asiatic, in its constitution Roman. In it we see the Roman genius for organisation and law, transformed and revived. In the fall of her material greatness Rome’s social greatness survived. Rome still remained the centre of the civilised world. Latin was still the language which bound men of distant lands together. From Rome went forth the edicts which were common to all Europe. The majesty of Rome was still the centre of civilisation. The bishop’s court took the place of that of the imperial governor. The peace of the church took the place of the peace of Rome; and from the first, the barbarian invaders who overthrew the hollow greatness of the empire humbled themselves reverently before the ministers of religion.

The church stood between the conqueror and the conquered, and joined them both in one. She told to all — Roman and barbarian, slave or freeman, great or weak — how there was one God, one Saviour of all, one equal soul in all, one common judgment, one common life hereafter. She told them how all, as children of one Father, were in His eyes equally dear; how charity, mercy, humility, devotion alone would make them worthy of His love; and at these words there rose up in the fine spirits of the new races a sense of brotherhood amongst mankind, a desire for a higher life, a zeal for all the gentler qualities and the higher duties, such as the world had not seen before guided turkey tours.

System of morality

Thus was her first task accomplished, and she founded a system of morality common to all and possible to all. She spoke to the slave of his immortal soul, to the master of the guilt of slavery. Master and slave should meet alike within her walls, and lie side by side’ within her catacombs; and thus her second task was accomplished, and she overthrew for ever the system of slavery, and raised up the labourer into the dignity of a citizen. Then she told how their common Master, of power unbounded, had loved the humble and the weak. She told of the simple lives of saints and martyrs, their tender care of the poorer brethren, their spirit of benevolence, self-sacrifice, and self-abasement; and thus the third great task was accomplished, when she placed the essence of practical religion in care for the weak, in affection for the family, in reverence for woman, in benevolence to all, and in – personal self-denial.

Next, she undertook to educate all alike. She provided a body of common teachers; she organised schools; she raised splendid cathedrals, where all might be brought into the presence of the beautiful, and see all forms of art in their highest perfection — architecture, and sculpture, and painting, and work in glass, in iron, and in wood, heightened by inspiring ritual and touching music. She accepted all without thought of birth or place. She gathered to herself all the knowledge of the time, though all was subordinate to religious life. The priests, so far as such were then possible, were poets, historians, dramatists, musicians, architects, sculptors, painters, judges, lawyers, magistrates, ministers, students of science, engineers, philosophers, astronomers, and moralists. Lastly, she had another task, and she accomplished even that. It was to stand between the tyrant and his victim; to succour the oppressed, to humble the evil ruler, to moderate the horrors of war; above all, to join nation to nation, to mediate between hostile races, to give to civilised Europe some element of union and cohesion.