forward from this first public challenge of Tetzel, on the last day of
October 1517, through remonstrance and argument;--spreading ever
wider, rising ever higher; till it became unquenchable, and enveloped
all the world. Luther's heart's-desire was to have this grief and
other griefs amended; his thought was still far other than that of
introducing separation in the Church, or revolting against the Pope,
Father of Christendom.--The elegant Pagan Pope cared little about this
Monk and his doctrines; wished, however, to have done with the noise
of him: in a space of some three years, having tried various softer
methods, he thought good to end it by _fire_. He dooms the Monk's
writings to be burnt by the hangman, and his body to be sent bound to
Rome,--probably for a similar purpose. It was the way they had ended
with Huss, with Jerome, the century before. A short argument, fire.
Poor Huss: he came to that Constance Council, with all imaginable
promises and safe-conducts; an earnest, not rebellious kind of man:
they laid him instantly in a stone dungeon 'three-feet wide, six-feet
high, seven-feet long;' _burnt_ the true voice of him out of this
world; choked it in smoke and fire. That was _not_ well done!

I, for one, pardon Luther for now altogether revolting against the
Pope. The elegant Pagan, by this fire-decree of his, had kindled into
noble just wrath the bravest heart then living in this world. The
bravest, if also one of the humblest, peaceablest; it was now kindled.
These words of mine, words of truth and soberness, aiming faithfully,
as human inability would allow, to promote God's truth on Earth, and
save men's souls, you, God's vicegerent on earth, answer them by the
hangman and fire? You will burn me and them, for answer to the
God's-message they strove to bring you? _You_ are not God's
vicegerent; you are another's than his, I think I take your Bull, as
an emparchmented Lie, and burn _it_. You will do what you see good
next: this is what I do.--It was on the 10th of December 1520, three
years after the beginning of the business, that Luther, 'with a great
concourse of people,' took this indignant step of burning the Pope's
fire-decree 'at the Elster-Gate of Wittenberg.' Wittenberg looked on
'with shoutings;' the whole world was looking on. The Pope should not
have provoked that 'shout'! It was the shout of the awakening of
nations. The quiet German heart, modest, patient of much, had at
length got more than it