Finding this weapon of caricature ready-made to his hands, he used it freely, as did also his friends and his foes. He was himself a caricaturist. When Pope Clement VII. seemed disposed to meet the reformers half-way, and proposed a council to that end, Luther wrote a pamphlet ridiculing the scheme, and, to give more force to his satire, he "caused a picture to be drawn" and placed in the title-page. It was not a work describable to the fastidious ears of our century, unless we leave part of the description in Latin. The Pope was seated on a lofty throne surrounded by cardinals having foxes' tails, and seeming "_sursum et deorsum repurgare_." In the "Table-talk" we read also of a picture being brought to Luther in which the Pope and Judas were represented hanging to the purse and keys. "'Twill vex the Pope horribly," said Luther, "that he whom emperors and kings have worshiped should now be figured hanging upon his own picklocks." The picture annexed, in which the Pope is exhibited with an ass's head performing on the bagpipes, was entirely in the taste of Luther. "The Pope's decretals," he once said, "are naught; he that drew them up was an ass." No word was too contemptuous for the papacy. "Pope, cardinals, and bishops," said he, "are a pack of guzzling, stuffing wretches; rich, wallowing in wealth and laziness, resting secure in their power, and never thinking of accomplishing God's will." [Illustration: The Pope cast into Hell. (Lucas Cranach, 1521.)] The famous pamphlet of caricatures published in 1521 by Luther's friend and follower, Lucas Cranach, contains pictures that we could easily believe Luther himself suggested. The object was to exhibit to the eyes of the people of Germany the contrast between the religion inculcated by the lowly Jesus and the pompous worldliness of the papacy. There was a picture on each page which nearly filled it, and at the bottom there were a few lines in German of explanation; the engraving on the page to the left representing an incident in the life of Christ, and the page to the right a feature of the papal system at variance with it. Thus, on the first page was shown Jesus, in humble attitude and simple raiment, refusing honors and dignities, and on the page opposite the Pope, cardinals, and bishops, with warriors, cannon, and forts, assuming lordship over kings. On another page Christ was seen crowned with thorns by the scoffing soldiers, and on the opposite page the Pope wearing his triple crown, and seated on his throne, an object of adoration to his court. On another was shown Christ washing the feet of his disciples, in contrast to the Pope presenting his toe to an emperor to be kissed. At length we have Christ ascending to heaven with a glorious escort of angels, and on the other page the Pope hurled headlong to hell, accompanied by devils, with some of his own monks already in the flames waiting to receive him. This concluding picture may serve as a specimen