scandals in the lives of Hochstraten, Pfefferkorn, and other leaders of their party. The tone of these letters, sometimes hypocritical and sometimes childish, gives them a very comic effect, and yet the whole is so natural, that the Dominicans and Franciscans of England received the work with high approbation, believing that it really was composed on the principles of their order, and in defence of it. A prior of Brabant, in his credulous simplicity, purchased a great number of copies, and presented them to the most distinguished among the Dominicans. The monks, irritated more and more, applied to the pope for a stringent bull against all who should dare to read these epistles, but Leo X refused to grant it. They were accordingly obliged to put up with the general laugh, and gulp down their rage. No work gave a stronger blow to these pillars of Papism. But it was not by jesting and satire that the gospel was to triumph. Had this course been persisted in; had the Reformers, instead of attacking the Reformation with the weapons of God, had recourse to the jeering spirit of the world, the cause had been lost. Luther loudly condemned these satires. A friend having sent him one of them, entitled, "_The Tenor of the Supplication of Pasquin_," he wrote in answer, "The foolish things you sent me appear to be written by a mind which is under no control. I submitted them to a meeting of friends, and they have all given the same opinion."[117] And speaking of the same work, he writes to another of his correspondents, "This Supplication appears to me to be by the same hand as the _Letters of some Obscure Men_. I approve of his wishes, but I approve not of his work, for he does not refrain from injury and insult."[118] This sentence is severe, but it shows what kind of spirit was in Luther, and how superior he was to his contemporaries. It must be added, however, that he was not at all times observant of these wise maxims. [116] "Exercitus Reuchlinistarum," at the head of a collection of letters addressed to Reuchlin on the subject. [117] L. Ep. i. p. 37. [118] Luth. Ep. i, p. 38.