as an order, were neither accommodating nor especially estimable, and even their morality was narrow-minded and harsh. But all these errors they atoned for in times of poverty, calamity, and persecution, more especially the poor village pastors. They were exposed to the greatest dangers, hated in general by the Imperial soldiers, and obliged by their office to bring themselves under the observation of the enemy; and the rough usage which they, their wives, and daughters had to suffer, fatally injured their consideration in their own parish. They were maintained by the contributions of their parishioners, and were not accustomed, and ill fitted to obtain their daily food by bodily labour; they were the greatest sufferers from any decrease in the wealth, morality, or population of their villages. One must bear witness that a very great number of them endured all these dangers as true servants of Christ. Most of them adhered to their parishes almost to the very last man. Their churches were plundered and burnt, chalice and crucifix stolen, the altar desecrated with disgusting ordures, and the bells torn from the towers and carried away. Then they held divine service in a barn, or an open field, or in the cover of a green wood. When the parishioners had almost perished, so that the voice of the singer was heard no more, and the penitential hymns were no longer intoned by the chanter, they still called the remains of their congregation together at the hour of prayer. They were vigorous and zealous both in giving comfort and in exercising discipline; for the greater the misery of their parishioners, the more reason they had to be dissatisfied with them. Frequently they were the first to suffer from the demoralization of the villagers: theft and insolent wantonness were willingly practised against those whose indignant looks and solemn admonitions had heretofore overawed them. Hence their fate is particularly characteristic of that iron time, and we happily possess numerous records concerning them, frequently in church documents, in which they bemoaned their sufferings, when no one would listen to them. From such records of Thuringian and Franconian village pastors, only a few examples will here be given.