wrote Hans Sachs, in a poem which had no small influence in forwarding the reformation movement. So, in many of his later prose dialogues, he upholds liberty of conscience and freedom of opinion in religious matters. The Council, in deference to the Emperor, made a bare pretence of stopping the publication of Lutheran writings. So half-hearted were they that the Papal Legate demanded that stronger measures should be taken, and that Lutheran preachers should be imprisoned. But the Council pursued its policy of keeping the peace between both parties, taking a middle course and siding with neither reactionary nor revolutionary. That policy could not be pursued for long. The Council had to yield, not unwillingly, to public opinion. At a meeting of representatives of the towns at Rothenburg, held there in 1524 because forbidden by Imperial edict to meet at Spires and to discuss religious matters, Nuremberg was very bold and "gave three brave Christian reasons" why they should not obey this edict. She organised a further meeting of the towns at Ulm, and for herself began to determine on a new form of worship. The Sacrament was now administered in both kinds, and Mass was read in German, with Lutheran omissions, by the Prior of the Augustin Monastery. Both the Parish Churches followed his example. The Council excused themselves for allowing this by saying that they did it to avoid an uproar among the people. The Bishop of Bamberg held an inquiry, and summoned the officiating priests before him. They denied his power to judge them, and his sentence of excommunication was practically ignored. Other towns followed the example of Nuremberg, and imitated her Lutheran services. Meanwhile the dislike of the people for monasteries and nunneries broke out more vehemently. The air was full of satires and cartoons directed against nuns and monks. Hans Sachs was not silent on this point. At last the Council ordered these institutions to be handed over to the guidance of the Lutheran preachers. Charitas Pirkheimer, the virtuous and accomplished abbess of the _Klarakloster_, friend and correspondent of Durer and sister of Willibald, has left us in her memoirs a touching account of the manner in which she was torn from her beloved convent, over which no breath of scandal had ever passed, and which contained many of the daughters of the best families in Nuremberg. These memoirs are well worth looking at by those who care to see the other side of the question, and to make the acquaintance of a beautiful and fascinating character. Unfortunately we have no space in this little book to deal with them here.