“Hear, then, comrades and beloved. The Church wherein I have been born and bred, the Pope whom I have been taught to reverence--these have cast me off, because I have been obedient to the voice of God. Graf Walter here, on the night of the theses, warned me of this. I would believe nothing. How foolish of me--yet how well Heaven ordered it! For if I had taken fright then, how could I have learned now what manner of things the Pope and Rome are? Whether they get my body for the fire, whether an angel preserves me, matters little. For I am in the state even of Peter and of John when they said to the Jews: ‘Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen or heard.’ And I dare not answer save as they, lest in saving my body from the flames to-day, I commit my soul to the devil and his eternal fires to-morrow. Do you agree?” In silence we looked on him, assenting. He reached down at his feet and plucked a long slip of pure green grass. “I have heard,” he continued, “that when the Crusaders were in the wastes of Palestine, with the foe awaiting them, and no priest able to administer the sacrament, they divided amongst themselves and partook of a bit of grass, as token that they were still true to one another, to their cause, and to the dear God. Shall we do the like?” Together we nodded. His lips were a little pale as he broke the slip into four portions and gave one to each. We ate the morsel, looking out upon the welling river and the scattered clouds above it. Suddenly Dr. Luther rose, and his laugh seemed carefree and boyish. “Oh! What a tale to tell. Oh! Who would ever have dreamed it--that I, a German miner’s son and a friar, should give so foul a headache to the noble lords of the Vatican. Come, Philip; come all of us, back to Wittenberg. There is work enough waiting and to spare.” On the walk homeward I had never seen Doctor Luther more lively and genial. He was full of droll anecdotes of his schoolboy life at Eisenach and his student days at Erfurt. Melanchthon and Amsdorf, as well as myself, were inclined to be pensive, but our master was able to make good spirits for all of us. When I was about to leave him at the convent, he was sitting down at his table with a huge leaden inkstand and a prodigious pile of paper before him. “A stranger,” said I from the threshold, “would think you were about to compile a wondrously learned lecture on the Categories of Aristotle.” He laughed as he nibbed his pen. “Think of me as the Crusader about to fall upon the Paynim,” he shot back; “behold my battle-axe! _Ach!_ It is a mighty havoc, God willing, I will make to-night among our present-day Mussulmans from Italy!”