[Sidenote: Luther's Elements of Greatness.]
But, beside Scripture and unperverted reason, he had another element of power. He was master of the sympathies and passions of the people. His father was a toiling miner. His grandfather was a peasant. He had been trained to penury; he had associated with the poor; he was a man of the people; he was their natural friend. He saw and lamented their burdens, and rose up for their deliverance. And the people distinguished their true friend, from their false friends. They saw the sincerity, earnestness, and labors of the new apostle of liberty, and believed in him, and made an idol of him. They would protect him, and honor him, and obey him, and believe what he taught them, for he was their friend, whom God had raised up to take off their burdens, and point a way to heaven, without the intercession of priests, or indulgences, or penance. Their friend was to expose the corruptions of the clergy, and to give battle to the great arch enemy who built St. Peter's Church from their hard-earned pittances. A spirit from heaven enlightened those to whom Luther preached, and they rallied around his standard, and swore never to separate, until the great enemies of the poor and the oppressed were rendered powerless. And their sympathies were needed, and best services, too; for the great man of the age--the incarnated spirit of liberty--was in danger.
The pope, hitherto mild, persuasive, and undecided, now arose in the majesty of his mighty name, and, as the successor of St. Peter, hurled those weapons which had been thunderbolts in the hands of the Gregories and the Innocents. From his papal throne, and with all the solemnity of God's appointed vicegerent, he denounced the daring monk of Wittemberg, and sentenced him to the wrath of God, and to the penalty of eternal fire. Luther was excommunicated by a papal bull, and his writings were condemned as heretical and damnable.
This was a dreadful sentence. Few had ever resisted it successfully, even monarchs themselves. Excommunication was still a fearful weapon, and used only in desperate circumstances. It was used only as the last resort; for frequency would destroy its power. In the middle ages, this weapon was omnipotent; and the middle ages had but just passed away. No one could stand before that awful anathema which consigned him to the wrath of incensed and implacable Deity. Much as some professed to despise the sentence, still, when inflicted, it could not be borne, especially if accompanied with an interdict. Children were left unburied. The churches were closed. The rites of religion were suspended. A funereal shade was spread over society. The fears of hell haunted every imagination. No reason was strong enough to resist the sentence. No arm was sufficiently powerful to remove the curse. It hung over a guilty land. It doomed the unhappy offender, who was cursed, wherever he went, and in whatever work he was engaged.