During the sermon a crash in the balconies of the crowded church seared the hearers, who
rushed to the door; but Luther allayed the panic by raising his hand, and assuring them that it was
only a wicked sport of the Devil.^344
In Gotha and Eisenach he preached likewise to crowded houses. At Eisenach he fell sick,
and was bled; but a cordial and good sleep restored him sufficiently to proceed on the next day. He
ascribed the sickness to the Devil, the recovery to God. In the inns, he used to take up his lute, and
to refresh himself with music.
He arrived at Frankfurt, completely exhausted, on Sunday, April 14. On Monday he visited
the high school of William Nesse, blessed the children and exhorted them "to be diligent in reading
the Scriptures and investigating the truth." He also became acquainted with a noble patrician family,
von Holzhausen, who took an active part in the subsequent introduction of the Reformation in that
city.^345
As he proceeded, the danger increased, and with it his courage. Before be left Wittenberg,
the Emperor had issued an edict ordering all his books to be seized, and forbidding their sale.^346
The herald informed him of it already at Weimar, and asked him, "Herr Doctor, will ye proceed?"
He replied, "Yes." The edict was placarded in all the cities. Spalatin, who knew the critical situation,
warned him by special messenger, in the name of the Elector his patron, not to come to Worms,
lest he might suffer the fate of Hus.^347
Luther comforted his timid friends with the words: Though Hus was burned, the truth was
not burned, and Christ still lives. He wrote to Spalatin from Frankfurt, that he had been unwell ever
since he left Eisenach, and had heard of the Emperor’s edict, but that he would go to Worms in
spite of all the gates of hell and the evil spirits in the air.^348 The day after, he sent him from
Oppenheim (between Mainz and Worms) the famous words: -
"I shall go to Worms, though there were as many devils there as tiles on the roofs."^349
A few days before his death at Eisleben, he thus described his feelings at that critical period:
"I was fearless, I was afraid of nothing; God can make one so desperately bold. I know not whether
(^344) "Seid still," he said, "liebes Volk, es ist der Teufel, der richtet so eine Spiegelfechterei an; seid still, es hat keine Noth." Some of his
indiscreet admirers called this victory over the imaginary Devil the first miracle of Luther. The second miracle, they thought, he performed
at Gotha, where the Devil played a similar trick in the church, and met with the same defeat.
(^345) His brief sojourn at Frankfurt, and his contact with the Holzhausen family, is made the subject of an interesting historical novel:
Haman von Holzhausen. Eine Frankfurter Patriziergeschichte nach Fainilienpapieren erzählt von M. K. [Maria Krummacher]. Bielefeld
and Leipzig, 1885. See especially chap. XX., pp. 253, sqq.
(^346) The edict is dated March 10. See Burkhardt, Luther’sBriefwechsel (1866), p. 38, who refers to Spalatin’s MS. Seidemann dates the
letter from March 2. Ranke, in the sixth ed. (1881), I. 333, says that it was published March 27, on the doors of the churches at Worms.
Luther speaks of it in his Eisleben report, and says that the edict was a device of the Archbishop of Mainz to keep him away from Worms,
and tempt him to despise the order of the Emperor. Works, Erl. Frankf. ed., LXIV. 367.
(^347) Notwithstanding this danger, Janssen thinks (II. 158) that it required no "special courage" for Luther to go to Worms.
(^348) April 14 (De Wette, I. 587): "Christus vivit, et intrabimus Wormatiam invitis omnibus portis inferni et potentatibus aeris" (Eph.
2:2).
(^349) Spalatin reports the saying thus: "Dass er mir Spalatino aus Oppenheim gen Worms schrieb: ’Er wollte gen Worms wenn gleich so
viel Teufel darinnen wären als immer Ziegel da wären’ " (Walch, XV. 2174). A year afterwards, in a letter to the Elector Frederick, March
5, 1522 (De Wette, II 139), Luther gives the phrase with this modification: "Er [the Devil] sah mein Herz wohl, da ich zu Worms einkam,
dass, wenn ich hätte gewusst, dass so viel Teufel auf mich gehalten hätten, als Ziegel auf den Dächern sind, wäre ich dennoch mitten
unter sie gesprungen mit Freuden." In the verbal report he gave to his friends at Eisleben in 1546 (Erl. Frankf. ed., vol. LXIV. p. 368):
"Ich entbot ihm [Spalatin]wieder: ’Wenn so viel Teufel zu Worms wären als Ziegel auf den Dächern, noch [doch]wollt ich hinein.’"