o open acts expressive of detestation of the gilded idolatry
of the popular religion. For their views they alleged the Old Testament
history as sufficient authority. Had not the servants of Jehovah braved
the resentment of the priests of Baal, and disregarded the threats of
kings and queens? Why treat the saints' images, the crucifixes, the
gorgeous robes and manufactured relics, with more consideration than was
displayed by Hebrew prophets in dealing with heathen abominations? So
inveterate an evil as the corruption of all that is most sacred in
Christianity could only be successfully combated by vigor and decision.
Only under heavy and repeated blows does the monarch of the forest yield
to the axe of the woodman.

Between the extremes of ill-judged concession and untimely rashness, the
great body of those who had embraced the Reformation endeavored to hold
a middle course, but found themselves exposed to many perils, not the
result of their own actions, but brought upon them by the timidity or
foolhardiness of their associates. A lamentable instance of the kind
must now be noticed.

[Sidenote: Placards and pasquinades.]

For many months the street-walls of Paris had been employed by both
sides in the great controversies of the day, for the purpose of giving
publicity to their views. Under cover of night, placards, often in the
form of pasquinades, were posted where they would be likely to meet the
eyes of a large number of curious readers. So, in the excitement
following the arrest and exile of Beda and other impertinent and
seditious preachers, placards succeeded each other nightly. In one the
theologians of the Sorbonne were portrayed to the life, and each in all
his proper colors, by an unfriendly pencil. In another, "Paris, flower
of nobility" was passionately entreated to sustain the wounded faith of
God, and the King of Glory was supplicated to confound "the accursed
dogs," the Lutherans.[331] Under the circumstances, it was not strange
that the "Lutheran" placard was hastily torn down by some zealot, with
the exclamation that the author was a heretic, while a crowd stood all
day about the other transcribing its unpoetic but pious exhortations to
burn the offenders against Divine justice, and no one attempted to
remove it.

[Sidenote: Mission of Feret to Switzerland.]

The success of this method of reaching the masses, who could never be
induced to read a formal treatise or book, suggested to some of the mo