Charles summoned the electors and princes the following day to decide what should be done. His own impulse to condemn Luther right away was restrained because he needed the good will of the Germans in other measures coming before the diet. A plan was evolved whereby a select group of theologians would call on Luther and try to effect a reconciliation through persuasion. The discussion always bogged down when Luther insisted he must be persuaded on the basis of Scripture. Having received a twenty-one-day safe-conduct Luther set out for Wittenberg on April 26. The diet closed officially on May 25, and the next day, following a rump session of prejudiced nobles, the emperor signed the Edict of Worms. According to it, Luther was the devil himself in a monk’s habit. He was to be seized on sight and turned over to the emperor—an outlaw of the church and the state. DRASTIC CHANGES Wartburg to Wittenberg Fortunately for Luther there was more than noisy adulation among the people. A few sober minds knew how relentless the papal wolves would be in tracking him down after the safe-conduct expired, and so a “kidnapping” and removal to a safe place was planned. Luther made a detour along the road to Wittenberg in order to visit relatives at Möhra. For months the outside world knew only that he had been captured near there in the Thuringian forest by a band of knights. Many lamented him as dead, but gradually the flow of thorny letters to his adversaries and the new treatises rolling from the press allayed their fears. By a circuitous route Luther had been conveyed to the Wartburg, an ancient fortress-castle near Eisenach. He arrived on May 4 and, with the exception of short trips into the forest and to near-by villages, did not leave for seven months. To outward appearances he was Junker George, a carefree, bearded knight with sword swinging impressively at his side. The secret was well kept and at the outset even the elector, who authorized the masquerade, did not know Luther’s whereabouts. Luther chafed at his forced inactivity, and, ever the monk, fell to contemplation and examination of himself. Could past generations and earlier scholars have been so completely out of step with the gospel? Could a mere friar be right against them all? Might he not be in error and drag many others to eternal damnation? [Illustration: (uncaptioned)] Hard work helped take his mind off his problems. During his stay in the Wartburg, in addition to correspondence and pamphlets, he authored a work on confession, expositions on several Psalms, a commentary on the Magnificat, had a volume of sermons on the Epistles and Gospels well underway, and had translated the entire New Testament into German.