e separation: he was
anathematized and excommunicated; he burnt--according to the old
university custom--the enemy's challenge, and with it the possibility
of return. With joyful confidence he went to Worms, where the princes
of his nation were to decide whether he should die, or henceforth live
amongst them, without Pope or Church, by the precepts of the Holy
Scriptures alone.

When first he published in print the "Theses against Tetzel," he was
astounded at the prodigious effect they produced in Germany, at the
venomous hatred of his enemies, and at the tokens of friendly
approbation which he received from all sides. Had he done anything so
very unprecedented? The opinions he expressed were entertained by all
the best men in the Church. When the Bishop of Brandenburg sent the
Abbot of Lehnin to him, with a request that he would withdraw from the
press his German sermon upon indulgences and grace, however right its
contents might be, the poor Augustine friar was deeply moved that so
great a man should hold such friendly and cordial intercourse with him,
and he felt inclined to give up the publication rather than make
himself a lion disturbing the Church. He zealously endeavoured to
refute the report that the Elector had induced him to engage in the
dispute with Tetzel. "They wish to involve the innocent Prince in the
odium that belongs to me only." He desired as much as possible to
preserve peace with Miltitz before Cajetan; only one thing he would not
do: he would not retract what he had said against the unchristian sale
of indulgences. But this retraction was the only thing that the
hierarchy required of him. Long did he continue to wish for peace,
reconciliation, and a return to the peaceful occupations of his cell;
but some false assertion of his opponents always reinflamed his blood,
and every contradiction was followed by a new and sharper stroke of his
weapons.

The heroic confidence of Luther is striking; even in his first letter
to Leo X., dated the 30th May, 1518, he is still the faithful son of
the Church; he still concludes by laying himself at the feet of the
Pope; offers him his whole life and being, and promises to respect his
voice as the voice of Christ, whose representative he is as sovereign
of the Church. But in the midst of all this submission, which became
him as a monastic brother, these impassioned words burst forth: "If I
have deserved death, I do not refuse to die." And in the letter itself,