Was not the guidance of Christ also plainly visible in the fact that he, the proclaimer of His Word, had been delivered from so many ambushes on the part of the enemies who lay in wait for him? Such a thought lay at the root of his words to his pupil Mathesius: There was no doubt that poison had frequently been administered to him, but “an important personage had been heard to say, that none had any effect on him.” On one occasion, however, when an attempt had been made to poison him, He “Who said, ‘If they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them,’ blessed him, and preserved him then and afterwards from all mischief.”[319] “I also believe,” Luther once said, according to Bindseil’s Latin “_Colloquia_,” that “my pulpit-chair and cushion were frequently poisoned, yet God preserved me.”[320] Similar words are recorded in the Diary of Cordatus.[321] This accounts for the strange tales which grew up amongst his pupils and followers of how “God Almighty had always preserved him in a wonderful manner,” of how He “had affrighted the knaves” who sought his life, and so forth, of which the early editions of Luther’s Works have so much to say. Among the characteristics most highly extolled by his earliest followers as exemplifying his mission must be instanced, first, his inflexible courage, amounting frequently to foolhardiness, in the accomplishment of his set task, viz. the establishing of the Evangel and the destruction of Popery; secondly, his extraordinary capacity for work and the perseverance of which he gave such signal proof in his literary undertakings; thirdly, his entire disregard for temporal advantages, which he himself held up as an example to those of the evangelical preachers whose worldliness had become a reproach to the Lutheran cause. Very strange and remarkable is the connection between Luther’s mysticism and the simple and homely view he took of life; the pleasure with which he welcomed everything good which came in his way—so far as it was free from any trace of Popery—the kindly, practical turn of his manner of thinking and acting when among his own people, and that love for humour and good cheer which so strikingly contrasts with the puritanical behaviour of his opponents, the Anabaptists and fanatics. To reconcile his mysticism with habits at first blush so divergent would present quite a problem in itself were we not to take into account the fact, that homeliness and humour had been his from the very beginning, whereas his mysticism was a later growth, always to some extent alien to his character. His mysticism he carefully confined to what related to his supposed Divine mission, though at times he does indeed seem to extend indefinitely the range of this mission. Yet, when the duties of his office had cost him pain or tried his temper, he was ever glad to return to the realities of life, and to seek relief in social intercourse or in his family circle.