ereign of half the world. There on
either side of him stood the archbishops, the ministers of state, the
princes of the empire, gathered together to hear and judge the son of a
poor miner, who had made the world ring with his name.

The body of the hall was thronged with knights and nobles--stern hard
men in dull gleaming armour. Luther, in his brown frock, was led forward
between their ranks. The looks which greeted him were not all
unfriendly. The first Article of a German credo was belief in _courage_.
Germany had had its feuds in times past with Popes of Rome, and they
were not without pride that a poor countryman of theirs should have
taken by the beard the great Italian priest. They had settled among
themselves that, come what would, there should be fair play; and they
looked on half admiring, and half in scorn.

As Luther passed up the hall, a steel baron touched him on the shoulder
with his gauntlet.

'Pluck up thy spirit, little monk;' he said, 'some of us here have seen
warm work in our time, but, by my troth, nor I nor any knight in this
company ever needed a stout heart more than thou needest it now. If thou
hast faith in these doctrines of thine, little monk, go on, in the name
of God.'

'Yes, in the name of God,' said Luther, throwing back his head, 'In the
name of God, forward!'

As at Augsburg, one only question was raised. Luther had broken the
laws of the Church. He had taught doctrines which the Pope had declared
to be false. Would he or would he not retract?

As at Augsburg, he replied briefly that he would retract when his
doctrines were not declared to be false merely, but were proved to be
false. Then, but not till then. That was his answer, and his last word.

There, as you understand, the heart of the matter indeed rested. In
those words lay the whole meaning of the Reformation. Were men to go on
for ever saying that this and that was true, because the Pope affirmed
it? Or were Popes' decrees thenceforward to be tried like the words of
other men--by the ordinary laws of evidence?

It required no great intellect to understand that a Pope's pardon, which
you could buy for five shillings, could not really get a soul out of
purgatory. It required a quality much rarer than intellect to look such
a doctrine in the face--sanctioned as it was by the credulity of ages,
and backed by the pomp and pageantry of earthly power--and say to it
openly, 'You are a lie.' Cleverness and culture could have