men of all nations and conditions, mingling in one mighty throng, had assembled to see the monk enter. To the last neither friend nor foe had really believed that he would come. Now, however, Luther is in Worms.

The order of the cavalcade was the same as that in which it had quitted Wittemberg. The herald

LUTHER'S HOUSE AT FRANKFORT.

rode first, making way with some difficulty through the crowded street for the wagon in which, shaded by the awning, sat Luther in his monk's gown,' his face bearing traces of his recent illness, but there was a deep calm in the eyes whose glance Cardinal Cajetan liked so ill at Augsburg.

at every stage of his journey were renewed within the walls of Worms. Pressing through the crowd came a person in grotesque costume, displaying a great cross, such as is carried before the corpse when it is being borne to the grave, and chanting, in the same melancholy cadence in which mass is wont to be sung for the dead, this doleful requiem

66

Advenisti, O desiderabilis!

Quem expectabamus in tenebris!" 2

Those who arranged this ill-omened pageant may have meant it for a little grim pleasantry, or they may have intended to throw ridicule upon the man who was advancing single-handed to do battle with both the temporal and spiritual powers; or it may have been a last attempt to quell a spirit which no former device or threat had been able to affright. But whatever the end in view, we recognise in this strange affair a most fitting, though doubtless a wholly undesigned, representation of the state and expectancies of Christendom at that hour. Had not the nations waited in darkness-darkness deep as that of those who dwell among the deadfor the coming of a deliverer? Had not such a deliverer been foretold? Had not Huss seen Luther's day a century off, and said to the mourners around his stake, as the patriarchs on their deathbed, "I die, but God will surely visit you"? The "hundred years" had revolved, and now the deliverer appears. He comes in humble guise-in cowl and frock of monk. He appears to many of his own age as a Greater appeared to His, "a root out of a dry ground." How can this poor despised monk save us? men asked. But he brought with him that which far transcends the sword of conqueror the Word, the Light; and before that Light fled the darkness. Men opened their eyes, and saw that already their fetters, which were ignorance and superstition, were rent. They were free.

The surging crowd soon pushed aside the bearer of the black cross, and drowned his doleful strains in the welcome which they accorded the man who, contrary to the expectation of every one, had at last entered their gates. Luther's carriage could advance at only a slow pace, for the concourse on the streets was greater than when the emperor had entered a few days previously. The procession halted at the hotel of the Knights of Rhodes, which conveniently adjoined the hall of the Diet. "On

1 "I entered Worms in a covered wagon and my monk's gown," said Luther afterwards. (Luth. Opp., xvii. 587.)

2 "Lo, thou art come, O thou greatly desired one, whom we have waited for in the darkness of the grave." (M. Adam, Vita Lutheri, p. 118.)

said bravely, 'God will be for me.'"1 to us the secret of Luther's courage.

335

After his recent illness, and the fatigue of his journey, now continued for fourteen days, the Reformer needed rest. The coming day, too, had to be thought of; eventful as the day now closing had been, the next would be more eventful still. But the anxiety to see the monk was too great to permit him so much as an hour's repose. Scarcely had he taken possession of his lodgings when princes, dukes, counts, bishops, men of all ranks, friends and foes, besieged his hotel and crowded into his apartments. When one relay of visitors had been dismissed, another waited for admission. In the midst of that brilliant throng Luther stood unmoved. He heard and replied to all their questions with calmness and wisdom. Even his enemies could not withhold their admiration at the dignity with which he bore himself. Where has the miner's son acquired those manners which princes might envy, that courage which heroes might strive in vain to emulate, and where has he learnt that wisdom which has seduced, say some-enlightened, say others so many thousands of his countrymen, and which none of the theologians of Rome have heen able to withstand? To friend and foe alike he was a mystery. Some revered him, says Palla

This crowd of visitors, so varied in rank and so different in sentiments, continued to press around Luther till far into the night. They were now gone, and the Reformer was left alone. He sought his couch, but could not sleep. The events of the day had left him excited and restless. He touched his lute; he sang a verse of a favourite hymn; he approached the window and opened the casement. Beneath him were the roofs of the now silent city; beyond its walls, dimly descried, was the outline of the great valley through which the Rhine pours its floods; above him was the awful, fathomless, and silent vault. He lifted his eyes to it, as was his wont when his thoughts troubled him. There were the stars fulfilling their courses far above the tumults of earth, yet far beneath that throne on which sat a greater King than the monarch before whom he was to appear on the morrow. He felt,

as he gazed, a sense of sublimity filling his soul, and bringing with it a feeling of repose. Turning away from the casement, he said, "I will lay me down and take quiet rest, for thou makest me dwell in safety."

NEXT morning-Wednesday, the 17th of Aprilat eight o'clock, the hereditary Marshal of the Empire, Ulrich von Pappenheim, cited Luther to appear, at four of the afternoon, before his Imperial Majesty and the States of the Empire. An important crisis, not only in the life of Luther, but also in the history of that Reformation which he had so recently inaugurated, was fast approaching, and the Reformer prepared himself to meet it with

1"E nello smontar di carozza disse forte: Iddio sard per me." (Pallavicino, lib. i., cap. 26, p. 109.)

all the earnestness that marked his deeply religious nature. He remained all forenoon within doors, spending most of the time in prayer. His supplications and the groans that accompanied them were audible outside his chamber door. From kneeling before the throne of the Eternal God, with whom lay the issues of the coming strife, he rose to stand before the throne of Charles. At four the Marshal of the Empire, accompanied

2 Pallavicino, lib. i., cap. 26, p. 109. 3 Worsley, vol. i., p. 230.

by a herald, returned, and Luther set out with them to the Diet. But it was no easy matter to find their way to the town-hall where the princes were assembled. The crowd in the streets was greater than on the previous day. Every window had its group of faces; every house-top had its

down alleys, or climbing to the roofs, to catch a glimpse of the monk as he passed on to appear before Charles.

Arrived at the town-hall they found its entrance blocked up by a still denser crowd. The soldiers had to clear a way by main force. In the vestibule

cluster of spectators, many of whom manifested considerable enthusiasm as they caught sight of the Reformer. The marshal with his charge had proceeded but a little way, when he found that he would never be able to force a passage through so dense a multitude. He entered a private dwelling, passed out at the back door, and conducting Luther through the gardens of the Knights of Rhodes, brought him to the town-hall; the people rushing

and ante-chambers of the hall every inch of space, every recess and window-sill was occupied by courtiers and their friends, to the number of not less than 5,000-Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and other nationalities.

As they were elbowing their way, and were now near the door at which they were to be ushered into the presence of the Diet, a hand was laid upon Luther's shoulder. It was that of the veteran George Freundsberg, whose name was a synonym with his countrymen for gallantry. He had ere this been in many a hard fight, but never, he felt, had he been in so hard a one as that to which the man on whose shoulder his hand now rested was

advancing. "My monk, my good monk," said the soldier, "you are now going to face greater peril than any of us have ever encountered on the bloodiest field; but if you are right, and feel sure of

Charles V., whose sovereignty extended over great part of the old and new worlds; his brother the Archduke Ferdinand; six electors of the Empire, most of whose descendants now wear the kingly crown; twenty-four dukes, the majority of whom were independent sovereigns over countries more or less extensive, and among whom were some whose names afterwards became formidable to the Reformation; the Duke of Alva and his two sons; eight margraves; thirty archbishops, bishops, and abbots; seven ambassadors, including those from the Kings of France and England; the deputies of ten free cities; a great number of princes, counts, and sovereign barons; the Papal nuncios-in all two hundred and four persons: such was the imposing court before which appeared Martin Luther.

"This appearance was of itself a signal victory over the Papacy. The Pope had condemned the man, and he was now standing before a tribunal which, by this very act, set itself above the Pope. The Pope had laid him under an interdict, and cut him off from all human society, and yet he was summoned in respectful language, and received before the most august assembly in the world. The Pope had condemned him to perpetual silence, and he was now about to speak before thousands of attentive hearers drawn together from the furthest parts of Christendom. An immense revolution had thus been effected by Luther's instrumentality. Rome was already descending from her throne, and it was the voice of a monk that caused this humiliation."

Let us take a nearer view of the scene as it now presented itself to the eyes of Luther. Chief in this assemblage of the powers spiritual and temporal of Christendom, sat the emperor. He wore the Spanish dress, his only ornaments being the usual ostrich-plume, and a string of pearls circling his breast, from which depended the insignia of the Golden Fleece. A step lower than the imperial platform, on a chair of state, sat his brother, Archduke Ferdinand. On the right and left of the throne were the six electors of the Empire-the three ecclesiastical electors on the emperor's right, and the three secular electors on his left. At his feet sat the two Papal nuncios-on this side Caraccioli, and on that Aleander. On the floor in front of the imperial seat was the table at which were the clerks and Dr. Eccius, who interrogated Luther, and who is not to be confounded with the Dr. Eck with whom the Reformer held the disputation at Leipsic. From the table extending backwards to

1 D'Aubigné, vol. ii., p. 237.

the wall were rows of benches, which were occupied by the members of the Diet, princes, counts, archbishops, and bishops, the deputies of the towns and the ambassadors of foreign States. Here and there at various points of the hall were stationed guards, with polished armour and glittering halberds.

The sun was near his setting. His level rays, pouring in at the windows and falling in rich mellow light on all within, gave additional splendour to the scene. It brought out in strong relief the national costumes, and variously coloured dresses and equipments, of the members of the Diet. The yellow silken robes of the emperor, the velvet and ermine of the electors, the red hat and scarlet gown of the cardinal, the violet robe of the bishop, the rich doublet of the knight, covered with the badges of his rank or valour, the more sombre attire of the city deputy, the burnished steel of the warrior—all showed to advantage in the chastened radiance which was now streaming in from the descending luminary. In the midst of that scene, which might have been termed gay but for its overwhelming solemnity, stood Luther in his monk's frock.

John Eck or Eccius, Chancellor of the Archbishop of Trèves,2 and spokesman of the Diet, rose in deep silence, and in a sonorous voice repeated, first in Latin and then in German, the following words: "Martin Luther, his sacred and invincible Majesty has cited you before his throne, with advice and counsel of the States of the Holy Roman Empire, to answer two questions. First, do you acknowledge these books," pointing with his finger to a pile of volumes on the table, "to have been written by you? Secondly, are you prepared to retract and disavow the opinions you have advanced in them?"3

Luther was on the point of owning the authorship of the books, when his friend Schurf, the iurist, hastily interposed. "Let the titles of the books be read," said he.

The Chancellor Eck advanced to the table, and read, one after another, the titles of the volumesabout twenty in all."

This done, Luther now spoke. His bearing was respectful, and his voice low. Some members of the Diet thought that it trembled a little; and they fondly hoped that a retractation was about to follow.

The first charge he frankly acknowledged.

2 "A learned man," says Pallavicino, "a Catholic, and an intimate friend of Aleander's."

3 Luth. Opp. (L) xvii. 588. D'Aubigné, vol. ii., p. 238. 4 Pallavicino tells us that these had been collected by the industry of Aleander.