meeting of the reformers at Marburg, on the 2d of October, had led to no union among them, because a panic at the new disease had seized the heretics[627]. Never did a dastardly fear of death enter the heart of Luther, who, when the plague broke out at Wittenburg in 1527, cheerfully and courageously remained at his post whilst all around him fled, and the high school was removed to Jena. Moreover, as we have seen, the Sweating Sickness never once came near Marburg, and the union of the two evangelical churches failed on totally different grounds. In Cologne the zealots were of opinion that they ought to endeavour to appease the visible wrath of God by the punishment of the heretics, and it was this sanguinary delusion, worthy of savage barbarians, which hastened the burning of Flistedt and Clarenbach[628]. To the completion of this picture of the times, many other minor touches might be added, of which the following may be taken as an example. In the March of Brandenburg the evangelical faith, notwithstanding great obstacles, spread every day more and more, and the Catholic priests soon found themselves deserted. Just as the Sweating Sickness broke out at Friedeberg, in the Newmark, a curate there delivered a sermon full of enthusiasm and passion, and endeavoured to convince his apostate congregation that God had invented a new plague in order to chastise the new heresy. A solemn procession, according to ancient usage and orthodox prescription, was to be held on the following day, and thus the congregation was to be led back into the bosom of the only true church. But behold, in the course of the night, the zealous curate died of some sudden disease; and as mankind are ever ready to interpret even the thunders of the Eternal according to their own wishes and narrow notions, the Protestants, it seems, did not fail in their turn to represent this event as a miracle[629]. SECT. 10.—THE PHYSICIANS.