Luther silenced me with a commanding gesture. “Forget the Church. The builders of the Church were men--I dare say it, very fallible men. Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, nay, even St. Francis and St. Dominic, had their sins as well as you and I. They can err. All men can err. Popes can err most of all. Full many of them, if their history foreshadows anything, are now in hell. Since my struggle began I have delved deep into Church history. I have found so much clay mingled with the brass and iron of the builders of the Church that I must call them weak indeed. But one thing is not of men. It is of God. It is steadfast, sure. Therefore--_read_!” “Read what?” “Read THE BOOK!” “The Scriptures?” “You have said it. Have you never read God’s Word?” “I have read the lore of the Greeks and the Latins; of Dante, of Petrarch, and all the later Italians; nay, I have studied the ‘gay poetry’ of the troubadours of Provence. I have dipped in your Wolfram von Eschenbach and your Walter von der Vogelweide. But what you call ‘The Book’ I have not read. Once at Padua in the library I took up a Vulgate. My preceptor caught me. ‘Read it no more,’ he commanded; ‘it is a work for beggarly friars, not for signori of _virtù_. The Latin of St. Jerome is execrable. It will ruin your Ciceronian style.’ Later when I had mastered Greek, I thought of reading the New Testament in the original. Behold,--I was warned the Gospels and Epistles were without Attic idiom; I must eschew them or my taste were ruined!” Again came Dr. Martin’s bitter laugh. “O master counsel of the devil! Surely God is mightier than he, else this Book would long since have been destroyed--for from of old the fiend has raged against it. By a miracle it has been preserved, and it will confound the powers of darkness yet. Against this Book have raged many potentates--of Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. They are gone. The Book remains, and will remain forever and ever; for it is a fiery shield, of more substance, and purer than gold. Tried in the fire it overcomes the fury of the raging heat: and even so he who trustingly uses this shield overcomes all. He stands secure everlastingly, against all human misfortune. With this shield he fears nothing: nor death, nor hell, nor all the devils.” Then again after a long pause he commanded, “READ!” “I promise it.” “Read. ‘And the Lord God will give thee light.’ Day and night, my Walter, have I sought heaven on my knees for you since that evening we talked together in Wittenberg--you and I. And now Eck, Caïetanus, the Dominicans, the Pope,--all, all are forgotten. I grow strong and bold. For heaven has given me my heart’s desire. I am given your soul, O Walter--brother, mine, mine.” He cast his arms about me, and kissed me; we knelt down together, and he uttered a prayer for me the like whereof I had never heard, no, not in the holiest basilica in Rome. We arose and again he kissed me.