In Germany from the Leipsic Disputation to the Diet at Worms - James Aitken Wylie

though doubtless a wholly undesigned,
representation of the state and expectancies of
Christendom at that hour. Had not the nations
waited in darkness– darkness deep as that of those
who dwell among the dead–for the coming of a
deliverer? Had not such a deliverer been foretold?
Had not Huss seen Luther's day a century off, and
said to the mourners around his stake, as the
patriarchs on their deathbed, "I die, but God will
surely visit you?"
The "hundred years" had revolved, and now the
deliverer appears. He comes in humble guise–in
cowl and frock of monk. He appears to many of his
own age as a Greater appeared to His, "a root out
of a dry ground."
How can this poor despised monk save us? men
asked. But he brought with him that which far
transcends the sword of conqueror–the Word, the
Light; and before that Light fled the darkness. Men
opened their eyes, and saw that already their
fetters, which were ignorance and superstition,
were rent. They were free.
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