The university seems rather a cold world after the dear old home at
Eisenach. But it went to my heart to see how our mother and Else
struggle, and how worn and thin they look. Happily for them, they have
still hope in the great invention, and I would not take it away for the
world. But meantime, I must at once do something to help. I can
sometimes save some viands from my meals, which are portioned out to us
liberally on this foundation, and sell them; and I can occasionally earn
a little by copying themes for the richer students, or sermons and
postils for the monks. The printing-press has certainly made that means
of maintenance more precarious; but printed books are still very dear,
and also very large, and the priests are often glad of small copies of
fragments of the postils, or orations of the fathers, written off in a
small, clear hand, to take with them on their circuits around the
villages. There is also writing to be done for the lawyers, so that I do
not despair of earning something: and if my studies are retarded a
little, it does not so much matter. It is not for me to aspire to great
things, unless, indeed, they can be reached by small and patient steps.
I have a work to do for the family. My youth must be given to supporting
them by the first means I can find. If I succeed, perhaps Christopher or
Pollux will have leisure to aim higher than I can; or, perhaps, in
middle and later life I myself shall have leisure to pursue the studies
of these great old classics, which seem to make the horizon of our
thoughts so wide, and the world so glorious and large, and life so deep.
It would certainly be a great delight to devote one's self, as Martin
Luther is now able to do, to literature and philosophy. His career is
opening nobly. This spring he has taken his degree as Master of Arts,
and he has been lecturing on Aristotle's physics and logic. He has great
power of making dim things clear, and old things fresh. His lectures are
crowded. He is also studying law, in order to qualify himself for some
office in the State. His parents (judging from his father's letters)
seem to centre all their hopes in him; and it is almost the same here at
the university. Great things are expected of him; indeed there scarcely
seems any career that is not open to him. And he is a man of such heart,
as well as intellect, that he seems to make all the university, the
professors as well as the students, look on him as a kind of possession
of their own. All seem to feel a property in his success. Just as it was
with our little circle at Eisenach, so it is with the great circle at
the university. He is _our_ Master Martin; and in every step of his
ascent we ourselves feel a little higher. I wonder, if his fame should
indeed spread as we anticipate, if it will be the same one day with all
Germany? if the whole land will say exultingly by-and-by--_our_ Martin
Luther?
Not that he is without enemies; his temper is too hot and his heart too
warm for that negative distinction of phlegmatic negative natures.
_June_, 1505.
Martin Luther came to me a few days since, looking terribly agitated.
His friend Alexius has been assassinated, and he takes it exceedingly to
heart; not only, I think, because of the loss of one he loved, but
because it brings death so terribly near, and awakens again those
questionings which I know are in the depths of his heart, as well as of
mine, about God, and judgment, and the dark, dread future before us,
which we cannot solve, yet cannot escape nor forget.
To-day we met again, and he was full of a book he had discovered in the
university library, where he spends most of his leisure hours. It was a
Latin Bible, which he had never seen before in his life. He marvelled
greatly to see so much more in it than in the Evangelia read in the
churches, or in the Collections of Homilies. He was called away to
lecture, or, he said, he could have read on for hours. Especially one
history seems to have impressed him deeply. It was in the Old Testament.
It was the story of the child Samuel and his mother Hannah. "He read it
quickly through," he said, "with hearty delight and joy; and because
this was all new to him, he began to wish from the bottom of his heart
that God would one day bestow on him such a book for his own."
I suppose it is the thought of his own pious mother which makes this
history interest him so peculiarly. It is indeed a beautiful history, as
he told it me, and makes one almost wish one had been born in the times
of the old Hebrew monarchy. It seems as if God listened so graciously
and readily then to that poor sorrowful woman's prayers. And if we could
only, each of us, hear that voice from heaven, how joyful it would be to
reply, like that blessed child, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth;"
and then to learn, without possibility of mistake, what God really
requires of each of us. I suppose, however, the monks do feel as sure of
their vocation as the holy child of old, when they leave home and the
world for the service of the Church. It would be a great help if other
people had vocations to their various works in life, like the prophet
Samuel and (I suppose) the monks, that we might all go on fearlessly,
with a firm step, each in his appointed path, and feel sure that we are
doing the right thing, instead of perhaps drawing down judgments on
those we would die to serve, by our mistakes and sins. It can hardly be
intended that all men should be monks and nuns. Would to heaven,
therefore, that laymen had also their vocation, instead of this terrible
uncertainty and doubt that will shadow the heart at times, that we may
have missed our path (as I did that night in the snow-covered forest),
and, like Cain, be flying from the presence of God, and gathering on us
and ours his curse.
_July_ 12, 1505.
There is a great gloom over the university. The plague is among us. Many
are lying dead who, only last week, were full of youth and hope. Numbers
of the professors, masters, and students have fled to their homes, or to
various villages in the nearest reaches of the Thuringian forest. The
churches are thronged at all the services. The priests and monks (those
who remain in the infected city) take advantage of the terror the
presence of the pestilence excites, to remind people of the more awful
terrors of that dreadful day of judgment and wrath which no one will be
able to flee. Women, and sometimes men, are borne fainting from the
churches, and often fall at once under the infection, and never are seen
again. Martin Luther seems much troubled in mind. This epidemic,
following so close on the assassination of his friend, seems to
overwhelm him. But he does not talk of leaving the city. Perhaps the
terrors which weigh most on him are those the preachers recall so
vividly to us just now, from which there is no flight by change of
place, but only by change of life. During this last week, especially
since he was exposed to a violent thunder-storm on the high road near
Erfurt, he has seemed strangely altered. A deep gloom is on his face,
and he seems to avoid his old friends. I have scarcely spoken to him.
_July_ 14.
To-day, to my great surprise, Martin has invited me and several other of
his friends to meet at his rooms on the day after to-morrow, to pass a
social evening in singing and feasting. The plague has abated; yet I
rather wonder at any one thinking of merry-making yet. They say,
however, that a merry heart is the best safe-guard.
_July_ 17.
The secret of Martin Luther's feast is opened now. The whole university
is in consternation. He has decided on becoming a monk. Many think it is
a sudden impulse, which may yet pass away. I do not. I believe it is the
result of the conflict of years, and that he has only yielded, in this
act, to convictions which have been recurring to him continually during
all his brilliant university career.
Never did he seem more animated than yesterday evening. The hours flew
by in eager, cheerful conversation. A weight seemed removed from us. The
pestilence was departing; the professors and students were returning. We
felt life resuming its old course, and ventured once more to look
forward with hope. Many of us had completed our academical course, and
were already entering the larger world beyond--the university of life.
Some of us had appointments already promised, and most of us had hopes
of great things in the future; the less definite the prospects, perhaps
the more brilliant. Martin Luther did not hazard any speculations as to
his future career; but that surprised none of us. His fortune, we said,
was insured already; and many a jesting claim was put in for his future
patronage, when he should be a great man.
We had excellent music also, as always at any social gathering where
Martin Luther is. His clear, true voice was listened to with applause in
many a well-known song, and echoed in joyous choruses afterward by the
whole party. So the evening passed, until the university hour for repose
had nearly arrived; when suddenly, in the silence after the last note of
the last chorus had died away, he bid us all farewell; for on the
morrow, he said, he purposed to enter the Augustinian monastery as a
novice! At first, some treated this as a jest; but his look and bearing
soon banished that idea. Then all earnestly endeavoured to dissuade him
from his purpose. Some spoke of the expectations the university had
formed of him--others, of the career in the world open to him; but at
all this he only smiled. When, however, one of us reminded him of his
father, and the disappointment it might cause in his home, I noticed
that a change came over his face, and I thought there was a slight
quiver on his lip. But all,--friendly remark, calm remonstrance,
fervent, affectionate entreaties,--all were unavailing.
"To-day," he said, "you see me; after this you will see me no more."
Thus we separated. But this morning, when some of his nearest friends
went to his rooms early, with the faint hope of yet inducing him to
listen, while we pressed on him the thousand unanswerable arguments
which had occurred to us since we parted from him, his rooms were empty,
and he was nowhere to be found. To all our inquiries we received no
reply but that Master Martin had gone that morning, before it was light,
to the Augustinian cloister.
Thither we followed him, and knocked loudly at the heavy convent gates.
After some minutes they were slightly opened, and a sleepy porter
appeared.
"Is Martin Luther here?" we asked.
"He is here!" was the reply; not, we thought, without a little triumph
in the tone.
"We wish to speak with him," demanded one of us.
"No one is to speak with him," was the grim rejoinder.
"Until when?" we asked.
There was a little whispering inside, and then came the decisive answer,
"Not for a month at least."
We would have lingered to parley further, but the heavy nailed doors
were closed against us, we heard the massive bolts rattle as they were
drawn, and all our assaults with fists or iron staffs on the convent
gates, from that moment did not awaken another sound within.
"Dead to the world, indeed!" murmured one at length; "the grave could
not be more silent."
Baffled, and hoarse with shouting, we wandered back again to Martin
Luther's rooms. The old familiar rooms, where we had so lately spent
hours with him in social converse; where I and many of us had spent so
many an hour in intimate, affectionate intercourse,--his presence would
be there no more; and the unaltered aspect of the mute, inanimate things
only made the emptiness and change more painful by the contrast.
And yet, when we began to examine more closely, the aspect of many
things was changed. His flute and lute, indeed, lay on the table, just
as he had left them on the previous evening. But the books--scholastic,
legal, and classical--were piled up carefully in one corner, and
directed to the booksellers. In looking over the well-known volumes, I
only missed two, Virgil and Plautus; I suppose he took these with him.
Whilst we were looking at a parcel neatly rolled up in another place,
the old man who kept his rooms in order came in, and said, "That is
Master Martin's master's robe, his holiday attire, and his master's
ring. They are to be sent to his parents at Mansfeld."
A choking sensation came over me as I thought of the father who had
struggled so hard to maintain his son, and had hoped so much from him,
receiving that packet. Not from the dead. Worse than from the dead, it
seemed to me. Deliberately self-entombed; deliberately with his own
hands building up a barrier between him and all who love him best. With
the dead, if they are happy, we may hold communion--at least the Creed
speaks of the communion of saints; we may pray to them; or, at the
worst, we may pray for them. But between the son in the convent and the
father at Mansfeld the barrier is not merely one of stone and earth. It
is of the impenetrable iron of will and conscience. It would be a
_temptation_ now for Martin Luther to pour out his heart in affectionate
words to father, mother, or friend.
And yet, if he is right,--if the flesh is only to be subdued, if God is
only to be pleased, if heaven is only to be won in this way,--it is of
little moment indeed what the suffering may be to us or any belonging to
us in this fleeting life, down which the grim gates of death which close
it, ever cast their long shadow.
May not Martin serve his family better in the cloister than at the
emperor's court, for is not the cloister the court of a palace more
imperial?--we may say, the very audience-chamber of the King of kings.
Besides, if he had a vocation, what curse might not follow despising it?
Happy for those whose vocation is so clear that they dare not disobey
it; or whose hearts are so pure that they would not if they dared!
_July_ 19.
These two days the university has been in a ferment at the disappearance
of Martin Luther. Many are indignant with him, and more with the monks,
who, they say, have taken advantage of a fervent impulse, and drawn him
into their net. Some, however, especially those of the school of
Mutianus--the Humanists--laugh, and say there are ways through the
cloister to the court,--and even to the tiara. But those misunderstand
Martin. We who know him are only too sure that he will be a true monk,
and that for him there is no gate from the cloister back into the world.
It appears now that he had been meditating this step more than a
fortnight.
On the first of this month (July) he was walking on the road between
Erfurt and Stotterheim, when a thunder-storm which had been gathering
over the Thuringian forest, and weighing with heavy silence on the
plague-laden air, suddenly burst over his head. He was alone, and far
from shelter. Peal followed peal, succeeded by terrible silences; the
forked lightning danced wildly around him, until at length one terrific
flash tore up the ground at his feet, and nearly stunned him. He was
alone, and far from shelter; he felt his soul equally alone and
unsheltered. The thunder seemed to him the angry voice of an
irresistible, offended God. The next flash might wither his body to
ashes, and smite his soul into the flames it so terribly recalled; and
the next thunder-peal which followed might echo like the trumpet of doom
over him lying unconscious, deaf, and mute in death. Unconscious and
mute as to his body! but who could imagine to what terrible intensity of
conscious, everlasting anguish his soul might have awakened; what
wailings might echo around his lost spirit, what cries of unavailing
entreaty he might be pouring forth? Unavailing then! not, perhaps wholly
unavailing now! He fell on his knees,--he prostrated himself on the
earth, and cried in his anguish and terror, "Help, beloved St. Anne, and
I will straightway become a monk."
The storm rolled slowly away; but the irrevocable words had been spoken,
and the peals of thunder, as they rumbled more and more faintly in the
distance, echoed on his heart like the dirge of all his worldly life.
He reached Erfurt in safety, and, distrustful of his own steadfastness,
breathed nothing of his purpose except to those who would, he thought,
sustain him in it. This was no doubt the cause of his absent and
estranged looks, and of his avoiding us during that fortnight.
He confided his intention first to Andrew Staffelstein, the rector of
the university, who applauded and encouraged him, and took him at once
to the new Franciscan cloister. The monks received him with delight, and
urged his immediately joining their order. He told them he must first
acquaint his father of his purpose, as an act of confidence only due to
a parent who had denied himself so much and toiled so hard to maintain
his son liberally at the university. But the rector and the monks
rejoined that he must not consult with flesh and blood; he must "forsake
father and mother, and steal away to the cross of Christ." "Whoso
putteth his hand to the plough and looketh back," said they, "is not
worthy of the kingdom of God." To remain in the world was peril. To
return to it was perdition.
A few religious women to whom the rector mentioned Martin's intentions,
confirmed him in them with fervent words of admiration and
encouragement.
Did not one of them relent, and take pity on his mother and his father?
And yet, I doubt if Martin's mother would have interposed one word of
remonstrance between him and the cloister. She is a very religious
woman. To offer her son, her pride, to God, would have been offering the
dearest part of herself; and women have a strength in self-sacrifice,
and a mysterious joy, which I feel no doubt would have carried her
through.
With Martin's father it would no doubt have been different. He has not a
good opinion of the monks, and he has a very strong sense of paternal
and filial duty. He, the shrewd, hard-working, successful peasant, looks
on the monks as a company of drones, who, in imagining they are giving
up the delights of the world, are often only giving up its duties. He
was content to go through any self-denial and toil that Martin, the
pride of the whole family, might have scope to develop his abilities.
But to have the fruit of all his counsel, and care, and work buried in a
convent, will be very bitter to him. It was terrible advice for the
rector to give his son. And yet, no doubt, God has the first claim; and
to expose Martin to any influence which might have induced him to give
up his vocation, would have been perilous indeed. No doubt the conflict
in Martin's heart was severe enough as it was. His nature is so
affectionate, his sense of filial duty so strong, and his honour and
love for his parents so deep. Since the step is taken, Holy Mary aid him
not to draw back!
_December_, 1505.
This morning I saw a sight I never thought to have seen. A monk, in the
grey frock and cowl of the Augustinians, was pacing slowly through the
streets with a heavy sack on his shoulders. The ground was covered with
snow, his feet were bare; but it was no unfrequent sight, and I was idly
and half-unconsciously watching him pause at door after door, and humbly
receiving any contributions that were offered, stow them away in the
convent-sack, when at length he stopped at the door of the house I was
in, and then, as his face turned up towards the window where I stood, I
caught the eye of Martin Luther!
I hurried to the door with a loaf in my hand, and, before offering it to
him, would have embraced him as of old; but he bowed low as he received
the bread, until his forehead nearly touched the ground, and, murmuring
a Latin "Gratias," would have passed on.
"Martin," I said, "do you not know me?"
"I am on the service of the convent," he said. "It is against the rules
to converse or to linger."
It was hard to let him go without another word.
"God and the saints help thee, Brother Martin!" I said.
He half turned, crossed himself, bowed low once more, as a maid-servant
threw him some broken meat, said meekly, "God be praised for every gift
he bestoweth," and went on his toilsome quest for alms with stooping
form and downcast eyes. But how changed his face was! The flush of youth
and health quite faded from the thin, hollow cheeks; the fire of wit and
fancy all dimmed in the red, sunken eyes! Fire there is indeed in them
still, but it seemed to me of the kind that consumes--not that warms and
cheers.
They are surely harsh to him at the convent. To send him who was the
pride and ornament of the university not six months ago, begging from
door to door, at the houses of friends and pupils, with whom he may not
even exchange a greeting! Is there no pleasure to the obscure and
ignorant monks in thus humbling one who was so lately so far above them?
The hands which wield such rods need to be guided by hearts that are
very noble or very tender. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that Brother
Martin inflicts severer discipline on himself than any that can be laid
on him from without. It is no external conflict that has thus worn and
bowed him down in less than half a year.
I fear he will impose some severe mortification or himself for having
spoken those few words to which I tempted him.
But if it is his vocation, and if it is for heaven, and if he is thereby
earning merits to bestow on others, any conflict could no doubt be
endured!
_July_, 1506.
Brother Martin's novitiate has expired, and he has taken the name of
Augustine, but we shall scarcely learn to call him by it. Several of us
were present a few days since at his taking the final vows in the
Augustinian Church. Once more we heard the clear, pleasant voice which
most of us had heard, in song and animated conversation, on that
farewell evening. It sounded weak and thin, no doubt with fasting. The
garb of the novice was laid aside, the monk's frock was put on, and
kneeling below the altar steps, with the prior's hands on his bowed
head, he took the vow in Latin:--
"I, Brother Martin, do make profession and promise obedience unto
Almighty God, unto Mary, ever virgin, and unto thee, my brother, prior
of this cloister, in the name and in the stead of the general prior of
the order of the Eremites of St. Augustine, the bishop and his regular
successors, to live in poverty and chastity after the rule of the said
St. Augustine until death."
Then the burning taper, symbol of the lighted and ever-vigilant heart,
was placed in his hand. The prior murmured a prayer over him, and
instantly from the whole of the monks burst the hymn, "Veni Sancte
Spiritus."
He knelt while they were singing; and then the monks led him up the
steps into the choir, and welcomed him with the kiss of brotherhood.
Within the screen, within the choir, among the holy brotherhood inside,
who minister before the altar! And we, his old friends, left outside in
the nave, separated from him for ever by the screen of that irrevocable
vow!
For ever! Is it for ever? Will there indeed be such a veil, an
impenetrable barrier, between us and him at the judgment-day? And we
outside? A barrier impassable for ever then, but not now, not yet.
_January_, 1507.
I have just returned from another Christmas at home. Things look a
little brighter there. This last year, since I took my master's degree,
I have been able to help them a little more effectually with the money I
receive from my pupils. It was a delight to take our dear, self-denying,
loving Else a new dress for holidays, although she protested her old
crimson petticoat and black jacket were as good as ever. The child Eva
has still that deep, calm, earnest look in her eyes, as if she saw into
the world of things unseen and eternal, and saw there what filled her
heart with joy. I suppose it is that angelic depth of her eyes, in
contrast with the guileless, rosy smile of the child-like lips, which
gives the strange charm to her face, and makes one think of the pictures
of the child-angels.
She can read the Church Latin now easily, and delights especially in the
old hymns. When she repeats them in that soft, reverent, childish voice,
they seem to me deeper and more sacred than when sung by the fullest
choir. Her great favourite is St. Bernard's "Jesu Dulcis Memoria," and
his "Salve Caput Cruentatum;" but some verses of the "Dies Irae" also are
very often on her lips. I used to hear her warbling softly about the
house, or at her work, with a voice like a happy dove hidden in the
depths of some quiet wood,--
"Querens me sedisti lassus,"
Jesu mi dulcissime, Domine coelorum,
Conditor omnipotens, Rex universorum;
Quis jam actus sufficit mirari gestorum,
Quae te ferie compulit salus miserorum.
Te de coelo caritas traxit animarum,
Pro quibus palatium deserens praeclarum;
Miseram ingrediens vallum lacrymarum,
Opus durum suscipis, et iter amarum.[3]
[Footnote 3:
"Jesu, Sovereign Lord of heaven, sweetest Friend to me.
King of all the universe, all was made by thee;
Who can know or comprehend the wonders thou has wrought,
Since the saving of the lost thee so low hath brought?
Thee the love of souls drew down from beyond the sky,--
Drew thee from thy glorious home, thy palace bright and high!
To this narrow vale of tears thou thy footsteps bendest:
Hard the work thou tak'st on thee, rough the way thou wendest."]
The sonorous words of the ancient imperial language sound so sweet and
strange, and yet so familiar from the fresh childish voice. Latin seems
from her lips no more a dead language. It is as if she had learned it
naturally in infancy from listening to the songs of the angels, who
watched her in her sleep, or from the lips of a sainted mother bending
over her pillow from heaven.
One thing, however, seems to disappoint little Eva. She has a sentence
taken from a book her father left her before he died, but which she was
never allowed to see afterwards. She is always hoping to find the book
in which this sentence was, and has not yet succeeded.
I have little doubt myself that the book was some heretical volume
belonging to her father, who was executed for being a Hussite. It is to
be hoped, therefore, she will never find it. She did not tell me this
herself, probably because Else, to whom she mentioned it, discouraged
her in such a search. We all feel it is a great blessing to have rescued
that innocent heart from the snares of those pernicious heretics,
against whom our Saxon nation made such a noble struggle. There are not
very many of the Hussites left now in Bohemia. As a national party they
are indeed destroyed, since the Calixtines separated from them. There
are, however, still a few dragging out a miserable existence among the
forests and mountains; and it is reported that these opinions have not
yet even been quite crushed in the cities, in spite of the vigorous
measures used against them, but that not a few secretly cling to their
tenets, although outwardly conforming to the Church. So inveterate is
the poison of heresy, and so great the danger from which little Eva has
been rescued.
ERFURT, _May 2_, 1507.
To-day once more the seclusion and silence which have enveloped Martin
Luther since he entered the cloister have been broken. This day he has
been consecrated priest, and has celebrated his first mass. There was a
great feast at the Augustinian convent; offerings poured in abundance
into the convent treasury, and Martin's father, John Luther, came from
Mansfeld to be present at the ceremony. He is reconciled at last to his
son (whom for a long time he refused to see); although not, I believe,
to his monastic profession. It is certainly no willing sacrifice on the
father's part. And no wonder. After toiling for years to place his
favourite son in a position where his great abilities might have scope,
it must have been hard to see everything thrown away just as success was
attained, for what seemed to him a willful, superstitious fancy. And
without a word of dutiful consultation to prepare him for the blow!
Having, however, at last made up his mind to forgive his son, he forgave
him like a father, and came in pomp with precious gifts to do him
honour. He rode to the convent gate with an escort of twenty horsemen,
and gave his son a present of twenty florins.
Brother Martin was so cheered by the reconciliation, that at the
ordination feast he ventured to try to obtain from his father not only
pardon, but sanction and approval. It was of the deepest interest to me
to hear his familiar eloquent voice again, pleading for his father's
approval. But he failed. In vain he stated in his own fervent words the
motives that had led to his vow; in vain did the monks around support
and applaud all he said. The old man was not to be moved.
"Dear father," said Martin, "what was the reason of thy objecting to my
choice to become a monk? Why wert thou then so displeased, and perhaps
art not reconciled yet? It is such a peaceful and godly life to live."
I cannot say that Brother Martin's worn and furrowed face spoke much for
the peacefulness of his life; but Master John Luther boldly replied in a
voice that all at the table might hear,--
"Didst thou never hear that a son must be obedient to his parents? And,
you learned men, did you never read the Scriptures, 'Thou shalt honour
thy father and thy mother?' God grant that those signs you speak of may
not prove to be lying wonders of Satan."
Brother Martin attempted no defence. A look of sharp pain came over his
face, as if an arrow had pierced his heart; but he remained quite
silent.
Yet he is a priest; he is endued with a power never committed even to
the holy angels--to transubstantiate bread into God--to sacrifice for
the living and the dead.
He is admitted into the inner circle of the court of heaven.
He is on board that sacred ark which once he saw portrayed at Magdeburg,
where priests and monks sail safely amidst a drowning world. And what is
more, he himself may, from his safe and sacred vessel, stoop down and
rescue perishing men; perhaps confer unspeakable blessings on the soul
of that very father whose words so wounded him.
For such ends well may he bear that the arrow should pierce his heart.
Did not a sword pierce thine, O mournful mother of consolations?
And he is certain of his vocation. He does not think as we in the world
so often must, "Is God leading me, or the devil? Am I resisting His
higher calling in only obeying the humbler call of every-day duty? Am I
bringing down blessings on those I love, or curses?"
Brother Martin, without question, has none of these distracting doubts.
He may well bear any other anguish which may meet him _in_ the ways of
God, and _because_ he has chosen them. At least he has not to listen to
such tales as I have heard lately from a young knight, Ulrich von
Hutton, who is studying here at present, and has things to relate of the
monks, priests, and bishops in Rome itself which tempt one to think all
invisible things a delusion, and all religion a pretence.