While the election hung in the balance, while His Holiness and the Monsignori at Rome doubted how the electoral pendulum would swing, there had been abundant growlings and citations from Rome, but no actual warfare against Luther. Now, I knew well enough, the Vatican would furbish up its ponderous arsenal. Young ‘Kaiser Karl’ would need the political support of the Papacy in his wide projects, and that support could be had,--against a price, the sacrifice of Luther. During the end of the winter of 1519 and 1520 I made another visit to Wittenberg, to tell of my own life and thoughts and work; to gather the comfort and inspiration I knew would come by a week of contact with Dr. Luther, and to learn from his own lips the progress of the contest that would now, I realized, in a few months march to an issue. For myself I received hearty praise, and (where deserved) brotherly criticism. Again he spoke to me those words so often in my mind now, ‘He who will do the will shall know the doctrine.’ When I told him of the report concerning Ilsa at Quedlinburg, he shook his head sadly. “Poor broken-winged dove. I could have told her all that years ago. Lucky it is, hers is a strait convent, and not one of those places where the nuns are called ‘pretty poppets.’ Then were her state infinitely worse. But we shall see what we shall see, and wait God’s good time.” “I am trying,” I replied; “but I cannot keep from thinking.” “Thoughts are free from taxes,” he said with a laugh and shrug, and changed the subject. Oh, the industry of the man! Correspondence now with almost every learned doctor in Germany: vast praise: vast blame. Doubts, fears, questionings, encouragement blown in upon him every day--even from foreign lands. Let others write the story of the great debate. Time fails me to tell more than my personal history. I found Dr. Luther encouraged by nearly all the younger scholars and thinkers of Germany, although chided by many of the elder, and somewhat coldly frowned upon by the great Erasmus, who drew back instinctively at the mere hinting of “battle.” And always amid all these cares Dr. Luther was busy with pamphlet after pamphlet, “Expositions of the Lord’s Prayer for Simple Laymen,” and many more, while the Wittenberg printing-press kept clanging, clanging--flinging his words to all Germany.