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

taken possession of his lodgings when princes,
dukes, counts, bishops, men of all ranks, friends
and foes, besieged his hotel and crowded into his
apartments. When one relay of visitors had been
dismissed, another waited for admission. In
themidst of that brilliant throng Luther stood
unmoved. He heard and replied to all their
questions with calmness and wisdom. Even his
enemies could not withhold their admiration at the
dignity with which he bore himself. Where has the
miner's son acquired those manners which princes
might envy, that courage which heroes might strive
in vain to emulate, and where has he learnt that
wisdom which has seduced, say some–
enlightened, say others–so many thousands of his
countrymen, and which none of the theologians of
Rome have been able to withstand? To friend and
foe alike he was a mystery. Some revered him, says
Pallavicino, as a prodigy of knowledge, others
looked upon him as a monster of wickedness; the
one class held him to be almost divine, the other
believed him to be possessed by a demon.
This crowd of visitors, So varied in rank and so
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