Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/493

1536.] were to be found among them … and all those pleasant fictions which had been bred at Rome, the canonizations and beatifications, the totquots and dispensations, the pardons of marvellous variety, stationaries and jubilaries, manuaries and oscularies, pedaries, and such other vanities—these had gracious reception; these were welcomed gladly in all their multiplicity. There was the ancient purgatory pickpurse—that which was suaged and cooled with a Franciscan's cowl laid upon a dead man's back, to the fourth part of his sins; that which was utterly to be spoiled, but of none other but the most prudent father the Pope, and of him as oft as he listed—a pleasant invention, and one so profitable to the feigners, that no emperor had taken more by taxes of his living subjects than those truly begotten children of the world obtained by dead men's tributes.

This was the modern gospel—the present Catholic faith,—which the English clergy loved and taught as faithfully as their brothers in Italy. 'Ye know the proverb,' the preacher continued, '"An evil crow an evil egg." The children of this world that are known to have so evil a father the world, so evil a grandfather the devil, cannot choose but be evil—the devil being such an one as never can be unlike himself. So of Envy, his well-beloved leman, he begot the World, and left it with Discord at nurse; which World, after it came to man's estate, had of many concubines many sons. These are our holy, holy men that say they are dead to the world; and none are more lively to the world. God is taking account of his stewards, as though he should