in
such a way? It is not possible, if acquainted with the truth, to be
patient with inflexible and ungovernable enemies of the truth. But
enough of this nonsense. I see that everybody wishes I were gentle,
especially my enemies, who show themselves least so of all. If I am too
little gentle, I am at least simple and open, and therein, as I believe,
surpass them, for they dispute only in a deceitful fashion." (19, 482 f.
Translation by McGiffert.)

Nobody should make Luther any better than he makes himself. Still, the
question is pertinent whether violent polemics can ever be engaged in by
Christians with a good conscience. Luther has asserted that, while he
hurled his terrible denunciations against the adversaries of the truth,
his heart was disposed to friendship and peace with them. (16, 1718 f.)
Is a state of mind like this altogether inconceivable, viz., that a
person can curse another for a certain act and at the same time love
him? We think not. In his day this boisterous, turbulent Luther was
understood, trusted, and loved by the people. After the publication of
the Theses against Tetzel "the hearts of men in all parts of the land
turned toward him, and his heart turned toward them. For the religious
principles underlying the theses they cared little, for the arguments
sustaining them still less. They saw only that here was a man, muzzled
by none of the prudential considerations closing the mouths of many in
high places, who dared to speak his mind plainly and emphatically, and
was able to speak it intelligently and with effect upon a great and
growing evil deplored by multitudes. It is such a man the people love
and such a man they trust." (McGiffert, _Luther,_ p. 98 f.)

McGiffert has the right perception of the Luther of 1517-1519 when he
describes him as "the awakening reformer," thus: "He had the true
reformer's conscience--the sense of responsibility for others as well as
for himself, and the true reformer's vision of the better things that
ought to be. He was never a mere faultfinder, but he was endowed with
the gifts of imagination and sympathy, leading him to feel himself a
part of every situation he was placed in, and with the irrepressible
impulse to action driving him to take upon himself the burden of it. In
any crowd of bystanders he would have been first to go to the rescue
where need was, and quickest to see the need not obvious to all. The
aloofness of the mere observer was not his; he was too