But the propaganda did not cease. The young Germans who came to study law and medicine at Bologna, Padua, and other universities of the peninsula, the young Italians who began to frequent the schools of Germany and Switzerland, helped alike to diffuse evangelical faith beyond the Alps. Many of the Lutheran lansquenets whom Charles V. marched into Italy, and of the Swiss soldiers whom Francis I. drew thither, professed in the houses where they lodged the doctrines of the Reformation, and did so with thorough military frankness. Some praised Luther, others Zwingle, and all contrasted the purity of the reformers’ lives and the simplicity of their manners with the irregularities, luxury, and pride of the Roman prelates. The Italians have an open and quick understanding, precision in their ideas, clearness of expression, an instinct of the beautiful, and great independence of character; and hence they were tired of living in ignoble subjection to ignorant, lazy, and dissolute priests. Conscientious men of eminent mind joyfully welcomed a doctrine which put God’s Word in the place of papal bulls, briefs, and decretals, and substituted the spirit and the life for the ecclesiastical mechanism of the Latin ritual. Italy was charmed with Luther’s character and work. In 1521 a voice from Milan exclaimed: ‘O mighty Luther! who can paint thy features so full of animation, the godlike qualities of thy mind, thy soul inspired with a will so pure? Thy voice, which rings through the universe and utters unaccustomed sounds, terrifies the vile hearts of the wicked,[795] and bears an unexpected balm to diseases which appeared beyond remedy. Take courage, then, venerable father, whose mouth makes salvation known to all, and whose word destroys more monsters than ever Hercules rent in pieces.’