hang, burn, behead, and strangle us. I shall be persecuted as long as I
live, and most likely killed. But it must come to this at last--every
man must be allowed to believe according to his conscience, and answer
for his belief to his Maker.'

Erasmus said of Luther that there were two natures in him: sometimes he
wrote like an apostle--sometimes like a raving ribald.

Doubtless, Luther could be impolite on occasions. When he was angry,
invectives rushed from him like boulder rocks down a mountain torrent
in flood. We need not admire all that; in quiet times it is hard to
understand it.

Here, for instance, is a specimen. Our Henry the Eighth, who began life
as a highly orthodox sovereign, broke a lance with Luther for the
Papacy.

Luther did not credit Henry with a composition which was probably his
own after all. He thought the king was put forward by some of the
English bishops--'Thomists' he calls them, as men who looked for the
beginning and end of wisdom to the writings of Thomas Aquinas.

'Courage,' he exclaimed to them, 'swine that you are! burn me then, if
you can and dare. Here I am; do your worst upon me. Scatter my ashes to
all the winds--spread them through all seas. My spirit shall pursue you
still. Living, I am the foe of the Papacy; and dead, I will be its foe
twice over. Hogs of Thomists! Luther shall be the bear in your way--the
lion in your path. Go where you will, Luther shall cross you. Luther
shall leave you neither peace nor rest till he has crushed in your brows
of brass and dashed out your iron brains.'

Strong expressions; but the times were not gentle. The prelates whom he
supposed himself to be addressing were the men who filled our Smithfield
with the reek of burning human flesh.

Men of Luther's stature are like the violent forces of Nature
herself--terrible when roused, and in repose, majestic and beautiful. Of
vanity he had not a trace. 'Do not call yourselves Lutherans,' he said;
'call yourselves Christians. Who and what is Luther? Has Luther been
crucified for the world?'

I mentioned his love of music. His songs and hymns were the expression
of the very inmost heart of the German people. 'Music' he called 'the
grandest and sweetest gift of God to man.' 'Satan hates music,' he said;
'he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us.'

He was extremely interested in all natural things. Before the science of
botany was dreamt of, Luther had divined the principle of vegetable