In the Church of All Saints at Wittemberg were shown a piece of Noah's Ark, a small portion of soot from the furnace of the Three Young Men, a bit of the manger in which our Saviour was laid, hair from the beard of the great Christopher, and nineteen thousand other relics of greater or less value. At Schaffhausen was shown the breath of St. Joseph, which Nicodemus had received into his glove. In Wurtemberg, a vender of indulgences was seen selling his wares, and having his head adorned with a large feather, plucked from the wing of the archangel Michael.[25] But there was no occasion to go to a distance in quest of these precious treasures. Persons with hired relics travelled the country, and hawked them about, as has since been done with the Holy Scriptures. The faithful, having them thus brought to their houses, were spared the trouble and expence of pilgrimage. Relics were exhibited with great ceremony in the churches, while those travelling hawkers paid a fixed sum to the owners, and also gave them so much per centage on their returns. The kingdom of heaven had thus disappeared, and men, to supply its place on the earth, had opened a disgraceful traffic. [25] Muller's Reliquien, vol. iii, p. 22. In this way, a profane spirit had invaded religion, and the most sacred seasons of the Church, those which, most forcibly and powerfully invited the faithful to self-examination and love, were dishonoured by buffoonery and mere heathen blasphemies. The "Easter Drolleries" held an important place in the acts of the Church. As the festival of the resurrection required to be celebrated with joy, every thing that could excite the laughter of the hearers was sought out, and thrust into sermons. One preacher imitated the note of the cuckoo, while another hissed like a goose. One dragged forward to the altar a layman in a cassock; a second told the most indecent stories; a third related the adventures of the Apostle Peter, among others, how, in a tavern, he cheated the host by not paying his score.[26] The inferior clergy took advantage of the occasion to turn their superiors into ridicule. The churches were thus turned into stages, and the priests into mountebanks. [26] Œcolampad. De Risu Paschali.