ymns 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 res