In Germany to the Leipsic Disputation - James Aitken Wylie

he had but "run with the footmen," while Luther
was contending "with horses." His own experience
enabled him to guess at the inner history of the
monk who now stood before him.
The Vicar-General called the monk to him,
spoke words of kindness – accents now become
strange to Luther, for the inmates of his monastery
could account for his conflicts only by believing
him possessed of the Evil One – and by degrees he
won his confidence. Luther felt that there was a
mysterious influence in the words of Staupitz,
which penetrated his soul, and was already exerting
a soothing and mitigating effect upon his trouble.
In the Vicar-General the monk met the first man
who really understood his case.
They conversed together in the secrecy of the
monastic cell. Luther laid open his whole soul; he
concealed nothing from the Vicar-General. He told
him all his temptations, all his horrible thoughts –
his vows a thousand times repeated and as often
broken; how he shrank from the sight of his own
vileness, and how he trembled when he thought of
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