Thus Luther's was the voice that cried in the wilderness, inciting a
vast host for whom centuries had been preparing.
But Jerome's fame as a man of learning, possessing a critical taste and
a classic style of rare beauty and simplicity, must not blind us to the
crowning glory of his brilliant career. He was above all a spiritual
force. His chief appeal was to the conscience. He warmed the most torpid
hearts by the fervor of his love, and encouraged the most hopeless by
his fiery zeal and heroic faith. As a promoter of monasticism, he
clashed with the interests of an enfeebled clergy and a corrupt laity.
Nothing could swerve him from his course. False monks might draw
terrible rebukes from him, but the conviction that the soul could be
delivered from captivity to the body only by mortification remained
unshaken. He induced men to break the fetters of society that they
might, under the more favorable circumstances of solitude, wage war
against their unruly passions.
When parents objected to his monastic views, Jerome quoted the saying of
Jesus respecting the renunciation of father and mother, and then said:
"Though thy mother with flowing hair and rent garments, should show thee
the breasts which have nourished thee; though thy father should lie upon
the threshold; yet depart thou, treading over thy father, and fly with
dry eyes to the standard of the cross. The love of God and the fear of
hell easily rend the bonds of the household asunder.
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