Still the Reformer's whole course was not one of exultation and triumph. Behind the car in which he was drawn by his zealous countrymen, transported with admiration, there was not wanting the slave appointed to remind him of his frailty. Some of his friends seemed disposed to call a halt. Staupitz, whom he called his father, seemed shaken. The pope had accused him, and Staupitz had declared his readiness to submit to the judgment of his Holiness. "I fear," said Luther to him, "that in accepting the pope for judge, you will seem to throw off me and the doctrines which I have maintained. If Christ loves you, he will constrain you to retract your letter. Christ is condemned, spoiled, blasphemed; it is time not to fear, but to cry aloud.[368] Wherefore, while you exhort me to humility, I exhort you to pride; for you have too much humility, just as I have too much of its opposite. I shall be called proud and avaricious, an adulterer, a murderer, an anti-pope, a man guilty of all crimes. It matters not, so long as they cannot accuse me of having kept an impious silence at the moment when the Lord was grieved, and said 'I looked on my right hand, and beheld but there was no man that would know me.' (Ps. cxlii, 4.) The word of Jesus Christ is not a word of peace, but a sword. If you will not follow Jesus Christ, I will walk alone, advance alone, and gain the day." [369] [368] Non enim hic tempus timendi sed clamandi. (L. Ep. i, p. 557.) [369] Quod si tu non vis sequi sine me ire et rapi. (Ibid. p. 558.) But if you will not follow, allow me to go and hurry on. [Sidenote: LABOURS OF LUTHER.] Thus Luther, like the commander of an army, kept an eye on the whole field of battle, and while he urged fresh troops forward into the thickest of the fight, marked those who appeared faint-hearted and recalled them to their post. His exhortations were everywhere heard. His letters rapidly succeeded each other. Three presses were constantly employed in multiplying his writings.[370] His words had free course among the people, strengthened consciences which the confessionals had alarmed, raised up those ready to faint in convents, and maintained the rights of truth in the palaces of princes. [370] "Cum tria prela solus ego occupare cogar." (L. Ep. i, p. 558.)