In troublous times excessive severity must be overlooked.”[982] He became little by little so convinced of the guilt of Henry the “incendiary” and his Papists, that, in October, 1540, he refers half-jestingly to the reputation he was acquiring as “prophet and apostle” by so correctly discerning in the Papists a mere band of criminals.[983] He also informed other Courts of the supposed truth of his surmise, viz. that “Harry of Brunswick has now been convicted as an arch-incendiary-assassin and the greatest scoundrel on whom the sun has ever shone. May God give the bloodhound and werewolf his reward. Amen.” Thus to Duke Albert of Prussia on April 20, 1541.[984] Considerably before this, in a letter to the same princely patron, he expressly implicates in these absurd charges the Pope, the chief object of his hate: After telling Albert of the report, that the Duke of Brunswick “had sent out many hundred incendiaries against the Evangelical Estates” of whom more than 300 had been “brought to justice,” many of them making confessions implicating the Duke, the Bishop of Mayence and others, Luther goes on to say that the business must necessarily have been set on foot “by great people, for there is plenty of money.” “The Pope is said to have given 80,000 ducats towards it. This is the sort of thing we are compelled to hear and endure; but God will repay them abundantly ... in hell, in the fire beneath our feet.”[985] “The Doctor said,” we read in the Table-Talk, taken down by Mathesius in September (2-17), 1540: “The greatest wonder of our day is that the majesty of the Pope--who was a terror to all monarchs and against whom they dared not move a muscle, seeing that a glance from him or a movement of his finger sufficed to keep them all in a state of fear and obedience--that this god should have collapsed so utterly that even his defenders loathe him. Those who still take his part, without exception do this simply for money’s sake and their own advantage, otherwise they would treat him even worse than we do. His malice has now been thoroughly exposed, since it is certain that he sent eighteen thousand crowns for the hiring of incendiaries.”[986] The perfect seriousness with which he relates this in the circle of his friends furnishes an enigma. His consciousness of all that he had accomplished against the Pope, combined with his hatred of Catholicism, seems often to cloud his mind. 2. Luther’s Excuse: “We MUST Curse the Pope and His Kingdom”[987] In Luther’s polemics against the Pope and the Papists it is psychologically of importance to bear in mind the depth of the passion which underlies his furious and incessant abuse.