cheerfully with him to point out his road, but besought the monk
to take him into his convent, volunteering to fulfill the most
degrading services, in the hope of procuring a little learning,
and escaping from 'those filthy hogs.' How incredulously would the
friar have listened to anyone who could have suggested that this
desolate, tattered, dirty boy, might and would fill a greater than
an imperial throne! Yet, eventually that swine-herd was clothed
in purple and fine linen, and, under the title of Pope Sixtus V.,
became one of those mighty magicians who are described in Rogers
Italy, as


'Setting their feet upon the necks of kings,
And through the worlds subduing, chaining down
The free, immortal spirit--theirs a wondrous spell.' [1]


A woman that was 'a loose and ungodly wretch' hearing a tinker lad
most awfully cursing and swearing, protested to him that 'he swore
and cursed at that most fearful rate that it made her tremble to
hear him,' 'that he was the ungodliest fellow for swearing that
ever she heard in all her life,' and 'that he was able to spoil
all the youth in a whole town, if they came in his company.' This
blow at the young reprobate made that indelible impression which all
the sermons yet he had heard had failed to make. Satan, by one of
his own slaves, wounded a conscience which had resisted all the
overtures of mercy. The youth pondered her words in his heart;
they were good seed strangely sown, and their working formed one
of those mysterious steps which led the foul-mouthed blasphemer
to bitter repentance; who, when he had received mercy and pardon,