out their licentious choruses to the sound of lute and pipe, and gave up the whole day to games of every sort, in which the weaker brethren joined.  Those who refused to do so or to violate their vows by eating flesh were insulted; and as they held divine service, coarse laughter and clamour interrupted them.  Strict watch was kept upon them, too, lest they should speak or write to any one of their injuries.  We need not deplore the passing of such ‘good old days’.

It is necessary to realize the certainty which in the sixteenth century men allowed themselves to feel on subjects of the highest importance; for nothing short of this intense conviction is adequate to explain the ferocity with which they treated those over whom they had triumphed in matters of religion.  Burning at the stake was the common method of expiation.  The fires of Smithfield consumed brave, humble victims, while Erasmus jested over the rising price of wood, In France the Inquisition entrapped many men of literary distinction, Louis de Berquin 1529, John de Caturce 1532, Stephen Dolet 1546; on the charge of heresy or atheism which could only with great difficulty be refuted.  To kill a fellow-creature or to watch him put to death would be physically impossible to most of us, in our unruffled lives; where from year’s-end to year’s-end we hardly even hear a word spoken in anger.  In consequence it is difficult for us to understand the indifference with which in the sixteenth century men of the most advanced refinement regarded the sufferings of others.  Between rival combatants and claimants for thrones fierce measures are more intelligible; especially in days when stone walls did not a prison make—­such a prison, at least, as the prisoner might not some day hope to break.  Things had improved somewhat since the Middle Ages.  We hear less of the varieties of mutilation, the blinding, loss of nose, hands, breasts, which were the portion of either sex indiscriminately, when the death-penalty had not been fully earned.  But it was still fashionable to suspend your adversary in a cage and torture him, or to confine him for years in a dungeon which light and air could never reach.  The executions of heretics became public shows, carefully arranged beforehand, and attended by rank and fashion; to whom to show any sign of sensibility would have been disgrace.  Impossible it seems to believe.  We must remember that the perpetrators of such noble acts had persuaded themselves that they were serving God.  They were as confident as Joshua or as Jehu that they knew His will; and they had no hesitation in carrying it out.

If you may take a man’s life in God’s name, there can be no objection to telling him a lie.  The violation of the safe-conduct which brought Hus to Constance was a fine precedent for breaking faith with a heretic.  When Luther came to Worms to answer for himself before Emperor and Diet, the Pope’s representatives reminded Charles of the principle which had lighted the fires at Constance and ridded