In a sermon for Whitsun-Tuesday, he rebukes distractions in prayer, and he illustrates them in this unseemly way. He represents a priest engaged at his morning devotions, saying, “Pater noster qui es in cœlis—I say, lad, saddle the horse, I’m going to town to-day!—sanctificatur nomen tuum,—Cath’rine, put the pot on the fire!—fiat voluntas tua—Take care! the cat’s at the cheese!—panem nostrum quotidianum—Mind the white horse has his feed of oats.… Is this praying?” No, Gabriel, nor is this preaching! Another preacher of the same stamp was Menot. Michael Menot was born in Paris; he was a Franciscan, and died at an advanced age in 1518. Take this specimen of his reasoning— “The dance is a circular way; The way of the Devil is circular; Therefore the dance is the Devil’s way.” And he proves his minor by the Scriptural passages “circuivi terram,” “circuit quærens quem devoret,” “in circuitu impii ambulant.” In his sermon for Friday after Ash-Wednesday he thus expresses his sense of the value of magistrates: “Justices are like the cat which is put in charge of a cheese lest the mice should eat it. But if the cat lay tooth to it, by one bite he does more mischief than the mice could do in twenty. Just in the same manner,” &c. The following is a specimen of his style, a sad jumble of Latin and French. He is giving a graphic description of the prodigal son wasting his goods. “Mittit ad quærendum les drapiers, les grossiers, les marchands de soye, et se fait accoutrer de pied en cap; il n’y avait rien à redire. Quando vidit sibi pulchras caligas d’écarlate, bien tirées, la belle chemise froncée sur le collet, le pourpoint fringant de velours, la toque de Florence, les cheveux peignés, et qu’il se sentit le damas voler sur le dos, hæc secum dixit: Oportetne mihi aliquid? Or me faut-il rien? Non, tu as toutes tes plumes; il est temps de voler plus loin. Tu es nimis propè domum patris tui, pro benè faciendo casum tuum. Pueri qui semper dormierunt in atrio vel gremio matris suæ, nunquam sciverunt aliquid, et nunquam erunt nisi asini et insulsi, et ne seront jamais que nices et béjaunes. Bref qui ne fréquente pays nihil videt.” Of course this sermon was not thus preached, but it gives us an idea of Menot’s acquaintance with Latin, and of his utter inability to render the slang which had disfigured his vernacular by classic phrases. But it must not be supposed that all preachers of the fifteenth century were like these clerical jesters. Gabriel Biel was grave and dignified, his sermons remarkably simple in construction, and full of wisdom and fervour. The same may be said of Thomas à Kempis, John Turricremata, and Henry Harphius.