Bitter wind and sleet this morning. Saw three Dominicans creeping back into the town, who had left it a month ago, refusing to say mass. Poor wretches, how starved and woe-begone they looked, after miserable wanderings about the country in the snow, winter showing them scant courtesy, and sure I am the boors less; and now coming back to a deserted convent and to a city where men’s faces are towards them as a flint. Straight, as I saw them, there came into my mind that goodly exhortation of Dr. Tauler’s, that we should show mercy, as doth God, unto all, enemies and friends alike, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen?[105] Ran after them, called them in, thawed them, fed them, comforted them with kind words and good ale by the great fire,—then argued with them. They thought it a cruel thing that they must starve because pope and emperor are at feud. ‘And is it not,’ urged I, ‘a crueller that thousands of innocent poor folk should live without sacrament, never hear a mass, perhaps die unshriven, for the very same reason? Is not God’s law higher than the pope’s,—do to others as ye would they should do unto you? Could you look for other treatment at the hands of our magistrates, and expect to be countenanced and sustained by them in administering the malediction of their enemies?‘ Thought it most courteous, however, to ply them more pressingly with food than with arguments. While they were there, in comes my little Otto, opens his eyes wide with wonder to see them, and presently breaks out with the words, now on the tongue of every Strasburger, a rhyming version of the decree:— They shall still their masses sing, Or out of the city we’ll make them spring.[106] Told him he should not sing that just then, and, when he was out of the room, bade them mark by that straw which way the wind blew. I record here a vision vouchsafed to that eminent saint the abbess Christina Ebner, of Engelthal, near Nurnberg. She beheld the Romish Church in the likeness of a great minster, fair to see, but with doors closed by reason of the bann. Priestly voices, solemn and sweet, were heard to chant within; and, without, stood a multitude waiting and hearkening, but no man dared enter. Then came there to the nun one in the habit of a preacher, and told her that he would give her words to speak to comfort the poor folk withal that stood outside,—and that man was the Lord Christ.