Ecolampadius-Reformation at Basle [pp. 218-236]

Basle before the Reformation.
elms. But with all this fair show, Basle was not exempt from
the moral corruption that reigned throughout western Christen dom. Drunkenness, profanity, impurity, abounded in her, as in
the other commercial cities of Europe. Of course, it was like
people, like priest; indeed the morals of the clergy were so
depraved, and their ignorance so gross, that the whole order from
bishop to begging friar had fallen into extreme contempt. In
the city and suburbs, there were no less than two hundred and
thirty ecclesiastics; an immense number for so small a com munity.
The position, which for many centuries the Mass has held
in the worship of the Romish church, renders it unneces sary that her priests should be preachers; the altar has in a
great measure displaced the pulpit. Still, it is quite certain,
as Neander shows, that the pulpit of the middle ages, was not
without its influence for good; indeed there is reason to think,
that it was one of the chief means of feeding the flame of
spiritual life, which, though feeble and flickering, was never
totally extinguished. With a liturgy in a dead language, edification was npossible; but a sermon addressed to the people in
their mother tongue, even when its staple consisted of idle
legends, might contain some crumbs of precious gospel truth,
some quotations of Holy Scripture, which would minister
nourishment to hungry souls. Basle appears to have been
favoured with some preachers of tolerable merit. One of them
named Surgant, wrote a Mianuqale Pastorumn, in which, among
other things, he exhorts his brethren to guard against exciting
the mirthfulness of their hearers; an advice, which the worthy
author, who seems to have been quite a humorist, found it
much easier to give to others than to observe himself. In
order to keep his audience awake, he would sometimes treat
them to a lively story, or a fable like that of the fox and the
crane. At the end of each division of his sermon, he would
announce, "I am now done with firstly or secondly, if any one
wants to cough or to blow his nose, now is the time." But with
all his waggery, his Manuale is not wanting in sound sense, and
in evidences of serious feeling. " The sermon," says he, "is
the means, which contributes most to the conversion of souls;"
and he severely censures those, who fancied that because the
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