selling! And did not that foreign monk. Doctor Murner of Luzern, for the first time, at this Diet, publish against us a little book, full of scandal and lies, and go to the furthest lengths of malice, when out of an envenomed, envious heart, he defamed and abused us and ours in the highest degree, in the presence of natives and foreigners, after the disputation held at Baden, and all with such knavery, that, amid many pious, honest men, who heard him, there was little displeasure, and yet no one called him to order? Indeed it were much better if we sought to put away such people, who bring no honor or profit to either party. Heretofore matters proceeded very differently at the Diet, when we conversed together about that which might promote the honor, the happiness and the welfare of our Confederacy, and lived in old friendship, brotherly fidelity and love." The answer of Zwingli, who was the most aggrieved, was thought to be more rude and independent: "That I"--he wrote--"have reviled the Twelve Cantons, is, honorable Lords, unjustly charged against me; but that I would expose the practices of Faber, who can justly blame me for that? Faber himself could not stand, if he would visit me in the place, where we have pledged sufficient security to Eck and him. That more words of scandalous abuse stick in me than words of Holy Writ and truth, I must allow you to say. You, the Five Cantons, have proclaimed me a heretic before all the conferences or disputations, which cannot be made out, though I should not stand up to answer you. If there be real, genuine desire to learn the Word of God in truth, we must not attempt it with _courtesans_, the whole Papacy and such dishonest people, who like Eck have spoken so scandalously in regard to an estimable Confederacy. That I have often been blamed by you for lying, falsehood and deceit, I must likewise commend to God. But I do indeed think, if this letter of your deputies were read at home before the Twelve Cantons, the smaller number would be pleased with it. Pardon me, dear Lords, I also know in part how things went at the Diet." "Since then, it is your opinion, that my Lords ought to thrust me aside and the like, I tell you, they are too pious for that; because they know well that you first assailed me and so often, that I was obliged on their account to write, for the preservation of God's Word, their honor and my own. It seems to me, that your faith is but ill kept toward my Lords and me; (forgive me, gracious Lords) though heretical opinions are tolerated in the pulpits of several cantons, I must keep silence in mine, and their honest people, when they do business among you, are often and disgracefully abused, and there is no punishment or redress."