The conference of Schässburg and the deliverance of Szantai, which put an end to persecution in the countries subject to Ferdinand, had results still more marked in the states of Zapolya. The impression produced by these events was so powerful that many parishes and towns declared for reform. The manner of its accomplishment in Hungary was characteristic. It advanced, as we have said, by an almost imperceptible progress. The pastors gradually came to preach in a manner more conformed to the Gospel. Without attracting notice they changed the rites and usages, and their parishes followed them. In some instances indeed, the flocks took the first steps forward; but usually they waited patiently for the death of their old Catholic priest, and then chose in his stead an evangelical minister. There were no violent revolutions, no angry schisms. Parishes embraced _en masse_ the evangelical confession, and kept their churches, their schools, their parsonages, and their property. The love of order and of peace was carried perhaps a little too far. The Lutheran pastors maintained their accustomed relations with the Catholic bishops. They paid them the dues as before, and were protected by them in their rights and liberties, provided only that they did not pass into the ranks of the Zwinglians or the Calvinists. It was an age of gold, says a Hungarian historian. It seems to us that it was rather an age in which, as in Daniel’s statue, a strange mixture was seen of gold, silver, iron, brass, and clay.[571] [Sidenote: Zwinglian Views In Hungary.]