A cry of amazement and horror shot through the masses. He was a traitor! He who for eight years had been the favorite and hero of the people suddenly became most unpopular. His safety and his life were again threatened; even five years later it was dangerous for him, on account of the peasants, to travel to Mansfeld to visit his sick father. The indignation of the people also worked against his doctrine. The itinerant preachers and the new apostles treated him as a lost, corrupted man. [Illustration: _Permission F. Bruckmann, A.-G., Munich_ COURT BALL AT RHEINSBERG Adolph von Menzel] He was outlawed, banned, and cursed by the populace. Many well-meaning men, too, had not approved of his attack on celibacy and monastic life. The country gentry threatened to seize the outlaw on the highways because he had destroyed the nunneries into which, as into foundling asylums, the legitimate daughters of the poverty-stricken gentry used to be cast in earliest childhood. The Roman party was triumphant; the new heresy had lost what so far had made it powerful. Luther's life and his doctrine seemed alike near their end. Then Luther determined to marry. For two years Catherine von Bora had lived in the house of Reichenbach, the city clerk, afterward mayor of Wittenberg. A healthy, good looking girl, she was, like many others, the abandoned daughter of a family of the country gentry of Meissen. Twice Luther had tried to find her a husband, as in fatherly care he had done for several of her companions. Finally Catherine declared that she would marry no one but Luther himself, or his friend Amsdorf. Luther was surprised, but he reached a decision quickly. Accompanied by Lucas Kranach, he asked for her hand and married her on the spot. Then he invited his friends to the wedding feast, asked at Court for the venison which the Prince was accustomed to present to his professors when they married, and received the table wine as a present from the city of Wittenberg. How things stood in Luther's soul at that time we should be glad to know. His whole being was under the highest tension. The savage vigor of his nature struck out in all directions. He was deeply shocked at the misery which arose about him from burned villages and murdered men. If he had been a fanatic in his ideas, he would probably have perished now in despair; but above the stormy restlessness which could be perceived in him up to his marriage, there shone now, like a clear light, the conviction that he was the guardian of divine right among the Germans, and that to protect civil order and morality, he must lead public opinion, not follow it. However violent his utterances are in particular cases, he appears just at this time preëminently conservative, and more self-possessed than ever. He also believed, it is true, that he was not destined to live much longer, and often and with longing awaited his martyrdom. He entered wedlock, perfectly at peace with himself on this point, for he had fully