He ran up to me, and almost crushed me with his powerful embrace. Then he led me to the window-seat, and sat for some moments holding both my hands, and pelting me with questions, so rapidly that I could hardly answer one, ere he had discharged another. “Oh! dear Lord Jesus Christ!” he cried at length, “what have I, poor Brother Martin, done, that the noble Graf von Regenstein should run this peril for my sake?” “The peril was nothing, but I am come back a beaten soldier. I have failed.” “Yes, the Bull is issued. Good! Asses must bray, wolves howl, and cardinals clamor for a poor German’s blood. Heaven has made it so. We cannot complain.” “Yet consider, dear Dr. Martin, who and what will save us now?” “_Us?_ ‘Me’ you intended to say.” “Us, for am I not one with you for life and for death?” He was silent for an instant, then the grip on my hand was renewed. “I have not deserved this. I cannot involve noble friends. The cause will triumph, but very likely over my bones. It must not march over yours also.” “Dear Doctor,” said I, “it is you who have taught me to seek God and to play the man and not the accursed fool. It is ‘us’ from this time forth, though the Pope and every king rise up against us.” “I have not deserved this. I thank you.” Then he reached to the table and took up a Psalter. “Let me say the forty-sixth psalm.” And in the gray twilight, with the book unopened before him, I heard his deep voice roll out the majestic Latin of the Vulgate. “_God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble._ _Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea._ _Though the waters therefore roar and be troubled: though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof._ _The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttered His voice, the earth melted._ _Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth._ _The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge._” We sat silent again for a long time when he ceased. The daylight faded. I shall no more forget that hour than I shall forget the scene in the hunting lodge with Leo de’ Medici. A few years afterward Luther was to cast this psalm into a hymn which Germany, and many Christians afar, will verily sing forever, ‘_Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott_.’...