against the assaults of the
magistrates or the military. Persons stationed along the high roads
distributed religious tracts, and invited the passengers to take part in
the services.[764]

[Sidenote: THE PUBLIC PREACHINGS.]

The preacher was frequently some converted priest or friar, accustomed
to speak in public, who, having passed the greater part of his life in
battling for the Church, now showed equal zeal in overturning it. It
might be, however, that the orator was a layman; some peasant or
artisan, who, gifted with more wit, or possibly more effrontery, than
his neighbors, felt himself called on to assume the perilous vocation of
a preacher. The discourse was in French or Flemish, whichever might be
the language spoken in the neighborhood. It was generally of the homely
texture suited both to the speaker and his audience. Yet sometimes he
descanted on the woes of the land with a pathos which drew tears from
every eye; and at others gave vent to a torrent of fiery eloquence, that
kindled the spirit of the ancient martyr in the bosoms of his hearers.

These lofty flights were too often degraded by coarse and scurrilous
invectives against the pope, the clergy, and the Inquisition,--themes,
peculiarly grateful to his audience, who testified their applause by as
noisy demonstrations as if they had been spectators in a theatre. The
service was followed by singing some portion of the Psalms in the French
version of Marot, or in a Dutch translation which had recently appeared
in Holland,[765] and which, although sufficiently rude, passed with the
simple people for a wonderful composition. After this, it was common for
those who attended to present their infants for baptism; and many
couples profited by the occasion to have the marriage ceremony performed
with the Calvinistic rites. The exercises were concluded by a collection
for the poor of their own denomination. In fine, these meetings,
notwithstanding the occasional licence of the preacher, seem to have
been conducted with a seriousness and decorum which hardly merit the
obloquy thrown on them by some of the Catholic writers.

The congregation, it is true, was made up of rather motley materials.
Some went out merely to learn what manner of doctrine it was that was
taught; others, to hear the singing, where thousands of voices blended
together in rude harmony under the canopy of heaven; others, again, with
no better motive than amusement, to laugh at the oddity--pe