But the warfare could not rest with hard words and ink spilling. We all knew that, although we seldom talked of certain eventualities. Often as I stood in the little study, leaning against the green-tiled stove, and watched Luther’s busy quill racing over the paper, and his tonsured head bowing at his task, my sight would fade. I could see that which, in a short year, might be witnessed--a hooting mob in some strange city, a roaring bale-fire, and within it the friar of Wittenberg. Far, far beyond any question of indulgences had passed the struggle now,--beyond any formal question of Papal prerogative, even. Since the Leipzig dispute, all the teachings of the Church from the day of St. Paul seemed laid under ruthless scrutiny. What might issue forth neither Dr. Luther, I, nor any man knew. We only knew something was afoot,--fearful, wonderful,--the like whereof had not been for nigh fifteen centuries. At Rome I learned was Eck, and it took no wiseacre to divine his purpose. A letter from a faithful Italian correspondent, that reached me at the Regenstein soon after my return, put forth the matter clearly. “Everybody now talks about your Luther. They praise him sometimes, much as one praises the craft of the devil. The friars’ party is scolding the Pope under breath for not ‘quenching the flames’ at the outset instead of wasting his time with hunts, artists, poets, and diplomats. Eck is filling Rome with his clamors. He claims to know Germany, and says that though many may now cry up Luther, none will dare fight and die for him when he is once fairly branded as ‘heretic.’ He urges instant action. If it were not that all state processes here at Rome are slow in coming as the Greek calends he would have secured the bull of formal and final excommunication already. As it is, the issue will probably occur ere very long. _Then_ we shall indeed discover whether under all your German smoke there indeed lurk a few sparks of fire, as you try to make me believe.”