He hints at this himself. I will answer for the “Word of Christ,” so he assures Alveld in his writing against him, “with a cheerful heart and fresh courage, regardless of anyone; for which purpose God too has given me a cheerful, fearless spirit, which I trust they will be unable to sadden to all eternity.”[1262] He often gives the impression of being anxious to show off his cheerfulness. He is fond of speaking of his “steadfast and undaunted spirit”; let Emser, he says, take note and bite his lips over the “glad courage which inspires him day by day.” Seeking to display this confidence in face of his opponents he exclaims satirically in a writing of 1518: “Here I am.” If there be an inquisitor in the neighbourhood he had better hurry up.[1263] His courage and entire confidence he expressed as early as 1522 to the Elector Frederick of Saxony who had urged him to fight shy of Duke George: “Even if things at Leipzig were indeed as bad as at Wittenberg [they think they are], I should nevertheless ride thither even though—I hope your Electoral Highness will excuse my foolish words—for nine days running it were to rain Duke Georges, each one nine times as furious as he. He actually looks upon my Lord Christ as a man of straw!”[1264] In such homely words did he speak, even to his own sovereign whose protection counted for so much, in order to make it yet clearer, that he was quite convinced of having received his Evangel, “not from man, but solely from heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ”; the Prince, his protector, should know, that God, “thanks to the Evangel, has made us happy lords over death and all the devils.” For this reason, according to his famous boast, he would still have ridden to Worms in defiance of the devils, even had they outnumbered the tiles on the roofs.[1265] From the castle of Coburg, though himself a prey to all sorts of anxiety, he addressed the following ironical, though at the same time encouraging, admonition to faint-hearted Melanchthon: Why don’t you fight against your own self? “What more can the devil do than slay us? What then? You fight in every other field, why not then fight also against your own self, viz. your biggest enemy who puts so many weapons against you in Satan’s hands?”[1266] It was thus that Luther was wont to fight against himself and to rob the devil of his fancied weapons.