"And when I arrived at Ghent, the chief of the painters met me, and he brought with him all the principal painters of the town; and they showed me great honor, and received me in very splendid style, and they assured me of their good-will and service; and I supped that evening with them. On Wednesday early they took me to St. John's Tower, from which I saw over all the great and wonderful town. After that I saw Johann's picture [Van Eyck's 'Adoration of the Spotless Lamb']. It is a very rich and grandly conceived painting; and particularly Eve, the Virgin Mary, and God the Father, are excellent.... Ghent is a beautiful and wonderful town, and four great waters flow through it. And I have besides seen many other very strange things at Ghent, and the painters with their chief have never left me; and I have eaten morning and night with them, and they have paid for every thing, and have been very friendly with me." The master soon returned to Antwerp, in distress. "In the third week after Easter a hot fever attacked me, with great faintness, discomfort, and headache. And when I was in Zealand, some time back, a wonderful illness came upon me, which I had never heard of any one having before; and this illness I have still." This low fever never quite left him, and was the cause of many doctor's bills thereafter. Soon afterward he made a portrait of the landscape-painter Joachim Patenir; and "on the Sunday before Cross-week, Meister Joachim invited me to his wedding, and they all showed me much respect; and I saw two very pretty plays there, particularly the first, which was very pious and clerical." Dürer seems to have had strong Protestant sympathies, though it is claimed that he died in the faith of Rome. His journal in 1521 contains the following significant sentences about Martin Luther: "He was a man enlightened by the Holy Ghost, and a follower of the true Christian faith.... He has suffered much for Christ's truth, and because he has rebuked the unchristian Papacy which strives against the freedom of Christ with its heavy burdens of human laws; and for this we are robbed of the price of our blood and sweat, that it may be expended shamefully by idle, lascivious people, whilst thirsty and sick men perish of hunger.... Lord Jesus Christ, call together again the sheep of thy fold, of whom part are still to be found amongst the Indians, Muscovites, Russians, and Greeks, who through the burdens and avarice of the Papacy have been separated from us. Never were any people so horribly burdened with ordinances as us poor people by the Romish See; we who, redeemed by thy blood, ought to be free Christians.