at the Diet of Worms. The reformer defended himself with great eloquence and vigor, but was placed under the ban of the Empire, and thenceforward became both a religious and political outlaw. The Lutheran reformation rapidly spread to France, Switzerland, the Scandinavian kingdoms, England, and Scotland, during the life of its apostle, and shook the power of the Roman hierarchy to its very center. Luther was protected in his work by a powerful band of German princes, and when he died the larger part of North Germany had accepted his doctrine. He was perhaps the most extraordinary figure of an age prolific in great men.] The Diet of Worms and Luther’s appearance there on the 17th of April, 1521, may be considered as the greatest scene in modern European history; the point, indeed, from which the whole subsequent history of civilization takes its rise. After multiplied negotiations and disputations, it had come to this. The young Emperor Charles V, with all the princes of Germany, papal nuncios, dignitaries, spiritual and temporal, are assembled there: Luther is to appear and answer for himself, whether he will recant or not. The world’s pomp and power sits there on this hand; on that, stands up for God’s truth one man, the poor miner, Hans Luther’s son. Friends had reminded him of Huss, advised him not to go; he would not be advised. A large company of friends rode out to meet him, with still more earnest warnings; he answered, “Were there as many devils in Worms as there are roof-tiles, I would on.” The people, on the morrow, as he went to the hall of the diet, crowded the windows and house-tops, some of them calling out to him, in solemn words, not to recant. “Whosoever denieth me before men!” they cried to him, as in a kind of solemn petition and adjuration. Was it not in reality a petition too--the petition of the whole world lying in dark bondage of soul, paralyzed under a black spectral nightmare and triple-hatted chimera, calling itself Father in God, and what not--“Free us; it rests with thee; desert us not!”