Tetzel continued to bray and fume against him from pulpit and press,
denouncing him as a heresiarch, heretic, and schismatic. By Wimpina's
aid he issued a reply to Luther's sermon, and also counter-theses on
Luther's propositions. But the tide was turning in the sea of human
thinking. Luther's utterances had turned it. The people were ready to
tear the mountebank to pieces. Two years later he imploringly
complained to the pope's nuncio, Miltitz, that such fury pursued him
in Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland that he was nowhere safe.
Even the representative of the pope gave the wretch no sympathy. When
Luther heard of his illness he sent him a letter to tell him that he
had forgiven him all. He died in Leipsic, neglected, smitten in soul,
and full of misery, July 14, 1519.