“We are beholders of the wonders of God,” so Luther wrote to Hermann Bonn, his preacher, at Osnabrück; “such great Princes and Bishops are now being called of God by the working of the Holy Ghost.”[597] He was speaking not only of the misguided Archbishop of Cologne but also of the Bishop of Münster and Osnabrück, who had introduced the new teaching at Osnabrück by means of Bonn, Superintendent of Lübeck. Luther, however, was rather too sanguine. In the same year he announced to Duke Albert of Prussia: “The two bishops of ‘Collen’ and Münster, have, praise be to God, accepted the Evangel in earnest, strongly as the Canons oppose it. Things are also well forward in the Duchy of Brunswick.”[598] As a matter of fact he turned out right only as regards Brunswick. Henry, the Catholic Duke, was expelled in 1542 by the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse after the war which broke out on account of Goslar had issued in his loss of the stronghold of Wolfenbüttel; thereupon with the help of Bugenhagen the churches of the land were forcibly brought over to Lutheranism. In 1544 the appointment at Merseburg of a bishop of the new faith in the person of George of Anhalt followed on Duke Maurice of Saxony’s illegal seizure of the see. So barefaced was this act of spoliation that even Luther entered a protest against “this rapacious onslaught on Church property.”[599] The appointment of an “Evangelical bishop” at Naumburg took place in 1542 under similar circumstances. From Metz, where the preacher Guillaume Farel was working for the Reformation, an application was received for admission into the Schmalkalden League. The Lutherans there received at least moral support from Melanchthon who, in the name of the League, addressed a writing to the Duke of Lorraine. Not only distant Transylvania, but even Venice, held correspondence with Luther in order to obtain from him advice and instructions concerning the Protestant congregations already existing in those regions. Thus the author of the religious upheaval might well congratulate himself, when, in the evening of his days, he surveyed the widespread influence of his work. He was at the same time well aware what a potent factor in all this progress was the danger which menaced Germany from the Turks. The Protestant Estates continued to exploit the distress of the Empire to their own advantage in a spirit far from loyal. They insisted on the Emperor’s granting their demands within the Empire before they would promise effectual aid against the foe without; their conduct was quite inexcusable at such a time, when a new attack on Vienna was momentarily apprehended, and when the King of France was quite openly supporting the Turks.