Nothing is more remarkable at this period than the manner in which Luther became gradually estranged from the Church of Rome. His life was modest and without ambition. He clung with the deepest reverence to the lofty idea of the Church, for fifteen hundred years the communion of saints; and yet in four short years he was destined to be cut off from the faith of his fathers, torn from the soil in which he had been so firmly rooted. And during all this time he was destined to stand alone in the struggle, or at best with a few faithful companions--after 1518 together with Melanchthon. He was to be exposed to all the perils of the fiercest war, not only against innumerable enemies, but also in defiance of the anxious warnings of sincere friends and patrons. Three times the Roman party tried to silence him--through the official activity of Cajetan, through the persuasive arts of Miltitz, and the untimely persistence of the contentious Eck. Three times he spoke to the Pope himself in letters which are among the most valuable documents of those years. Then came the parting. He was anathematized and outlawed. According to the old university custom, he burned the enemy's declaration of war, and with it the possibility of return. With cheerful confidence he went to Worms in order that the princes of his nation might decide whether he should die or thenceforth live among them without pope or church, according to the Bible alone. [Illustration: _Permission F Pruelmann A G Munich_ FREDERICK WILLIAM I INSPECTING A SCHOOL Adolph von Menzel.]