ighed most heavily on his conscience, not a word being spoken until
absolution was granted by one of them in the following form:

"For their dear sakes who torture bore,
Rise, brother, go and sin no more."

Had this been all they might have been left to their own devices, but
they went farther. The day of judgment, they declared, was at hand. A
letter had been addressed from Jerusalem by the Creator to his sinning
creatures, and it was their mission to spread this through Europe. They
preached, confessed, and forgave sins, declared that the blood shed in
their flagellations had a share with the blood of Christ in atoning for
sin, that their penances were a substitute for the sacraments of the
church, and that the absolution granted by the clergy was of no avail.
They taught that all men were brothers and equal in the sight of God,
and upbraided the priests for their pride and luxury.

These doctrines and the extravagances of the Flagellants alarmed the
pope, Clement VI., who launched against the enthusiasts a bull of
excommunication, and ordered their persecution as heretics. This course,
at first, roused their enthusiasm to frenzy. Some of them even pretended
to be the Messiah, one of these being burnt as a heretic at Erfurt.
Gradually, however, as the plague died away, and the occasion for this
fanatical outburst vanished, the enthusiasm of the Flagellants went with
it, and they sunk from sight. In 1414 a troop of them reappeared in
Thuringia and Lower Saxony, and even surpassed their predecessors in
wildness of extravagance. With the dying out of this manifestation this
strange mania of the middle ages vanished, probably checked by the
growing intelligence of mankind.

_THE SWISS AT MORGARTEN_

On a sunny autumn morning, in the far-off year 1315, a gallant band of
horsemen wound slowly up the Swiss mountains, their forest of spears and
lances glittering in the ruddy beams of the new-risen sun, and extending
down the hill-side as far as the eye could reach. In the vanguard rode
the flower of the army, a noble cavalcade of knights, clad in complete
armor, and including nearly the whole of the ancient nobility of
Austria. At the head of this group rode Duke Leopold, the brother of
Frederick of Austria, and one of the bravest knights and ablest generals
of the realm. Following the van came a second division, composed of the
inferior leaders and the rank and file of the army.

Switzerland was to be s