An intimate friend of Luther’s, Johann Brenz, wrote, in 1532, in a book to which Luther supplied the Preface: “The youngsters are barely out of the cradle before they want wives, and girls, not yet marriageable, already dream of husbands.”[550]--After the immoral atmosphere has brought about their fall, writes Fr. Staphylus, “they grow so impudent as to assert that a chaste and continent life is impossible and the gratification of the sexual appetite as essential as eating and drinking.”[551]--The same author, who returned to the Catholic Church, also wrote, in 1562: “So long as matrimony was looked upon as a Sacrament, modesty and an honourable married life was loved and prized, but since the people have read in Luther’s books that matrimony is a human invention ... his advice has been put in practice in such a way, that marriage is observed more chastely and honourably in Turkey than amongst our German Evangelicals.”[552] The list of testimonies such as these might be considerably lengthened.[553] It would, however, be unfair, in view of the large number of such statements, to shut our eyes to the remarkable increase, at that time, in the immorality already prevalent even in Catholic circles, though this was due in great measure to the malignant influence of the unhappy new idea of freedom, and to that contempt for ecclesiastical regulations as mere human inventions, which had penetrated even into regions still faithful to the Church.[554] Owing to the general confusion, ecclesiastical discipline was at a standstill, evil-doers went unpunished, nor could moral obligations be so regularly and zealously enforced. It is true that favourable testimonies arc not lacking on both sides, but they chiefly refer to remote Catholic and Protestant localities. As is usual, such reports are less noticeable than the unfavourable ones, the good being ever less likely to attract attention than the evil. Staphylus complains bitterly of both parties, as the very title of his book proves.[555] Finally, all the unfavourable accounts of the state of married life under Lutheranism are not quite so bad as those given above, in which moreover, maybe, the sad personal experience of the writers made them see things with a jaundiced eye. That, in the matter of clerical morals, there was a great difference between the end of the 15th and the middle of the 16th centuries can be proved by such ecclesiastical archives as still survive; the condemnations pronounced in the 16th century are considerably more numerous than in earlier times.