ity, (twenty out of about two hundred,) on the 19th of April, 1529, entered a solemn protest against it, and demanded that their protest should be placed on the records of the diet. The protest took the ground that in matters of conscience the majority should not bind the minority, that they had equal rights with the papal princes, and could not give them up; and, moreover, it had been agreed upon in the diet at Worms, that all religious differences should be referred to an impartial general council, which had not yet been called together. On the 25th of April they issued an appeal from the decision of the diet to the emperor, and to a national or general council, and to all impartial Christians. The signers of this protest and appeal were referred to in the debates of the diet as the protestants, and hence the origin of the name. They were the following, namely, John elector of Saxony, George margrave of Brandenburg, Ernest and Francis dukes of Lüneburg, Philip landgrave of Hesse, Wolfgang prince of Anhalt, and the deputies from Strasburg, Ulm, Nuremberg, Constance, Reutlingen, Windsheim, Memmingen, Lindau, Kempten, Heilbronn, Isny, Weissenburg, Nordlingen, and St. Gall. A brief but clear account of this momentous transaction, and two striking letters of Luther in reference to it, are given in Von Gerlach, Vol. IX. p. 177–190.

The diet refused to put the protest and appeal on record, whereupon the Protestants sent a deputation of three of their number to present the papers to the emperor, who, having just completed his league with the pope, was then at Placentia in Italy. Charles met the deputies with a frown, and because they importuned him from day to day and insisted that he should receive their papers, he at length, on the 13th of October, put them all under arrest, But he did not then fully understand the men with whom he had to deal. The imprisoned deputies found means to issue a protest against their unlawful imprisonment by the emperor, and they appealed from him to a free Christian council. Charles, after holding them in durance seventeen days, and finding that he gained nothing by it, at last set them at liberty. It was now plain that the emperor meditated violence, and the Protestant princes, though feeble and divided, began again to think of defending themselves by arms. But this Luther now, as he had always done before, decidedly opposed, and such was his influence that no religious war broke out till after his death. The letter which he wrote to the elector on this occasion is given by Von Gerlach, Vol. XIV. p. 208

12. It was one of the wonderful things in Luther's conduct, that with all his ardor and fearless courage, and vehement indignation against wrong, he always on principle resisted every appeal to arms in the cause of religion.

But whence did Luther look for help? This may be seen from a little book which he published a short time after this, a commentary on Psalm cxviii., (see particularly verses 5-15,) in the preface to which he says, "I have returned to my estate, and taken before me my dear psalm, the beautiful cxviii., and have now put my thoughts upon it on paper, because I am sitting here in solitude, and must sometimes relieve my head, and intermit the toil of translating the Hebrew prophets, which, nevertheless, I hope to have completed very soon. This, I say, is my psalm, for I love it; for although the whole psalter and all the Holy Bible is dear to me, and is, indeed, my only comfort and life, yet I am especially indebted to this psalm; so that it must be called mine and be mine, for it has often done me very great service, and has helped me out of many and great difficulties, so as no emperor, king, sage, saint, or prudent man could help me, and it is dearer to me than all the honor, wealth, and power of pope, Turk, emperor, and all the world, so that I would not exchange this one psalm for them all. If any one thinks it strange that I should boast of this psalm as my psalm, when it belongs to all the world, let such an one know that when I make this psalm mine, I do not take it away from any body else. Christ is mine, and yet the same Christ belongs to all the saints besides. I will not be stingy with my psalm, I will be very generous. Would God that all the world might lay claim to this psalm as well as I; that would be a glorious, lovely litigation, such that no harmony or peace were worthy to be compared with it." (See Lomler II. p. 441-43.) These were the feelings which sustained Luther. The word of God was to him in place of all other weapons whether of offence or defence, and this weapon, the sword of the Spirit, though not carnal, was mighty through God; and the world looked on in perfect amazement at the skill and power with which he wielded it.

January 21st, 1530, the emperor summoned a new diet to meet at Augsburg on the 8th of April following. Here it was expected and affirined that definite measures would be taken for the final adjustment of all religious difficulties. The Protestants looked forward to the time with the greatest anxiety.

During the diet at Spire, Luther, at the request of the elector, had sketched the heads of a remonstrance, which the princes were to draw up in form and present to the legislature and the emperor. Considering all the circumstances under which it was composed, it is one of the noblest documents ever written. It is inserted entire in Von Gerlach, Vol. IX. p. 183-86. It is too condensed to admit of abridgment, too closely woven together to allow of selections, and too long to be copied entire into this article. Let the reader peruse it just as Luther wrote it, and see how calmly, dispassionately, I may even say, sweetly, this great man would speak, and yet with the most unwavering decision, at a time when every thing he valued was in imminent peril, and he was exposed without human aid to the vengeance of the mightiest monarch of the age.

February 24th, 1530, Charles was crowned by the pope at Bologna, and though all the subsequent German emperors were Roman Catholics, this was the last time the ceremony of the coronation was performed by the pope.

The elector of Saxony was earnestly advised not to attend the diet at Augsburg, but he had no intention of showing the white feather on such an occasion. On the 14th of March, he sent to Luther to draw up a creed to be presented to the diet as the Protestant confession of faith. Luther immediately composed seventeen articles, which, having been received by the elector in the city of Torgau, are known by the name of the Torgau articles. These seventeen articles are the groundwork on which the famous Augsburg confession was afterwards constructed. They may be found in the Leipsic edition of Luther's works, Vol. XX. p. 1-3.

On the 3d of April, the elector set out for Augsburg, taking with him, besides a large company of nobles and lawyers, the theologians, Luther, Melancthon, Spalatin, and Justus Jonas. At every place where they stopped long enough to admit of it, Luther preached to immense congregations, which were always ready to concentrate on any point where it was supposed his voice might be heard. They at length arrived at Cobourg, a small city with an old fortified castle on the northern frontier of Saxony. Here the elector was determined that Luther should remain, and not hazard his person in Augsburg. As an outlaw, he had no legal protection, and at Augsburg there were thousands of papists who would think they were doing God service by assassinating him. Luther remonstrated, but the

elector was inexorable. He assigned him a small but strong room in the third story of the castle, promised that he would keep him constantly informed of all that was going on at Augsburg, and take no important step without his advice: and then ordering the garrison to keep a guard of at least twelve armed horsemen constantly, day and night, in the yard before Luther's apartment, he took his departure.

Luther again found himself a prisoner, as he had been in the Wartburg. He filled up his time with writing, and turned off new works with almost superhuman rapidity. But the confinement preyed upon his health and spirits; he suffered extremely from pains in his head and breast, and was so afflicted with nervous depression, that, thinking he must soon die, he selected a spot in the castle ground where he desired to be buried. As was usually the case when he was most depressed, his disposition to fun and drollery was most irrepressibly active. It was at this time that he threw off those unique specimens of wit and humor, the letter to his messmates in Wittemberg, and to his dear little son Jacky, then about four years old. They are both given by Lomler, Vol. II. p. 496 and 505, and Von Gerlach promises them in the last volume of his collection, which I have not yet seen.

The elector reached Augsburg on the 2d of May, and though the city was then full of nobles, ecclesiastics, and military men in attendance on the diet, the emperor had not yet arrived. The elector immediately employed Melancthon to draw up from the seventeen articles of Torgau a Protestant confession of faith, and that distinguished theologian then made the first draft of the afterwards so celebrated Augsburg confession. On the 11th of May, the elector sent a copy to Luther, for his revision, who returned it unaltered, saying it was as good as it could be, and he had no corrections to make. Luther had not a particle of jealousy or envy in his composition, and whatever any one did well, pleased him quite as much as if he had done it himself. But though Luther was satisfied, Melancthon was not; for, on looking it over a second time, he made a great number of changes, and sent it again to Luther, who again returned it unchanged, with the remark that it was good enough before, and better still now, and that he was not capable of improving it.

The Protestant princes all brought their preachers with them, and they had divine service in some of the city churches every

Sunday, on the reformed model. This was a great eyesore to the papists, and they were exerting all their influence with the emperor to get it prohibited; but the landgrave of Hesse avowed his determination to have Protestant preaching at the point of the sword, if he could get it in no other way. On these and other topics the elector kept up a constant correspondence with Luther, and nothing gives the image and body of the time like those letters, none of which, so far as I know, have ever yet appeared in English. They may be found in Von Gerlach, Vol. X. p. 60-66.

On the 1st of June, Luther published what he had written the April preceding, an admonition to all the clergy assembled at the diet in Augsburg, one of his most eloquent and effective productions. He here depicts the oppressiveness, the corruptions, and the abuses of the Romish church in colors so lively and yet so true, and demonstrates so forcibly the necessity of reformation, that the papists dared not attempt a reply to it. It was read with avidity by the imperial court at Inspruck, and the bishop of Augsburg even took it into an assembly of the Romish clergy, and read it there. "The Romish church (says Seckendorf, Lib. II. p. 188) is here so truly and so vividly painted, that it were to be wished that the admonition might be read by all the world,”—a wish, I am sure, which every friend of morals and religion, who reads it, will heartily reciprocate. There is a deep, solemn earnestness in its style, a crystal-like clearness in its statements, a full-hearted, glowing sincerity in its tone, that makes you love Luther with an overflowing love, and brings the warm tears to your eyes, at almost every page. It may all be read in Von Gerlach, Vol. X. p. 8-60.

On the 14th of June, while the emperor was waiting at Inspruck, his high chancellor Mercurius Gattinara died. This was a sad blow to the Protestants, for Gattinara was a wise and prudent man; he had great influence with Charles, and notwithstanding the feebleness of his health, he had determined to accompany the emperor to Augsburg for the express purpose of preventing any violent measures against the reformers. The cause of the Reformation, to human appearance, was now desperate. Charles, a powerful and politic prince, brought up under the strictest papal influences, and constitutionally inclined to superstition, flushed with his successes against his most powerful rival, the king of France, and his recent victory overrthe pope himself, was now inclined to put forth al' his powe to