nspired

ms, when he said to dissuading friends, "If I knew there were as many devils at Worms as there are tiles upon the houses, I would go." The intention of the artist is obvious; but, in addition to the leading purpose, he desired, as Mr. Chatto conjectures, to remind his public of the nasal drawl of the preaching friars of t

veiled its sympathy with reform, was on Luther's side. It prepared the way for his coming, co-operated w

etitor and antagonist of the Almighty Lord of Heaven and Earth. But mortals must laugh, and familiarity produces its well-known effect. In the eyes of men of the world the devil became gradually less terrible and more grotesque, became occasionally ridiculous, often contemptible, sometimes silly. His tricks are met by tricks more cunning than his own; he is duped, and retires discomfited. Before Luther appeared on the scene, the painters and sculptors, not to mention the authors and poets, had made progress in reducing the devil from the grade of an antagonist of deity and arch-enemy of men to that of a cunning and amusing deceiver of simpletons. "The great d

the devil has to maintain. "It were not good for us to know how earnestly the holy angels strive for us against the devil, or how hard a combat it is. If we could see for how many angels one devil makes work, we should be in despair." Many devils, he remarks with curious certainty, are in forests, in waters, in wildernesses, in dark pooly places, ready to hurt and prejudice people; and there are some in the thick blac

Let us keep in mind also that in those twilight ages, as in all ages, there were the two contending influences which we now call "the world" and "the church." In other words, there were people who took the devil lightly, as they did all

n the British Mu

Luther, along with other ludicrous and absurd images, of which specimens have been given, we find many pictures in which the vices of the religious orders are exhibited. The oldest drawing in the British Museum, one of

emost figure of this procession was a monk carrying a girl upon his shoulders. This was not the coarse fling of an enemy. It was not the scoff of an Erasmus, who said once, "These paun

to-day priests who are usurers, wine-shop keepers, merchants, governors of castles, notaries, stewards, and debauch brokers. The only trade which they have not yet commenced is that of executioner. The bishops surpass Epicurus himself in sensuality, and it is between the courses of a banquet that they discuss the authority of the Pope and that of the Council." The same speaker related that St. Bridget, being in St. Peter's at Rome, looked up in a religious ecstasy, and saw the

o have jested upon themselves and their office. Two finely engraved seals have been found in France, one dating as far back as 1300, which represent monkeys arrayed in the v

Seal, A

of the record relating to the monkey seal of the abbot, showing it to have been ordered and paid for by the actual head of a great monastery, throws light upon all the grotesque ornamentation of those centuries. It suggests to us also the idea that the clergy joined in the general ridicule of their order as much from a sense of the ludicrous as from conviction of its justice. In the British Museum there is a religious manuscript of the thirteenth century, splendidly illuminated, one of the initial letters

dantly confirmed in the records and literature of the time. "Capuchins," says the old French doggerel, "drink poorly, Benedictines deeply, Dominicans pint after pint, but Franciscans drink the cellar dry." The great number of old tavern

the common butt of the jester. In one of these stories a butcher, returning home from a fair, asks a night's lodging at the house of a priest, who churlishly refuses it. The butcher, returning, offers in recompense to kill one of his fine fat sheep for supper, and to leave behind him all the meat not eaten. On this condition he is received, and the family enjoy an excellent supper in his soci

of his knowledge. "Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob," said the examiner: "who was Jacob's father?" The candidate, being unable to answer this question, is sent home to his tutor with a letter relating his discomfiture. "Thou foole and ass-head!" exclaims the tutor. "Dost thou not know Tom Miller of Oseney?" "Yes," answered the hopeful

ged since the fifteenth century, we still find priests the constant theme of scandal. The Tyrolese, for example, as some readers may have observed, are profuse in their votive offerings, and indefatigable in their pilgrimages, processions, and observances-the most superstitious people in Europe; but a recent writer tells us that they "have a large collection of anecdotes, humorous

d it off. In the list of the accused are the names of two abbots and a prior. Several chaplains were in a band of knights and squires who entered an inclosure belonging to the Archbishop of Canterbury, drove off his cattle, cut down his trees, harvested his wheat, and marched away with their booty. In a band of seventy who committed a similar outrage at Carlton there were five parsons. Two parsons were accused of assisting to break into the Earl of Northampton's park and driving off his cattle. The prior of Bollington was charged with a robbery of horses, cattle, shee

f truth there was for the countless allusions to the dissoluteness of the clergy in

the Window of a French C

hey exaggerated human guilt. But the ladies and gentlemen of the "Decameron," while practicing virtue, made light of vice, and brought off the graceful profligate victorious. Later was circulated in every land and tongue the merry tale of "Reynard the Fox," which children still cherish among the choicest of their literary treasures. Reynard, who appears in the sculptures of so many convents and in the illuminations of so many pious manuscripts, whom monks loved better than their missal, exhibits the same moral: witty wickedness triumphant over brute strength. The fox cheats the

moles dug the grave, foxes carried the bier, the bear celebrated mass, the ox read the gospel, and the ass the epistle. When the burial was complete, the animals sat down to a splendid banquet, and wished for another grand funeral. Mark the moral drawn by the priestly author: "So it frequently happens that when some rich man, an extortionist or a usurer, dies, the abbot or prior of a convent of beasts [i. e., of men living like beasts] causes them to assemble. For it commonly happens

the devil, the white friars his dame, and the others were their chickens. The qualities of a good monk, he declared, were an almighty belly, an ass's back, and a raven's mouth. From the pulpit, on another occasion, he foretold a coming reformation in the Church, adding that he did not expect to live to see it, though some that heard him might. The monks taunted him with looking into the "Ship of Fools" for his texts i

(Holbein, 1520.)

it is only in the passages aimed at them that the author is at his best. Before Luther had begun to think of the abuses of the Church, Erasmus, in his little work, derided the credulous Christians who thought to escape mishaps all day by paying devotion to St. Christopher in the morning, and laughed at the soldiers who expected to come out of battle with a whole skin if they had but taken the precaution to "mumble over a

rchase more or fewer of these paltry pardons and salable exemptions?... By this easy way of purchasing pardon, any notorious highwayman, any plundering soldier, or any bribe-taking judge shall disburse some part of their unju

reflecting upon the homage paid to the Virgin Mary, "whose blind devotees think it manners now to place the mother before the Son." He utterly scouts and reviles the folly of hanging up offerings at the shrines of saints for their imaginary aid in getting the donors out of trouble or danger. The responsibility of all this folly and delusion he boldly assigns to the priests, who gain money by them. "They blacken the darkness and promote the delusion, wisely foreseeing that the people (like cows which never giv

e Light. (Holbe

course upon the puerilities which absorbed their minds. Among the theological questions which they delighted to discuss were such as these: the precise manner in which original sin was derived from our first parents; whether time was an element in the supernatural generation of our Lord; whether it would be a thing possible for the first person in the Trinity to hate the second; whether God, who took our nature upon him in the form of a man, could as well have become a woman, a beast, an herb, or a stone; and if he could, how could he have then preached the gospel, or been nailed to the cross? whether if St. Peter had celebrated the eucharist at the time when our Saviour was u

scoursing upon the name of Jesus, subtly pretended to discover a revelation of the Trinity in the very letters of which the name was composed. It was declined only in three cases. That was one mysterious coincidence. Then the nominative ended in S, the accusative in M, and the ablative in U, which obviously indicated Summus, the beginning; Medius, the middle; and Ultimus, the end of all things. Other examples he gives of the same profound nature. Nor did the different orders of monks escape his

hing with the great leader of reform, because Erasmus refused to abandon the Church, and cast in his lot openly with the reformers. Luther calls him "a mere Momus," who laughed at Catholic and Protestant alike, and looked upon the Christian religion itself very much as Lucian did upon the Greek. "Whenever I p

meet the foe in the open field, braving torture, infamy, and death for the cause. Such were Luther and his followers. But there is a