mands, by threats from his superior-then his dauntless soul would have flung them off as summarily, and as unconcernedly, as the lion of the forest shakes off the dew-drops from his mane. But the voice of

Staupitz was the voice of loving warning and entreaty. Well-read as Luther was in all the laws and chicaneries of the logic of his day, nevertheless his reverence and gratitude for his Vicar-General even blinded him to the weakness of the aged remonstrant.

His manly spirit was shaken-not from his purpose -not from the centre of his self-consciousness that he was in the path of supreme duty-but from his repose on human friendships.

"I know well," he murmured

repeating words

from the paper that had been discussed "I know well that I have spoken strongly. I know I have proposed many a thing that will appear impossible. I have attacked numerous errors with a severity that is, perhaps, somewhat too rude. But how can I help it? Rather let the whole earth be enraged against me, than that I should displease my God!"

We must close this scene by adding that, with affection warmed into energetic words, Melancthon strove to soothe and encourage his great friend; that Cruciger, with somewhat of more reserve (simply because he was not so intimate with Luther), avowed his heartiest sympathy; and that, ere they parted for the night, it was resolved to give to the press that paper which gained an entrance to the palaces of monarchs, to the castles of the nobles, to the houses of

the burghers, to the hearths of the peasantry; and which speedily set all Germany in excitement.

Other portions of it will come before our notice in an ensuing chapter.*

* Note 7.

CHAPTER V.

In the last chapter, we found, from Count Arensberg's letter to Martin Luther, that he had arrived at Rome, and that there he had observed the most threatening movements against the person of the great Reformer. It was also hinted in that letter, that the Count had been harassed by other cares than those arising from his diplomatic mission.

We must now proceed to fill up these intimations. Meanwhile, our readers will not, we trust, lose sight of what we have already stated in regard to Wittemberg.

The scene to which we are now to be introduced, is somewhat different from that one which we have just left. It is not the cell of a monastery, although it is in Rome, where monasteries and convents so abounded that they gave a character to the city.

Strange resultant of Christianity, that Rome-once so teeming with the activities of life, of self-devotion to high patriotism, of stirring motives to human struggle, all of which, though improperly directed by an overruling Paganism, nevertheless kept man awake

has been somnolent, and for many ages, beneath the wings of a professed Christian faith! Let the historical student recall that vigour of humanity which was once displayed in the Forum where Cicero declaimed, declaimed not merely to amuse his audience, but to arouse them to heroic deeds, or to a manly legislation; let him but evoke from the past the old Roman Senate, and listen to the words and vows of its great speakers; let him but survey in thought its legions, as they issued forth from its gates, warmed with high-souled enthusiasm, each soldier feeling that he had within him passions only to be controlled by laws that had been, by virtue of his citizenship, self-imposed; and then let him glance at Christian Rome, where there obtained vices as many and as odious as any that had defiled the city of the Cæsars; where, underneath the shadow of a sanctified Pontificate, equal sin and greater impunity flourished, because religion winked at crime; where almost every street was fronted and flanked by palaces that were dungeons, immuring sloth and spiritless formality, and often immorality-palaces that enclosed an army whose only virtue was to be a standing one: let him, with his mind's eye, bring within its horizon these two contrasts, and he will remain sad and perplexed; for the question will arise within him, "Whence comes it, that the chief seat of Christianity is as bad in morals, inferior in lofty and energetic purpose, and more down-trodden in its corrupt population, than ever was the chief seat of Roman Paganism ?"

A sad fact is this! And the solution of this question cannot be found either in the natural deterioration of the people, or in the irruptions of barbarians from the north; but in the melancholy truth that a corrupt form of Christianity made the progress of social putrefaction more rapid and more complete.

We have left Wittemberg, where, it must be admitted, there was immorality enough and ignorance enough, but where there were aspirations after truth and goodness of the highest kinds. We have now reached Rome, where, though ruled over by a successor of St. Peter, and with its every alley and every palace permeated by streams of a Christian priesthood, sin was neither cleansed away nor even loathed, and where the knowledge that was panted after was not the knowledge of a divine Saviour, but of the gods and goddesses, the sylphs and fairies, of a former heathendom.

We are in one of the chambers of the Saxon Ambassador, Valentine Teutleben. We see before us a select number of guests assembled at dinner, in honour of the arrival of Count Arensberg, the Envoy Extraordinary of the Elector. The repast is just finished, and their host, the Ambassador, has just proposed the health of their Sovereign, Frederick the Wise.

"You were at Frankfort, were you not," asked Teutleben of Arensberg, "when our gracious master refused the crown of Germany ?"

"I was, my lord," returned Arensberg; "and a sight