Note 13 — LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION.
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A Romanist thus describes the picture: "When the approach of Luther was heard there ensued one of those deep silences in which the heart alone, by its hurried pulsations, gives sign of life. Attention was diverted from the emperor to the monk. On the appearance of Luther every one rose, regardless of the sovereign's presence. It inspired Werner with one of the finest acts of his tragedy.... Heine has glorified the appearance at Worms. The Catholic himself loves to contemplate that black gown in the presence of those lords and barons caparisoned in iron and armed with helmet and spear, and is moved by the voice of 'that young friar' who comes to defy all the powers of the earth."—Audin's Life of Luther.
"All parties must unite in admiring and venerating the man who, undaunted and alone, could stand before such an assembly, and vindicate with unshaken courage what he conceived to be the cause of religion, of liberty, and of truth, fearless of any reproaches but those of his own conscience, or of any disapprobation but that of his God."—Roscoe's Life of Leo X., vol. iv. p. 36.
Luther himself, afterward recalling the event, said: "It must indeed have been God who gave me my boldness of heart; I doubt if I could show such courage again."