Most of the Hungarians who heard this were very much astonished; and the publication of the anathemas produced a contrary effect to that which the prelate had aimed at. It awakened in the hearers a consciousness of the important nature of the Reformation; so that its friends were encouraged, and many were led to seek after the truth who had not previously concerned themselves about it. Many ecclesiastics, especially, who had been oppressed by the higher clergy, and had long sighed for the time of justice and freedom, now lifted up their heads, read the sacred books, and declared that Luther’s doctrine, founded on the Word of God, alone was true. They did not remain inactive; but by their living and powerful words they enlightened the minds of men. Parishes, villages, and towns joyfully greeted the Reformation. One of the first to proclaim the Gospel in Hungary appears to have been Thomas Preussner. Others followed him. Cordatus at Bartfeld, in 1522, Siklosy at Neustadt, Kopacsy at Sarospatak, Radan and Husser at Debreczin, and George at Hermanstadt, proclaimed the tidings of a salvation freely given to those who laid hold on Christ by faith. Learned men at the same time were bearing witness to the truth at the university of Buda. Simon Grynaeus, son of a simple Suabian peasant, and afterwards a friend of Calvin, having from childhood shown a remarkable disposition for study, had been sent at the age of fourteen to the famous school of Pforzheim. Thence he had passed to the university of Vienna, where he distinguished himself and took the degree of master of arts. The king then called him to Buda. Grynaeus did not confine himself to teaching letters there, but openly and boldly announced to the people the great doctrines of the Gospel which he had embraced with all his heart. Another doctor, Winsheim, also professed openly the same faith; and, what was an unlooked-for event, people were talking at Pesth, in the old capital of the kings, on the banks of the Danube, and near the borders of Turkey, of that same Word of God which was giving joy to so many Germans on the banks of the Elbe. The Reformation, like a broad river, brought life and prosperity into these vast regions which extend between the Alps, the Carpathian Mountains, and the Balkan. But, alas! the river, dried up here and there by the parching heat of persecution, was one day to shrink and be turned into a stagnant and sleepy body of water like that which runs to lose itself in the dry sands of the desert.[524] [Sidenote: Hungarians At Wittenberg.]