Download or read book The Black Friars of Edinburgh (Classic Reprint) written by W. Moir Bryce and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-20 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Black Friars of Edinburgh At Perth, on 11th May 1559, the strident voice of John Knox sounded the knell of the ancient Church of Rome in this country, and within a period of sixteen months thereafter a 'holy, godly Reformation, ' the most complete and thorough in Europe, was established by the Estates of Parliament. Irrespective of the question of dogma, the Church at this date lay singularly open to the attack of the Reformers. Wanton licence prevailed among all ranks of its salaried professors, and there was no native hand strong enough to restrain excesses. The papacy of the day was overwhelmed with its own troubles and griefs, and was not in a position either to strengthen the bonds of discipline, or to afford assistance to its distressed servants. The duties of the parochial clergy thereupon fell to a large extent into the hands of men described by Knox and other contemporary writers as'the friars.' Now, within the folds of the Church there existed a great number of organisations, both lay and clerical, whose members devoted their lives to the furtherance of the sacred cause of Christianity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.