Strong guards of mounted men were stationed at every avenue.

Outlying scouts gave notice of approaching danger, and guided the faithful into the enclosure.

Pedlers and hawkers plied the trade upon which the penalty of death was fixed, and sold the forbidden hymn-books to all who chose to purchase.

A strange and contradictory spectacle! An army of criminals doing deeds which could only be expiated at the stake; an entrenched rebellion, bearding the government with pike, matchlock, javelin and barricade, and all for no more deadly purpose than to listen to the precepts of the pacific Jesus.
Thus the preaching spread through the Walloon provinces to the northern Netherlands.

Towards the end of July, an apostate monk, of singular eloquence, Peter Gabriel by name, was announced to preach at Overeen near Harlem.