Practical religion throughout Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century was a very simple affair. I am not going to speak of the mysterious doctrines of the Catholic Church. The creed which it professed in its schools and theological treatises was the same which it professes now, and which it had professed at the time when it was most powerful for good. I do not myself consider that the formulas in which men express their belief are of much consequence. The question is rather of the thing expressed; and so long as we find a living consciousness that above the world and above human life there is a righteous God, who will judge men according to their works, whether they say their prayers in Latin or English, whether they call themselves Protestants or call themselves Catholics, appears to me of quite secondary importance. But at the time I speak of, that consciousness no longer existed. The formulas and ceremonies were all in all; and of God it is hard to say what conceptions men had formed, when they believed that a dead man's relations could buy him out of purgatory--buy him out of purgatory,--for this was the literal truth--by hiring priests to sing masses for his soul. Religion, in the minds of ordinary people, meant that the keys of the other world were held by the clergy. If a man confessed regularly to his priest, received the sacrament, and was absolved, then all was well with him. His duties consisted in going to confession and to mass. If he committed sins, he was prescribed penances, which could be commuted for money. If he was sick or ill at ease in his mind, he was recommended a pilgrimage--a pilgrimage to a shrine or a holy well, or to some wonder-working image--where, for due consideration, his case would be attended to. It was no use to go to a saint empty-handed. The rule of the Church was, nothing for nothing. At a chapel in Saxony there was an image of a Virgin and Child. If the worshipper came to it with a good handsome offering, the child bowed and was gracious: if the present was unsatisfactory, it turned away its head, and withheld its favours till the purse-strings were untied again. There was a great rood or crucifix of the same kind at Boxley, in Kent, where the pilgrims went in thousands. This figure used to bow, too, when it was pleased; and a good sum of money was sure to secure its good-will. When the Reformation came, and the police looked into the matter, the images were found to be worked with wires and pulleys. The German lady was kept as a curiosity in the cabinet of the Elector of Saxony. Our Boxley rood was brought up and exhibited in Cheapside, and was afterwards torn in pieces by the people.