And the apostles of the primitive Christian Church preached everywhere, in every place, in fields and in gardens, on the hillocks which in times of flood were used to keep cattle on, upon rivers, in boats.
On land, they entrenched themselves as in a camp, surrounding themselves with their wains. Upon the rivers and in harbours, boats filled with armed men kept guard round about them.
And thus the word of freedom was heard on every side on the soil of our fathers.
XI
Ulenspiegel and Lamme being at Bruges, with their cart, which they left in a yard close by, went into the church of Saint Sauveur, instead of going to the tavern, for there was in their pouches no more the merry clink of coins.
Father Cornelis Adriensen, a minor friar, dirty, brazen, furious, and a bellowing preacher, was on that day occupying the pulpit of truth.
Beautiful young devout women were thronging all around.
Father Cornelis was discoursing of the Passion. When he came to the passage in the Holy Gospel where the Jews cried to Pilate, speaking of our Lord Jesus, “Crucify him, crucify him, for we have our law, and by that law he must die,” Broer Cornelis exclaimed:
“Ye have just heard it, good people, if Our Lord Jesus Christ endured a dreadful and a shameful death, it is because there have at all times been laws to punish heretics. He was justly condemned, because he had disobeyed those laws. And to-day they would fain regard as naught the edicts and proclamations. Ah! Jesus! What curse wouldst thou set upon these lands. Honoured Mother of God, if the Emperor Charles were still alive, and could he see the scandal of these confederate nobles who have dared to present to the Lady Governor a request against the Inquisition and against the proclamations made for an aim so good, which are so ripely thought out, and promulgated after so long and so wise reflection and deliberation, to destroy all sects and heresies! And they would fain reduce them to nothing, though they are more necessary than bread and than cheese! In what foul, loathsome, abominable gulf are we to be made to fall to-day? Luther, that vile Luther, that mad ox, triumphs in Saxony, in Brunswick, in Lunebourg, in Mecklenburg; Brentius, that dung Brentius who lived in Germany upon acorns the pigs refused, Brentius triumphs in Württemberg; Servetus the Lunatic, who hath a quarter of the moon in his head, the Trinitarian Servetus, reigns in Pomerania, in Denmark and in Sweden, and there he dares to blaspheme the holy, glorious, and mighty Trinity. Aye. But I am informed that he hath been burned alive by Calvin, who was never right or good save in that; aye, by the stinking Calvin who smells of musty sourness; aye, with his long face like a leather bottle; a face of cheese, with his big teeth like a gardener’s shovel. Aye, these wolves eat one another; aye, the ox Luther, the mad ox, roused the princes of Germany to arms against the Anabaptist Münzer, who was a good man, they say, and lived according to the Gospel. And through all Germany the bellowings of this ox have been heard, aye!