degeneracy in life; he threatens eternal penalties if sin be persisted in.  He alarms the fears of the people, so that women part with their ornaments, dress with more simplicity, and walk more demurely; licentious young men become modest and devout; instead of the songs of the carnival, religious hymns are sung; tradesmen forsake their shops for the churches; alms are more freely given; great scholars become monks; even children bring their offerings to the Church; a pyramid of “vanities” is burned on the public square.

And no wonder.  A man had appeared at a great crisis in wickedness, and yet while the people were still susceptible of grand sentiments; and this man—­venerated, austere, impassioned, like an ancient prophet, like one risen from the dead—­denounces woes with such awful tones, such majestic fervor, such terrible emphasis, as to break through all apathy, all delusions, and fill the people with remorse, astonish them by his revelations, and make them really feel that the supernal powers, armed with the terrors of Omnipotence, would hurl them into hell unless they repented.

No man in Europe at the time had a more lively and impressive sense of the necessity of a general reformation than the monk of St. Mark; but it was a reform in morals, not of doctrine.  He saw the evils of the day—­yea, of the Church itself—­with perfect clearness, and demanded redress.  He is as sad in view of these acknowledged evils as Jeremiah was in view of the apostasy of the Jews; he is as austere in his own life as Elijah or John the Baptist was.  He would not abolish monastic institutions, but he would reform the lives of the monks,—­cure them of gluttony and sensuality, not shut up their monasteries.  He would not rebel against the authority of the Pope, for even Savonarola supposed that prelate to be the successor of Saint Peter; but he would prevent the Pope’s nepotism and luxury and worldly spirit,—­make him once more a true “servant of the servants of God,” even when clothed with the insignia of universal authority.  He would not give up auricular confession, or masses for the dead, or prayers to the Virgin Mary, for these were indorsed by venerated ages; but he would rebuke a priest if found in unseemly places.  Whatever was a sin, when measured by the laws of immutable morality, he would denounce, whoever was guilty of it; whatever would elevate the public morals he would advocate, whoever opposed.  His morality was measured by the declaration of Christ and the Apostles, not by the standard of a corrupt age.  He revered the Scriptures, and incessantly pondered them, and exalted their authority, holding them to be the ultimate rule of holy living, the everlasting handbook of travellers to the heavenly Jerusalem.  In all respects he was a good man,—­a beautiful type of Christian piety, with fewer faults than Luther or Calvin had, and as great an enemy as they to corruptions in State and Church, which he denounced even more fiercely and passionately.  Not even Erasmus pointed out the vices of the day with more freedom or earnestness.  He covered up nothing; he shut his eyes to nothing.