"Amid the tempests which assail me," wrote he to the Elector, "I always hoped I would one day find peace. But I now see it was only a man's thought. Day after day the wave is rising, and I already stand in the midst of the ocean. The tempest breaks loose with fearful roar.[371] With one hand I grasp the sword, and with the other build up the walls of Sion.[372] Her ancient links are snapt asunder, broken by the hand which darted the thunders of excommunication against her." "Excommunicated by the bull," says he, "I am loosed from the authority of the pope and monastic laws. With joy I embrace the deliverance. But I lay aside neither the habit of the order nor the convent."[373] And yet, amidst all this agitation, he never loses sight of the dangers by which his own soul is beset during the strife. He feels the necessity of keeping a watch upon himself. "You do well to pray for me," wrote he to Pellican, who was living at Bâle. "I cannot devote enough of time to holy exercises. My life is a cross. You do well to exhort me to modesty. I feel the want of it; but I am not my own master: I know not what spirit rules me. I wish ill to nobody;[374] but my enemies press me with such fury that I am not sufficiently on my guard against the seductions of Satan. Pray then for me." [371] "Videns rem tumultuosissimo tumultu tumultuantem." (Ibid. p. 546.) [372] Una manu gladium apprehendens et altera murum ædificaturus. (Ibid., p. 565.) [373] Ab ordinis et Papæ legibus solutus....quod gaudeo et amplector. (Ibid., p. 568.) [374] ....Compos mei non sum, rapior nescio quo spiritu, cum nemini me male velle conscius sim. (Ibid, p. 555.) [Sidenote: CONQUESTS BY THE WORD OF GOD.]