It is natural that a religion of individual initiative and personal responsibility, like Protestantism, should put less confidence in theurgic machinery and formularies of ex-cathedral execration than a religion like Catholicism, in which man’s spiritual concerns are entrusted to a hierarchical corporation to be managed according to traditional and infallible methods. This tendency crops out in a decree published at Dresden, in 1559, by “Augustus Duke and Elector,” wherein he commends the “Christian zeal of the worthy and pious parson, Daniel Greysser,” for having “put under ban the sparrows, on account of their unceasing and extremely vexatious chatterings and scandalous unchastity during the sermon, to the hindrance of God’s word and of Christian devotion.” But the Saxon parson, unlike the Bishop of Trier, did not expect that his ban would cause the offending birds to avoid the church or to fall dead on entering it. He relied less on the directly coercive or withering action of the curse than on the human agencies, which he might thereby set at work for the accomplishment of his purpose. By his proscription he put the culprits out of the pale of public sympathy and protection and gave them over as a prey to the spoiler, who was persuaded that he was doing a pious work by exterminating them. It was solemnly enjoined upon the hunter and the fowler to lie in wait for the anathematized sparrows with guns and with snares (_durch mancherlei visirliche und listige Wege_); and the Elector issued his decree in order to enforce this duty on all good Christians. (See Appendix E.)