Henry M. Baird · 64 of 379

CHAPTER I · Morals of the clergy.

Wealth had engendered luxury and vice. Engrossed in the pursuit of pleasure or personal aggrandizement, the vast majority of clergymen had lost all solicitude for the spiritual welfare of their flocks. About the middle of the century Claude Haton, curate of Mériot—certainly no friend of the reformatory movement—wrote in his Mémoires: "The more rapidly the number of heretics in France increased, the more indifferent to the discharge of their duty in their charges were the prelates and pastors of the church, from cardinals and archbishops down to the most insignificant curate. They cared little or nothing how anything went, if they could but draw the income of their benefices at whatever place of residence they had selected with a view to the promotion of their pleasure. They let their benefices out at the highest rate they could get, little solicitous as to the hands they might fall into, provided only they were well paid according to the terms of the agreement. The archbishops, bishops, and cardinals of France were almost all at the court of the king and the princes. The abbots, priors and curates resided in the large cities and in other places, wherein they took more delight than within the limits of their charges and preaching the true word of God to their subjects and parishioners. From their indifference the Lutheran heretics took occasion to slander the Church of Jesus Christ and to seduce Christians from it."