the imperial dignity. Upon him, and upon the first proceedings of his court, rested the attention of Europe. It was a matter of doubt with many, whether he would be induced to oppose or to embrace the cause of the Reformation, and, on this account, deep importance was attached to the first diet, which the new Emperor had summoned to meet at Worms, on the 6th of January, 1521.

It

The assemblage on this occasion was extremely numerous. was attended in person by sixty-six sovereign princes, both temporal and spiritual, for few of them chose to appear by proxy ;-by nearly one hundred counts, and sixty deputies from the free towns. Deans of chapters, many of whom were of princely extraction, prelates, barons, knights, and foreign envoys swelled the meeting. To these must be added, a number of the most eminent doctors of divinity and canon law, who had arrived either in the suite of princes, or had come under an expectation that something beyond the common routine of business would be transacted. It was remarkable also for the appearance of the first native of America who had been seen on European soil; he was attired in the dress of his own country, and had been sent by Cortez from three empoalla in Mexico, to do homage to his sovereign.

The town and its environs were full of life; merchants and traders of all kinds flocked to the spot from the furthest corners of Spain and Italy, France and Germany; and if every diet resembled a fair, this presented a far more animated scene than any of its predecessors. The throng of nobles and their knightly retinues came forth in their most splendid array, and endeavoured to outvie one another in the magnificence of their habiliments and the beauty of their chargers. Among the most youthful and the gayest of the crowd was Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, who drew every eye after him and the Emperor himself, who was but little his superior in years, though of a more sedate turn than is common to his age, lent himself to the general impulse, and repeatedly displayed his equestrian prowess on the tilting course, as he had done shortly before at the tournament held in Valladolid.

One festival followed upon the heels of another; for the investiture of such princes as had not done homage at Aix-la-Chapelle, was always succeeded by rejoicings; and the wild extent to which they were carried may be inferred from a picture of their results, as drawn by an eye-witness :-"Scarcely a night passes here, at Worms, without the assassination of three or four individuals. The Emperor has a provost (profos) who has already drowned, hung, or made away with more than one hundred persons. The thefts and murders here are as bad as at Rome."

Amidst all these carousals and atrocities, more serious matters were not lost sight of; and independently of regulations affecting the empire, the matter of the Lutheran controversy, as was expected, came under discussion. So far as we are informed of the propositions brought forward by Glapion, the Emperor's confessor, Fabri, the prior of the Dominicans, and others, it would appear that several of the

*Dietrich Butzbach's Letters.

clergy recommended lenient measures, with a view to divert the storm; inasmuch as they expressed a desire that the decision should be intrusted to chosen arbitrators. Others insisted upon the necessity of a council, for the purpose of purifying Christianity of its glaring corruptions: whilst some, on the contrary, supported the papal legate, Alexander, who laid the bull of excommunication before the great assembly of the states of the empire, on the 13th of February, and accompanied its presentation with an appeal to this effect-That it appeared to him, it was the wish of many to institute an inquiry into the affair with Luther; but he begged it might be borne in mind, that there was nothing left to investigate; inasmuch as the Pope had already decided in the matter, of which the bull itself was the most undeniable evidence; that Luther had given currency to such errors, as rendered a hundred thousand heretics deserving of the stake; for he had injured the dignity of the saints in heaven, had even thrown doubts on purgatory, and explained the Scripture in a different sense to that which the Church enjoined. The matter was, therefore, no longer within the competency of the diet; and as far as the clergy were concerned, they were not warranted in taking up the dispute with that heretic, without a special commission from the Pope.

The princes, however, were not disposed to bow to this mandate, and a very large majority of the states required, that Luther should appear in person. They alleged, there were so many and such serious objections existing against the administration of the Pope, that it was at length become necessary to adopt measures for removing them. It was right, therefore, to hear what the monk of Wittenberg had brought against them, and then to determine on the course fitting to be pursued. In other respects, it was incumbent upon them to convince him of his errors, and insist upon his retracting them, in those points where he had really impugned the Christian faith.

The Emperor's council, in which papal influence and the spirit of the Spanish inquisitor assorted ill with the political cunning of the Netherlands, wavered in its decisions; until every other consideration gave way to a feeling, that it might enhance the influence of the new Emperor if it were made to appear, that the Roman chair could not trample even upon a monk, without the sanction of the German sovereign. On the 6th of March, therefore, a citation was issued, in the name of his imperial majesty, inviting Dr. Martin Luther, under a promise of safe escort, to come and put in his answer personally. But no mention was made of any recantation; Luther having already replied, in confidential communication with Spalatin, his sovereign's chaplain and private secretary, that recantation was wholly out of the question. The passage of his letter which contains this declaration, runs thus :-" Do not imagine that I shall retract; but I will come, even though my life may be the forfeit. I have no thoughts of flight, nor of suffering the word of God to be endangered; on the contrary, I will maintain it unto death, Christ being my helper."

Upon receiving the summons, which was brought to him by Caspar Sturm on the 24th of March, he made himself ready for the journey. The magistrate of Wittenberg presented him with a conveyance, and

appointed Hieronymus Schurf, a jurisconsult, to be his counsellor. He was also accompanied by several friends; namely, Nicholas of Amsdorf, dean of the chapter; Justus Jonas, a professor; and Von Schwaven, a Danish gentleman. Thus provided and attended, he passed through Erfurth and Frankfort, being kindly received by knights and citizens, and cheered with numerous testimonies of a lively sympathy in his fate, upon his road to the borders of the Rhine. At Oppenheim he found a letter, earnestly warning him of his peril; and on this occasion, he addressed the following impressive words to the bystanders :-" Aye, and if there be as many devils at Worms as tiles on its roofs, I will not be deterred." Upon leaving Oppenheim, numbers of persons of gentle blood met him with friendly greeting, and formed a handsome retinue about the reformer, who was modestly attired in his monkish garb. With this escort he entered Worms at ten o'clock in the morning of the 16th of April, and, surrounded by an immense crowd of people, dismounted at the house of the Teutonic order, where Frederic of Thunau and Philip of Feilitsch, as well as Von Pappenheim, the hereditary marshal of the empire, had taken up their quarters.

It was not long before he was admitted to a hearing. Notice of a general sitting of the diet was given for the same afternoon, and Pappenheim was directed not only to cite him to appear, but to conduct him into its presence at the hour appointed. This last was rendered necessary indeed by the enormous pressure of bystanders, through whom the marshal and attendant herald found much difficulty in bringing him to the episcopal palace, where they had also to force a passage through the antechamber, which was filled to overflow with princes and noblemen. Many an encouraging expression cheered Luther on his way; amongst these it will be in the reader's recollection, that George of Frundsberg, the imperial commander, tapped him upon the shoulder, and exclaimed, "Friend monk, thou hast taken a step far bolder than I and many of my brother leaders have adventured on the field of battle; but the fight is thine own; therefore, go thy way in God's name."

Still it was matter of uncertainty what sort of a reception he would meet with: he was abundantly armed for the task, and had fully made his mind to enter upon a theological contest. He was, therefore,

up not a little astonished when John Von Eck, the official-general of Treves, simply asked him in the Emperor's name, and by direction of the diet, "Whether he acknowledged that the books that lay before him were his writing? and whether he retracted, or was resolved to abide by their contents?"

He was on the eve of replying, when his attorney interposed, and required that the titles of the books should be called over. This having been done, Luther resolutely answered to the effect, “that he acknowledged those books to be his own, and was prepared to justify the several assertions they contained." But as regarded the other question, whether he was ready to defend or retract every isolated opinion he had expressed, he observed, "that such an answer was far more difficult to give, and, indeed, was of so deep an importance, as to induce him to solicit time for maturer consideration."

As the majority of his judges thought the request by no means unreasonable, although he was unworthy of such a favour (as Von Eck observed), time was granted him until the next morning, when he was admonished to appear, and deliver in his answer orally.

Such was the result of his first hearing; and it was by no means of a nature to infuse any great hopes into the breasts of his supporters. Many of the gentry, therefore, visited him at his lodging, for the purpose of encouraging him under his difficulties, and promising to stand by him, if matters were pushed to extremity.

Luther, however, was sorely beset with apprehensions during the brief space which had been allowed him for forming his resolution. It was not with proofs or explanations that he had to deal; he was called upon to state the substance of his convictions, and lay open the ground he had taken as regarded evangelical truths, and the existing character of the priesthood. His thoughts never rested for a single moment on the subject of a recantation; but he wavered as to the choice of the expressions in which he should decline it, and, at the same time, impart the full glow of his convictions to the assembled states. He subsequently confessed the tumult which raged within him upon this trying occasion, though he also acknowledged with gratitude, that nothing had armed his soul with so much resolution as the fervent aspirations he offered up to the Omnipotent.

An attempt at a recollection of those aspirations exists under his own hand; and it strongly illustrates the character of the man, and the vehemence of his feelings, which were wrought to such a pitch, as to make him cry aloud in his prayers. "O God! God! my my God!" he exclaimed, " help me in this hour of my necessities. Thou art my helper, and thou alone. Behold! it is not my cause, but thine; a just cause, and an eternal one, O Lord! Thou knowest, O Lord, I am ready to lay down my life for its sake. Let this body of mine be brought to destruction, yet shall not the power of the whole world undo my conscience! Thou must not, thou wilt not abandon me, O good Lord! Thou wilt be my stay, through the name of thy dear Son, Jesus Christ, who shall be my shield, and my protection, and my strong castle, through the power and strengthening of thy Holy Spirit. Amen."

The immediate effect of this outpouring of the heart, was to restore his mind to that lucid and healthy state which he was earnestly desirous of possessing in this crisis of his fortunes, and to enable him to view and examine, in all their bearings, the few, though momentous points, on which he had to explain himself. When he returned amongst his friends, he displayed a life and cheerfulness, which bore little trace of the severe ordeal which his spirit had undergone. In the meanwhile, the interval allotted to him had expired, and the marshal and herald appeared with their summons. The throng which filled the bishop's court was even greater than on the preceding day, and two hours were suffered to elapse, and the tapers had been lighted, before he was again admitted.

After silence had been obtained, the official opened the proceedings by explaining their object, and closed his address with calling upon

him to declare, whether he were resolved to defend or recal the writings in question?

:

Luther began his reply with entreating, that his noble auditory would forgive him if he should express himself in the language of the cloister rather than in that of courts. He then repeated the acknowledgment he had made the day before, with respect to the writings themselves but, in reference to the second question, he begged them to recollect that those writings were of a varied character. Such portions of them as concerned Christian faith and practice, would not, he conceived, be deemed of an injurious tendency: others, he admitted, were calculated to affect the authority of Rome, inasmuch as they assailed those ordinances, which had been the occasion of sore vexations: these he could not, and dared not retract, without bringing great prejudice to the German empire, and Christendom in general. Otherwise, the world would naturally conclude, that the abuses which characterized the hierarchy, and the almost insupportable pressure with which they had so long afflicted both princes, scholars, and nations, had been formally recognized as sound and wholesome, under the very eye and by the special direction of his Imperial Majesty and the princes of the empire. Did not the papal decrees themselves affirm, that all things, which were contrary to the Gospel, were to be taken as so many errors? If, therefore, he had declared that "such and such things were erroneous, as being at variance with the Gospel," and had made such a declaration in the teeth of his own convictions, he would, according to the tenets of the Church itself, have committed a most culpable wrong. "And should I then have been any thing better," he exclaimed, "than a detestable pander to every thing that is wicked and tyrannical?"

He next observed, that a third description of his writings was polemical; those in which he had had to deal with his opponents. He considered that every theologian possessed an indefeasible right to deliver his opinions on the doctrines of the Saviour; and he declared that he would not retract them, though on many occasions he might have been intemperate, and have used sharper language than befitted his station. He bade them remember that he was not a saint, but a man, and confessed he found it difficult to restrain his feelings, when he was defending the truth and purity of Jesus' doctrines. It could scarcely be expected of him to recal chance expressions, seeing, moreover, that they had been extorted by the violence of his adversaries; it was rather a recantation of his opinions and dogmas, which was demanded of him. To this he would only reply, in the words of the Lord and Saviour, "If I have spoken evil, then shew me that it is evil.”

For these reasons, he besought his Imperial Majesty, and his noble auditory, graciously to direct, that proof should be given to him, from the word of the Prophets and Apostles, of the matters and things in which he had gone astray. And if he were convinced of his errors, he was ready to retract them, and would be the first to commit his own writings to the flames. He admitted, that much disunion and controversy had grown out of his interference; but these had originated in the cause itself, not in any act of his. The warfare had the word of God for its object, and could least of all be stemmed and suppressed