foolish superstition which requires celibacy and abstaining from meats. Such are not the commandments of God.' The Dominican in his pulpit listened with astonishment; the prisoner was preaching in the midst of the officers of justice, and the students heard him 'with great favour.' The poor Dominican, ashamed of his folly, left his sermon unpreached. After this the martyr was led back to the court, where sentence of death was pronounced upon him. Caturce surveyed his judges with indignation, and, as he left the tribunal, exclaimed in Latin: 'Thou seat of iniquity! Thou court of injustice!' He was now led to the scaffold, and at the stake continued exhorting the people to know Jesus Christ. 'It is impossible to calculate the great fruit wrought by his death,' says the chronicle, 'especially among the students then at the university of Toulouse,' that is to say, in the year 1532.[213] Certain preachers, however, who had taught the new doctrine, backslided deplorably at this time, and checked the progress of the Word in the south; among them were the prothonotary of Armagnac, the cordelier Des Noces, as well as his companion the youthful Melchior Flavin, 'a furious hypocrite,' as Beza calls him. One of those who had received in their hearts the fire that warmed the energetic Caturce, held firm to the truth, even in the presence of the stake: he was a grey friar named Marcii. Having performed 'wonders' by his preaching in Rouergue, he was taken to Toulouse, and there sealed with his blood the doctrines he had so faithfully proclaimed.[214] [Sidenote: TWO MODES OF REFORMATION.] We must soon turn to that external reformation imagined by some of the king's advisers, under the inspiration of the Queen of Navarre, and by certain German protestants who, under the influence of motives partly religious, partly political, proposed to reform Christendom by means of a council, without doing away with the Romish episcopate. But we must first return to that humble and powerful teacher, the noble representative of a scriptural and living reformation, who, while urging the necessity of a spiritual unity, set in the foremost rank the imprescriptible rights of truth. [Footnote 189: Seckendorf, pp. 1170, 1171.] [Footnote 190: 'Fratris iras pro viribus moderavit.'—Bezæ _Icones_.] [Footnote 191: 'Propter quæstum, cum contumelia Christi et cum periculo animarum.'—_Corp. Ref._ ii. p. 472.] [Footnote 192: Sleidan, ch. viii.] [Footnote 193: 'Ihm eine gnädige Mine gemacht.'—Seckendorf, p. 118.] [Footnote 194: Sleidan, ch. viii. p. 232.] [Footnote 195: 'Gallus rescripsit humanissime.'—_Corp. Ref._ ii. p. 503.] [Footnote 196: Du Bellay, _Mémoires_, iv. p. 167.] [Footnote 197: 'Sondern gienge alles unter einander wie das Viehe.— Schelhorn, p. 289.] [Footnote 198: 'Illi reges sua agunt negotia.'—_Corp. Ref._ ii. p. 518.] [Footnote 199: Du Bellay, _Mém._ p. 167.] [Footnote 200: Bèze, _Hist. Eccl._ i. p. 8.]