How can the
bones of any man be worth framing in gold and silver," he asked, "when
the body of the Son of God was laid beneath a miserable stone?" He
exhorted the people to turn from the visible and obvious to the
invisible. He maintained that the worship of relics was opposed to true
religion because "not until the disciples were bereaved of the bodily
presence of Christ could the Holy Ghost descend upon them." He even
rejected the prevalent, entirely materialistic, view of a life after
death, and dared to suggest that the torments of hell should be
interpreted spiritually. "The eternal contemplation of the Lord is the
supreme bliss of the righteous; who could dare to deny that the misery
of the damned consists in the eternal bereavement of the face of the
Lord?"
Religion had been lost; what should have been a vital force had become
as far as the most learned were concerned a knowledge of historical
events. Many saw in a return to evangelical simplicity and love the only
remedy; but it was the life, not the preaching of a man, which once
again was vouchsafed to the world as a great example.
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