Priest, showing him some masses.
Then here’s the thing for you.
The World, rejecting them with alarm.
Than these no sermon can be longer.
Priest, showing others.
Here are others.
The World, refusing them.
No! no! no!
Priest, finding that the World wants neither long nor short masses.
What you want you do not know.
Then Le Conseiller (the Counsellor), a wise and enlightened man, recommends a new remedy, one both harmless and effectual, which is beginning to make a great noise. What is it, say?
asks the World; the Counsellor answers: A thing which no man dares gainsay ...
The Bible.
The World does not know what this new medicine means: another character strives in vain to inspire him with confidence: Believe me, Mr. World, there’s not a fool
But knows it.
The World will not have it at any price. It was known already at Geneva in 1523 that the world was giving a bad reception to the Gospel: ‘They shall say all manner of evil against you, and shall persecute you.’ As he could not be cured by the priests, and would not be cured by the Bible, the World called in the Doctor (le Médecin), and carefully described his disease: I am so troubled, and teased, and tormented,
With all the rubbish that they have invented ...
That flat here on my bed I lie.
Doctor.
What rubbish?
The World.
That a deluge by-and-by
Will come, and that a fire to boot
Will burn us all both branch and root.
But the Doctor happens to be (as was often the case in the sixteenth century) one of those who believe the text of the Bible to be infallible; he begins to paint the liveliest picture of the disorders of the clergy, in order to induce his patient to take the remedy prescribed for him:
Why are you troubled, Sir World, at that?
Do not vex yourself any more
At seeing these rogues and thieves by the score
Buying and selling the cure of souls ...
Children still in their nurses’ arms
Made abbots and bishops and priors...
* * * * *
For their pleasure they kill their brothers,
Squander their own goods and seize another’s;
To flattering tongues they lend their ear;
For the merest trifle they kindle the flame
Of war, to the shame of the christian name.[318]
The World, astonished at a description so far from catholic, becomes suspicious, thinks the language heretical, and exclaims:
... Mere fables these:
From the land of Luther they came.
Doctor.
Upon Luther’s back men lay the blame,
If you speak of sin....