The Pardoner's Wallet

I HAVE no plea to make for this fourteenth-century pardoner. He was an impudent vagabond, trafficking in damaged goods. One did not need to be a Lollard in order to see that he was a reprehensible character. Discerning persons in need of relics would go to responsible dealers where they could be assured of getting their moneyÕs worth. This glib-tongued fellow peddling religious articles from door to door lived on the credulity of untraveled country people. He took advantage of their weaknesses. Many a good wife would purchase a pardon she had no need of, simply because he offered it as a bargain. This was all wrong. We all know how the business of indulgence-selling was overdone. There was a general loss of confidence on the part of the purchasing public; and at last in the days of the too enterprising Tetzel there came a disastrous slump. There was no market for pardons, even of the gilt-edged varieties. Since then very little has been doing in this line, at least among the northern nations. The pardoner richly deserved his fate. And yet there are times when one would give something to see the merry knave coming down the road. I suppose that the nature of each individual has its point of moral saturation. When this point is reached, it is of no use to continue exhortation or rebuke or any kind of didactic effort. Even the finest quality of righteous indignation will no longer soak in. With me the point of moral saturation comes when I attend successively more meetings of a reformatory and denunciatory character than nature intended me to profit by. If they are well distributed in point of time, I can take in a considerable number of good causes and earnestly reprobate an equal number of crying evils. But there is a certain monotony of rebuke which I am sure is not beneficial to persons of my disposition. That some things are wrong I admit, but when I am peremptorily ordered to believe that everything is wrong, it arouses in me a certain obstinacy of contradiction. I might be led to such a belief, but I will not be driven to it. I rebel against those censors of manners and morals who treat all human imperfectnesses with equal rigor. To relax even for an instant the righteous frown over the things that are going wrong, into an indulgent smile at the things that are not nearly so bad as they seem, is in their eyes nothing less than compounding a felony. If they would allow proper intervals between protests, so that the conscience could cool down, all would be well. But this is just what they will not allow. The wheels must go round without intermission until progress is stopped by the disagreeable accident of Òa hot box.Ó