could make their way without danger.

When Duke Bogislaw returned, the Stralsund council endeavoured to persuade His Highness that the destruction of the images had taken place in spite of them. In his great anger the prince would not hear of any justification; he accused the people of Stralsund of having failed in their duty towards religion as well as against the sovereign who was the patron of the city's churches. He added that the devil would bring them to account for it. The duke died on September 29 of the same year at Stettin, leaving two sons, George and Barnim.^[9]

The disturbances, nevertheless, continued, for the burghers saw with displeasure that the council, following the example of Princes George and Barnim, persisted in popish practices, thereby delaying the progress of Evangelism. On the Monday of St. John, 1524, Rolof Moller, at the head of a big troop of men, made his appearance in the old market place and, mounted also on a fishmonger's stall, began addressing the people, who applauded him. The dissensions between the magistrates and the burghers became more accentuated every day, and plainly foretold the ruin of public business. Moller observed no measure in his attacks on the council. He was just about thirty, clever, and, with an attractive personality, he might count upon being sooner or later elected burgomaster. It was only a question of time. His presumption blinded him to the reality; intoxicated with popular favour, he allowed himself certain excesses against the council, took his flight before his wings had grown, and dragged a number of people down with him in his fall. The city itself did not recover from the effects of all this for close upon a century.

Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow, a personage of great consideration, a clever spokesman, and of a firm and generous disposition, was a member of the council for seventeen years. Duke Bogislaw, who fully appreciated his work, took him to the conference at Nuremberg. The journey enabled the burgomaster to hear the gospel preached in its purity, and to become aware of the fatal error of papism. At Wittemberg he heard Luther preach. As a consequence, he was the first to proclaim the wholesome doctrine in open council, though the opposition of that body prevented him from supporting the propagators of the true faith when they kept within reasonable limits. He interposed between the council, the princes, and the exalted personages of the land, who were still wedded to papism, and Rolof Moller, the Forty-Eight, and their adherents who wished to carry things with too high a hand. Smiterlow told the council to show themselves less unbending with the burghers in all just and reasonable things. On the other hand, he exhorted the citizens to show more deference to the magistrates, giving the former the assurance that the preachers should not be molested, and that the gospel should not be hampered in its course. Unfortunately, his efforts failed on both sides.

Then the crisis occurred. The ringleaders--among the most turbulent, Franz Wessel, L. Vischer, Bartholomäi Buchow, Hermann Meyer and Nicholas Rode lifted Rolof Moller from his fishmonger's bench--took him to the Town House, and made him take his seat in the burgomaster's chair.^[10] The council was compelled to accept Rolof and Christopher Lorbeer as burgomasters, and eight of the citizens as councillors. In order to save their heads, the magistrates found themselves compelled to share with their sworn enemies both the small bench of the four burgomasters and the larger bench of twenty-four councillors. As for Smiterlow, his was the fate of those who interfere between two contending parties, the peacemakers invariably coming to grief like the iron between the anvil and the hammer. When Rolof Moller entered the burgomaster's pew Smiterlow left it, and inasmuch as his consummate experience foretold him of his danger he came to Greifswald with his two sons to ask my mother's hospitality.^[11]

The tolerance shown at this conjuncture by the young princes George and Barnim was due to two reasons. In the first place they expected to get the upper hand of the city without much trouble after it became worn out with domestic dissensions. Secondly, a band of zealots, with Dr. Johannes Amandus at their head, scoured the country, especially Eastern Pomerania, inciting the people to break the images, and preaching from the pulpit the sweeping away of all refuse, princes included. In the eyes of the papists, those people and the evangelicals were but one and the same set, and as their number happened to be imposing, the princes considered it prudent to lay low.

The flight of the priests and monks gave the magistrates the opportunity of listening to the preaching of Christian Ketelhot and his colleagues. In a short while the council's eyes were opened to the true light, and in accord with the Forty-Eight and the burghers themselves, they assigned the churches to the evangelical preachers; the monastery, that is, the supreme direction of all the ministers and servitors of the church being confided to Ketelhot, who exercised it for twenty-three years, in fact, up to the day of his death. Canons and vicars had taken the precaution to collect all the specie, valuables and title deeds, amounting to considerable sums; they entrusted to certain councillors of Greifswald chests and lockers filled with chalices, rich chasubles and various holy vessels. They occasionally converted these into money and handed to the debtors certain annuities at half-price. Consequently, the hospitals, churches, and pious foundations lost both their capital and their income. A long time after these events the sons of my relative, Christian Schwartz, dispatched to me for restitution to the council of Stralsund, a sailor's locker which had stood for forty years under their father's bed. It contained velvet chasubles embroidered with silver and pearls, in addition to a couple of silver crucifixes. Though their rules forbade the monks of St. John to touch coined metal, the father custodian did not scruple to carry away with him all that the convent held in clinking coin and precious objects.

Called to the ministry by a small group of citizens who had not given a thought to the question of his salary, Ketelhot had no other resource for his daily sustenance than the city "wine cellar" and The King Arthur.^[12] He found hospitable board and good company, but the life was detrimental to his studies. A Jew with whom he flattered himself he was studying the lingua sancta induced him to announce from the pulpit the error a Judaeo conceptus. As a consequence the council promptly appointed Johannes Knipstro as superintendent at Stralsund. He was the first that bore the title there, and Ketelhot neither suffered in consideration, rank, nor benefices. He remained all his life primarius pastor, and his effigy at St. Nicholas, facing the pulpit, is inscribed with the words: Repurgator ecclesiae Sundensis. Appointed in 1524, Knipstro, by his talent and solicitude, succeeded in leading Ketelhot back to the right path, for he broke for ever with the error. The two ministers lived in the most brotherly understanding. Ketelhot was no more jealous of the superintendent than Knipstro, took umbrage at