It was among the thousands who, like the boy Thomas, thronged to the
Latin schools, that the new movement won its most zealous followers.
These children of the people carried from house to house with unwearied
activity their new ideas and information. Many of them never arrived at
the university; they endeavoured to support themselves by private
tuition, or as correctors of the press. Most of the city, and in later
times the village schools were occupied by those who could read Virgil,
and understand the bitter humour of the Klagebriefes, _de miseria
plebenorum_. So great were their numbers that the reformers soon urged
them to learn, however late, some trade, in order to maintain
themselves honestly. Many members of guilds in the German cities were
qualified to furnish commentaries to the papal bulls, and translate
them to their fellow-citizens; and subtle theological questions were
eagerly discussed in the drinking-rooms. Great was the influence
exercised by these men on the small circles around them. Some years
afterwards they, together with the poor students of divinity who spread
themselves as preachers over all Germany, became a great society; and
it was these democrats of the new teaching who represented the Pope as
antichrist in the popular plays, harangued the armed multitudes of
insurgent peasants, and made war on the old Church in printed
discourses, popular songs, and coarse dialogues.

In this way they made preparation for what was coming. But however
clearly it had been shown by the Humanitarians that the Church had in
many places falsified the Holy Scriptures, however humorously they had
derided the tool of the Inquisition--the baptized Jew Pfefferkorn, with
his pretty little wife--and however zealously the small school teachers
had carried among the people the colloquies of Erasmus on fasting, &c.,
and his work on the education of children, yet it was not their new
learning alone that gave birth to the Reformation and the spiritual
freedom of Germany. Deeper lay the sources of this mighty stream; it
sprang from the foundation of the German mind, and was brought to light
by the secret longings of the heart, that it might, by the work of
destruction and renovation, transform the life of the nation.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MENTAL STRUGGLES OF A YOUTH, AND HIS
ENTRANCE INTO A MONASTERY.
(1510.)

Great