Note 936 — Chapter IX · THE CLERGY AND MONKS.

Whether it will ever be possible to surmount the difficulties which environ this subject, may be doubted; but it cannot escape any one who has enjoyed the intimacy of the more enlightened Roman Catholics, whether cleric or laic, that a strong feeling exists in favour of a change. In Bohemia and other Slavonic countries, yet in communion with Rome, the celibacy of the clergy has ever been a stumbling-block and stone of offence, and has done more than anything else to keep alive old Hussite traditions. A few years ago so much danger was felt to lurk in the question, that the Vienna censorship thought fit to suppress portions of Palaczy’s History, which favoured the national views. Nor has Germany, at almost any period, lacked thinkers who have vigorously protested against a practice which they assert to have no foundation in Holy Writ, and look upon as disastrous to the State.