III. Meantime Augsburg was filling more and more every day. Princes, bishops, deputies, gentlemen, cavaliers, soldiers in rich uniforms, entered by every gate, and thronged the streets, the public places, inns, churches, and palaces. All that was most magnificent in Germany was there about to be collected. The critical circumstances in which the empire and Christendom were placed, the presence of Charles V. and his kindly manners, the love of novelty, of grand shows, and of lively emotions, tore the Germans from their homes. All those who had great interests to discuss, without reckoning a crowd of idlers, flocked from the various provinces of the empire, and hastily made their way towards this illustrious city.[363] [363] Omnes alliciebat.--(Cochlœus, p. 191.) [Sidenote: THE GOSPEL PREACHED.] In the midst of this crowd the Elector and the Landgrave were resolved to confess Jesus Christ, and to take advantage of this convocation in order to convert the empire. Scarcely had John arrived when he ordered one of his theologians to preach daily with open doors in the church of the Dominicans.[364] On Sunday the 8th May, the same was done in the church of St. Catherine; on the 13th, Philip of Hesse opened the gates of the cathedral, and his chaplain Snepff there preached the Word of Salvation; and on the following Sunday (May 15) this prince ordered Cellarius, minister of Augsburg and a follower of Zwingle, to preach in the same temple. Somewhat later the Landgrave firmly settled himself in the church of St. Ulric, and the Elector in that of St. Catherine. These were the two positions taken up by these illustrious princes. Every day the Gospel was preached in these places before an immense and attentive crowd.[365] [364] Rogantibus Augustanis publice in templum Dominicorum.--(Seck. Lat. p. 193.) [365] Täglig in den kirchen, unverstört; dazu kommt sehr viel Volks.--(Corp. Ref. ii. p. 53.) The partisans of Rome were amazed. They expected to see criminals endeavouring to dissemble their faults, and they met with confessors of Christ with uplifted heads and words of power. Desirous of counterbalancing these preachings, the Bishop of Augsburg ordered his suffragan and his chaplain to ascend the pulpit. But the Romish priests understood better how to say Mass than to preach the Gospel. "They shout, they bawl," said some. "They are stupid fellows," added all their hearers, shrugging their shoulders.[366] [366] Clamant et vociferantur. Audires homines stupidissimos atque etiam sensu communi carentes.--(Ibid. p. 86.)