From the Diet of Worms to the Augsburg Confession - James Aitken Wylie

painful mission when all others had declined it. He
described the tender solicitude and sleepless care of
his master, the Pope, whom he likened now to a
pilot, sitting aloft, and watching anxiously, while
all on board slept; and now to a shepherd, driving
away the wolf, and leading his flock into good
pastures. He could not refrain from expressing "his
wonder that so many great and honorable princes
should suffer the religion, rites, and ceremonies
wherein they were born and bred, and in which
their fathers and progenitors had died, to be
abolished and trampled upon." He begged them to
think where all this would end, namely, in a
universal uprising of peoples against their rulers,
and the destruction of Germany. As for the Turk, it
was unnecessary for him to say much. The
mischief he threatened Christendom with was plain
to all men.
The princes heard him with respect, and
thanked him for his good will and his friendly
counsels; but to come to the matter in hand, the
German nation, said they, sent a list of grievances
in writing to Rome; they would like to know ff the
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