That Luther should have written a Preface to so undignified a little work as _The Book of Vagabonds_ seems remarkable. At this period (1528-9) he was in the midst of his labours, surrounded with difficulties and cares, and with every moment of his time fully occupied. The Protest of Spires had just been signed by the first Protestants. Melancthon, in great affliction at the turbulent state of affairs, was running from city to city; and all Germany was alarmed to hear that the dreaded Turks were preparing to make battle before Vienna. Yet, the centre of all this agitation, engaged in directing and assisting his followers, Luther found time to write several popular pieces, and kept, we are told, the book-hawkers of Augsburg and Spires busy in supplying them to the people. These Christian pamphlets, D’Aubigné informs us, were eagerly sought for and passed through numberless editions. It was not the peasants and townspeople only who read them, but nobles and princes. Luther intended that they should be popular. He knew better than any man of his time how to captivate the reader and fix his attention. His little books were short, easy to read, full of homely sayings and current phrases, and ornamented with curious engravings. They were generally written, too, in Latin and German, to suit both the educated and the unlettered. One was entitled, _The Papacy with its Members painted and described by Dr. Luther_. In it figured the Pope, the cardinal, and all the religious orders. Under the picture of one of the orders were these lines:— “We can fast and pray the harder, With an overflowing larder.” “Not one of these orders,” said Luther to the reader, “thinks either of faith or charity. This one wears the tonsure, the other a hood, this a cloak, that a robe. One is white, another black, a third gray, and a fourth blue. Here is one holding a looking-glass, there one with a pair of scissors. Each has his playthings.... Ah! these are the palmer-worms, the locusts, the canker-worms, and the caterpillars which, as Joel saith, have eaten up all the earth.”[7] In this style Luther addressed his readers—scourging the Pope, his cardinals, and all their emissaries. But another class of “locusts” besides these appeared to him to require sweeping away,—these were the beggars and vagabonds who imitated the Mendicant Friars in wandering up and down the country, with lying tales of distress, either of mind or body. As he says in his Preface, explaining the reason of his connection with the book, “I thought it a good thing that such a work should not only be published, but that it should become known everywhere, in order that men can see and understand how mightily the devil rules in this world; and I have also thought how such a book may help mankind to be wise, and on the look out for him, viz. the devil.”