About this time, there might be seen, pacing along the high-roads of Italy, a venerable man of most charming aspect. His beard was white as snow, and descended to his girdle: his profile was finely cut, his skin transparent and pale even to delicacy; his large, lustrous, dark brown eyes were deep set beneath overhanging brows whose shadow gave them wonderful intensity of expression. He carried a staff, but his figure was erect and vigorous, his tread firm. When he came to the palace of a prince or bishop, he was always received with the honours due to one of superior rank: when he departed, it was with the same distinction. The lead in conversation was by common consent yielded to him; people, whether rich or poor, hung on his words, and tried to remember them. He ate of such things as were set before him, but sparingly, and as if he did not care what he ate. He drank water from the spring, or wine tempered with water. This was Bernardino Ochino, the Capuchin friar. He was a native of Sienna, and of obscure parentage. Impelled by religious motives, he had early in life joined the Franciscan Observantines, but he afterwards became a member of the Capuchin brotherhood, and adopted the most rigid ascetic practices. These altogether failed to give him the peace of mind which he sought. At his wit's end, he exclaimed:-- "Lord, if I am not saved now, I know not what else I _can_ do!" At length he found the very guide he wanted in the Bible, by the attentive perusal of which he became convinced that Christ by his death had made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world,--that religious vows of human invention were not only useless but wicked,--and that the Romish church, with all her appeals to the senses, was unscriptural and abominable in the sight of God. Ochino's natural powers of oratory, improved as they were by cultivation, led to his being chosen for one of the Lent preachers in the principal cities of Italy. He drew crowds to hear him. The Emperor, when in Italy, attended his sermons. For the time, at any rate, he effected in his hearers a change of heart and life--made them give largely of their abundance to the poor, and reconciled their differences. His adoption of the reformed doctrines was not discovered; he seemed aiming at a reformation within the church, while Luther and Calvin were effecting one out of it. The lower orders were becoming imbued with new principles. An Observantine monk, preaching one day at Imola, told his congregation that they must purchase heaven by their good works. A young boy who was present exclaimed:-- "That's blasphemy! for the Bible tells us that Christ purchased heaven for us by his sufferings and death, and bestows it freely on us by his mercy!" "Get you gone, you young rascal," retorted the monk, "you are but just come from the cradle; and do you take upon you to understand sacred things which even the learned cannot explain?"