Luther's preaching had originally forced its way among the German people and its various classes, with an energy and strength never counted on by its opponents. It seemed impossible to calculate how far the ferment would extend, and what would be its ultimate results. It was the idea of the Elector Frederick the Wise, now dead, that by simply letting the word of the gospel unfold itself quietly and work its way without hindrance, the truth could not fail eventually to penetrate all Christendom, or at least the Christian world of Germany, and thus accomplish a peaceful victory. This hope had guided him during his lifetime in his relations with Luther, and no one appreciated and responded to it more loyally than Luther himself. But now, as we have seen, those German princes who adhered to the old Church system had begun to form a close alliance, and were meditating means of remedying, albeit in their own fashion, certain evils in the Church. Erasmus, still the representative of a powerful modern movement of the intellect, had at length broken finally with Luther, and renewed his former allegiance to the Romish Church. From the German nobility, whose sympathy and co-operation Luther had once so boldly and hopefully invoked in his contest with the Papacy, it was vain, since the fatal enterprise of Sickingen, which Luther himself had been forced to condemn, to expect any material assistance in furtherance of the Evangelical cause. True, there was the extensive rising of another class, the peasantry, who likewise appealed to the gospel. But genuine disciples of the gospel could not fail to see in this movement, with terror, how a perverse conception of the sacred text led to errors and crimes which even Luther wished to see suppressed in blood. And the Catholic nobles took advantage of this rising to persecute with the greater rigour all evangelical preaching, and to extend, without further inquiry, their denunciation of the insurgents to those of evangelical sympathies who held entirely aloof from the insurrection. Luther, in his dealings with the nobles and peasants, failed to preserve that boldness and confidence of mind and language which he had previously displayed towards his fellow-countrymen. That his cause, indeed, was the cause of God, he remained unshakenly convinced; but in a sadder spirit than he had ever shown before, he left God's will to determine what amount of visible success that cause should attain to in the present evil world, or how far the decision should depend upon His last great Judgment. [Illustration: Fig. 33.--The Saxon Electors, FREDERICK THE WISE, JOHN, and JOHN FREDERICK. (From a Picture by Cranach.) At Nüremberg.] [Illustration: Fig. 34.--Facsimile of FREDERICK's signature.]