On the same occasion he allows himself to be carried away from the subject of monasticism to the complaints regarding the too frequent Feasts and Fasts and the formalism pervading the whole life of the Church, to which we referred on page 227. Returning to the monks, he declares that he finds the interior man so greatly lacking in them that (without considering the many exceptions) they were the cause of the hostile attitude which the world assumed towards them. “Instead of rejoicing in shame, they are only monks in appearance; but I know that if they possessed love they would be the happiest of men, happier than the old hermits, because they are daily exposed to the cross and contempt. But to-day there is no class of men more presumptuous than they.”[708] At the same time, however, he blames the religious who are too zealous for his liking, saying: “they are desirous of imitating the works of the Saints and are proud of their Founders and Fathers; but this is merely trumpery, because they wish to do the same great works themselves and yet neglect the spirit; they are like the Thomists and Scotists and the other sects, who defend the writings and words of their pet authors without cultivating the spirit, yea rather stifling it ... but they are hypocrites, as Saints they are not holy, as righteous they are anything but righteous, and, while ostensibly performing good works, they, in fact, do nothing.”[709] And what sort of works do the religious perform? “In the same way that nowadays all workmen are as lazy as though they were asleep all day, so religious and priests sleep at their prayer from laziness, both spiritually and corporally; they do everything with the utmost indolence ... this fault is so widespread that there is hardly one who is free from it.”[710] “Now,” he exclaims passionately, speaking of the monks and clergy, “almost all follow their vocation against their will and without any love for it.” “How many there are who would gladly let everything go, ceremonies, prayers, rules and all, if the Pope would only dispense from them, as indeed he could.” “We ought to perform these things willingly and gladly, not from fear of remorse of conscience, or of punishment, or from the hope of reward and honour. But supposing it were left free to each one to fast, pray, obey, go to church, etc., I believe that in one year everything would be at an end, all the churches empty and the altars forsaken.”[711] He does not remember that shortly before he had been complaining that outward observances were taken too seriously so that they were looked upon as necessary means of salvation (“_sine his non esse salutem_”), that “the whole of religion was made to consist in their fulfilment to the neglect of the actual commandments of God, of faith and love,” and that the “lower classes observe them under the impression that their eternal salvation depends upon them.”[712] These complaints, too, he