fer under their influence,--one plain fact at
least is visible. The people substantially learnt that all evils which
could touch either their spirits or their bodies might be escaped by
means which resolved themselves, scarcely disguised, into the payment of
moneys.

[Sidenote: The Protestants turn to the Bible and to the life of Christ.]

The superstition had lingered long; the time had come when it was to pass
away. Those in whom some craving lingered for a Christian life turned to
the heart of the matter, to the book which told them who Christ was, and
what he was; and finding there that holy example for which they longed,
they flung aside in one noble burst of enthusiastic passion the disguise
which had concealed it from them. They believed in Christ, not in the
bowing rood, or the pretended wood of the cross on which he suffered; and
when that saintly figure had once been seen,--the object of all love, the
pattern of all imitation,--thenceforward neither form nor ceremony should
stand between them and their God.

[Sidenote: The dangers which they had to encounter.]

[Sidenote: Henry VIII. their only and very doubtful friend.]

[Sidenote: Two thousand books out against transubstantiation.]

Under much confusion of words and thoughts, confusion pardonable in all
men, and most of all in them, this seems to me to be transparently
visible in the aim of these "Christian Brothers"; a thirst for some
fresh and noble enunciation of the everlasting truth, the one essential
thing for all men to know and believe. And therefore they were strong;
and therefore they at last conquered. Yet if we think of it, no common
daring was required in those who would stand out at such a time in
defence of such a cause. The bishops might seize them on mere suspicion;
and the evidence of the most abandoned villains sufficed for their
conviction.[42] By the act of Henry V., every officer, from the lord
chancellor to the parish constable, was sworn to seek them out and
destroy them; and both bishops and officials had shown no reluctance to
execute their duty. Hunted like wild beasts from hiding-place to
hiding-place, decimated by the stake, with the certainty that however
many years they might be reprieved, their own lives would close at last
in the same fiery trial; beset by informers, imprisoned, racked, and
scourged; worst of all, haunted by their own infirmities, the flesh
shrinking before the dread of a death of agony,--thus it was tha