disciplinary canons could exercise any restraint; the monasteries and
religious institutions had been suppressed, but their wealth had
passed into the treasuries of the princes, whilst the poor for whose
benefit it had been held in trust were neglected, and the ministers of
religion were obliged to have recourse to different occupations to
secure a livelihood. To his followers and his most intimate associates
he denied the liberty of thought and speech that he claimed for
himself, by insisting on the unconditional acceptance of his doctrines
as if in him alone were vested supreme authority and infallibility.
For exercising their right to private judgment, Carlstadt was pursued
from pulpit to pulpit till at last he was forced to seek safety in
flight; Zwingli was denounced as a heretic for whose salvation it was
useless to pray; the Anabaptists were declared to be unworthy of any
better fate than the sword or the halter; Agricola, his most zealous
fellow-labourer, was banished from his presence and his writings were
interdicted; and even Melanchthon was at last driven to complain of
the state of slavery to which he had been reduced.[35]

His failing health and his disappointments served to sour his temper
and to render him less approachable. The attacks that he directed
against the Papacy such as /The Papacy an Institution of the Devil/,
and the verses prepared for the vulgar caricatures that he induced
Cranach to design (1545) surpassed even his former productions in
violence and abusiveness. Tired of attacking the Papacy, he turned his
attention once more to the Jews, upon whom he invoked the vengeance of
Heaven in the last sermon that he was destined to preach on earth. He
was taken suddenly ill in Eisleben, where he had come to settle some
disputes between the Counts of Mansfeld, and on the 18th February
1546, he passed away.[36]