that Spalatin would not look at, or listen to, his pamphlet against Albert, nor his tracts on masses and monastic vows, but had kept them back. What his friends now told him of their efforts and labours he approved of, and he wished them strength from above to persevere. But he had heard already, when on his way, of fresh outrages committed by some of the townspeople and students against the priests and monks, and henceforth he deemed it his nearest duty to warn them publicly against such acts of violence and disorder. CHAPTER II. LUTHER'S FURTHER SOJOURN AT THE WARTBURG, AND HIS RETURN TO WITTENBERG, 1522. In secret, as he had first gone there, Luther returned to the Wartburg, and now set to work with his 'True Admonition for all Christians to abstain from turbulence and rebellion.' He had before his eyes the danger of an insurrection, involving the lives of all the priests and monks who opposed reform, and one in which the common people, in revenge for their many grievances, might fall to laying about them with clubs and flails, as the 'Karsthans' threatened. To the princes, magistrates, and nobles, he had already addressed a demand to put a stop to the corruption of the Church and the tyranny of the Pope. Of the civil authorities and the nobility, he says now that 'they ought to do this, in duty to their ordinary position and power, every prince and lord on his own territory; for what is brought about by the exercise of ordinary power is not to be accounted turbulence.' At the same time, to the masses and to individuals he plainly prohibits a rising by force. Turbulence was the usurpation of justice, and revenge, which God would not suffer, for He said, 'Revenge is Mine.' All turbulence, he said, was wrong, however good might be the cause, and only made bad worse. As for the magistrates, he would not have them kill the priests, as once Moses and Elias had done to the worshippers of idols; they were simply to forbid them from acting contrary to the gospel. Words would do more than was enough with them, so there was no need of hewing and stabbing. We have seen how emphatically Luther expressed himself to the same effect before he went to Worms. The Apostle's words that the Lord should consume the Antichrist with the Spirit of His Mouth, were to be fulfilled, according to Luther, in the words of gospel preaching. It was his own previous experience that had taught him to rely with such lofty confidence on the simple Word; he had done more injury with it alone to the Pope, and the priests and monks, than all the emperors and princes had ever done with all their power. He still looked forward steadfastly to the approach of the Last Day, when Christ by His coming should utterly destroy the Pope, whose iniquity the Word had exposed. As he had done formerly in his treatise on Christian liberty, and had now good reason to do with the Wittenbergers, he exhorts men to a loving and merciful regard to