amidst cursing and swearing, pulled him out, put him on horseback, hurried away with him in full
speed, and brought him about midnight to the Wartburg, where he was to be detained as a noble
prisoner of state in charge of Captain von Berlepsch, the governor of the castle.
The scheme had been wisely arranged in Worms by the Elector Frederick, whom Aleander
calls "the fox of Saxony." He wavered between attachment to the old faith and inclination to the
new. He could not be sure of Luther’s safety beyond the term of three weeks when the Emperor’s
safe-conduct expired; he did not wish to disobey the Emperor, nor, on the other hand, to sacrifice
the reformer, his own subject, and the pride of his university. He therefore deemed it best to withdraw
him for a season from the public eye. Melanchthon characterizes him truly when he says of Frederick:
"He was not one of those who would stifle changes in their very birth. He was subject to the will
of God. He read the writings which were put forth, and would not permit any power to crush what
he believed to be true."
The secret was strictly kept. For several months even John, the Elector’s brother, did not
know Luther’s abode, and thought that he was in one of Sickingen’s castles. Conflicting rumors
went abroad, and found credence among the crowds who gathered in public places to hear the latest
news. Some said, He is dead; others, He is imprisoned, and cruelly treated. Albrecht Dürer, the
famous painter, who was at that time at Antwerp, and esteemed Luther as "a man enlightened by
the Holy Spirit and a confessor of the true Christian faith," entered in his diary on Pentecost, 1521,
the prayer that God may raise up another man in his place, and fill him with the Holy Spirit to heal
the wounds of the Church.
The Wartburg is a stately castle on a hill above Eisenach, in the finest part of the Thuringian
forest. It combines reminiscences of mediaeval poetry and piety with those of the Reformation. It
was the residence of the Landgraves of Thuringia from 1073 to 1440. There the most famous
Minnesängers, Walther von der Vogelweide, and Wolfram von Eschenbach, graced the court of
Hermann I. (1190–1217); there St. Elizabeth (1207–1231), wife of Landgrave Ludwig, developed
her extraordinary virtues of humility and charity, and began those ascetic self-mortifications which
her heartless and barbarous confessor, Conrad of Marburg, imposed upon her. But the most
interesting relics of the past are the Lutherstube and the adjoining Reformationszimmer. The plain
furniture of the small room which the Reformer occupied, is still preserved: a table, a chair, a
bedstead, a small bookcase, a drinking-tankard, and the knightly armor of Junker Georg, his assumed
name. The famous ink-spot is seen no more, and the story is not authentic.^408 In the Wartburg the
German students celebrated, in October, 1817, the third jubilee of the Reformation; in the Wartburg
Dr. Merle D’Aubigné of Geneva received the inspiration for his eloquent history of the Reformation,
which had a wider circulation, at least in the English translation, than any other book on church
history; in the Wartburg the Eisenach Conference of the various Lutheran church-governments of
Germany inaugurates its periodical sessions for the consultative discussion of matters of common
interest, as the revision of the Luther-Bible. The castle was handsomely restored and decorated in
mediaeval style, in 1847.
Luther’s sojourn in this romantic solitude extended through nearly eleven months, and
alternated between recreation and work, health and sickness, high courage and deep despondency.
(^408) On my last visit, July 31, 1886, I saw only scratches and disfigurements on the wall where the ink-spot was formerly pointed out.
"No old reporter," says Köstlin, I. 472 sq., "knows any thing about the spot of the inkstand on the wall; the story arose probably from a
spot of a different sort." Semler saw such an ink-spot at Coburg. The legend, however, embodies a true idea.