Calmly and with a manifest endeavor, as far as it lay in his power, to form an unbiassed judgment, an old schoolmaster, Erhard Hegenwald, has described the transaction; and his narrative is the more worthy of credence, for the very reason that Faber was so provoked by it, that he attempted to refute it by a statement of his own. The distinguished air, which he assumed, the haughty treatment of Hegenwald, the importance, which he strove to give to his trifling mistakes, the mixture also of unfounded assertions contained in this production roused the indignation of the young men of Zurich, six of whom, members then already for the most part of the Great, and afterwards of the Small Council, joined in the publication of an answer to Faber, which they entitled "Hawk Plucking." The rude castigation, the biting and often also tasteless wit, and the entire absence of all the respect, which they formerly paid to age and official position, sorely wounded the Vicar General, who, but that it seemed useless, would have complained of the "libelous little book" to the government of Zurich. Thus the hostility of Faber toward Zwingli and his friends soon extended itself to Zurich also. This champion against the doctrines of the Reformer became a persecutor of all his adherents--an inexorable judge to those, who fell into his power. In the end he even laughed at the tears, which the torture of the rack wrung from one of his victims, and rejoiced to see him burning at the stake.[4] Zwingli, although satisfied with the decree of the government, that he should continue unmolested in his way of teaching, was by no means so with the turn, which the conference took in the afternoon, through the tricks of Faber and the sort of protest against his syllogisms as anti-scriptural, with which the Vicar General had left Zurich. He resolved to append to each one of these points a detailed explanation and proof, in a work, which is even now considered the basis of his system of Christian doctrine, as well as his views in regard to church and state.[5] "Day and night"--he wrote to his friend Werner Steiner--"do I labor at this work." It consisted of a volume of 300 closely-printed pages, and was finished in five months, amid daily preaching and a crowd of other business. New and still more violent enemies were awakened by its appearance, and, although many boasting promises of a refutation were made, none ever saw the light.