We find Lang, in the summer of 1520, still Rural Vicar of his Order, and he may have retained the dignity for some time longer when Wenceslaus Link was elected as Staupitz’s successor at the Chapter held at Eisleben in that year. The fourteen monks of the Augustinian Congregation--at one time so faithful to the Church--who quitted the Order before Lang, remind us of the sad fact, that in his work Luther met with support in many places from those who were originally Catholics, and that the innovation was often heartily welcomed by members of the clergy, secular and regular. The Saxon Augustinian Congregation, which was strongly represented at Erfurt, had been undermined by Luther’s spirit no less than by the struggle between the Conventuals and the Observantines. At the convention of the Order, held at Wittenberg on the Feast of the Three Kings in 1522, it was decided that begging would henceforth be no longer allowed,[992] “because we follow Holy Scripture.” At that time many had already apostatised. It was further ordained, that, by virtue of the evangelical freedom of the servants of God, everyone was free to leave his monastery. “Among those who are Christ’s there is neither monk nor layman. Whoever is not yet able to comprehend this freedom may act as he thinks fit, but must not give scandal to others by his conduct, in order that the Holy Evangel be not blasphemed.” On this the Protestant historian of the Augustinian Congregation remarks: “This [i.e. the giving of no scandal] was more easily commended than put into effect.” And, speaking of the time when the Erfurt Augustinian house was already almost empty (Usingen, Nathin and a few others alone remaining faithful), he writes: “Lang and his companions were in great danger of seeing the triumph of the Evangel rather in the rooting out of Popery than in the promoting of the new evangelical life.... Usingen, exposed to the mockery and insults of his own pupils, which he had certainly never deserved, at last quitted in anger the spot where he had worked for many years,” “an honest man.”[993] He withdrew in 1525 to the Augustinian monastery at Würzburg. Factors favourable to the spread of Lutheranism in Erfurt were: The Humanism, antagonistic to the Church, which was all-powerful at the University; the restlessness of the common people, who were dissatisfied with their condition; the jealousy existing between the secular and regular clergy, the struggle which the town was carrying on with its chief pastor, the Archbishop of Mayence, concerning rights and property; last, but not least, the hatred of the laity for the opulent and far too numerous clergy. Here, therefore, we find the selfsame elements present which elsewhere so ably seconded the preaching of the new evangelists.