tches care about beautiful and sacred
things? The temple desecrators removed and destroyed one venerable, holy
image after another. True, they did not venture into the cathedral,
probably from fear of his Majesty the Emperor, and whoever had undertaken
to lay hands upon the altar painting and the Madonna in our chapel would
have paid for it--I am not boasting--with his life. Though 'the beautiful
Mary,' in her superabundant mercy, quietly endured the affront offered,
our Lord himself punished it, for he inspired the illustrious Duke of
Bavaria to issue an edict which forbids his subjects to trade with
Ratisbon. Whoever even enters the city must pay a heavy fine. This set
many people thinking. Ursel will tell you what sinful prices we have paid
since for butter and meat. Even the innocent are obliged to buckle their
belts tighter. Those who wished to escape fasting are now compelled by
poverty to practise abstinence. It is said the Roman King Ferdinand is
urging the revocation of the order. If I were in his place, I would
advise making it more stringent till the rebels sweat blood and crept to
the cross."

Then Blomberg bewailed the untimely leniency of the Emperor, for there
was not even any rumour of a serious assault upon the Turks. And yet, if
only he, Blomberg, was commissioned to raise an army of the cross,
Christianity would soon have rest from its mortal foe! But if it should
come to fighting--no matter whether against the infidels or the
heretics--in spite of Wawerl and his lame leg, he would take the field
again. No death could be more glorious than in battle against the
destroyer of souls. The scoundrels were flourishing like tares among the
wheat. At the last Reichstag the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, as
well as the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, brought their own preachers, whose
sermons turned many heads, even the pastor of St. Emmeran's, Zollern, who
was a child of Ratisbon. At Staufferhof Baron von Stauff, formerly a man
worthy of all honour, had opened his chapel of St. Ann to all the
citizens to permit them to participate in the Lutheran idolatry. Two
Protestant ministers, one of whom, Dr. Forster, Luther himself had
brought to Ratisbon, were liberally paid by the Council. Whether Wolf
believed it or not, Father Hamberger, whom he surely remembered as Prior
of the Minorites, and who at that time enjoyed universal esteem, had
taken a wife, and the rest of the monks had followed the iniquitous
example.