"This

sober and preach the Word of God." formulary," says Sleidan, "of excommunication coming afterwards into Luther's hands, he rendered it into High Dutch, besprinkling it with some very witty and satirical animadversions."1

This year a new name had been inserted in this curse, and a prominent place assigned it. It was the name of Martin Luther. Thus did Rome join him to all those witnesses for the truth who, in former ages, had fallen under her ban, and many of whom had perished in her fires. Casting him out of the Roman pale irrevocably, she united him with the Church spiritual and holy and catholic.

At the same moment that Rome fulfils and completes her course, Luther fulfils and completes his. He has now reached his furthest point of theological and ecclesiastical advancement. Step by step he has all these years been going forward, adding first one doctrine, then another, to his store of acquired knowledge; and at the same time, and by an equal process, has he been casting off, one after another, the errors of Romanism. The light around him has been waxing clearer and ever clearer, and now he has come to the meridian of his day. In his cell he was made to feel that he was utterly fallen, and wholly without power to save himself. This was his first lesson. The doctrine of a free justification-salvation by grace--was next revealed to him. As he stood encompassed by the darkness of despair, caused by the combined sense of his utter ruin and his utter inability, this doctrine beamed out upon him from the page of Scripture. The revelation of it was to him the very opening of the gates of Paradise. From these initial stages he soon came to a clear apprehension of the whole of what constituted the Reformed system-the nature

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and end of Christ's obedience and death; the office and work of the Holy Spirit; the sanctification of men by the instrumentality of the Word; the relation of good works to faith; the nature and uses of a Sacrament; the constituent principle of the Church, even belief in the truth and union to Christ. This last, taken in connection with another great principle to the knowledge of which he had previously attained, the sole infallible authority of Scripture, emancipated him completely from a thraldom which had weighed heavily upon him in the earlier stages of his career, the awe, even, in which he stood of Rome as the Church of Christ, and the obedience which he believed he owed the Pontiff as head of the Church. The last link of this bondage was now gone. He stood erect in the presence of a power before which the whole of Christendom wellnigh still bowed down. The study of Paul's Epistles and of the Apocalypse, and the comparison of both with the history of the past, brought Luther about this time to the full and matured conviction that the Church of Rome as it now existed was the predicted "Apostacy," and that the dominion of the Papacy was the reign of Antichrist. It was this that broke the spell of Rome, and took for him the sting out of her curse. This was a wonderful training, and not the least wonderful thing in it was the exact coincidence in point of time between the maturing of Luther's views and the great crisis in his career. The summons to the Diet at Worms found him in the very prime and fulness of his knowledge.

On the 24th of March the imperial herald, Gaspard Sturm, arrived at Wittemberg, and put into the hands of Luther the summons of the emperor to appear before the Diet at Worms.

"WILL he come?" asked the members of the Diet of one another, when they had determined to summon Luther before them. The only man who did not hesitate a moment on that point was Luther

1 Sleidan, bk. iii., p. 42.

himself. In the citation now in his hand he beheld the summons of a Greater than the emperor, and straightway he made ready to obey it. He knew that in the assembly before which he was to appear there was but one man on whom he could fully rely, the Elector Frederick. His safe-conduct

and by much the ablest champion of both its political and its religious rights. If Luther should be sacrificed nothing could compensate for his loss, and the movement which promised to bring them riddance of a foreign yoke, every year growing more intolerable, would be thrown back for an indefinite period. Many eyes and hearts, therefore, in all parts of Germany followed the monk as he went on his way to Worms.

On the 2nd of April the arrangements for his departure were completed. He did not set out alone. Three of his more intimate friends, members of the university, accompanied him. These were the courageous Amsdorff-Schurff, professor of jurisprudence, as timid as Amsdorff was bold, yet who shrank not from the perils of this journeyand Suaven, a young Danish nobleman, who claimed, as the representative of the students, the honour of attending his master.

Most tender was the parting between Luther and Melancthon. In Luther the young scholar had found again, his country, his friends, his all. Now he was about to lose him. Sad at heart, he yearned to go with him, even should he be going to martyrdom. He implored, but in vain; for if Luther should fall, who but Philip could fill his place and carry on his work? The citizens were moved as well as the professors and youth of the university. They thronged the street to witness the departure of their great townsman, and it was amidst their tears that Luther passed out at the gate, and took his way over the great plains that are spread out around Wittemberg.

The imperial herald, wearing his insignia and displaying the imperial eagle, to show under what guardianship the travellers journeyed, came first on horseback; after him rode his servant, and closing the little cavalcade was the humble wagon which contained Luther and his friends. This conveyance had been provided by the magistrates of Wittemberg at their own cost, and, provident of the traveller's comfort, it was furnished with an awning to shade him from the sun or cover him from the rain.'

Everywhere, as they passed along, crowds awaited the arrival of the travellers. Villages poured out their inhabitants to see and greet the bold monk.

1 Maimbourg has obligingly provided our traveller with a magnificent chariot and a guard of a hundred horsemen. There is not a particle of proof to show that this imposing cavalcade ever existed save on the page of this narrator. The Canon of Altenburg, writing from Worms to John, brother of Frederick the Elector, April 16th, 1521, says: To-day Dr. Martin arrived here in a common Saxon wagon." (Seckendorf, lib. i., sec. 39, p. 152.)

At the gates of those cities where it was known that Luther would halt, processions, headed by the magistrates, waited to bid him welcome. There were exceptions, however, to the general cordiality. At Leipsic the Reformer was presented with simply the customary cup of wine, as much as to say, "Pass on. But generally the population were touched with the heroism of the journey. In Luther they beheld a man who was offering himself on the altar of his country, and as they saw him pass they heaved a sigh as over one who should never return. His path was strewed with hints and warnings of coming fate, partly the fears of timid friends, and partly the menaces of enemies who strove by every means in their power to stop his journey, and prevent his appearance at the Diet.

3

His entrance into Erfurt, the city where he had come to the knowledge of the truth, and on the streets of which he had begged as a monk, was more like that of a warrior returning from a victorious campaign, than a humble doctor going to answer a charge of heresy. Hardly had he come in sight of its steeples, when a numerous cavalcade, composed of the members of the senate, the university, and two thousand burghers, met him and escorted him into the city. Through streets thronged with spectators he was conducted to the old familiar building so imperishably associ ated with his history, the convent of the Augustines. On the Sunday after Easter he entered its great church, the door of which he had been wont, when a friar, to open, and the floor of which he had been wont to sweep out; and from its pulpit he preached to an overflowing crowd, from the words so suitable to the season, "Peace be unto you' (John xx. 19). Let us quote a passage of his sermon. Of the Diet-of the emperor-of himself, not a word from beginning to end it is Christ and salvation that are held forth.

"Philosophers, doctors, and writers," said the preacher, "have endeavoured to teach men the way to obtain everlasting life, and they have not succeeded. I will now tell it to you.

"There are two kinds of works-works not of ourselves, and these are good: our own works, they are of little worth. One man builds a church; another goes on a pilgrimage to St. Iago of Compostella, or St. Peter's; a third fasts, takes the cowl, and, goes bare-foot; another does something else. All these works are nothingness, and will come to naught, for our own works have no virtue in them.

2 Letter of Canon of Altenburg to John of Saxony.

3 Letter of Warbeccius, Canon of Altenburg. (Seckendorf, lib. i., sec. 39, p. 152-Additio.)

But I am now going to tell you what is the true work. God has raised one Man from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ, that he might destroy death, expiate sin, and shut the gates of hell. This is the work of salvation.

own.

"Christ has vanquished! This is the joyful news! and we are saved by his work, and not by our Our Lord Jesus Christ said, 'Peace be unto you! behold my hands'-that is to say, Behold, O man! it is I, I alone, who have taken away thy sins, and ransomed thee; and now thou hast peace, saith the Lord.” 1

Such was the Divine wisdom which Luther dispensed to the men of Erfurt. It was in their city that he had learned it; and well might he have added what the centurion said of his liberty: "With a great sum have I obtained this knowledge," which now I freely give to you.

Traversing ground every foot-breadth of which was familiar as forming the scene of his childhood, he came soon after to Eisnach, the city of the good "Shunamite." It must have called up many memories. Over it towered the Wartburg, where the Reformer was to open the second stage of his career, although this was hidden as yet. At every step his courage was put to the test.

The nearer

he drew to Worms the louder grew the threats of his enemies, the greater the fears of his friends. "They will burn you and reduce your body to ashes, as they did that of John Huss," said one to him. His reply was that of a hero, but it was clothed in the grand imagery of the poet. "Though they should kindle a fire," said he, "all the way from Worms to Wittemberg, the flames of which reached to heaven, I would walk through it in the name of the Lord, I would appear before them, I would enter the jaws of this Behemoth, and confess the Lord Jesus Christ between his teeth."

This how

All the way from Eisnach to Frankfort-on-the Maine, Luther suffered from sickness. ever produced no faintness of spirit. If health should serve him, well; but if not, still his journey must be performed; he should be carried to Worms in his bed. As to what might await him at the end of his journey he bestowed not a thought. He knew that He who preserved alive the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace still lived. If it was His pleasure he would, despite the rage of his foes, return safe from Worms; but if a stake awaited him there, he rejoiced to think that the truth would not perish with his ashes. With God he left it whether the Gospel would be better

1 Luth. Opp. (L) xii. 485. D'Aubigné, ii. 224-226. Seckendorf, lib. i., sec. 39, p. 152.

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served by his death or by his life, only he would rather that the young emperor should not begin his reign by shedding his blood; if he must die, let it be by the hands of the Romans.

The Roman party had hoped that the monk would not dare set foot within the gates of Worms.3 They were told that he was on the road, but they did not despair by intrigues and menaces to make him turn back. They little knew the man they were trying to affright. To their dismay Luther kept his face steadfastly toward Worms, and was now almost under its walls. His approaching footsteps, coming nearer every hour, as it were sounded the knell of their power, and caused them greater terror than if a mighty army had been advancing against them.

Whispers began now to circulate in Worms that the Diet was not bound to respect the safe-conduct of a heretic. This talk coming to the ears of Luther's friends Was them great uneasiness. gave the perfidy of Constance to be repeated? Even the elector shared in the prevalent alarm; for Spalatin sent to Luther, who was now near the city, to say to him not to enter. Fixing his eyes on the messenger, Luther replied, "Go and tell your master that even should there be as many devils in Worms as tiles on the house-tops, still I will enter it." This was the sorest assault of all, coming as it did from one of his most trusted friends; but he vanquished it as he had done all previous ones, and what remained of his journey was done in peace.

It was ten o'clock in the morning of the 16th of April, when the old towers of Worms rose between him and the horizon. Luther, says Audin, sitting up in his car, began to sing the hymn which he had composed at Oppenheim two days before, "A strong Tower is our God."5 The sentinel on the look-out in the cathedral tower, descrying the approach of the cavalcade, sounded his trumpet. The citizens were at dinner, for it was now mid-day, but when they heard the signal they rushed into the street, and in a few minutes princes, nobles, citizens, and

3 Letter of Canon of Altenburg to John of Saxony. (Seekendorf.)

Seckendorf, lib. i., sec. 39, p. 152. "These words," says Seckendorf, 'were remembered by many. They were repeated by Luther himself, a little while before his death, at Eisleben." He added, "I know not whether I would be as courageous now."

5 Audin, ii., p. 90. The common opinion is that this hymn, "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott," was composed some years later. Audin's supposition, however, has great inherent probability, and there are some facts which seem to support it. The combined rhythm and strength of this hymn cannot be transferred to a translation.