For in a savage age which was accustomed to slay with fire and sword, this German had a high, pure conception of the battles of the intellect such as no other man attained.  Even in the times of his own greatest danger he mortally hated any use of violence.  He himself did not wish to be sheltered by his prince—­indeed he desired no human protection for his doctrine.  He fought with a sharp quill against his foes, but he burnt only a paper at the stake.  He hated the Pope as he did the Devil, but he always preached a love of peace and Christian tolerance of the Papists.  He suspected many of being in secret league with the Devil, but he never burned a witch.  In all Catholic countries the pyres flamed high for the adherents of the new creed; even Hutten was under strong suspicion of having cut off the ears of a few monks.  So humane was Luther’s disposition that he entertained cordial sympathy with the humiliated Tetzel and wrote him a consolatory letter.  To obey the authorities whom God has established was his highest political principle.  Only when the service of his God demanded it did his opposition flame up.  When he left Worms he had been ordered not to preach—­he who was just on the point of being declared an outlaw.  He did not submit to the prohibition, but his honest conscience was fearful that this might be interpreted as disobedience.  His conception of the position of the Emperor was still quite the antiquated and popular one.  As subjects obey the powers that be, so the princes and electors had to obey the Emperor according to the law of the land.

With the personality of Charles V. he had human sympathy all his life—­not only at that first period when he greeted him as “Dear Youngster,” but also later, when he well knew that the Spanish Burgundian was granting nothing more than political tolerance to the German Reformation.  “He is pious and quiet,” Luther said of him; “he talks in a year less than I do in a day.  He is a child of fortune.”  He liked to praise the Emperor’s moderation, modesty, and forbearance.  Long after he had condemned Charles’ policy, and in secret distrusted his character, he insisted upon it among his table companions that the master of Germany should be spoken of with reverence, and said apologetically to the younger ones, “A politician cannot be so frank as we of the clergy.”

Even as late as 1530 it was his view that it was wrong for the Elector to take arms against his Emperor.  Not until 1537 did he fall in reluctantly with the freer views of his circle, but he thought then that the endangered prince had no right to make the first attack.  The venerable tradition of a firm, well articulated federal State was still thus active in this man of the people at a time when the proud structure of the old Saxon and Franconian empires was already crumbling away.  Yet in such loyalty there was no trace of a slavish spirit.  When his prince once urged him to write an open letter, his sense