The thought of the final attack Rome was about to make on the infant Church, renewed his anxieties. The poor monk, solitary and a prisoner, had many a combat to fight alone. But a hope of deliverance speedily dawned upon him. It appeared to him that the assaults of the Papacy would raise the whole German nation, and that the victorious soldiers of the Gospel would surround the Wartburg and restore the prisoner to liberty. "If the pope," said he, "lays his hand on all those who are on my side, there will be a disturbance in Germany; the greater his haste to crush us, the sooner will come the end of the pope and his followers. And I......I shall be restored to you.[32] God is awakening the hearts of many, and stirring up the nations. Only let our enemies clasp our affair in their arms and try to stifle it; it will gather strength under their pressure, and come forth ten times more formidable." [32] Quo citius id tentaverit, hoc citius et ipse et sui peribunt, et ego revertar. Ibid. 10. [Sidenote: SICKNESS--HIS FRIENDS' ANXIETY.] But sickness brought him down from those high places on which his courage and his faith had placed him. He had already suffered much at Worms; his disease increased in solitude.[33] He could not endure the food at the Wartburg, which was less coarse than that of his convent; they were compelled to give him the meagre diet to which he had been accustomed. He passed whole nights without sleep. Anxieties of mind were superadded to the pains of the body. No great work is ever accomplished without suffering and martyrdom. Luther, alone upon his rock, endured in his strong frame a passion that the emancipation of the human race rendered necessary. "Seated by night in my chamber I uttered groans, like a woman in her travail; torn, wounded, and bleeding"[34]......then breaking off his complaints, touched with the thought that his sufferings are a blessing from God, he exclaimed with love: "Thanks be to Thee, O Christ, that thou wilt not leave me without the precious marks of thy cross!"[35] But soon, growing angry with himself, he cried out: "Madman and hard-hearted that I am! Woe is me! I pray seldom, I seldom wrestle with the Lord, I groan not for the Church of God![36] Instead of being fervent in spirit, my passions take fire; I live in idleness, in sleep, and indolence!" Then, not knowing to what he should attribute this state, and accustomed to expect everything from the affection of his brethren, he exclaimed in the desolation of his heart: "O my friends! do you then forget to pray for me, that God is thus far from me?" [33] Auctum est malum, quo Wormatiæ laborabam. Ibid. 17. [34] Sedeo dolens, sicut puerpera, lacer et saucius et cruentus. L. Epp. ii. 50, 9th Sept. [35] Gratias Christo, qui me sine reliquiis sanctæ crucis non derelinquit. Ibid. [36] Nihil gemens pro ecclesia Dei. Ibid. 22, 13th July.