gress of new and dangerous opinions." The papal party, headed by Aleander, induced the young emperor to issue an edict for the destruction of Luther's books. But the Estates refused to publish the decree unless Luther were heard in his own defence, and a safe-conduct granted under which he might come to Worms; Aleander meanly pleading that he should not be put under the protection of the public faith. Luther was therefore summoned to Worms by the emperor under the titles, honorabilis, dilecte, et devote— mere words of form. This was what Luther longed for—to proclaim the truth to the congregated princes and nobles of Germany. While his friends hesitated and trembled, and conjured up all manner of dangers, he at once resolved to go, though he learned that he had just been cursed at Rome with great ceremony. On seeing the suspense and anguish of his advisers, he bravely exclaimed, "It is not my coming to Worms, but my condemnation and death that the papists want. I despise them while I live, and by my death I will triumph over them." In the resolute spirit of a martyr he bade his colleagues farewell, and on the 2nd of April set out on his journey, a carriage being provided for him by the civic authorities. His journey from town to town resembled a triumphal procession; even Pallavicini admits that the crowds everywhere rushed to him during his progress. His enemies were alarmed at his coming, for they scarcely expected it, and strove in various ways to prevent or intimidate him. Spalatin also ventured by a messenger to forewarn and remonstrate, but Luther's intrepid reply was, "Go tell your master, that though there were as many devils in Worms as there are tiles upon the houses, I will enter it." On the 16th of April he reached the city, and attired in his monk's frock, passed through its streets attended by two thousand persons. On the morning of the 19th his faith seemed to fail him, for men of his temperament are liable to such recoils; bitter thoughts rose in his mind, but prayer gained the ascendancy. Alone he wrestled—"Stand by me, God, the cause is thine. . . . Hast thou chosen me for this? I ask from thee assurance. . . . My soul is thine, God, keep thou me." These and other broken sentences fell upon the ears of his friends. Luther was at length ushered into the august presence. The assembly was the most magnificent that Europe could furnish. Two hundred and four judges were there; the emperor, six electors, eighty dukes, eight margraves, thirty prelates, seven ambassadors, and hosts of princes and deputies. Alone he faced this tribunal; pale and emaciated, he stood before them in solitary grandeur. The combat began. Luther's calmness returned, nay, his courage rose to the occasion. Boldly and fully did he vindicate his past procedure, uniformly appealing to the authority of scripture. As Luther himself describes the scene, the contest turned on two questions—"Are those writings yours?" Yea. "Will you retract them?" Nay. "Begone then!" At the close of one of his answers he uttered those mighty words, "Here am I; I cannot do otherwise; so help me God. Amen." On the 26th Luther left Worms. An imperial edict was immediately issued against him—styled in the writ the "evil fiend in human form"—and he was put under the ban of the empire. But his friends had concerted measures for his safety, and he was warned that for a season his liberty might be abridged. Leaving Worms, he went to Mora to see his aged grandmother, and one can easily imagine the mingled awe and admiration with which she must have regarded her grandchild, who had single-handed been a match for pope and emperor. Next day he resumed his journey, and when he was in the depths of the Thuringian forest he was roughly seized by five horsemen and carried off from his companions to the castle of Wartburg. Here he assumed the dress of a knight, and spent a year in its solitude, mourned by many of his friends who were not in the secret. Yet this period of forced retirement was not misspent; several tracts were composed by him, and he did a portion of his great work—translated the New Testament into German. The version was published in 1522. But he had to wrestle with morbid and nervous sensations produced by his confinement and sedentary life. The Evil One, as he imagined, often troubled him; and on one occasion, in the form of a buzzing moth, so annoyed him as he was in the act of translating, that he hurled his inkstand at the tempter, and the strange missile left a mark on the wall of his chamber which the visitor is still invited to inspect. Leaving his Patmos, he returned to Wittemberg; his unquailing energy carried all before it, and in 1524 he abandoned the monastic dress—the last relic of his connection with Rome. Carlstadt and his party were driving matters to an extreme and damaging the cause, and he had to crush them. Henry VIII. of England answered his "Babylonish Captivity," and Luther replied in his own fierce style. A set of enthusiasts, Stubner and the prophets, rose up in and around Zwickau and in other places, who soon turned liberty into licentiousness, and in a brief space excited the peasants to war—a political revolt resting, however, on many grievances, which Luther strove hard to moderate. He bewailed these excesses as far more hurtful to his cause than papal persecution, and his enemies blamed him and his doctrines as being the source of them. On the 11th June, 1525, Luther was married by Pomeranus to Catherine von Bora, who had left her convent about two years before. According to some accounts the lady herself had some hand in forwarding the arrangement. Luther had destined her for another person, but that person she bluntly declared she would not have, adding that she far preferred Luther to him; and to him such an appeal was irresistible. His friends were alarmed at this step, and many critics and historians have needlessly condemned it. It was his father's will, he argued, and God's will too. His lovely "Ketha" proved an excellent wife, and the happiness of Luther was vastly increased, though he sportively calls his spouse occasionally "my Lord Kate." A new fountain of tenderness was opened in his nature by the domestic relationship of wife and ultimately four children.
The controversy with Erasmus on the Will was an unhappy one. The technical dispute may cease to interest us, but its nature and tendency are quite palpable. The great scholar felt not the spiritual want of the age—its deep craving was for something more than literary taste and classic refinement, which might, indeed, coexist with scepticism and sensuality. Erasmus played upon the surface of the waters, and tossed about the laughing billows; Luther went down into the depths, in which it is true he sometimes lost himself before he hastily emerged. The one was expert at external appliances—the herbs and flowers of Parnassus—the other strove to reach the inner seat of the moral malady, and heal it with the balm of Gilead.—(See Erasmus.) Luther's labours from this time forward were incessant. The publication of the new German translation of scripture embodied the divine word to princes and people, and forms an epoch in the formation and history of the German tongue. By the year 1533 seventeen editions of it had been printed at Wittemberg; thirteen at Augsburg; thirteen at Strasburg; with reprints at Erfurt and Leipsic. "The care of all the churches" was now upon the reformer, for many of the German states were embracing his doctrine. From 1517 to 1526 every year saw some book or tract from his pen. The translation of the Hebrew scriptures occupied a large portion of his time, and he wrote commentaries on nearly all the books of the Bible. In 1525 a council was held at Augsburg, which adjourned to Spires in 1526, and at it a general council was demanded. In 1529 another diet met at the same place; and the imperial and popish party having got the mastery, resolved to suppress the Reformation by force. Against this decree the deputies solemnly protested, and acquired thenceforth the appropriate name of Protestants. At this period occurred the famous sacramentarian controversy about the presence of Christ in the eucharist. Luther held to the traditional dogma of a real bodily presence, and when worsted in argument still repeated the words, "This is my body." By appointment of the landgrave of Hesse, Luther and Zwingle met at Marburg for discussion. But it was fruitless; Zwingle's arguments as to bodily locality Luther contemptuously called "mathematics." It was found that prior to the conference, Luther had chalked on the velvet table-cloth, "This is my body." Luther's dislike of the Swiss reformers was wholly unworthy of him. The famous diet of Augsburg took place in 1530; the confession prepared by Melancthon was laid before it and was formally accepted. To be in the neighbourhood if any crisis arose or consultation was needed, Luther went to sojourn at Coburg for a season. To animate his drooping friends on the occasion, Luther composed and sang his noted hymn, "Ein feste Berg ist unser Gott." The highest point had been gained. Protestantism, at first a secret conflict in the soul of an unknown and solitary monk, and which had demonstrated its vitality by conquering so many obstacles and triumphing over so many dangers—which had not quailed at the curse of the pope, nor been paralyzed by the ban of the emperor—was now established among the German nations. The excesses of the anabaptists vexed the reformer greatly, and his heart was smitten at the thought of war—a religious war waged by the
