Thus both the Reformer and the Reformation hastened on in the direction in which God called them. The movement extended. Men who might have been expected to be most faithful to the hierarchy began to be shaken. "Even those," says Eck, ingenuously enough, "who hold of the pope the best benefices and the richest canonries remain mute as fishes. Several among them even extol Luther as a man filled with the Spirit of God, and call the defenders of the pope sophists and flatterers."[375] The Church, apparently great in power, supported by the treasures, the powers and the armies of the world, but in reality emaciated and enfeebled, without love to God, without Christian life, without enthusiasm for the truth, found herself in presence of men, simple, but bold, men who, knowing that God is with those who combat for His Word, had no doubt of victory? Every age has experienced how powerful an idea is in penetrating the masses, in arousing nations, and, if need be, hurrying thousands to the field of battle and to death; but if such is the influence of a human idea, what must be the power of an idea sent down from heaven when God opens the door of the human heart. The world has not often seen such a power in operation. It did see it, however, in the first days of Christianity and in those of the Reformation; and it will see it in days yet to come. Men who disdained the world's wealth, and grandeur, and were contented to lead a life of pain and poverty, began to move in behalf of the holiest thing upon the earth--the doctrine of faith and of grace. In this heaving of society, all the religious elements were brought into operation, and the fire of enthusiasm hurried men boldly forward into a new life an epoch of renovation which had just opened so majestically, and towards which Providence was hastening the nations. [375] Reynald. Epist. J. Eckii ad Cardinal Contarenum. BOOK SEVENTH. THE DIET OF WORMS. 1521. (_January--May._) CHAP. I. Conquests by the Word of God--The Diet of Worms--Difficulties--Charles demands Luther--The Elector to Charles--State of Men's minds--Aleander's Alarm--The Elector sets out without Luther--Aleander awakens Rome--Excommunication of the Pope, and Communion with Christ--Fulmination of the Bull--Luther's motives in the Reformation.