one of the greatest corruptions in the Church of Rome, consists in the pretended remission of sins upon payment of money, varying in amount according to the offence. The origin of Indulgences, as of many other innovations and abuses in that church, is to be traced to a gradual corruption of practices originally pure. It accorded both with reason and scripture that offenders should be punished, and doubtless the discipline exercised during the purest days of the church was a salutary one. But in process of time, especially during the dark ages, when the people were grossly ignorant, and the rulers of the church avaricious, offenders were allowed to obtain the relaxation of discipline by purchase. During the 12th century the different orders of its members vied with each other in extorting money from the people. The bishops granted Indulgences upon payment of money, to be applied professedly to religious purposes; while the monks, by the sale or exhibition of relics, bones, &c., earned sums rivalling in amount those collected by their ecclesiastical superiors. Both parties, when they got the money, could spend it as they chose.

The granting of Indulgences has been traced as far back as the beginning of the 9th century. During the time of the Crusades, Urban II. granted them to all who would go to Palestine to fight for the recovery of Jerusalem from the Infidels. The temptation was subsequently held out to those who should hire a soldier to go as a crusader. Shortly after the beginning of the 14th century, Pope Clement V. exposed Indulgences to public sale. In the 16th century, Leo X., in order to carry on the magnificent structure of St Peter's at Rome, published Indulgences, and a plenary remission, to all such as should contribute money towards it. Finding the project succeed, he granted to Albert, elec- tor of Mentz and archbishop of Magdeburg, the monopoly of them for Saxony and the neighbouring parts, and farmed out those of other countries to the highest bidders, who, in order to make the most of their bargain, procured the ablest preachers to cry up the value of the commodity. The form of these Indulgences was as follows:—“May our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon you, and absolve you by the merits of His most holy Passion. And I, by His authority, that of His blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and of the most holy Pope, granted and committed to me in these parts, do absolve you, first from all ecclesiastical censures, in whatever manner they have been incurred; then from all thy sins, transgressions, and excesses, how enormous soever these may be, even from such as are reserved for the cognizance of the holy see, and as far as the keys of the holy church extend: I remit to you all punishment which you deserve in purgatory on your account; and I restore you to the holy sacraments of the church, to the unity of the faithful, and to that innocence and purity which you possessed at baptism; so that when you die, the gates of punishment shall be shut, and the gates of the paradise of delight shall be opened; and if you shall not die at present, this grace shall remain in full force when you are at the point of death. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

The manner in which national resources were drained and immorality increased by the sale of Indulgences was felt to be a grievance by several European countries. Many Catholics as well as Protestants were ashamed and indignant at the degrading traffic. At the Diet of Nuremberg in 1522, the Germanic princes, both Catholic and Reformed, protested against the infamous trade. Claude Espence, a Catholic divine, declared of the *Taxa Camere seu Cancellariae Apostolicae*, that more crimes could be learned from it than from all vicious books together. The book referred to contained a catalogue of the prices at which absolution could be purchased for all possible crimes from the holy apostolic see. Thus, for so many lives, a bishop may commit murder, adultery, &c., &c. The first great and fatal blow struck against the system was by Luther in his ninety-five propositions against the Indulgences, as hawked about by the impudent Tetzel. This mountebank had been appointed by the Archbishop of Mentz and Magdeburg as his agent in Germany for these licenses to sin. He employed the blustering oratory for which he was remarkable, in urging upon the Germans the duty of obtaining remission for their own sins and those of their friends, for the past, present, and future, by purchasing indulgences. The people were deluded by such assurances as that the souls of those undergoing purgatorial purification, escaped the moment the fee paid by friends tinkled in the strong box, &c. Luther’s propositions against Tetzel were posted up at Wittemberg in 1517. Next year, when Luther took his degree of doctor at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, he was attacked by Tetzel and some others, but he ably maintained his ground against them, and the dispute began to divide Germany. Maximilian I, informed Leo X. of the state of the case, but the Pontiff paid little attention to the affair, and the history of the dispute became identified with the history of the Reformation.