He had a wonderful eloquence,
which seized upon the minds of his hearers and carried them whither he
would. No church was large enough to contain the multitudes which flocked
to hear him. Ochino was a skilled linguist, and, after leaving the Roman
Church, he wrote a book against the Papacy in English, which was printed
in London, and also a sermon on predestination. He visited England in
company with Peter Martyr, but on the death of Edward VI., on account of
the changes introduced in Mary's reign these two doctors again crossed the
seas, and retired to a safer retreat. His brilliant career was entirely
ruined by his fatal frenzy and foolish fanaticism for polygamy.
The third of this strange triumvirate was Samuel Friedrich Willenberg, a
doctor of law of the famous University of Cracow, who wrote a book _De
finibus polygamiae licitae_ and aroused the hatred of the Poles. In 1715,
by command of the High Court of the King of Poland, his book was condemned
to be burnt, and its author nearly shared the same fate. He escaped,
however, this terrible penalty, and was fined one hundred thousand gold
pieces.
With these unhappy advocates of a system which violates the sacredness of
marriage, we must close our list of fanatics whose works have proved fatal
to them. Many of them deserve our pity rather than our scorn; for they
suffered from that species of insanity which, according to Holmes, is
often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67