332 



THREE YEARS IN THE PACIFIC. 



zeal for discipline, always maintained it. In the order of polity 

 and government, they adopted the received maxims of the 

 times, and which nobody charged as unjust or excessive. Some, 

 as Innocent III., labored in correcting, with just severity, all 

 the vices and abuses, particularly that of venality, of which the 

 Roman court was accused ; and if some did not display an equal 

 zeal, their tolerance was drawn from them by the force of cir- 

 cumstances, by the misfortunes of the times, and by the ardu- 

 ous nature of affairs, which it was necessary to commit to cer- 

 tain hands, and which none but the most pure and faithful 

 were capable of safely conducting. Taking the times and cir- 

 cumstances into consideration, in spite of their political errors, 

 let justice be rendered to their personal conduct, and to their 

 practice of those obligations, annexed to the apostolic ministry 

 in general, and better popes could scarcely be desired. 



Benedict XI. was distinguished for his virtues in the begin- 

 ning of the fourteenth century ; and if among the seven popes 

 who succeeded him, and styled ' de Avignone,' because they 

 translated their chair to that city in France, there were some 

 chargeable with weakness and irregularities — exaggerated by 

 the Italians, who could not pardon their absence from Rome — 

 an exact and impartial judgment must confess that they were 

 almost all commendable for their sublime qualities, for the 

 superiority of their intellects and talents, and many rendered 

 their names venerable by the sanctity of their lives. It is not 

 strange, that those who figured during the schism, should scan- 

 dalize the church by their insatiable avarice to possess means 

 to sustain their party, and by their cruel ambition, that made 

 them always perfidious, constantly breaking their promise of 

 renunciation, for the peace of the church. Such intruders do 

 not merit the name of Popes ; but that of sanguinary wolves, 

 who, without compassion, scattered the flock of the Lord. 



<'But from the election of Martin V., the nine Popes that 

 legitimately succeeded him to the Papal throne, until the close 

 of the fifteenth century, if they were not all of eminent virtue 

 and unimpeachable merit, v^e may be assured, that, with the 

 exception of the two last, they possessed appreciable qualities, 

 vyrhich did not render them unworthy of the sublime station 



