Luther was shocked at the levity of Italian monks who were babbling
faulty Latin prayers which they did not understand and remarked laughing
to him: "Never mind; the Holy Ghost understands us, and the devil flees
apace."

Luther's confidence in the boasted unity of the Roman Church was
somewhat shaken when he discovered that he could not read mass in any
church in the territory at Milan, because there the Ambrosian form of
service was prescribed while he had been trained to the Gregorian.

Luther shook his head at the freedom of certain public manners of the
Italians which reminded him of dogs and of what he had read about
Kerkyra.

Luther heard of a Lenten collation, probably at the abbey of San
Benedetto de Larione, where the word "fast" had to be spelled with an
_e_ as the second letter.

The loquaciousness, spicy talk, blasphemy, dishonesty, treachery,
quarrelsomeness, and deadly animosities of the Italians, Luther regards
as strange, considering that they live so near to the Holy City.

He wondered why the Italians do not permit their women to go out of
their houses except deeply veiled.

He finds that the Italians show no respect for their beautiful churches
and the divine service conducted in them. Even on great festivals the
magnificent cathedrals are almost empty, the worshipers are chatting
with one another while the service is in progress. Even quarrels are
settled at these holy places, sometimes with the knife. When there is a
burial, they hurry the corpse to the grave, not even the relatives being
in attendance.

He is grieved at the irreligious manner in which the priests at Rome
read mass. They hurry through the performance with incredible rapidity.
They crowd each other away from the altar in their haste to get their
performance finished. "Hurry, hurry! Begone! Come away!" he hears them
calling to one-another. Sometimes two priests are reading mass at one
altar at the same time. They had finished the whole mass before Luther
had reached the Gospel in the service of the mass. And then they would
receive money from the bystanders who had come in and had watched them.
In a half hour a priest could get a handful of silver. Luther refused
such gifts.

Luther heard few preachers at Rome, and those that he heard he did not
like. They were very lively in the delivery of their sermons, they would
run to and fro in their pulpit, bend far over toward the audience, utter
violent cries, change their voi