The great bell of Viterbo, in the tower of the Capitol, had announced the death of many a pope, and still desecration of the buildings and demoralization of the people went on.  Papal Rome manifested no consideration, but rather hatred, for classical Rome, The pontiffs had been subordinates of the Byzantine sovereigns, then lieutenants of the Frankish kings, then arbiters of Europe; their government had changed as much as those of any of the surrounding nations; there had been complete metamorphoses in its maxims, objects, claims.  In one point only it had never changed—­intolerance.  Claiming to be the centre of the religious life of Europe, it steadfastly refused to recognize any religious existence outside of itself, yet both in a political and theological sense it was rotten to the core.  Erasmus and Luther heard with amazement the blasphemies and witnessed with a shudder the atheism of the city.

The historian Ranke, to whom I am indebted for many of these facts, has depicted in a very graphic manner the demoralization of the great metropolis.  The popes were, for the most part, at their election, aged men.  Power was, therefore, incessantly passing into new hands.  Every election was a revolution in prospects and expectations.  In a community where all might rise, where all might aspire to all, it necessarily followed that every man was occupied in thrusting some other into the background.  Though the population of the city at the inception of the Reformation had sunk to eighty thousand, there were vast crowds of placemen, and still greater ones of aspirants for place.  The successful occupant of the pontificate had thousands of offices to give away—­offices from many of which the incumbents had been remorselessly ejected; many had been created for the purpose of sale.  The integrity and capacity of an applicant were never inquired into; the points considered were, what services has he rendered or can he render to the party? how much can he pay for the preferment?  An American reader can thoroughly realize this state of things.  At every presidential election he witnesses similar acts.  The election of a pope by the Conclave is not unlike the nomination of an American president by a convention.  In both cases there are many offices to give away.

William of Malmesbury says that in his day the Romans made a sale of whatever was righteous and sacred for gold.  After his time there was no improvement; the Church degenerated into an instrument for the exploitation of money.  Vast sums were collected in Italy; vast sums were drawn under all manner of pretenses from surrounding and reluctant countries.  Of these the most nefarious was the sale of indulgences for the perpetration of sin.  Italian religion had become the art of plundering the people.

For more than a thousand years the sovereign pontiffs had been rulers of the city.  True, it had witnessed many scenes of devastation for which they were not responsible; but they were responsible for this, that they had never made any vigorous, any persistent effort for its material, its moral improvement.  Instead of being in these respects an exemplar for the imitation of the world, it became an exemplar of a condition that ought to be shunned.  Things steadily went on from bad to worse, until at the epoch of the Reformation no pious stranger could visit it without being shocked.