like a spreading fire, kindling the souls of men as they seldom have
been kindled in any cause in any age. His _Address to the Nobility_
electrified all Germany, and first fired the patriotic spirit of
Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer. His book on _The Babylonian
Captivity of the Church_ sounded a bugle-note which thrilled through
all the German heart, gave Bugenhagen to the Reformation, and sent a
shudder through the hierarchy.[9] Already, at Maximilian's Diet at
Augsburg to take measures against the Turk, a Latin pamphlet was
openly circulated among the members which said that the Turk to be
resisted was living in Italy; and Miltitz, the pope's nuncio and
chamberlain, confessed that from Rome to Altenberg he had found those
greatly in the minority who did not side with Luther.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Glapio, the confessor of Charles V., stated to Chancellor Brück at
the Diet of Worms: "The alarm which I felt when I read the first pages
of the _Captivity_ cannot be expressed; they might be said to be
lashes which scourged me from head to foot."


LUTHER'S EXCOMMUNICATION.

But the tempest waxed fiercer and louder every day. Luther's growing
influence the more inflamed his enemies. Hochstrat had induced two
universities to condemn his doctrines. In sundry places his books were
burned by the public hangman. Eck had gone to Italy, and was "moving
the depths of hell" to secure the excommunication of the prejudged
heretic. And could his bloodthirsty enemies have had their way, this
would long since have come. But Leo seems to have had more respect for