of a series that must have told powerfully on the side of reform.[11] [Footnote 11: From "A History of Caricature," p. 254, by Thomas Wright, London, 1864.] [Illustration: "The Beam that is in thine own Eye," A.D. 1540.] These pictorial pamphlets were an important part of the stock in trade of the colporteurs who pervaded the villages and by-ways of Germany during Luther's life-time, selling the sermons of the reformers, homely satiric verses, and broadside caricatures. The simplicity and directness of the caricatures of that age reflected perfectly both the character and the methods of Luther. One picture of Hans Sachs's has been preserved, which was designed as an illustration of the words of Christ: "I am the door. He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." The honest Sachs shows us a lofty, well-built barn, with a very steep roof, on the very top of which sits the Pope crowned with his tiara. To him cardinals and bishops are directing people, and urging them to climb up the steep and slippery height. Two monks have done so, and are getting in at a high window. At the open door of the edifice stands the Lord, with a halo round his head, inviting a humble inquirer to enter freely. Nothing was farther from the popular caricaturists of that age than to allegorize a doctrine or a moral lesson; on the contrary, it was their habit to interpret allegory in the most absurdly literal manner. Observe, for example, the treatment of the subject contained in the words, "How wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and, behold, a _beam_ is in thine own eye?" [Illustration: Luther Triumphant. (Paris, 1535.)]