Page:Balthasar Hübmaier.djvu/102

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Balthasar Hübmaier
[1481

He might have added that the city gave him, in grateful recognition of his distinguished services, a parting gift of forty gulden. This of itself is sufficient proof that he departed with no odour of heresy or misdeed clinging to his garments. He left behind him the repute of being an unusually faithful and zealous son of the Church. It is indeed surprising that neither at this time, nor for some time later, does Hübmaier show any sympathy with the Reformation; not even do his words or acts betray the consciousness that any such movement was in progress. The final persecution of the Jews in Regensburg was coincident with the posting of Luther's theses, and the miracles and pilgrimages happened in the year of the Leipzig disputation. The old friendship between Eck and Hübmaier showed as yet no signs of fracture, and one would have thought this would have been sufficient to attract the latter's attention to a controversy in which his former master was taking so prominent a part. Perhaps his attention was attracted, perhaps he read what was printed on both sides of the controversy, but if so his own personal concerns so far absorbed his attention that no immediate result