It is true that the denunciation of the priesthood comes not only from Protestants and satirists, but from popes and councils and canonized saints, and that it bulks large in medieval literature.

Nevertheless, it is both _a priori_ probable and to some extent historically verifiable that the evil was more noisy, not more potent, than the good.

But though the corruptions of the church were not a main cause of the Protestant secession, they furnished good excuses for attack; the Reformers were scandalized by the divergence of the practice and the pretensions of the official representatives of Christianity, and their attack was envenomed and the break made easier thereby.

It is therefore necessary to say a few words about those abuses at which public opinion then took most offence.
[Sidenote: Abuses: Financial] Many of these were connected with money.

The common man's conscience was wounded by the smart in his purse.