e to destroy, though for a time they repressed, the
enthusiasm of the people. Now, under the influence of Munzer's
preaching, it burst forth into open day."

So it seems. In this place sprang up the Anabaptists, whose conduct became
so wild and fanatical, that the civil power thought itself compelled to
interfere. The most violent of them were seized and thrown into prison;
but the greater part left the city, some going to Wittenberg and others to
Bohemia.

To Bohemia also went Munzer. But he again appears in the year following,
(1522,) preaching in Altstedt in Thuringia. His violence against the old
religion seems to have been increased. After one of his sermons, his
audience rushed out to a chapel in the neighbourhood, famous as a shrine
for pilgrims, and not only destroyed all the images of the saints, but
burnt the chapel itself. We have an account of a sermon which he preached
here before the two Saxon princes, Frederick and John; and it certainly
exhibits a very striking union of the two master passions which animate
the class of men to which Munzer is described as belonging--the _odium
theologicum_, and the zeal for the reformation of mankind. "He exhorted
them to root out idolatry from the land, and establish the gospel by
force. Priests, monks, and ungodly rulers who should oppose this, were to
be slain; for the ungodly had no right to live longer than the elect
would permit them. He told, also, some home-truths to his noble auditors.
The princes and lords themselves, he said, were at the bottom of much
mischief: they seized on all things as their property; the birds in the
air, the fish in the waters, the plants upon the earth, all must be
theirs; and when they had secured these good things for themselves, they
were willing enough to publish God's command to the poor, and say, 'Thou
shalt not steal;' but for themselves, they will have none of it. They rob
the poor peasant and labourer of all that he has, and then, if he touches
the least thing, he must hang."

The prophet and the inspired man--for he claimed to be both--was shortly
after chased out of Altstedt. He went to Nurnberg, and was driven out of
Nurnberg. He had now entirely broken with Luther, who wrote to the Senate
of the town, cautioning them not to receive him. He wandered for some time
about southern Germany, preaching where he could find an opportunity, but
often hunted from place to place, and not knowing whither to turn. At
length