ready to assist in legal difficulties. The past and the future faced each other—the young Emperor in his rich robes of State, with his pale, vacant-looking face, but “carrying more at the back of his head than his countenance showed,” the descendant of long lines of kings, determined to maintain the beliefs, rites, and rules of that Mediæval Church which his ancestors had upheld; and the monk, with his wan face seamed with the traces of spiritual conflict and victory, in the poor dress of his Order, a peasant’s son, resolute to cleave a way for the new faith of evangelical freedom, the spiritual birthright of all men. The strained silence(233) was broken by the Official of Trier, a man of lofty presence, saying, in a clear, ringing voice so that all could hear distinctly, first in Latin and then in German: “ ‘Martin Luther, His Imperial Majesty, Sacred and Victorious (_sacra et invicta_), on the advice of all the Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, has ordered you to be summoned here to the throne of His Majesty, in order that you may recant and recall, according to the force, form, and meaning of the citation-mandate decreed against you by His Majesty and communicated legally to you, the books, both in Latin and in German, published by you and spread abroad, along with their contents: Wherefore I, in the name of His Imperial Majesty and of the Princes of the Empire, ask you: First, Do you confess that these books exhibited in your presence (I show him a bundle of books written in Latin and in German) and now named one by one, which have been circulated with your name on the title-page, are yours, and do you acknowledge them to be yours? Secondly, Do you wish to retract and recall them and their contents, or do you mean to adhere to them and to reassert them?’ ”(234) The books were not named; so Jerome Schurf called out, “Let the titles be read.”(235) Then the notary, Maximilian Siebenberger (called Transilvanus),(236) stepped forward and, taking up the books one by one, read their titles and briefly described their contents.(237) Then Luther, having briefly and precisely repeated the two questions put to him, said: