that they should try to overcome his obstinacy."


DOINGS OF THE ROMANISTS.

For three months the Diet wrangled over the affair of Luther without
reaching anything decided. The friends of Rome were the chief actors,
struggling in every way and hesitating at nothing to induce the Diet
and the emperor to acknowledge and enforce the pope's decree. But the
influence of the German princes, especially that of the Elector
Frederick, stood in the way; Charles would not act, as he had no right
to act, without the concurrence of the states, and the princes of
Germany held it unjust that Luther should be condemned on charges
which had never been fairly tried, on books which were not proven to
be his, and especially since the sentence itself presented conditions
with reference to which no answer had been legally ascertained.

To overcome these oppositions different resorts were tried. Leo issued
a second Bull, excommunicating Luther absolutely, anathematizing him
and all his friends and abettors. The pope's legate called for money
to buy up influence for the Romanists: "We must have money. Send us
money. Money! money! or Germany is lost!" The money came; but the
Reformer's friends could not be bought with bribes, however much the
agents of Rome needed such stimulation.

Trickery was brought into requisition to entrap Luther's defenders by
a secret proposal to compromise. Luther was given great credit and
right, except that he had gone a little too far, and it was only
necessary to restrain him from further demonstrations. Rome compromise
with a man she had doubly excommunicated and anathematized! Rome make