Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/271

 down horse; he would fall under it. To be sure, I hear some people saying that the life of the Catholic faith is at stake, but I am afraid of the example of Uzzah/ who had bad fortune when he tried to support the toppling ark. It is not for everyone to put his shoulders under the tottering faith. Even Jerome when he fights heretics narrowly avoids falling into heresy; what should I have to fear, who am not only bom for other things, but have never been trained for this arena?

Besides, I had no doubt that from all the hosts of theolo- gians and the collies of bishops men would come forward who would be willing to take up so difficult a matter and able to accomplish something, and I was not mistaken in this sur- mise. You see how many and how great men have arisen against Luther. Pray tell me what they have accomplished. Then came a terrible bull of the Pope, a still more terrible edict of the Emperor, after that prisons, confiscations, recanta- tions, faggots ; I cannot see any results from them except that the evil is spreading wider all the time. Would a pigmy of an Erasmus, leaping into the arena, have moved them even a little bit, when they pay no attention to these giants? Apart rfrom his extreme doctrines, there is in Luther's books a bit- -to be sure, others are naw following him beside whom 1 Luther might seem modest), and I have scarcely ventured i to trust my own judgment when I have thought how many ^.thousands of men agree in their support of Luther. Even though I were not moved by the number of them, there are among them very many whom I know to be of good mind and possessed of great judgment, not affected by the popular- ity of any teaching, and who have always seemed to me here- tofore to be upright and pious men. I have often wondered r what they saw in Luther's writings to make them embrace /them so eagerly and hold them so tenaciously. I have never found any of these men who has quite satisfied me when a friendly discussion has arisen, therefore I feared sometimes that it was my stupidity which prevented me from seeing the things they held, with such confidence and such common agree-
 * temess, joined with an arrogance, that offends me (though,

MI Samuel vi. 6f.

�� �