"Most gracious Emperor, and most gracious Princes and Lords," said he, "the books that have just been named are mine. As to the second, seeing it is a question which concerns the salvation of souls, and in which the Word of God-than which nothing is greater in heaven or in earth-is interested, I should act imprudently were I to reply without reflection. I entreat your imperial Majesty, with all humility, to allow me time, that I may reply without offending against the Word of God." 1

Nothing could have been more wise or more becoming in the circumstances. The request for delay, however, was differently interpreted by the Papal members of the Diet. He is breaking his fall, said they-he will retract. He has played the heretic at Wittemberg, he will act the part of the penitent at Worms. Had they seen deeper into Luther's character, they would have come to just the opposite conclusion. This pause was the act of a man whose mind was thoroughly made up, who felt how unalterable and indomitable was his resolve, and who therefore was in no haste to proclaim it, but with admirable self-control could wait for the time, the form, the circumstances in which to make the avowal so that its full and concentrated strength might be felt, and it might appear to all to be irrevocable.

The Diet deliberated. A day's delay was granted the monk. To-morrow at this time must he appear again before the emperor and the assembled estates, and give his final answer. Luther bowed; and instantly the herald was by his side to conduct him to his hotel.

The emperor had not taken his eyes off Luther all the time he stood in his presence. His worn frame, his thin visage, which still bore traces of recent illness, and, as Pallavicino has the candour to acknowledge, "the majesty of his address, and the simplicity of his action and costume," which contrasted strongly with the theatrical airs and the declamatory address of the Italians and Spaniards, produced on the young emperor an unfavourable impression, and led to a depreciatory opinion of the Reformer. "Certainly," said Charles, turning to one of his courtiers as the Diet was breaking up, "certainly that monk will never make a heretic of me. 112

Scarcely had the dawn of the 18th of April (1521) broke, when the two parties were busy preparing for the parts they were respectively to act

1 Pallavicino, lib. i., cap. 26, p. 110.

2 "Costui certamente non mi farebbe mai diventar Eretico." (Pallavicino, lib. i., p. 110.)

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in the proceedings of a day destined to influence so powerfully the condition of after-ages. The Papal faction, with Aleander at its head, had met at an early hour to concert their measures.3 Nor was this wakeful activity on one side only. Luther, too, "prevented the dawning, and cried."

We shall greatly err if we suppose that it was an iron firmness of physical nerve, or great intrepidity of spirit, that bore Luther up and carried him through these awful scenes; and we shall not less err if we suppose that he passed through them without enduring great suffering of soul. The services he was destined to perform demanded a nature exquisitely strung, highly emotional, as well as powerfully reflective, with a full complement of the truest sympathies and tenderest sensibilities. But such a constitution renders its possessor, to a proportional extent, liable to the access of tormenting anxieties and gloomy forecastings. There were moments in which Luther gave way to these feelings. That they did not crush him, was owing to an influence higher far than his natural powers, which filled his soul and sustained him till the crisis had passed. The sweet, gracious, omnipotent Spirit of God descended upon him, and shed a divine serenity and strength into his mind; but so sweetly and gently did it infuse itself into, and work along with, his own natural faculties, that Luther was sensible of the indwelling influence only by his feeling that to use Melancthon's beautiful words "he was more than himself." was also made sensible of this by the momentary withdrawal at times of this upholding power. Then he was again simply himself-weak as other men; and difficulties would of a sudden thicken around him, and dangers would all at once rise like so many giants in his path, and threaten him with destruction. So did it befall him on the morning of this eventful day. He felt as if he were forsaken. A horror of great darkness filled his soul; he had come to Worms to perish.

He

It was not the thought that he would be condemned and led to the stake that shook the Reformer on the morning of his second appearance before the Imperial Diet. It was something more terrible than to die-than to die a hundred times. The crisis had come, and he felt himself unable to meet it. The upholding power which had sustained him in his journey thither, and which had made the oft-repeated threat of foe, and the gloomy anti

3 Pallavicino, lib. i., cap. 27, p. 110.

4 Seckendorf (lib. i., p. 156) gives extracts from Luther's letters to Spalatin, descriptive of his feelings at Worms, which prove this.

cipation of friend, as ineffectual to move him as ocean's spray is to overturn the rock, had been withdrawn. What will he do? He sees a terrible catastrophe approaching; he will falter before the Diet; he will wreck his cause; he will blast the hopes of future ages; and the enemies of Christ and the Gospel will triumph.

Let us draw near to his closet-door, and hear his groans and strong cryings! They reveal to us the deep agony of his soul.

He has already been some considerable while engaged in prayer. His supplication is drawing to a close. "O God! my God, hearest thou me not? My God, art thou dead?

. No! thou canst not die. Thou hidest thyself only. Thou hast chosen me for this work; I know it well! Act then, O God! ... Stand at my side, for the sake of thy well-beloved Jesus Christ, who is my defence, my shield, and my strong tower."

There comes an interval of silence. Again we hear his voice. His wrestlings once more become audible.

O my

"Lord, where stayest thou? God! where art thou? Come, come! I am ready . I am ready to lay down my life for thy truth patient as a lamb. For it is the cause of justice-it is thine. . . I will never separate myself from thee; neither now, nor through eternity. . And though the world should be filled with devils though my body, which is still the work of thy hands, should be slain, should be racked on the wheel cut

reduced to ashes
Yes! thy Word is my

assurance of it. My soul belongs to thee!

shall abide for ever with thee.

It Amen!

Amen!"1

O God! help me. This is one of those solemn points in history where the seen touches the unseen; where earth and heaven meet; where man the actor below, and the Great Actor above, come both together, side by side upon the stage. Such points in the line of history are rare; they occur only at long intervals, but they do occur. The veil is rent; a hand is stretched out; a light breaks in as from a world separated indeed from that on which the terrestrial actors are placed, yet lying at no great distance

1 "This prayer," says D'Aubigné, "is to be found in a collection of documents relative to Luther's appearance at Worms, under No. XVI., in the midst of safe-conducts and other papers of a similar nature. One of his friends had no doubt overheard it, and has transmitted it to posterity. In our opinion, it is one of the most precious documents in all history." (Hist. Reform., vol. ii., p. 243.)

from it, and the reader of history at such moments feels as if he were nearing the very precincts of the Eternal Throne, and walking on mysterious and holy ground.

Luther now rises from his knees, and in the calm reigning in his soul feels that already he has received an answer to his prayer. He sits down to arrange his thoughts, to draft, in outline, his defence, and to search in Holy Scripture for passages wherewith to fortify it. This task finished, he laid his left hand upon the sacred volume, which lay open on the table before him, and raising his right hand to heaven, he swore to remain ever faithful to the Gospel, and to confess it, even should he have to seal his confession with his blood. After this the Reformer experienced still deeper peace.

At four of the clock, the grand marshal and the herald presented themselves. Through crowded streets, for the excitement grew greater with each passing hour, was the Reformer conducted to the town-hall. On arriving in the outer court they found the Diet in deep deliberation. When Luther should be admitted no one could say. One hour passed, then another; the Reformer was still standing amid the hum and clamour of the multitude that filled the area. So long a delay, in such circumstances, was fitted to exhaust him physically, and to ruffle and distract him mentally. But his tranquillity did not for a moment forsake him. He was in a sanctuary apart, communing with One whom the thousands around him saw not. The night began to fall; torches were kindled in the hall of the assembly. Through the ancient windows came their glimmering rays, which, mingling with the lights of evening, curiously speckled the crowd that filled the court, and imparted an air of quaint grandeur to the scene.

At last the door opened, and Luther entered the hall. If this delay was arranged, as some have conjectured, by Aleander, in the hope that when Luther presented himself to the Diet he would be in a state of agitation, he must have been greatly disappointed. The Reformer entered in perfect composure, and stood before the emperor with an air of dignity. He looked around on that assembly of princes, and on the powerful monarch who presided over them, with a calm, steadfast eye.

The chancellor of the Bishop of Trèves, Dr. Eck, rose and demanded his answer. What a moment! The fate of ages hangs upon it. The emperor leans forward, the princes sit motionless, the very guards

2 Seckendorf, lib. i., sec. 41, p. 154.

one class of his writings in which he had expounded, with all simplicity and plainness, the first principles of faith and morals. Even his enemies themselves allowed that he had done so in a manner conformable to Scripture, and that these books were such as all might read with profit. To deny these would be to deny truths which all admit-truths which are essential to the order and welfare of Christian society.

In the second class of his productions he had waged war against the Papacy. He had attacked those errors in doctrine, those scandals in life, and those tyrannies in ecclesiastical administration and government, by which the Papacy had entangled and fettered the conscience, had blinded the reason, and had depraved the morals of men, thus destroying body and soul. They themselves must acknowledge that it was so. On every side they heard the cry of oppression. Law and obedience had been weakened, public morals polluted, and Christendom desolated by a host of evils temporal and spiritual. Should he retract this class of his writings, what would happen? Why, that the oppressor would grow more insolent, that he would propagate with greater licence than ever those pernicious doctrines which had already destroyed so many souls, and multiply those grievous exactions, those most iniquitous extortions which were impoverishing the substance of Germany and transferring its wealth to other countries. Nay, not only would the yoke that now weighs upon the Christian people be rendered heavier by his retractation, it would become in a sense legitimate, for his retractation would, in the circumstances, be tantamount to giving this yoke the sanction of his Serene Majesty, and of all the States of the Empire. He should be the most unhappy of men. He should thus have sanctioned the very iniquities which he had denounced, and reared a bulwark around those very oppressions which he had sought to overthrow. Instead of lightening the burden of his countrymen he should have made it ten-fold heavier, and himself would have become a cloak to cover every kind of tyranny.

There was a third class of his writings in which he said he had attacked those persons who put

1 Seckendorf, lib. i., sec. 41, p. 154.

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themselves forward as the defenders of the errors which had corrupted the faith, the scandals which had disgraced the priesthood, and the exactions which had robbed the people and ground them into the dust. These individuals he may not have treated with much ceremony; it may be that he had assailed them with an acrimony unbecoming his ecclesiastical profession; but although the manner may have been faulty, the thing itself was right, and he could not retract it, for that would be to justify his adversaries in all the impieties they had uttered, and all the iniquities they had done.

But he was a man, he continued, and not God, and he would defend himself not otherwise than Christ had done. If he had spoken evil or written evil, let them bear witness of that evil. He was but dust and ashes, liable every moment to err, and therefore it well became him to invite all men to examine what he had written, and to object if they had aught against it. Let him but be convinced from the Word of God and right reason that he was in error, and he should not need to be asked twice to retract, he would be the first to throw his books into the flames.

In conclusion, he warned this assembly of monarchs of a judgment to come: a judgment not beyond the grave only, but on this side of it: a judgment in time. They were on their trial. They, their kingdoms, their crowns, their dynasties, stood at a great Bar. It was to them the day of visitation; it was now to be determined whether they were to be planted in the earth, whether their thrones should be stable, and their power should continue to flourish, or whether their houses should be razed, and their thrones swept away in a deluge of wrath, in a flood of present evils, and of eternal desolation.

He pointed to the great monarchies of former ages-to Egypt, to Babylon, to Nineveh, so mighty in their day, but which, by fighting against God, had brought upon themselves utter ruin; and he counselled them to take warning by these examples if they would escape the destruction that overtook them. "You should fear," said he, "lest the reign of this young and noble prince, on whom (under God) we build such lofty expectations, not only should begin, but should continue and close, under the most gloomy auspices. I might speak of the Pharaohs, of the Kings of Babylon, and those of Israel, whose labours never more effectually contributed to their own destruction, than when they sought by counsels, to all appearance most wise,

Sarpi, Hist. Conc. Trent., tom. i., pp. 32, 33; Basle, 1738.

animation in the second as in the first delivery of his address. He had occupied in all two hours.1

1 Pallavicino, lib. i., cap. 27, p. 111. Pallavicino, who has given Aleander's speech before the Diet at such great length, and in such eloquent phrase, has devoted scarcely more than half a page to Luther's. The effect of Aleander's address evaporated in a week: Luther's has been stirring men these three centuries, and its influence is still powerful for good. For the disparity of the two reports, however, we do not blame the historian of the

transformed into the judge-a righteous and awful

Council of Trent. His narrative, he tells us, was com.. piled from original documents in the Vatican Library, and especially the letters of Aleander, and it was natural perhaps that Aleander should make but short work with the oration of his great opponent. We have Luther's speech from German sources. It is given with considerable fulness by D'Aubigné, who adds, "This speech, as well as all the other expressions we quote, is taken literally from authentic documents. See L. Opp. (L) xvii. 776-780." (D'Aubigné, vol. ii., p. 248, foot-note.)