pressed. This was apparent in the preliminary examination given him at Vienna, before he was sent to Greisenstein, and his imprisonment there weighed heavily on his health and spirits, Hübmaier was not a man of great fortitude, as he had already shown at Zürich, and it is more than probable that the ardour of his labours at Nikolsburg, following the hardships he had previously experienced, had left him with a small stock of physical strength. In his bodily weakness, his soul began to quail at the prospect of torture and death, and he bethought him of expedients by which his life might again be saved. The intervention of his old schoolmate and friend, John Faber, now vicar-general of the Bishop of Constance, occurred to him as the thing most likely to be helpful. Accordingly he urgently requested the favour of an interview with Faber, and the request was granted. Faber hastened to Greisenstein, moved in part possibly by affection for his old school-fellow, but still more by hope of winning to the truth a heretic so distinguished. He took with him no books but the Bible, and had a long interview—or rather, a series of interviews—with Hübmaier, of which he has left
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Balthasar Hübmaier
[1527-
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