Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/521

 days. This could easily happen, for the Emperor has not so much as four crippled soldiers with him, whereas Sickingen is better supplied with troops than any German prince. More- over, the inhabitants of Worms, who were always enemies of the priests, desire nothing more than the stamping out of the clergy. Hutten said that he had heard from great princes that the Emperor would secretly be quite well pleased with this, even though he might think it necessary to express his pub- lic disapproval. In spite of their bad disposition, I do not believe this would be so; at any rate Glapion and Armstorf reported it to the Emperor and us. Moreover, to excuse his plans to violate international law by committing these mur- ders, Hutten said that he regarded it as a worthy and just act, and one pleasing to the Emperor, because he knew only too well that we were sneaking about in the dark to induce the princes to fall away from the Emperor. Either the scoundrel invented that to excuse himself, or he let himself be frivolously persuaded of it by those who work for the ruin of the Church. At that castle Glapion met the Dominican recently mentioned by me, Martin Bucer, who alone docs more harm than the others, for while in questions of the faith Hutten was overcome by Glapion and became as gentle as a lamb — although the light wretch immediately returned to his former position — the apostate monk disputed six hours, partly to defend Luther's writings, and partly to give them a good Catholic sense, and said that he would like to have known Luther only to learn his spirit. Finally the confessor proved to him that, as even the doubtful theses were inter- preted, the doctrines were heretical and objectionable. Sickin- gen, a reasonable man whom we must still try to win over, had all Luther's German writings in his memory ; he declared that Luther in his books expressed himself differently from what the confessor alleged; and, in fact, he brought out German books in which Luther, according to his custom of contra- dicting himself, put forward other ideas than those in the Latin works which Glapion had brought and which he showed him. Sickingen was thereby much shaken in his previous opinion; but finally he declared that on his own account he was obliged to favor a universal reformation of the Church,

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