it was difficult to avoid suspicion.  In his fortified retreat, Luther found out earlier than the Wittenbergers what was going on in the world outside.  He was informed of everything that happened at his university, and tried to keep up the courage of his friends and direct their policy.  It is touching to see how he tried to strengthen Melanchthon, whose unpractical nature made him feel painfully the absence of his sturdy friend.  “Things will get on without me,” he writes to him; “only have courage.  I am no longer necessary to you.  If I get out, and I cannot return to Wittenberg, I shall go into the wide world.  You are men enough to hold the fortress of the Lord against the Devil, without me.”  He dated his letters from the air, from Patmos, from the desert, from “among the birds that sing merrily on the branches and praise God with all their might from morning to night.”  Once he tried to be crafty.  He inclosed in a letter to Spalatin a letter intended to deceive:  “It was believed without reason that he was at the Wartburg.  He was living among faithful brethren.  It was surprising that no one had thought of Bohemia;” and then came a thrust—­not ill-tempered—­at Duke George of Saxony, his most active enemy.  This letter Spalatin was to lose with well-planned carelessness so that it should come into the hands of the enemy.  But in this kind of diplomacy he was certainly not logical, for as soon as his leonine nature was aroused by some piece of news, he would determine impulsively to start for Erfurt or Wittenberg.  It was hard for him to bear the inactivity of his life.  He was treated with the greatest attention by the governor of the castle, and this attention expressed itself, as was the custom at that time, primarily in the shape of the best care in the matter of food and drink.  The rich living, the lack of activity, and the fresh mountain air into which the theologian was transported, had their effect upon soul and body.  He had already brought from Worms a physical infirmity, now there were added hours of gloomy melancholy which made him unfit for work.

On two successive days he joined hunting parties, but his heart was with the few hares and partridges which were driven into the net by the troop of men and dogs.  “Innocent creatures!  The papists persecute in the same way!” To save the life of a little hare he had wrapped him in the sleeve of his coat.  The dogs came and crushed the animal’s bones within the protecting coat.  “Thus Satan rages against the souls that I seek to save.”  Luther had reason for protecting himself and his friends from Satan.  He had rejected all the authority of the Church; now he stood terribly alone; nothing was left to him but his last resort—­the Scriptures.  The ancient Church had represented Christianity in continual development.  The faith had been kept in a fluid state by a living tradition which ran parallel with the Scriptures, by the Councils, by the Papal decrees; and they had adapted themselves,