that I have the gospel, not from men, but from heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ ....
I write this to apprise you that I am on my way to Wittenberg under a far higher protection
than that of the Elector; and I have no intention of asking your Grace’s support. Nay, I
believe that I can offer your Highness better protection than your Highness can offer me.
Did I think that I had to trust in the Elector, I should not come at all. The sword is powerless
here. God alone must act without man’s interference. He who has most faith will be the
most powerful protector. As I feel your Grace’s faith to be still weak, I can by no means
recognize in you the man who is to protect and save me. Your Electoral Grace asks me,
what you are to do under these circumstances? I answer, with all submission, Do nothing
at all, but trust in God alone .... If your Grace had faith, you would behold the glory of
God; but as you do not yet believe, you have not seen it. Let us love and glorify God
forever. Amen."
Being asked by the Elector to give his reasons for a return, he assigned, in a letter of March7, from Wittenberg,^481 three reasons: the urgent written request of the church at Wittenberg; the
confusion in his flock; and his desire to prevent an imminent outbreak. "My second reason," he
wrote, "is that during my absence Satan has entered my sheepfold, and committed ravages which
I can not repair by writing, but only by my personal presence and living word. My conscience
would not allow me to delay longer; I was bound to disregard, not only your Highness’s disfavor,
but the whole world’s wrath. It is my flock, the flock intrusted to me by God; they are my children
in Christ. I could not hesitate a moment. I am bound to suffer death for them, and will cheerfully
with God’s grace lay down my life for them, as Christ commands (John 10:12)."
Luther rode without fear through the territory of his violent enemy, Duke George of Saxony,
who was then urging the Elector to severe measures against him and the Wittenbergers. He informed
the Elector that he would pass through Leipzig, as he once went to Worms, though it should rain
Duke Georges for nine days in succession, each fiercer than the original in Dresden.
He safely arrived in Wittenberg on Thursday evening, the 6th of March, full of faith and
hope, and ready for a fight against his false friends.
On this journey he had on the 3d or 4th of March an interesting interview with two Swiss
students, Kessler and Spengler, in the tavern of the Black Bear at Jena. We have an account of it
from one of them, John Kessler of St. Gallen, who afterwards became a reformer of that city.^482 It
contrasts very favorably with his subsequent dealings with the Swiss, especially with Zwingli,
which were clouded by prejudice, and embittered by intolerance. The episode was purely private,
and had no influence upon the course of events; but it reveals a characteristic trait in this mighty
man, who even in critical moments of intense earnestness did not lose his playful humor. We find
the same combination of apparently opposite qualities when at Coburg he was watching the affairs
of the Diet at Augsburg, and wrote a childlike letter to his little Hans. Such harmless humor is like
the light of the sun breaking through dark clouds.
(^481) De Wette, II. 141-144.
(^482) Published by Bernet, Joh. Kessler genannt Athenarius, St. Gallen, 1826, and more fully by E. Götzinger in Kessler’s Sabbata, St.
Gallen, 1866 and 1868, 2 parts. See a good account in Hagenbach’s Ref. Gesch., pp. 141 sqq. In the Schwarze Bär hotel at Jena, where I
stopped a few days in July, 1886, the "Lutherstube" is still shown with the likeness of Luther an old Bible, and Kessler’s report.