[368] "Er sollte still halten; es wäre eine grosse Sache." (Matthes. 13.) [369] Walthahr. v. Luther, p. 45. These theses spread with the rapidity of lightning. A month had not elapsed before they were at Rome. "In a fortnight," says a contemporary historian,[370] "they were in every part of Germany, and in four weeks had traversed almost the whole of Christendom; as if the angels themselves had been the messengers, and carried them before the eyes of all men. Nobody can believe what a noise they made." They were afterwards translated into Dutch and Spanish, and a traveller even sold them at Jerusalem. "Every one," says Luther, "was complaining of the indulgences; and as all the bishops and doctors had kept silence, and nobody had ventured to bell the cat, poor Luther became a famous doctor, because, as they expressed it, one had at length come who dared to do it. But I liked not this glory; the music seemed to me too lofty for the words."[371] [370] Myconius, Hist. of the Ref., p. 23. [371] "Das Lied wollte meiner stimme zu hochwerden." (Luth. Op.) Some of the pilgrims, who had flocked from different countries to Wittemberg for the feast of All Saints, instead of indulgences carried home with them the famous theses of the Augustin monk, and thus helped to circulate them. All read, pondered, and commented on them. They occupied the attention of all convents and all universities.[372] All pious monks who had entered the cloister to save their soul, all upright and honest men, rejoiced in this striking and simple confession of the truth, and wished with all their heart that Luther would continue the work which he had begun. At length a monk had had the courage to undertake this perilous contest. It was a reparation made to Christendom, and the public conscience was satisfied. In these theses piety saw a blow given to all kinds of superstition; the new theology hailed in them the defeat of the scholastic dogmas; princes and magistrates regarded them as a barrier raised against the encroachments of ecclesiastical power; while the nations were delighted at seeing the decided negative which this monk had given to the avarice of the Roman chancery. Erasmus, a man very worthy of credit, and one of the principal rivals of the Reformer, says to Duke George of Saxony, "When Luther attacked this fable, the whole world concurred in applauding him." "I observe," said he on another occasion to Cardinal Campeggi, "that those of the purest morals, and an evangelical piety, are the least opposed to Luther. His life is lauded even by those who cannot bear his faith. The world was weary of a doctrine containing so many childish fables, and was thirsting for that living water, pure and hidden, which issues from the springs of the evangelists and the apostles. The genius of Luther was fitted to accomplish these things, and his zeal must have animated him to the noble enterprise."[373] [372] "In alle hohe Schullen und Klöster." (Mathes. 13.)