n; while not good in themselves, they must be kept for the
sake of a greater interest. The greatest interest of the Archbishop
and the curia was their supremacy, which was acquired and maintained
by such commercial dealings. The great interest of Luther and the
people was truth. This was the parting of the ways.

And so Luther entered upon the struggle, a poor and faithful son of
the Church, full of German devotion to authority; but yet he had in
his character something which gave him strength against too extreme
exercise of this authority--a close relation to his God. He was then
thirty-four years old, in the fulness of his strength, of medium
stature, his body vigorous and without the corpulency of his later
years, appearing tall beside the small, delicate, boyish form of
Melanchthon. In the face which showed the effects of vigils and inward
struggles, shone two fiery eyes whose keen brilliancy was hard to
meet. He was a respected man, not only in his order, but at the
University; not a great scholar--he learned Greek from Melanchthon in
the first year of his professorship, and Hebrew soon after. He had no
extensive book learning, and never had the ambition to shine as a
writer of Latin verse; but he was astonishingly well-read in the
Scriptures and some of the Fathers of the Church, and what he had once
learned he assimilated with German thoroughness. He was the untiring
shepherd of his flock, a zealous preacher, a warm friend, once more
full of a decorous cheerfulness; he was of an assured bearing, polite
and skilful in social intercourse, with a confidence of spirit which
often lighted up his face in a smile. The small events of the day
might indeed affect him and annoy him. He was excitable, and easily
moved to tears, but on any great emergency, after he had overcome his
early nervous excitement, such as, for instance, embarrassed him when
he first appeared before the Diet at Worms--then he showed wonderful
calmness and self-command. He knew no fear. Indeed, his lion's nature
found satisfaction in the most dangerous situations. The danger of
death into which he sometimes fell, the malicious ambushes of his
enemies, seemed to him at that time hardly worthy of mention. The
reason for this superhuman heroism, as one may call it, was again his
close personal relation to his God. He had long periods in which he
wished, with a cheerful smile, for martyrdom in the service of truth
and of his God. Terrible struggles were