Rome absorbed them all; they became
the Church's great army of volunteers, perfectly disciplined,
admirably handled; their very jealousies and rivalries turned to good
account. When John Wesley offered to the Church of England precisely
their successors, we would have no commerce with them; we did our
best to turn them into a hostile and invading force.
The Friars were the Evangelizers of the towns in England for 300
years. When the spoliation of the religious houses was decided upon,
the Friars were the first upon whom the blow fell--the first and the
last. [Footnote: The king began with the Franciscan convent of Christ
Church, London, in 1532; he bestowed the Dominican convent at Norwich
upon the corporation of that city on the 25th of June, 1540.] But
when their property came to be looked into, there was nothing to rob
but the churches in which they worshipped, the libraries in which
they studied, and the houses in which they passed their lives. Rob
the county hospitals to-morrow through the length and breadth of the
land, or make a general scramble for the possessions of the Wesleyan
body, and how many broad acres would go to the hammer?
Voluntaryism leaves little for the spoiler.
As with the later history of the Friars in England, so with the
corruptions of the Mendicant orders--though they were as great as
malice or ignorance may have represented them--I am not concerned.
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