Luther, in the mean time, remained at Coburg, but in spirit he participated in the holy cause at Augsburg. Every day he spent three hours in prayer for the victory of the beloved Gospel. He was continually crying to God to preserve the brethren in true faith and sound doctrine. In hours of anxiety and trial he wrote on the walls of his room with his own hands the precious words of the 118th Psalm: "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord." He addressed many consoling letters to the confessors in which he admonished them to constancy. At this time there lived in his own heart that trust in God which he had expressed in his heroic song, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." [Illustration: Reading the Augsburg Confession.] 4. SUBMITTAL AND RECEPTION OF THE CONFESSION. On Saturday, the 25th of June, 1530, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the diet assembled in the episcopal palace, where the confession was to be read. The German emperor presided, and the highest dignitaries of the Roman empire had gathered to hear the confession. Then the evangelical confessors arose cheerfully, and in their name the two electoral chancellors, Dr. Brueck and Dr. Baier, stepped into the center of the room, the first with a Latin, the latter with a German copy of the confession. When the emperor demanded that the Latin copy should be read, Elector John replied, "Upon German ground and soil it is but fair to read and hear the German tongue." The emperor permitted it. And now Dr. Baier began to read in a loud and audible voice, so that even the assembled multitude without in the courtyard could plainly understand every word of the confession. Everyone was deeply touched by it. The learned Catholic Bishop of Augsburg publicly admitted, "Everything that was read is the pure, unadulterated, undeniable truth." Duke William of Bavaria pressed the hand of Elector John in a friendly manner and said to Dr. Eck, who was standing close by, "I have been told something entirely different of Luther's doctrine than I have now heard from their confession. You have also assured me that their doctrine could be refuted." Eck replied, "I would undertake to refute it with the fathers, but not with the Scriptures." Thereupon the duke rejoined, "I understand, then, that the Lutherans sit entrenched in the Scriptures, and we are on the outside." Luther wrote to one of his friends: "You have confessed Christ and offered peace. You have worthily engaged in the holy work of God as becometh the saints. Now for once rejoice in the Lord also and be glad, ye righteous. Look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." Spalatin said that such a confession had not been made since the world exists. Mathesius also aptly testifies, "There has not been a greater and higher work and a more glorious testimony since the days of the apostles than this at Augsburg before the whole Roman empire." Very soon the confession was translated in many different