Wenceslaus Link, the former Superior of the Augustinian house at Altenburg, had removed to Nuremberg with his wife, where he became warden and preacher to the new hospital, proving himself a fierce Lutheran. In 1541 he informed Luther of the sad experiences he had had with the Evangel in the city. The “Word” was despised, he writes, immorality was on the increase and went unpunished, the preachers were hated and he himself when he went out had the name “parson” derisively hurled at him; people dubbed the Evangel a human invention, and snapped their fingers at the sentence of excommunication. Luther expressed his sympathy with his downhearted correspondent and sought to encourage him: it grieved him deeply, he wrote, that this fate should have befallen the Word of God; such a state of things was the third great temptation in the history of the Church, the first being the persecutions in the times of the Pagan rulers, and the second the difficulties occasioned by the great heresies in the period of the Fathers of the Church, both of which had been safely withstood. He comforts Link by assuring him that this, the third great temptation of the Gospel, will also pass over happily. “Should this not be the case, however, then there is no hope for Nuremberg, for that would be to grieve the Holy Ghost, and it would be necessary to think of quitting this Babylon. ‘We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed [he says with Jeremias li. 9]; let us forsake her.’”[991] It would, of course, be unfair to ascribe to Luther all the deeds of violence or injustice which took place in great number on the spread of the new ecclesiastical system. It is notorious how much the unruly, turbulent spirit of that day contributed to the distressing phenomena of the struggle then being carried on. Such a far-reaching revolution naturally set free forces and passions in both the higher and lower spheres, which could only with difficulty be brought once more under control. Now and then, too, faithful Catholics, laymen, priests and religious, by a misuse of the power they happened to possess, gave occasion to renewed acts of oppression on the part of the Lutherans. It is, nevertheless, right to point out the turbulent stamp which Luther impressed upon the movement. His own share in the work, some examples of which we have considered above, were utterly at variance with his advice to Gabriel Zwilling, viz. “to leave everything to God, to avoid introducing innovations and to guide the people solely by faith and charity” (above, p. 314). _Luther and the Introduction of the New Teaching at Erfurt_ The most powerful impulse to the introduction of the new teaching in Erfurt proceeded from the Augustinian house in that town. Its former Prior, Johann Lang, became an apostle of Lutheranism after having prepared the way for the innovation as a Humanist of modern views closely allied with the Humanist group at Erfurt.