tenance. He was irritable, and easily moved to tears; the trifling
events of the day excited and disturbed him; but when he was called
upon for any great effort, and had subdued the first agitation of his
nerves--which, for instance, had overcome him on his first entrance at
the Imperial Diet at Worms--he then attained a wonderful composure and
confidence. He did not know what fear was; indeed, his lion nature took
pleasure in the most dangerous situations. The malicious snares of his
enemies, and the dangers to which his life was occasionally exposed, he
seemed to consider hardly worth speaking about. The foundation of this
more than human heroism--if one may venture to call it so--was the firm
personal union between him and his God. For a long period, with smiles
and inward gladness, he desired to serve truth and God by becoming a
martyr. A fearful struggle still lay before him, but it was not caused
by the opposition of men; he had to contend constantly for years
against the devil himself; he overcame also the terror of hell, which
threatened to obscure his reason. Such a man might be destroyed, but
could hardly be conquered.

The period of struggle which now follows, from the beginning of the
dispute about indulgences to his departure from Wartburg, the time of
his greatest triumph and greatest popularity, is that of which perhaps
most is known, and yet it appears to us that his character even then is
not rightly judged.

Nothing in this period is more remarkable than the way in which Luther
gradually became estranged from the Romish Church. He was sober-minded
and without ambition, and clung with deep reverence to the high idea of
the Church, that community of believers fifteen hundred years old; yet
in four short years he departed from the faith of his fathers, and
shook himself free of the soil in which he had been so firmly rooted.
During this whole time he had to maintain the struggle alone, or at
least with very few faithful confederates: after 1518 Melancthon was
united with him. He overcame all the dangers of fierce encounters, not
only against enemies, but against the anxious dissuasions of honest
friends and patrons. Three times did the Romish party try to silence
him by the authority of Cajetan, the persuasive eloquence of Miltitz,
and the unseasonable assiduity of the pugnacious Eckius; three times he
addressed the Pope in letters which are among the most valuable
documents of that century. Then came th