This step, as must have been expected, was the signal for great disasters. The Turkish army which was to secure the crown to the son of Zapolya advanced into Hungary in such force that Ferdinand could not resist it. The land was now plunged in distress; evangelical religion had to suffer much; it saw its most useful institutions and its most venerated supports taken away. The school and the printing-house established by Count Nadasdy at Uj-Sziget were destroyed. Devay and his friends were compelled to fly precipitately, and many of them took refuge at Wittenberg. Devay was in great affliction. He had continually present to his mind the barbarity of the Mussulmans, carrying fire everywhere and shedding the blood of his fellow-citizens and his friends. The destruction of the modest institutions which he had founded and from which he anticipated so much good for his country broke his heart. Even the imprisonment which he had undergone at Vienna and in Hungary had caused him less grief, for the Mussulman plague was not then ravaging his native land. An exile, distressed and in deep destitution, he could see no way opening before him by which he might be permitted to re-enter the sphere of activity which was so dear to him. He poured out his sorrow into the bosom of his friend Melanchthon, who felt himself the most lively interest in the great misfortunes of the Magyars. A thought occurred to these two friends. The margrave George of Brandenburg had been one of the guardians and governors of the young king of Hungary, Louis II., who fell at Mohacz. He had remained a friend to the Hungarians; he possessed estates in the country, and favored there the extension of the Reformation. Devay and Melanchthon considered whether he would not be the man to reopen for Devay the door of his native land. Melanchthon consequently wrote (December 28, 1541) to Sebastian Heller, chancellor to the margrave. ‘There are now with us some Hungarians,’ he said, ‘whom the cruelty of their enemies has driven from their country. Mathias Devay, an honest, grave, and learned man is one of the number. I believe that he is known to your most illustrious prince. On this ground he implores, in these trying times, the assistance and aid of the margrave. I pray you to support the holy cause of the pious and learned exile. He has already been exposed to a great many dangers from his own countrymen on account of his pious preaching.’ It does not appear that the margrave had it in his power to bring about the return of Devay to Hungary; but perhaps he gave him some assistance. Devay, finding that the doors of his country were closed to him set out for Switzerland, which had a special attraction for him, not indeed so much for the beauties of nature which are found there, as for its pious and learned men, and for the simple, scriptural, and spiritual religion which he knew he should meet with at the foot of the Alps.[574]