him earlier in his
journey; others, like some gentlemen belonging to the Elector's court,
had ridden out from Worms to receive him. The imperial herald rode on
before. The watchman blew a horn from the tower of the cathedral on
seeing the procession approach the gate. Thousands streamed hither to
see Luther. The gentlemen of the court escorted him into the house of
the Knights of St. John, where he lodged with two counsellors of the
Elector. As he stepped from his carriage he said, "God will be with me."
Aleander, writing to Rome, said that he looked around with the eyes of a
demon. Crowds of distinguished men, ecclesiastics and laymen, who were
anxious to know him personally, flocked daily to see him.

On the evening of the following day he had to appear before the diet,
which was assembled in the Bishop's palace, the residence of the
Emperor, not far from where Luther was lodging. He was conducted thither
by side streets, it being impossible to get through the crowds assembled
in the main thoroughfare to see him. On his way into the hall where the
diet was assembled, tradition tells us how the famous warrior, George
von Frundsberg, clapped him on the shoulder and said: "My poor monk! my
poor monk! thou art on thy way to make such a stand as I and many of my
knights have never done in our toughest battles. If thou art sure of the
justice of thy cause, then forward in the name of God, and be of good
courage--God will not forsake thee." The Elector had given Luther as his
advocate the lawyer Jerome Schurf, his Wittenberg colleague and friend.

When at length, after waiting two hours, Luther was admitted to the
diet, Eck, the official of the Archbishop of Treves, put to him simply,
in the name of the Emperor, two questions, whether he acknowledged the
books--pointing to them on a bench beside him--to be his own, and next,
whether he would retract their contents or persist in them. Schurf here
exclaimed, "Let the titles of the books be named." Eck then read them
out. Among them there were some merely edifying writings, such as _A
Commentary on the Lord's Prayer_, which had never been made the subject
of complaint.

Luther was not prepared for this proceeding, and possibly the first
sight of the august assembly made him nervous. He answered in a low
voice, and as if frightened, that the books were his, but that since the
question as to their contents concerned the highest of all things, the
Word of God and the salvation