ime we hear denouncing
"Roman cunning," though he only charged the Pope himself with allowing
his grasping Florentine relations to deceive him.

The diet seized the opportunity offered by this demand for a tax, to
bring up a whole list of old grievances; the large sums drawn from
German benefices by the Pope under the name of annates, or extorted
under other pretexts; the illegal usurpation of ecclesiastical patronage
in Germany; the constant infringement of concordats, and so on. The
demand itself was refused; and in addition to this, an address was
presented to the diet from the bishop and clergy of Liege, inveighing
against the lying, thieving, avaricious conduct of the Romish minions,
in such sharp and violent tones that Luther, on reading it afterward
when printed, thought it only a hoax, and not really an episcopal
remonstrance.

This was reason enough why Cajetan, to avoid increasing the excitement,
should not attempt to lay hands on the Wittenberg opponent of
indulgences. The elector Frederick, from whose hands Cajetan would have
to demand Luther, was one of the most powerful and personally respected
princes of the empire, and his influence was especially important in
view of the election of a new emperor. This Prince went now in person to
Cajetan on Luther's behalf, and Cajetan promised him, at the very time
that the brief was on its way to him from Rome, that he would hear
Luther at Augsburg, treat him with fatherly kindness, and let him depart
in safety.

Luther accordingly was sent to Augsburg. It was an anxious time for
himself and his friends when he had to leave for that distant place,
where the Elector, with all his care, could not employ any physical
means for his protection, and to stand accused as a heretic before that
papal legate who, from his own theological principles, was bound to
condemn him. "My thoughts on the way," said Luther afterward, "were now
I must die; and I often lamented the disgrace I should be to my dear
parents."

He went thither in humble garb and manner. He made his way on foot till
within a short distance of Augsburg, when illness and weakness overcame
him, and he was forced to proceed by carriage. Another younger monk of
Wittenberg accompanied him, his pupil Leonard Baier. At Nuremberg he was
joined by his friend Link, who held an appointment there as preacher.
From him he borrowed a monk's frock, his own being too bad for Augsburg.
He arrived here on October 7th.

The