"They are taking him to prison."
"They are leading me to my hotel," said the calm voice of him whom this day has made the great man of Germany. And the tumult subsided.
Ebernburg, June, 1521.
Dr. Luther has disappeared! Not one that I have seen knows at this moment where they have taken him, whether he is in the hands of friend or foe, whether even he is still on earth!
We ought to have heard of his arrival at Wittemberg many days since. But no inquiries can trace him beyond the village of Mora in the Thuringian Forest. There he went from Eisenach on his way back to Wittemberg, to visit his aged grandmother and some of his father's relations, peasant farmers who live on the clearings of the forest. In his grandmother's lowly home he passed the night, and took leave of her the next morning; and no one has heard of him since.
We are not without hope that he is in the hands of friends; yet fears will mingle with these hopes. His enemies are so many and so bitter; and no means would seem, to many of them, unworthy, to rid the world of such a heretic.
While he yet remained at Worms the Romans strenuously insisted that his obstinacy had made the safe-conduct invalid; some even of the German princes urged that he should be seized; and it was only by the urgent remonstrances of others, who protested that they would never suffer such a blot on German honour, that he was saved.
At the same time the most insidious efforts were made to persuade him to retreat, or to resign his safe-conduct in order to show his willingness to abide by the issue of a fair discussion. This last effort, appealing to Dr. Luther's confidence in the truth for which he was ready to die, had all but prevailed with him. But a knight who was present when it was made, seeing through the treachery, fiercely ejected the priest who proposed it from the house.
Yet through all assaults, insidious or open, Dr. Luther remained calm and unmoved, moved by no threats, ready to listen to any fair proposition.
Among all the polished courtiers and proud princes and prelates, he seemed to me to stand like an ambassador from an imperial court among the petty dignitaries of some petty province. His manners had the dignity of one who has been accustomed to a higher presence than any around him, giving to every one the honour due to him, indifferent to all personal slights, but inflexible on every point that concerned the honour of his sovereign.