Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/515

493 us a Child is born, and that children are appeased easily. Before the image of the Virgin she began to think of the Saviour's infancy, and, with floods of passionate tears, besought the Child through the benignity of His childhood to have mercy upon her. She heard a voice saying to her that through the benignity of that childhood which she had invoked, her sins were forgiven."

But enough of these stories. Nor is there need to enlarge upon the relic-worship and other superstitions of the Middle Ages. One sees such matters on every side. It was all a matter of course, and disapprovals were rare. Such conceptions of sin and the devil's part in it affected the morality of clergy as well as laity. The morals of the latter could not rise above those of their instructors; and the layman's religion of masses, veneration of relics, pilgrimages, almsgiving and endowment of monasteries, scarcely interfered with the cruelty and rapine to which he might be addicted.