on, the elector Frederic.
It was well understood at Rome that Cajetan, in pushing Luther one
step beyond his original Thesis, by transferring the question from the
discretion of Tetzel to the authority under which he acted, had
mismanaged the affair. Uncompromising rigour having failed, the
opposite treatment was now applied. Miltitz, finding the majority of
Germans favourable to Luther, deposited the Golden Rose at Nuremberg,
and came into his own country with a resolution to be conciliatory.
The friends whom he saw on his way informed Luther, and urged him to
meet his countryman in the same spirit. Miltitz saw Tetzel and
silenced him; and the inauspicious preacher did not long survive his
disgrace. Having given this proof that he entertained no adverse
prejudice, that on the immediate problem they were in sympathy,
Miltitz had a conference with Luther at Altenburg.

Luther followed the advice of his friends at Nuremberg. The specific
evil he had denounced was now admitted by the authorised
representative of the Holy See. He obtained, through him, a
reassuring glimpse of Roman opinion, and the certainty that there were
men on the spot, unlike Prierias and Cajetan, whose convictions in
regard to unreformed abuses were as clear as his own, and whose
opportunities were better. They came to an understanding. Luther was
to publish an explanation and then the subject was to drop. It did
not mean that he was approved; but dubious points were not pressed,
for the sake of those on which the force of his case was felt. He
wrote to a friend that he would suppress much rather than offend, and
the whole thing would die out of itself. The contrast between Miltitz
and Cajetan was such that he had reason to be satisfied. Miltitz also
considered that he had done well, and had extinguished a conflagration
that might have become serious. He advised the Elector not to send
the Wittenberg professor out of the country. More eager spirits were
impatient of so tame a conclusion; for there were some to whom plenary
indulgences for the living or the dead were a drop of water in an
ocean of controversy, whilst others thought that authority had been
outraged on one side and surrendered on the other. Before the dispute
was reopened Luther wrote a letter to Leo X, saying the ecclesiastical
authority must be upheld to the utmost. This saying, of little
account in his theology, is significant in his entire system of
thought. What he