not obliged to acknowledge wrong as right. It is enough that
we permit ourselves, with Christ, to be smitten on the cheek
[John 18:22], but it is not for us to praise it, as though they
had done well therein and earned God's reward.

[Sidenote: Superstitious Use of Mass]

35. But what of those poor priests and laymen who have departed
so far from the true meaning of the mass and of faith that they
have even made of it a sort of magic? Some men have masses said
that they may become rich and prosper in their business, others
because they think if they hear mass in the morning they will be
safe during the day from all danger and want; some, again, on
account of sickness; others for still more foolish, yea, even
sinful reasons, and yet they find priests perverted enough to
take their money and do their bidding.

[Sidenote: Distinction of Masses]

Furthermore, they have now made one mass better than another; one
is valued as useful for this, another for that. Thus they have
made seven "Golden Masses." [33] The "Mass of the Holy Cross" has
come to have a different virtue from the "Mass of Our Lady." In
this matter every one is silent and permits the people to go on
for the sake of the cursed, filthy _pfennigs_, which through
these various titles and virtues of the mass come piling in. So
must faith, like Christ, be sold by its Judas, that is, by
covetousness and the thirst for money. [Matt. 26:15, 16]

Some are to be found also who have mass said privately, for this
and for that; in short, the mass must do all kinds of things,
except its own peculiar work--faith, which no one regards. They
now are the best men on earth who have many masses said, as
though they thought thereby to lay up many good works. All of
this is the work of ignorance, which does not separate the hymns
and prayers, which have been added, from the true, original mass.
For one mass is like another and there is no difference, except
in the faith. For the mass is best to him who believes most, and
it serves only to increase faith, and for nothing else. True,
indeed, the added prayers do serve, one this purpose, another
that, according to the meaning of their words, but they are not
the mass or the sacrament.

[Sidenote: Reduction in the Number of Masses]

36. I would advise then, that where the masses are not directed
toward such faith, they be abolished, and that there be fewer
masses endowed for the souls of the dead. Truly we provoke God
to ange