But the joy Luther felt at the constancy of these two young Christians was troubled by the thought of Lambert. The latter was the most learned of the three; he had succeeded to Probst's station as preacher at Antwerp. Agitated in his dungeon, and alarmed at the prospect of death, he was still more terrified by his conscience, which reproached him with cowardice, and urged him to confess the Gospel. He was soon delivered from his fears, and after boldly proclaiming the truth, died like his brethren.[320]
LUTHER'S SYMPATHY.
A rich harvest sprang from the blood of these martyrs. Brussels turned towards the Gospel.[321] "Wherever Aleander raises a pile," said Erasmus, "there he seems to have been sowing heretics."[322]
"Your bonds are mine," said Luther; "your dungeons and your burning piles are mine![323]......We are all with you, and the Lord is at our head!" He then commemorated the death of these young monks in a beautiful hymn, and soon, in Germany and in the Netherlands, in city and country, these strains were heard communicating in every direction an enthusiasm for the faith of these martyrs.
No! no! their ashes shall not die!
But, borne to every land,
Where'er their sainted dust shall fall
Up springs a holy band.
Though Satan by his might may kill,
And stop their powerful voice,
They triumph o'er him in their death,
And still in Christ rejoice.
CHAPTER V.
The New Pope, Clement VII.—The Legate Campeggio—Diet of Nuremberg—Demand of the Legate—Reply of the Diet—A Secular Council projected—Alarm and Exertions of the Pope—Bavaria—League of Ratisbon—Severity and Reforms—Political Schism—Opposition—Intrigues of Rome—Decree of Burgos—Rupture.
Adrian would doubtless have persisted in these violent measures; the inutility of his exertions to arrest the reform, his orthodoxy, his zeal, his austerity, and even his conscientiousness, would have made him a cruel persecutor. But this Providence did not permit. He died on the 14th of September 1523, and the Romans, overjoyed at being delivered from this stern foreigner, crowned his physician's door with flowers, and wrote this inscription over it: "To the saviour of his country."