Thus Luther entered into the struggle, full of faith, still a true son of the Church, and with all the German devotedness to authority; but yet his firm connection with his God worked in him strongly against this authority. He was then thirty-four years of age, in the full vigour of his strength, of middle size, thin, but strongly made, so that he appeared tall by the side of the small delicate boyish figure of Melancthon. Fiery eyes, whose intense brilliancy was almost overpowering, glowed in a face in which one could perceive the effects of night watches and inward struggles. Though a man of great repute, not only in his order, but in the university, he was no great scholar; he first began to learn Greek with Melancthon, and soon afterwards Hebrew; he possessed no great compass of book learning, and never had any ambition to shine as a Latin poet. But he was astonishingly well read in the Holy Scriptures and some of the Fathers, and whatever he took up he worked out profoundly. He was unwearied in his care for the souls of his congregation, a zealous preacher, and a warm friend; he had a certain frank gaiety, together with a self-possessed demeanour, and much courteous tact; the certainty of his convictions appeared in his social intercourse, and gave a cheerful radiance to his countenance. He was irritable, and easily moved to tears; the trifling events of the day excited and disturbed him; but when he was called upon for any great effort, and had subdued the first agitation of his nerves--which, for instance, had overcome him on his first entrance at the Imperial Diet at Worms--he then attained a wonderful composure and confidence. He did not know what fear was; indeed, his lion nature took pleasure in the most dangerous situations. The malicious snares of his enemies, and the dangers to which his life was occasionally exposed, he seemed to consider hardly worth speaking about. The foundation of this more than human heroism--if one may venture to call it so--was the firm personal union between him and his God. For a long period, with smiles and inward gladness, he desired to serve truth and God by becoming a martyr. A fearful struggle still lay before him, but it was not caused by the opposition of men; he had to contend constantly for years against the devil himself; he overcame also the terror of hell, which threatened to obscure his reason. Such a man might be destroyed, but could hardly be conquered. The period of struggle which now follows, from the beginning of the dispute about indulgences to his departure from Wartburg, the time of his greatest triumph and greatest popularity, is that of which perhaps most is known, and yet it appears to us that his character even then is not rightly judged.