The bishops, thinking their victory secure, at length undertook to justify their silence in the Diet of 1530, and to refute the apology which the evangelical ministers had then presented. Eliæ was entrusted with the drawing up of the plea. ‘These new preachers,’ said the prelates, ‘transform the Christian Church and give it a new shape. The predecessors of Luther are Eunomius, Manichæus, Jovinianus, Vigilantius, the Waldenses, Wycliffe, Hus, and others of the same species, all damnable heretics. Consider how many princes, nobles, kingdoms, countries and towns have loyally adhered to the true Christian faith. You are called to make your choice between these Catholic nobles and excommunicated heretics. Decide for yourselves; make use in this case of the same understanding which you apply to the things of this world.’[348] The Protestants on their part were not backward. They discharged, volley after volley, their polemical pamphlets, sometimes theological, sometimes popular, after the manner of Ulrich von Hutten or Hans Sachs. Imaginations were stimulated, tempers were heated, and the country swarmed with treatises, parables, and sarcastic sayings. While Peter Larssen, professor at Malmoe, made a serious attack on ‘the sentence of banishment against the ministers of the Word of God,’ a _Dialogue on the Mass_ represented it as a sick man abandoned by his physicians and breathing his last. A satirical piece on _superstitious vigils_ exposed the notorious impositions of the priests. _One Hundred and Seventy Questions_, with answers, elucidated various points of Christian doctrine. _A Conversation between Peter Smid and Adzer Bauer_, which was not wanting in wit, stigmatized purgatory, confession, feast-days, holy water, tapers and other abuses of the papal church. Finally, a _Dance of Death_, one of the favorite themes of the sixteenth century, brought on the stage terrified popes, bishops, and canons, all trembling at the sight of Death, while the evangelical ministers joyfully went forward to meet him.[349] Certain grave occurrences fraught with danger could not but have a greater influence than these satires in putting an end to the strife and in giving Denmark a new impulse. [Sidenote: Invasion Of The Lubeckers.]