"Yes, Walter, clear boy," replied his aunt, "I must heartily agree with you, and acknowledge that you have made a most excellent choice of a hero in Martin Luther. Not a doubt of it, he was a truly great and good man, a genuine moral hero. For a man who can be satisfied with nothing less than what is real and right; who is content to count all things loss for the attainment of a spiritual aim, and to fight for it against all enemies; who does his duty spite of all outward contradiction; and who reverences his conscience so greatly that he will face any difficulty and submit to any penalty rather than do violence to it, that is a truly great man, exhibiting a superb example of moral courage. And such a man, no doubt, was Martin Luther; and I believe I can see why you have chosen him just now, but you must tell me why yourself." "I will, Aunt Kate. You see we are in Worms now. This is the council- hall; before dinner to-day was the time of meeting; and my dear father was in his single person the august assembly. Amos, the best of brothers to the worst of brothers, is Martin Luther. He might have kept himself to himself, but he comes forward. It is the hardest thing possible for him to speak; if he had consulted his own feelings he would have spared himself a mighty struggle, and have left his scamp of a brother to get out of the scrape as best he could. But he stands up as brave as a lion and as gentle as a lamb, and looks as calm as if he were made of sponge-biscuits instead of flesh and blood. He ventures to address the august assembly--I mean my father--in a way he never did in all his life before, and never would have done if he had been speaking for himself; but it was duty that was prompting him, it was love that was nerving him, it was unselfishness that made him bold. And so he has shown himself the bravest of the brave; and I hope the brother for whom he has done and suffered all this, if he has any shame left in him, will learn to copy him, as he already learned to respect and admire him. There, Aunt Kate, I've been, and gone, and said it." CHAPTER THIRTEEN. PERPLEXING.