* Life and Letters of Erasmus, lectures delivered at Oxford by J. A. Froude, pp. 24, 162.

Nevertheless it would be idle to say that there was not or had not been a great falling-off in the fervour of monks and friars generally at this period.  As the new doctrines spread, so did also the distaste for the religious life, and the number of those who renounced their vows increased yearly.  But many, from various causes, soon repented, and desired to return to the cloister, and it became necessary to legislate for such contingencies also.  Moreover, it was made obligatory on every prior to arrest notorious apostates, and all those who, without letters of obedience, or who, abusing them, were found wandering about the country.  They were to be punished conformably to the rule, and if necessary were to be imprisoned.

One good effect at least resulted from Erasmus’s attacks on the ignorance of monks, and this was the revival of learning in most of the religious orders.  Every inducement was offered by the Carmelite superiors in the Lower Rhine Province to cultivate a taste for study.  Those who had gone through a three or four years’ course of theology creditably had a distinct right to a post of some dignity, and took rank immediately after those priests of the order who had celebrated their jubilee, and before all conventuals who had an inferior record as to studies.  The faithful discharge of offices for a prolonged period was also rewarded by honourable recognition.  The sentiments thus appealed to may not have been of the loftiest, but it must be remembered that the reform was to be gradual, and higher motives could be suggested when the subject was ready for them.  The superiors of this province were supported in all their efforts by the general, who was bent on a thorough renewal of the religious spirit throughout the Order; but in the midst of all these righteous aspirations it is a little startling to find that a decree of the Chapter-General was needed to put down drinking-bouts in sundry houses of the Rhine Province.*

* Dr. Alois Postina, Der Karmelit Eberhard Billick.  Ein Lebensbild aus dem 16, Jahrhundert, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1901, p. 25.

In 1541, Eberhard Billick was appointed provincial, and almost immediately began to visit the houses in his jurisdiction.  At Cologne he found a condition of things sufficient to make the boldest reformer quail.  The Lutherans had entirely gained the upper hand, and a certain Count William of Neuenar and Mors, who had been for some tine a follower of the new doctrines, was bent on introducing them by force into Mors.  He first forbade the practise of the Catholic religion among his tenants, and then tried to seduce the religious.  They were forbidden to say Mass except on Sundays, and then even none outside the convent were to be admitted to it.  Their church was given over to the Lutherans, and the friars were forced into being present at the Protestant sermons.  Not content