o consecrate his remaining hours to the exercise of
Christian virtues. Children were frequently seen, while laboring under
the plague, breathing out their spirit with prayer and songs of
thanksgiving. An awful sense of contrition seized Christians everywhere;
they resolved to forsake their vices, to make restitution for past
offences, before they were summoned hence, to seek reconciliation with
their Maker, and to avert, by self-chastisement, the punishment due to
their former sins.

Human nature would be exalted could the countless noble actions which,
in times of most imminent danger, were performed in secret, be recorded
for future generations. They, however, have no influence on the course
of worldly events. They are known only to silent eye-witnesses, and soon
fall into oblivion. But hypocrisy, illusion, and bigotry stalk abroad
undaunted; they desecrate what is noble, they pervert what is divine, to
the unholy purposes of selfishness; which hurries along every good
feeling in the false excitement of the age. Thus it was in the years of
this plague.

In the fourteenth century the monastic system was still in its full
vigor, the power of the religious orders and brotherhoods was revered by
the people, and the hierarchy was still formidable to the temporal
power. It was, therefore, in the natural constitution of society that
bigoted zeal, which in such times makes a show of public acts of
penance, should avail itself of the semblance of religion. But this took
place in such a manner that unbridled, self-willed penitence degenerated
into luke-warmness, renounced obedience to the hierarchy, and prepared a
fearful opposition to the Church, paralyzed as it was by antiquated
forms.

While all countries were filled with lamentations and woe, there first
arose in Hungary, and afterward in Germany, the Brotherhood of the
Flagellants, called also the Brethren of the Cross, or Cross-bearers,
who took upon themselves the repentance of the people for the sins they
had committed, and offered prayers and supplications for the averting of
this plague. This order consisted chiefly of persons of the lower class,
who were either actuated by sincere contrition or who joyfully availed
themselves of this pretext for idleness and were hurried along with the
tide of distracting frenzy. But as these brotherhoods gained in repute,
and were welcomed by the people with veneration and enthusiasm, many
nobles and ecclesiastics ranged themselv