ed
publication even when Luther proposed to write very gently and tamely.
His opponents could not equal him in his field. They called names with
equal vigor, but they lacked his inward freedom. Unfortunately it
cannot be denied that this little appendage to the moral dignity of
his nature was sometimes the spice which made his writings so
irresistible to the honest Germans of the sixteenth century.

In the autumn of 1517 he had got into a quarrel with a reprobate
Dominican friar; in the winter of 1520 he burned the Pope's bull. In
the spring of 1518 he had prostrated himself at the feet of the Vicar
of Christ; in the spring of 1521 he declared at the Diet of Worms,
before the emperor and the princes and the papal legates, that he
believed neither the Pope nor the Councils alone, only the testimony
of the Holy Scripture and the interpretation of reason. Now he was
free, but excommunication and outlawry hovered over his head. He was
inwardly free, but he was free as the beast of the forest is free, and
behind him bayed the blood-thirsty pack. He had reached the
culminating point of his life, and the powers against which he had
revolted, even the thoughts which he himself had aroused among the
people, were working from now on against his life and doctrine.

Even at Worms, so it appears, it had been made clear to Luther that he
must disappear for a while. The customs of the Franconian Knights,
among whom he had faithful followers, suggested the idea of having him
spirited away by armed men. Elector Frederick, with his faithful
friends, discussed the abduction, and it was quite after the manner
of this prince that he himself did not wish to know the place of
retreat, in order to be able, in case of need, to swear to his
ignorance. Nor was it easy to win Luther over to the plan, for his
bold heart had long ago overcome earthly fear; and with an
enthusiastic joy, in which there was much fanaticism and some humor,
he watched the attempts of the Romanists to put out of the way a man
of whom Another must dispose, He who spoke through his lips.

Unwillingly he submitted. The secret was not easy to keep, however
skilfully the abduction had been planned. At first none of the
Wittenbergers but Melanchthon knew where he was. But Luther was the
last man to submit to even the best-intentioned intrigue. Very soon an
active communication arose between the Wartburg and Wittenberg. No
matter how much caution was used in delivering the le