Then Blomberg bewailed the untimely leniency of the Emperor, for there was not even any rumour of a serious assault upon the Turks.  And yet, if only he, Blomberg, was commissioned to raise an army of the cross, Christianity would soon have rest from its mortal foe!  But if it should come to fighting—­no matter whether against the infidels or the heretics—­in spite of Wawerl and his lame leg, he would take the field again.  No death could be more glorious than in battle against the destroyer of souls.  The scoundrels were flourishing like tares among the wheat.  At the last Reichstag the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, as well as the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, brought their own preachers, whose sermons turned many heads, even the pastor of St. Emmeran’s, Zollern, who was a child of Ratisbon.  At Staufferhof Baron von Stauff, formerly a man worthy of all honour, had opened his chapel of St. Ann to all the citizens to permit them to participate in the Lutheran idolatry.  Two Protestant ministers, one of whom, Dr. Forster, Luther himself had brought to Ratisbon, were liberally paid by the Council.  Whether Wolf believed it or not, Father Hamberger, whom he surely remembered as Prior of the Minorites, and who at that time enjoyed universal esteem, had taken a wife, and the rest of the monks had followed the iniquitous example.  Many other priests had married if it suited them, and, instead of the cowl, wore secular garments.  The instruction given in the school of poets was perfectly abominable, as he heard from Councillor Steuerer, who was faithful to the Catholic Church, and strove to induce the Duke of Bavaria to adopt still sterner measures against all this disorder.

Very recently men hitherto blameless, like Andreas Weinzierl and Georg Seidl, had sent their eighteen-year-old sons to the University of Wittenberg, where the Lutheran heresies were flourishing most luxuriantly.

But the worst of all was that even faithful sons and daughters of Holy Church could not keep themselves wholly untouched by such mischief.  Among these, alas! were he and his Wawerl, for he had been obliged to allow the girl to join the choristers who sang in the Convivium Musicum, which the Council had established in the summer three years before.  Two councillors were assigned to each Convivium, and thus these arrangements were in Protestant hands.

“Of course,” he added dejectedly, “I wished to forbid her taking part in them, but, though with me it is usually bend or break, what can a man do when a woman is pestering him day and night, sometimes begging with tears, sometimes with caresses?

“Besides, many a good Catholic entreated me to give up my opposition.  They, do not grudge the girl her progress, and how much she already owes to the music teacher who now directs the Collegium Musicuin!  Singing is everything to her, and what else can I give the poor child?  At any rate, the Netherlander whom the Council brought here three years ago—­so connoisseurs say—­scarcely has his equal anywhere in knowledge and ability.  The man came to me and frankly said that he needed the girl’s voice for the Convivium, and, if I refused to let Wawerl take part, he would stop teaching her.  As he is a just man of quiet temperament and advanced in years.”