direction were heard the exclamations—‘Cursed heretics! disfrocked monks!’ Olaf published, according to the announcement of Gustavus, a work in which he maintained the doctrine that _marriage is honorable in all_.[419] [Sidenote: Translations Of The Scriptures.] This servant of God was now especially engaged on another task. While men were loading him with insults, he was employing the time which his ministry left at his disposal in translating the Scriptures into Swedish. The Chancellor Anderson, on his part, had done the same. These versions were printed, and ere long the bishops loudly murmured because the books of the New Testament were being read in every house.[420] ‘Well, then,’ said the king, ‘translate it yourselves, as has been done in other nations.’ The bishops, finding that their authority was every day diminishing, applied themselves,[421] though sorely against their will, to the task which the king proposed to them; and they distributed the books of the New Testament among the various chapters of canons, and the two monastic orders, the Dominican and the Carthusian. The bishops, the canons, and the monks were about to suffer still greater annoyance than the obligation to read the Bible. The Diet which met at Wadstena, at the beginning of 1526, persuaded the king to have himself crowned, adding that the crown should be hereditary. But Gustavus said that before being crowned king he was bound to provide for the maintenance of the kingdom. On investigating the resources of the State and of the Church, he found that the annual expenditure of the former was more than double its income, while the revenues of the Church were much larger than those of the country. The bloated priesthood were swallowing up the people. The king demanded that the Diet should grant to the State two-thirds of the church tithes, which would enable it to provide for the wants of the nation, and to reduce the taxation which pressed heavily on the third estate. The clergy were terrified;[422] bishops and abbots inquired what was to become of them. Brask, indignant at the want of courage of which his colleagues had given so many proofs, told them that they were mere dastards, and got just what they deserved. They had also to endure his sarcasms; they had lost every thing, money and honor too. [Sidenote: Ostentation Of Magnus.]