To this elevated and isolated castle, named the Wartburg, where the Landgraves of old used to conceal themselves, was Luther conducted. The bolts are drawn, the iron bars fall, the gates open, and the Reformer clearing the threshold, the bars again close behind him. He dismounts in the court. Burkard de Hund, Lord of Allenstein, one of the horsemen, withdraws; another, John of Berlepsch, Provost of Wartburg, conducts Luther to the chamber which was to be his prison, and where a knight's dress and a sword were lying. The three other horsemen, dependants of the provost, carry off his ecclesiastical dress, and put on the other which had been prepared for him, enjoining him to allow his hair and beard to grow,[596] in order that none even in the castle might know who he was. The inmates of the Wartburg were only to know the prisoner under the name of Chevalier Georges. Luther scarcely knew himself in the dress which was put upon him.[597] At length he is left alone, and can turn in his thoughts the strange events which had just taken place at Worms, the uncertain prospect which awaits him, and his new and strange abode. From the narrow windows of his keep he discovers the dark, solitary, and boundless forests around. "There," says Mathesins, the biographer and friend of Luther, "the doctor remained like St. Paul in his prison at Rome." [596] Exutus vestibus meis et equestribus indutus, comam et barbam nutriens.... (L. Ep. i, p. 7.) [597] Cum ipse me jam dudum non noverim. (Ibid., ii, p. 7) Frederick de Thun, Philip Feilitsch, and Spalatin, had not concealed from Luther, in a confidential interview which they had with him at Worms by order of the Elector, that his liberty behoved to be sacrificed to the wrath of Charles and the pope.[598] Still there was so much mystery in the mode of his being carried off that Frederick was long ignorant of the place of his confinement. The grief of the friends of the Reformation was prolonged. Spring passed away, succeeded by summer, autumn, and winter; the sun finished his annual course, and the walls of the Wartburg still confined their prisoner. The truth is laid under interdict by the Diet; its defender, shut up within the walls of a strong castle, has disappeared from the stage of the world, none knowing what has become of him. Aleander triumphs, and the Reformation seems lost; ... but God reigns, and the blow which apparently threatened to annihilate the cause of the gospel will serve only to save its intrepid minister and extend the light of faith. [598] Seckend., p. 265. Let us leave Luther a captive in Germany on the heights of the Wartburg, and let us see what God was then doing in the other countries of Christendom. BOOK EIGHTH. THE SWISS. 1484-1522. CHAP. I. Movements in Switzerland--Source of the Reformation--Democratic Character--Foreign Service--Morality--The Tockenburg--An Alpine Hut--A Pastoral Family.