246 LETTERS TO THE "TIMES." v 



secular favour. Some, however, finding themselves 

 opposed by the Court of Rome, were restrained by 

 obvious reasons, and went away in confusion; for 

 the Supreme Pontiff, with a scowling look, said to 

 them, * What means this, my brethren ? To what 

 lengths are you going? Have you not professed 

 voluntary poverty, and that you would traverse 

 towns and castles and distant places, as the case re- 

 quired, barefooted and unostentatiously, in order to 

 preach the word of God in all humility? And do 

 you now presume to usurp these estates to yourselves 

 against the will of the lords of these fees? Your 

 religion appears to be in a great measure dying 

 away, and your doctrines to be confuted.' " 

 Under date of 1243, Matthew writes: — 

 "For three or four hundred years or more the 

 monastic order did not hasten to destruction so 

 quickly as their order [Minorites and Preachers] of 

 whom now the brothers, twenty-four years having 

 scarcely elapsed, had first built in England dwellings 

 which rivalled regal palaces in height. These are 

 they who daily expose to view their inestimable 

 treasures, in enlarging their sumptuous edifices, and 

 erecting lofty walls, thereby impudently transgress- 

 ing the limits of their original poverty and violating 

 the basis of their religion, according to the prophecy 

 of German Hildegarde. When noblemen and rich 

 men are at the point of death, whom they know to be 

 possessed of great riches, they, in their love of gain, 

 diligently urge them, to the injury and loss of the 

 ordinary pastors, and extort confessions and hidden 

 wills, lauding themselves and their own order only, 



