write to you, Melanchthon; be assured that I do not tell you all, and that in what I write I do not employ the strong terms that the terrible state of our affairs would require. Already eighteen disciples of the Gospel have been burnt, and the same danger threatens a still greater number. Every day the danger spreads wider and wider.[286] There is not a good man who does not fear the calumnies of informers, and is not consumed with grief at the sight of these horrible doings. Our adversaries reign, and with all the more authority, that they appear to be fighting in a just cause, and to quell sedition. In the midst of these great and numerous evils there is only one hope left—that the people are beginning to be disgusted with such cruel persecutions, and that the king blushes at last at having thirsted for the blood of these unfortunate men. The persecutors are instigated by violent hatred and not by justice. If the king could but know what kind of spirit animates these bloodthirsty men, he would no doubt take better advice. And yet we do not despair. God reigns, he will scatter all these tempests, he will show us the port where we can take refuge, he will give good men an asylum _where they will dare speak their thoughts freely_.'[287] [Sidenote: LUTHER'S LETTER.] This letter to Melanchthon is important in the history of the Reformation. Liberty of speech and of religious action is what protestantism claimed in France; and in claiming these liberties for itself, it secured them for all. We may imagine what an impression this letter produced at Wittemberg. Melanchthon, who received it, and even Luther himself, blamed a certain excess of vivacity in the French reformers; but, like Sturm, they recognised in them disciples of the Divine Word. A few days after, Luther writing to his friend Link, complained of the evil times in which they lived, and especially of the kings. 'With the exception of our prince (the Elector of Saxony),' he said, 'there is not one whom I do not suspect. You may understand by this language how little love and zeal for the Word of God there is in this world. For the present, sing, I pray you, this psalm: _Expectans expectavi Dominum_, I waited patiently for the Lord. It is through glory and disgrace, through stumblings and strayings, through the righteous and the wicked, through devils and angels, that we come to Him who alone is good, alone is without evil.[288] Therefore, dear brother, I conjure you lend no ear to any discourse, and have no other conversation than what you have with _Him_. There are many excellent people among men, but alas! they have less patience than stern justice. God help us!... He permits the devil to be strong, and how weak he makes us! God puts us to the proof. To trust in a man, were he even a prince, is not conformable with piety; but to fear a man is shameful and even impious in a Christian. May Christ, our life, our salvation, and our glory, be with