anomalous, and untenable position in which he now found himself placed. He is horrified, he says, at the charges of heresy and schism brought against himself. He who would much prefer to live in peace, had no wish to set up any dogmas in his theses, provoked as they were by a public scandal, but simply in Christian zeal, or, as others might have it, in youthful ardour, to invite men to a disputation, and his present desire was to publish his explanation of them under the patronage and protection of the Pope himself. But at the same time he declares that his conscience was innocent and untroubled, and he adds with emphatic brevity, 'Retract I cannot.' He concludes by humbly casting himself at the Pope's feet with the words, 'Give me life or death, accept or reject me as you please.' He will recognise the Papal voice as that of the Lord Jesus Himself. He will, if worthy of death, not flinch from it. But that declaration of his, which he could not retract, must stand. CHAPTER III. LUTHER AT AUGSBURG BEFORE CAIETAN. APPEAL TO A COUNCIL. The task that Luther had now undertaken lay heavy upon his soul. He was sincerely anxious, whilst fighting for the truth, to remain at peace with his Church, and to serve her by the struggle. Pope Leo, on the contrary, as was consistent with his whole character, treated the matter at first very lightly, and when it threatened to become dangerous, thought only how, by means of his Papal power, to make the restless German monk harmless. Two expressions of his in these early days of the contest are recorded. 'Brother Martin,' he said, 'is a man of a very fine genius, and this outbreak the mere squabble of envious monks;' and again, 'It is a drunken German who has written the theses; he will think differently about them when sober.' Three months after the theses had appeared, he ordered the Vicar-General of the Augustinians to 'quiet down the man,' hoping still to extinguish easily the flame. The next step was to institute a tribunal for heretics at Rome, for Luther's trial: what its judgment would be was patent from the fact that the single theologian of learning among the judges was Sylvester Prierias. Before this tribunal Luther was cited on August 7; within sixty days he was to appear there at Rome. Friend and foe could well feel certain that they would look in vain for his return.