heretics, and exhort his lieutenants to suppress them as being more
dangerous than the Papists. Carlstadt, unable to answer their
arguments from Scripture, went over to their side, and even
Melanchthon felt so shaken in his opposition that he appealed to
Wartburg for guidance. The students at the university became so
restless and turbulent that Duke George of Saxony began to take the
prompt and decisive action necessary for dealing with such a dangerous
situation. Luther, alarmed for the future of his work, abandoned his
retreat at Wartburg (March 1522) and returned to Wittenberg, where he
had recourse to stern measures to put an end to the confusion. He
drove Carlstadt from the city, and even followed him to other places
where he tried to find refuge, till at last, after a very disedifying
scene between them in a public tavern, he forced him to flee from
Saxony. Carlstadt's greatest offence in the eyes of his master was his
preaching against the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, though
Luther himself admitted that he should have liked to deny the Real
Presence if only to annoy the Pope, were it not that the words of
Scripture proved too strong. Carlstadt adopted a different
interpretation, but Luther was not the man to tolerate individual
judgment in the case of one of his own lieutenants. Carlstadt was
denounced as a heretic and a blasphemer, for whom no punishment could
be sufficiently severe. Munzer, too, was banished, and with the
assistance of the Elector, Luther was enabled to overcome all his
opponents.

Luther owed his success in the opening years of his campaign mainly to
his ability in gauging the feelings of the different classes whose
support he wished to obtain, as well as to his complete mastery of the
German language. In appealing to the monks and nuns, who were longing
to escape from the obligations they had contracted, he offered them