good thing, and the hordes of runaway
monks were an especial burden to him. He complains that "they wish to
marry immediately and are the most incompetent people for any kind of
work." Through his bold solution of a difficult question he gave great
offense. He himself had painful experiences; for among those who now
returned in tumult to civil life there were, to be sure, high-minded
men, but also those who were rude and worthless. Yet all this never
made him hesitate for a moment. As usual with him, he was made the
more determined by the opposition he met. When, in 1524, he published
the story of the sufferings of a novice, Florentina of Oberweimar, he
repeated on the title page what he had already so often preached: "God
often gives testimony in the Scriptures that He will have no
compulsory service, and no one shall become His except with pleasure
and love. God help us! Is there no reasoning with us? Have we no sense
and no hearing? I say it again, God will have no compulsory service. I
say it a third time, I say it a hundred thousand times, God will have
no compulsory service."

So Luther entered upon the last period of his life. His disappearance
in the Thuringian forest had caused an enormous stir. His adversaries
trembled before the anger which arose in town and country against
those who were called murderers. But the interruption of his public
activity became fateful for him. So long as in Wittenberg he was the
central point of the struggle, his word, his pen, had held sovereign
control over the great intellectual movement in north and south; now
it worked without method in different directions, in many minds. One
of the oldest of Luther's allies began the confusion. Wittenberg
itself became the scene of a strange commotion. Then Luther could
endure the Wartburg no longer. Once before he had been secretly in
Wittenberg; now, against the Elector's will, he returned there
publicly. And there began a heroic struggle against old friends, and
against the conclusions drawn from his own doctrine. His activity was
superhuman. He thundered without cessation from the pulpit, in the
cell his pen flew fast; but he could not reclaim every dissenting
mind. Even he could not prevent the rabble of the towns from breaking
out in savage fury against the institutions of the ancient Church and
against hated individuals, nor the excitement of the people from
brewing political storms, nor the knights from rising against the
princes,