Thus it was with the pilgrimages. New ones arose daily

Thus it was with the pilgrimages. New ones arose daily, to Grimmenthal, to Eicha, to Birnbaum, to Regensburg, and so many “Our Dear Ladies.” There was hardly a chapel or altar that did not blossom into a place of pilgrimage. The people ran to them, as if they were mad, neglecting their employment and obedience as though, if one could grasp it, it were the devil’s delusion. Yet bishops, monasteries, and universities kept silence. If our gospel had not come, there would have been no more room or place left for a pilgrimage. And was that not a remarkably masterful fraud with our Lord’s mantel at Trier, which was later exposed as a shameful lie? What have all the Lutheran innovations done compared with this single instance of humbug and roguery? Here again, there was no one who could decry or even point out innovation. But Luther, who exposes and chastises such innovation, is an innovator!