Heretofore they might well have
seemed remote and unreal, just as the school-boy hardly realizes that
the Cato and Cassius over whom he puzzles in his Latin lessons were once
living men like his father and neighbours, and not mere nominatives
governing a verb, or ablatives of means or instrument. Now it became
possible for the layman to contrast the pure teachings of Christ with
the doctrines and demeanour of the priests and monks to whom the
spiritual guidance of Englishmen had been entrusted. Strong and
self-respecting men and women, accustomed to manage their own affairs,
could not but be profoundly affected by the contrast. [Sidenote: Work of
the Lollards]
While they were thus led more and more to appeal to the Bible as the
divine standard of right living and right thinking, at the same time
they found in the sacred volume the treasures of a most original and
noble literature unrolled before them; stirring history and romantic
legend, cosmical theories and priestly injunctions, profound metaphysics
and pithy proverbs, psalms of unrivalled grandeur and pastorals of
exquisite loveliness, parables fraught with solemn meaning, the mournful
wisdom of the preacher, the exultant faith of the apostle, the matchless
eloquence of Job and Isaiah, the apocalyptic ecstasy of St.
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