" This dauntless spirit
of the reformer inspired his disciples throughout Germany with new
courage, and in many other cities the pope's bull of excommunication was
burned with expressions of indignation and contempt.
Such was the state of this great religious controversy when Charles V.
held his first diet at Worms. The pope, wielding all the energies of
religious fanaticism, and with immense temporal revenues at his
disposal, with ecclesiastics, officers of his spiritual court, scattered
all over Europe, who exercised almost a supernatural power over the
minds of the benighted masses, was still perhaps the most formidable
power in Europe. The new emperor, with immense schemes of ambition
opening before his youthful and ardent mind, and with no principles of
heartfelt piety to incline him to seek and love the truth, as a matter
of course sought the favor of the imperial pontiff, and was not at all
disposed to espouse the cause of the obscure monk.
Charles, therefore, received courteously the legates of the pontiff at
the diet, gave them a friendly hearing as they inveighed against the
heresy of Luther, and proposed that the diet should also condemn the
reformer. Fortunately for Luther he was a subject of the electorate of
Saxony, and neither pope nor emperor could touch him but through the
elector.
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