The more they crave for pity, the more they are tormented.

"This fire is the anger of God which they have aroused; verily it may
never be put out."

One turns with loathing, with anger, and with contempt from this
production of medieval ecclesiasticism. When one thinks of the
thousands of simple and innocent people who must have been tortured
and driven half wild with terror by such infamous utterances as this,
one feels inclined to challenge the oft-repeated statement concerning
the many virtues of the medieval Church. But Brittany is not the only
place where this species of terrorism was in vogue, and that until
comparatively recent times. The writer can recall such descriptions as
this emanating from the pulpits of churches in Scottish villages only
some thirty years ago, and the strange thing is that people of that
generation were wont to look back with longing and admiration upon the
old style of condemnatory sermon, and to criticize the efforts of the
younger school of ministers as being wanting in force and lacking the
spirit of menace so characteristic of their forerunners. There are no
such sermons nowadays, they say. Let us thank God that to the credit
of human intelligence and human pity there are not!

The opposite to this picture is provided by the ballad on Heaven. It
is generally attributed to Michel de Kerodern, a Breton missionary of
the seventeenth century, but others claim its authorship for St Herve,
to whom we have already alluded. In any case it is as replete with
superstitions as its darker fellow. The soul, it says, passes the
moon, sun, and stars on its Heavenward way, and from that height turns
its eyes on its native land of Brittany. "Adieu to thee, my country!
Adieu to thee, world of suffering and dolorous burdens! Farewell,
poverty, affliction, trouble, and sin! Like a lost vessel the body
lies below, but wherever I turn my eyes my heart is filled with a
thousand felicities. I behold the gates of Paradise open at my
approach and the saints coming out to receive me. I am received in the
Palace of the Trinity, in the midst of honours and heavenly harmonies.
The Lord places on my head a beautiful crown and bids me enter into
the treasures of Heaven. Legions of archangels chant the praise of
God, each with a harp in his hand. I meet my father, my mother, my
brothers, the men of my country. Choirs of little angels fly hither
and thither over our heads like flocks of birds. Oh, happiness with