False Views of History [pp. 23-48]

1852.] False Views of History. 37
progress; Boniface raised the standard against progress.
Gregory aimed at the establishment of a power, which, in
in the general state of anarchy, might supply the want of
law; Boniface set himself in opposition to law. The
firmness and courage of Gregory elevated the church to
the summit of power; the blindness and obstinacy of Boniface led the way to schism, and ultimately to the great
Reformation, which broke out two centuries after his
death.
liaving noticed the danger of pursuing an institution too
long, it may not be deemed irrelevant to make a few remarks on the opposite tendency-the spirit of opposing it
unreasonably. Protestantism, rejecting all the human
institutions of Rome, appears almost to insist on the marriage of the clergy. This state should be considered a
subject purely of personal and private consideration-and
it is difficult to imagine how any profession should carry
with it an obligation to enter into it. There are many
avocations in civil life, which, to the general eye, would
appear to forbid marriage. The greater number of men
than of women secms to indicate that it was not designed
for all men. The sentiment which leads to marriage
should be one of disinterested benevolence. A man
should seek in a wife a friend and a companion, not a
help. llis aim should be to surround himself with objects
whom he would delight to cherish; and if he secs before
him a future of hardship and of difficulty, he would act
the part of a brave man if he venture on it alone. Clergymen are like other men, and should be governed by the
same rules in the concerns of life. There is one class of
clergymen to whom marriage appears peculiarly inappropriate. Those who devote themselves to the spread of
the gospel among the benighted souls of heathen lands,
a~~pear to have contracted a burthen sufficiently weighty
in itsel?, without superadding to it the care and anguish
which must necessarily result from the sufferings and
hardships to which a devoted wife is exposed-and yet
the missionary is, of all men, expected to marry. A wife
appears to be considered a necessary qualification for the
accomplishment of his ardtious enterprise.
As we descend the stream of time and approach our
own, we find ourselves still more and more encumbered
with the difficulties of prejudice and party spirit. The