Page:Gregor The story of Bohemia.pdf/446

 uted among the people their own pietistic productions, whose aim was not to instruct the mind and open the understanding, but to fill the soul with superstitious fears, and teach the people to practice innumerable petty ceremonies. Instead of teaching sound morals, they told the people empty and often immoral legends about the lives of the saints.

It was at this time that John of Nepomuk was canonized, and some of the legends related about this bogus saint are truly scandalous. The land was filled with shrines, at which false miracles were performed by the crafty and depraved monks, and the people deluded to make pilgrimages and offerings. It is worthy of remark that the truly great and good men in the nation’s history, that deserved to be enshrined in the hearts of the people as saints, were entirely overshadowed by new saints, that had nothing to recommend them but some stupid miracle invented by an equally stupid monk. Their pietistic teachings extended into all the relations of life, and it was due to these same monks that the simple greeting common among European nations was exchanged for the long one of “Praised be Jesus Christ.’

How well the monks succeeded in inculcating their superstitious teachings is proved by the numerous laws passed at this time against witchcraft. Indeed, the fearful demoralization that followed in the intellectual condition of the people may be laid at the door of these same monks. After the war, the university also came under the control of the Jesuits; and as an illustration of how they hindered all free thought, even among the faculty, may he given the following: Every professor, before being permitted to give lectures, was