Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/417

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Heresy and the Friars two masters, God and mammon." Then his fellow-citizens ran up, thinking he had lost his mind. But going on to a higher place, he said : " My fellow-citizens and friends, I am not insane, as you think, but I am avenging myself on my enemies, who made me a slave, so that I was always more careful of money than of God, and served the creature rather than the Creator. I know that many will blame me that I act thus openly. But I do it both on my own account and on yours ; on my own, so that those who see me henceforth possessing any money may say that I am mad, and on yours, that you may learn to place hope in God and not in riches." On the next day, coming from the church, he asked a certain citizen, once his comrade, to give him something to eat, for God's sake. His friend, leading him to his house, said, "I will give you whatever you need as long as I live." When this came to the ears of his wife, she was not a little troubled, and as though she had lost her mind, she ran to the archbishop of the city and implored him not to let her husband beg bread from any one but her. This moved all present to tears. [Waldo was accordingly conducted into the presence of the bishop.] And the woman, seizing her husband by the coat, said, " Is it not better, husband, that I should redeem my sins by giving you alms than that strangers should do so ? " And from that time he was not allowed to take food from any one in that city except from his wife. An experienced inquisitor thus describes the Albi- genses : It would take too long to describe in detail the manner in which these same Manichaean heretics preach and teach their followers, but it must be briefly considered here. In the first place, they usually say of themselves that they are good Christians, who do not swear, or lie, or speak evil of others ; that they do not kill any man or animal, nor any- thing having the breath of life, and that they hold the faith 151. De- scription of the AlbjgenseSo (From the Inquisitor's Guide of Bernard of Gui, early fourteenth century.)