pped. He remained there many months; and during that time the old
ecclesiastical institutions of Germany were burning like a North
American forest. The monasteries were broken up; the estates were
appropriated by the nobles; the monks were sent wandering into the
world. The bishops looked helplessly on while their ancient spiritual
dominion was torn to pieces and trodden under foot. The Elector of
Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, and several more of the princes,
declared for the Reformation. The Protestants had a majority in the
Diet, and controlled the force of the empire. Charles the Fifth, busy
with his French wars, and in want of money, dared not press questions to
a crisis which he had not power to cope with; and he was obliged for a
time to recognise what he could not prevent. You would have thought
Luther would have been well pleased to see the seed which he had sown
bear fruit so rapidly; yet it was exactly while all this was going on
that he experienced those temptations of the devil of which he has left
so wonderful an account.

We shall have our own opinions on the nature of these apparitions. But
Luther, it is quite certain, believed that Satan himself attacked him in
person. Satan, he tells us, came often to him, and said, 'See what you
have done. Behold this ancient Church--this mother of saints--polluted
and defiled by brutal violence. And it is you--you, a poor ignorant
monk, that have set the people on to their unholy work. Are you so much
wiser than the saints who approved the things which you have denounced?
Popes, bishops, clergy, kings, emperors--are none of these--are not all
these together--wiser than Martin Luther the monk?'

The devil, he says, caused him great agony by these suggestions. He fell
into deep fits of doubt and humiliation and despondency. And wherever
these thoughts came from, we can only say that they were very natural
thoughts--natural and right. He called them temptations; yet these were
temptations which would not have occurred to any but a high-minded man.

He had, however, done only what duty had forced him to do. His business
was to trust to God, who had begun the work and knew what He meant to
make of it. His doubts and misgivings, therefore, he ascribed to Satan,
and his enormous imaginative vigour gave body to the voice which was
speaking in him.

He tells many humorous stories--not always producible--of the means with
which he encountered his offensive visitor.

'The