Page:Historical Lectures and Addresses.djvu/27 and remove him
from his pedestal. It is often found easier to construct for him
an ornamental niche and treat him with outward marks of
deference. Perhaps nothing is more capricious than the selection
of worthies who are supposed to have prepared the way for the
Reformation. The continuous effort for the reform of
ecclesiastical abuses is one of the chief features of mediæval
history. The attempt was made in various ways and was supported
by various arguments. The prevalence of corruption was
acknowledged by all serious men; the extent of the corruption
was exposed often in exaggerated language; the causes of the
corruption were fearlessly attacked. It is hard to see in some
cases the line which distinguishes those who are exalted as
reformers from those who are passed by unnoticed. The tendency
of an age as a whole is frequently misrepresented through a
desire to elevate unduly some prominent figure into a prophet of
the future. I pass on to consider the general