that the listener had had difficulty to
restrain himself from rushing into the room and spitting in Luther's
face. At that first meeting with Cajetan Luther still prostrated
himself humbly at the feet of the prince of the Church; after the
second he allowed himself to express the view that the cardinal was as
fit for his office as an ass to play the harp. He treated the polite
Miltitz with fitting politeness. The Roman had hoped to tame the
German bear, but soon the courtier came of his own accord into the
position which was appropriate for him--he was used by Luther. And in
the Leipzig disputation against Eck the favorable impression which the
self-possessed, honest, and sturdy nature of Luther produced was the
best counterpoise to the self-satisfied assurance of his clever
opponent.

But Luther's inward life calls for greater sympathy. It was after all
a terrible period for him. Close to exaltation and victory lay for him
deathly anxiety, torturing doubt, and horrible apparitions. He, almost
alone, was in arms against all Christendom, and was becoming more and
more irreconcilably hostile to the mightiest power, which still
included everything that had been sacred to him since his youth. What
if, after all, he were wrong in this or that! He was responsible for
every soul that he led away with him--and whither? What was there
outside the Church but destruction and perdition for time and for
eternity? If his adversaries and anxious friends cut him to the heart
with reproaches and warnings, the pain, the secret remorse, the
uncertainty which he must not acknowledge to any one, were greater
beyond comparison. He found peace, to be sure, in prayer. Whenever his
fervid soul, seeking its God, rose in mighty flights, he was filled
with strength, peace, and cheerfulness. But in hours of less tense
exaltation, when his sensitive spirit quivered under unpleasant
impressions, then he felt himself embarrassed, divided, under the
spell of another power which was hostile to his God. He knew from
childhood how actively evil spirits ensnare mankind; he had learned
from the Scripture that the Devil works against the purest to ruin
them. On his path the busy devils were lurking to weaken him, to
mislead him, to make innumerable others wretched through him. He saw
their work in the angry bearing of the cardinal, in the scornful face
of Eck, even in the thoughts of his own soul. He knew how powerful
they had been in Rome. Even in his you