ween
Reuchlin and Pfefferkorn saw with growing concern the gradual transfer
of the field of battle from questions of literature to questions of
religion. Reuchlin, growing old and weak, wrote a letter, disavowing
any sympathy with the new uprisings against the time-honored authority
of the Church. This letter came into Hutten's hands, and, with all his
reverence for his old friend and master, he could not keep silence.

"Eternal Gods!" he writes. "What do I see? Have you sunk so deep in
weakness and fear, O Reuchlin! that you cannot endure blame even for
those who have fought for you in time of danger? Through such shameful
subservience do you hope to reconcile those to whom, if you were a man,
you would never give a friendly greeting, so badly have they treated
you? Yet reconcile them; and if there is no other way, go to Rome and
kiss the feet of Leo, and then write against us. Yet you shall see
that, against your will, and against the will of all the godless
courtesans, we shall shake off the shameful yoke, and free ourselves
from slavery. I am ashamed that I have written so much for you--have
done so much for you,--since when it comes to action you have made such
a miserable exit from the ranks. From me shall you know henceforth
that whether you fight in Luther's cause or throw yourself at the feet
of the Bishop of Rome, I shall never trust you more." The poor old
man, thus harassed on all sides, found no longer any rest or comfort in
his studies. Worn-out in body, and broken in spirit, he soon died.

The great source of Luther's hold on Germany lay in his direct appeal
to the common people. For this he translated the Bible into
German--even now the noblest version of the Bible in existence. For in
translating a work of inspiration the intuition of a man like Luther,
as Bayard Taylor has said, counts for more than the combined
scholarship of a hundred men learned in the Greek and Hebrew. "The
clear insight of one prophet is better than the average judgment of
forty-seven scribes." The German language was then struggling into
existence, and scholars considered it beneath their notice. It was
fixed for all time by Luther's Bible. Luther often spent a week on a
single verse to find and fix the idiomatic German. "It is easy to plow
when the field is cleared," he said. "We must not ask the letters of
the Latin alphabet how to speak German, but the mother in the kitchen
and the plowman in the field, tha