these old enemies friends. The die is cast. The spiritual and the temporal arms have united to crush Protestantism.

The emperor prepared to fulfil his part of the arrangement. It was hard to see what should hinder him. He had an overwhelming force of kingdoms and armies at his back. The spiritual sword, moreover, was now with him. If with such a combination of power he could not sweep this troublesome monk from his path, it would be a thing so strange and unaccountable that history might be searched in vain for a parallel to it. It was now the beginning of February. The day was to be devoted to a splendid tournament. The lists were already marked out, the emperor's tent was pitched; over it floated the imperial banner; the princes and knights were girding on

their armour, and the fair spectators of the show were preparing the honours and prizes to reward the feats of gallantry which were to grace the mimic war, when suddenly an imperial messenger appeared commanding the attendance of the princes in the royal palace. It was a real tragedy in which they were invited to take part. When they had assembled, the emperor produced and read the Papal brief which had lately arrived from Rome, enjoining him to append the imperial sanction to the excommunication against Luther, and to give immediate execution to the bull. A yet greater surprise awaited them. The emperor next drew forth and read to the assembled princes the edict which he himself had drawn up in conformity with the Papal brief, commanding that it should be done as the Pope desired.

YET the storm did not burst. We have seen produced the Pope's bull of condemnation; we have heard read the emperor's edict empowering the temporal arm to execute the spiritual sentence; we have only a few days to wait, so it seems, and we shall see the Reformer dragged to the stake and burned. But in order to accomplish this one thing was yet lacking. The constitution of the Empire required that Charles, before proceeding further, should add that "if the States knew any better course, he was ready to hear them." The majority of the German magnates cared little for Luther, but they cared a good deal for their prescriptive rights; they hated the odious tyranny and grinding extortions of Rome, and they felt that to deliver up Luther was to take the most effectual means to rivet the yoke that galled their own necks. The princes craved time for deliberation. Aleander was furious; he saw the prey about to be plucked from his very teeth. But the emperor submitted

with a good grace. "Convince this assembly," said the politic monarch to the impatient nuncio.

was agreed that Aleander should be heard before the Diet on the 13th of February.

It was a proud day for the nuncio. The assembly was a great one: the cause was even greater. Aleander was to plead for Rome-the primacy and princedom of Peter, the mother and mistress of all Churches-before the assembled principalities of Christendom. He had the gift of eloquence, and he rose to the greatness of the occasion. Providence ordered it that Rome should appear and plead by the ablest of her orators in the presence of the most august of tribunals, before she was condemned. The speech has been recorded by one of the most trustworthy and eloquent of the Roman historians, Pallavicino.1

The nuncio was more effective in those parts of his speech in which he attacked Luther, than in those in which he defended the Papacy. His charges against the Reformer were sweeping and

1 See Aleander's speech in Pallavicino, bk. i., chap. 25, pp. 98-108.

artful. He accused him of labouring to accomplish a universal ruin; of striking a blow at the foundations of religion by denying the doctrine of the Sacrament; of seeking to raze the foundations of the hierarchy by affirming that all Christians are priests; of seeking to overturn civil order by maintaining that a Christian is not bound to obey the magistrate; of aiming to subvert the foundations of morality by his doctrine of the moral inability of the will; and of unsettling the world beyond the grave by denying purgatory. The portion of seeming truth contained in these accusations made them the more dangerous. "A unanimous decree," said the orator in closing his speech, "from this illustrious assembly will enlighten the simple, warn the imprudent, decide the waverers, and give strength to the weak. . . . But if the axe is not laid at the root of this poisonous tree, if the death-blow is not struck, then I see it overshadowing the heritage of Jesus Christ with its branches, changing our Lord's vineyard into a gloomy forest, transforming the kingdom of God into a den of wild beasts, and reducing Germany into that state of frightful barbarism and desolation which has been brought upon Asia by the superstition of Mahomet.1 I should be willing," said he, with consummate art, "to deliver my body to the flames, if the monster that has engendered this growing heresy could be consumed at the same stake, and mingle his ashes with mine." 2

The nuncio had spoken for three hours. The fire of his style, and the enthusiasm of his delivery, had roused the passions of the Diet; and had a vote been taken at that moment, the voices of all the members, one only excepted, would have been given for the condemnation of Luther.3 The Diet broke up, however, when the orator sat down, and thus the victory which seemed within the reach of Rome escaped her grasp.

When the princes next assembled, the fumes raised by the rhetoric of Aleander had evaporated, and the hard facts of Roman extortion alone remained deeply imprinted in the memories of the

1 "Onde avvenga della Germania per la licenziosa Eresia di Lutero ciò ch'è avvenuto dell' Asia per la sensuale Superstizione di Macometto." (Pallavicino, lib. i., cap. 25.) 2 Pallavicino, lib. i., cap. 25, p. 97. Seckendorf has said that Pallavicino invented this speech and put it into the mouth of Aleander. Some Protestant writers have followed Seckendorf. There is no evidence in support of this supposition. D'Aubigné believes in the substantial authenticity of the speech. Pallavicino tells us the sources from which he took the speech; more especially Aleander's own letters, still in the library of the Vatican. 3 Pallavicino, lib. i., cap. 26, p. 108: "La maggior parte de raunati concorreva nella sentenza d'estirpar l' Eresia Luterana."

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German barons. These no eloquence could efface. Duke George of Saxony was the first to present himself to the assembly. His words had the greater weight from his being known to be the enemy of Luther, and a hater of the evangelical doctrines, although a champion of the rights of his native land and a foe of ecclesiastical abuses. He ran his eye rapidly over the frightful traces which Roman usurpation and venality had left on Germany. Annats were converted into dues; ecclesiastical benefices were bought and sold; dispensations were procurable for money; stations were multiplied in order to fleece the poor; stalls for the sale of indulgences rose in every street; pardons were earned not by prayer or works of charity, but by paying the market-price of sin; penances were so contrived as to lead to a repetition of the offence; fines were made exorbitant to increase the revenue arising from them; abbeys and monasteries were emptied by commendams, and their wealth transported across the Alps to enrich foreign bishops; civil causes were drawn before ecclesiastical tribunals all which "grievous perdition of miserable souls" demanded a universal reform, which a General Council only could accomplish. Duke George in conclusion demanded that such should be convoked.

To direct past themselves the storm of indignation which the archbishops and abbots saw to be rising in the Diet, they laid the chief blame of the undeniable abuses, of which the duke had presented so formidable a catalogue, at the door of the Vatican. So costly were the tastes and so luxurious the habits of the reigning Pope, they hinted, that he was induced to bestow Church livings not on pious and learned men, but on jesters, falconers, grooms, valets, and whosoever could minister to his personal pleasures or add to the gaiety of his court. The excuse was, in fact, an accusation.

A committee was appointed by the Diet to draw up a list of the oppressions under which the nation groaned. This document, containing a hundred and one grievances, was presented to the emperor at a subsequent meeting of the Diet, together with

4 The progress which the reforming spirit had made, even among the German ecclesiastics, may be judged of from the indifference of many who were deeply interested in the maintenance of the old system. "Even those," complained Eck, "who hold from the Pope the best benefices and the richest canonries remained mute as fishes; many of them even extolled Luther as a man filled with the Spirit of God, and called the defenders of the Pope sophists and flatterers." (D'Aubigné.)

5 The important catalogue has been preserved in the archives of Weimar. (Seckendorf, p. 328; apud D'Aubigné, vol. ii., p. 203.)

a request that he would, in fulfilment of the terms of the capitulation which he had signed when he was crowned, take steps to effect a reformation of the specified abuses.

1

The Diet did not stop here. The princes demanded that Luther should be summoned before it. It were unjust, they said, to condemn him without knowing whether he were the author of the incriminated books, and without hearing what he had to say in defence of his opinions. The emperor was compelled to give way, though he covered his retreat under show of doubting whether the books really were Luther's. He wished, he said, to have certainty on that point. Aleander was horror-struck at the emperor's irresolution. He saw the foundations of the Papacy shaken, the tiara trembling on his master's brow, and all the terrible evils he had predicted in this great oration, rushing like a devastating tempest upon Christendom. But he strove in vain against the emperor's resolve, and the yet stronger force behind it, in which that resolve had its birth-the feeling of the German people. It was concluded in the Diet that Luther should be summoned. Aleander had one hope left, the only mitigating circumstance about this alarming affair, even that Luther would be denied a safe-conduct. But this proposal he was ultimately unable to carry, and on the 6th of March, 1521, the summons to Luther to present himself within twenty-one days before the Diet at Worms was signed by the emperor. Enclosed in the citation was a safe-conduct, addressed "To the honourable, our well-beloved and pious Doctor Martin Luther, of the order of Augustines," and commanding all princes, lords, magistrates, and others to respect this safe-conduct under pain of the displeasure of the Emperor and the Empire. Gaspard Sturm, the imperial herald, was commissioned to deliver these documents to Luther and accompany him to Worms.5

The fiat has gone forth. It expresses the will and purpose of a Higher than Charles. Luther is to

bear testimony to the Gospel, not at the stake, but on the loftiest stage the world can furnish. The master of so many kingdoms and the lords of so many provinces must come to Worms, and there patiently wait and obediently listen while the miner's son speaks to them. While the imperial

1 Pallavicino, lib. i., cap. 26, p. 108.

2 Seckendorf, lib. i., sec. 38, p. 150. Varillas says that Charles had a strong desire to see Luther.

3 Pallavicino, lib. i., cap. 26, p. 109.

4 Seckendorf, lib. i., sec. 38, p. 151.

5 Pallavicino, lib. i., cap. 26, p. 109.

"It may perhaps appear strange," says Mosheim,

herald is on his way to bring hither the man for whom they wait, let us turn to see what is at that moment taking place at the opposite poles of Christendom.

Far separated as are Rome and Wittemberg, there is yet a link binding together the two. An unseen Power regulates the march of events at both places, making them advance by equal steps. What wonderful harmony under antagonism! Let us turn first to Rome. It is Maunday-Thursday. On the balcony of the Metropolitan Cathedral, arrayed for one of the grand ceremonies of his Church, sits the Pope. Around him stand attendant priests, bearing lighted torches; and beneath him, crowding in silence the spacious area, their knees bent and their heads uncovered, are the assembled Romans. Leo is pronouncing, as the wont is before the festival of Easter, the terrible bull In Coena Domini.

This is a very ancient bull. It has undergone, during successive Pontificates, various alterations and additions, with the view of rendering its scope more comprehensive and its excommunications more frightful. It has been called "the pick of excommunications." It was wont to be promulgated annually at Rome on the Thursday before Easter Sunday, hence its name the "Bull of the Lord's Supper." The bells were tolled, the cannon of St. Angelo were fired, and the crowd of priests that thronged the balcony around the Pope waved their tapers wildly, then suddenly extinguished them; in short, no solemnity was omitted that could add terror to the publication of the bull—a superfluous task surely, when we think that a more frightful peal of cursing never rung out from that balcony, from which so many terrible excommunications have been thundered. All ranks and conditions of men, all nationalities not obedient to the Papal See, are most comprehensively and ener getically cursed in the bull In Cana Domini. More especially are heretics of every name cursed. "We curse," said the Pope, "all heretics Cathari, Patarins, Poor Men of Lyons, Arnoldists, Speronists, Wickliffites, Hussites, Fratricelli ;"-"because," said Luther, speaking aside, "they desired to possess the Holy Scriptures, and required the Pope to be

"and even inconsistent with the laws of the Church, that a cause of a religious nature should be examined and decided in the public Diet. But it must be considered that these Diets in which the archbishops, bishops, and even certain abbots had their places, as well as the princes of the Empire, were not only political assemblies, but also provincial councils for Germany, to whose jurisdiction, by the ancient canon law, such causes as that of Luther properly belonged." (Eccl. Hist., cent. 16, bk. iv., sec. 1, ch. 2.)