Here I take
my stand. I can do no otherwise, so help me God, Amen."
In this sublime moral conflict Luther came off the undisputed conqueror.
The legates of the pope, exasperated at his triumph, intreated the
emperor to arrest him, in defiance of his word of honor pledged for his
safety. Charles rejected the infamous proposal with disdain. Still he
was greatly annoyed at so serious a schism in the Church, which
threatened to alienate from him the patronage of the pope. It was
evident that Luther was too strongly intrenched in the hearts of the
Germans, for the youthful emperor, whose crown was not yet warm upon his
brow, and who was almost a stranger in Germany, to undertake to crush
him. To appease the pope he drew up an apologetic declaration, in which
he said, in terms which do not honor his memory,
"Descended as I am from the Christian emperors of Germany, the Catholic
kings of Spain, and from the archdukes of Austria and the Dukes of
Burgundy, all of whom have preserved, to the last moment of their lives,
their fidelity to the Church, and have always been the defenders and
protectors of the Catholic faith, its decrees, ceremonies and usages, I
have been, am still, and will ever be devoted to those Christian
doctrines, and the constitution of the Church which they have left to me
as a sacred inheritance.
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