teachings of the apostles; and he had also, in consequence of his study of the New Testament, come to a clear understanding of the gospel, and sought his personal salvation from Christ himself, and not from the Church and its sacraments.
A visit to Switzerland, in June, 1522, was an important factor in producing this change. He first journeyed to Basel, where he made the acquaintance of Busch, Glareanus, and Erasmus. He conferred with the latter on the doctrine of purgatory, and some dark places in the Gospel of John, but received little aid. He was not at all pleased with Erasmus, in fact, and said of him afterwards, "Erasmus speaks freely but writes cautiously." From Basel he went to (the Swiss) Freiburg. "I have found this quite other than its name implies," he writes; "it is not free but imprisoned, and rent with faction and narrowness." In Basel he noted that the cloisters were becoming more empty from day to day, and that the nuns were marrying. Switzerland was seething with disaffection to the old faith, and on the eve of a religious revolution. Hübmaier returned to Waldshut and plunged anew into the study of the Pauline epistles. At about this time
