Among the Lutheran preachers the expected end of the world was made to play a part and to explain the increase of faint-heartedness and despair. Mathesius says in his Postils: “Many pine away and lose hope; there is no more joy or courage left among the people; therefore let us look for the end of the world, and prepare, and be ready at any moment for our departure home!” “For the end is approaching; heaven and earth and all government now begin to crack and break.”[756] Luther’s example proved catching, and the end of the world became a favourite topic both in the pulpit and in books, one on which the preachers’ own gloom could aptly find vent. The end of all was thought to be imminent. Such forebodings are voiced, for instance, in the following: “No consolation is of any help to consciences”;[757] “many pine away in dejection and die of grief”;[758] “in these latter days the wicked one by his tyranny drives men into fear and fright”;[759] “many despair for very dejection and sadness”;[760] “many pious hearts wax cowardly, seeing their sins and the wickedness of the world”;[761] “the people hang their heads as though they were walking corpses and live in a constant dread”;[762] “all joy is dead and all consolation from God’s Word has become as weak as water”;[763] the number of those “possessed of the devil body and soul” is growing beyond all measure.[764] Though the special advantage claimed for the new Evangel lay in the sure comfort it afforded troubled consciences, many found themselves unable to arouse within them the necessary faith in the forgiveness of their sins. Luther’s own experience, viz. that “faith won’t come,”[765] was also that of many of the preachers in the case of their own uneasy and tortured parishioners; their complaints of the fruitlessness of their labours sound almost like an echo of some of Luther’s own utterances. “There are many pious souls in our churches,” says Simon Pauli, of Rostock, “who are much troubled because they cannot really believe what they say they do, viz. that God will be gracious to them and will justify and save them.”[766]