Luther Before the Diet
139
would be satisfied with nothing short of his death; only by concealment
could he be preserved from the jaws of the lion. God gave wisdom to
Frederick of Saxony to devise a plan for the reformer’s preservation.
With the co-operation of true friends, the elector’s purpose was carried
out, and Luther was effectually hidden from friends and foes. Upon
his homeward journey, he was seized, separated from his attendants,
and hurriedly conveyed through the forest to the castle of Wartburg,
an isolated mountain fortress. Both his seizure and his concealment
were so involved in mystery that even Frederick himself for a long
time knew not whither he had been conducted. This ignorance was
not without design; so long as the elector knew nothing of Luther’s
whereabouts, he could reveal nothing. He satisfied himself that the
reformer was safe, and with this knowledge he was content.
Spring, summer, and autumn passed, and winter came, and Luther
still remained a prisoner. Aleander and his partisans exulted as the
light of the gospel seemed about to be extinguished. But instead of
[169]
this, the reformer was filling his lamp from the store-house of truth;
and its light was to shine forth with brighter radiance.
In the friendly security of the Wartburg, Luther for a time rejoiced
in his release from the heat and turmoil of battle. But he could not long
find satisfaction in quiet and repose. Accustomed to a life of activity
and stern conflict, he could ill endure to remain inactive. In those
solitary days, the condition of the church rose up before him, and he
cried in despair, “Alas! there is no one, in this latter day of His anger, to
stand like a wall before the Lord, and save Israel!” Again, his thoughts
returned to himself, and he feared being charged with cowardice in
withdrawing from the contest. Then he reproached himself for his
indolence and self-indulgence. Yet at the same time he was daily
accomplishing more than it seemed possible for one man to do. His
pen was never idle. While his enemies flattered themselves that he was
silenced, they were astonished and confused by tangible proof that
he was still active. A host of tracts, issuing from his pen, circulated
throughout Germany. He also performed a most important service for
his countrymen by translating the New Testament into the German
tongue. From his rocky Patmos he continued for nearly a whole year
to proclaim the gospel, and rebuke the sins and errors of the times.
But it was not merely to preserve Luther from the wrath of his
enemies, nor even to afford him a season of quiet for these important