[Footnote 4:  This tyranny of the Popes is well illustrated by the quarrel that took place between Hildebrand (Pope Gregory VII.) and Henry IV. of Germany.  Gregory attempted to make certain reforms, but Henry refused to recognize those innovations.  Gregory excommunicated the emperor, with the result that he was “shunned as a man accursed by Heaven.”  His authority lost and his kingdom on the point of going to pieces, Henry had but one thing to do—­seek the pardon of the Pope.  He found the Pontiff at Canoosa, but Gregory refused to admit the penitent to his presence.  “It was winter, and for three successive days the king, clothed in sackcloth, stood with bare feet in the snow of the court-yard of the palace, waiting for permission to kneel at the feet of the Pontiff and to receive forgiveness.”  On the fourth day he was granted admittance to the presence of the Pope.

During the Pontificate of Innocent III.  Philip Augustus, king of France, put away his wife.  Innocent commanded him to take her back and forced submission by means of an interdict.  This submission of a brave, firm, and victorious prince shows the tremendous power wielded by the Popes in that period.

The manner, also, in which Innocent III. humbled King John of England affords another illustration of the power of the Popes.  John caused the vacant See of Canterbury to be filled, in accordance with the regular manner of election, by one of his favorites.  Innocent declared the appointment void, as he desired that the place should be filled by one of his friends.  John refused to allow the Pope’s archbishop to enter England as Primate.  Innocent then excommunicated John, laid all England under an interdict, and incited Philip, king of France, to war, offering him John’s kingdom upon the very liberal condition that he go over and take it.  The outcome of the matter was that John was compelled to yield to the power of the Pope.  He even gave him England as a perpetual fief, and agreed to pay the Papal See the annual sum of one thousand marks.]

The loss of life by spiritual famine was extreme.  The Word of God, which is spirit and life to God’s people (Jno. 6:63), was laid under interdict and the common people deprived of its benefits.  At the time the black horse appeared, a little food could be obtained at famine prices; but when the fourth arrived, he was empowered to kill “with hunger.”  Also, one of his agents of destruction was death, or pestilence, a fit symbol of false and blasphemous doctrines breathed forth like a deadly pestilence blasting everything within its reach.  Invocation of saints, worship of images, relics, celibacy, works of supererogation, indulgences, and purgatory—­these were the enforced principles of religion, and like a pest they settled down upon the people everywhere.