To one who had been educated and trained amid the retirement of a cloister, the sight of such an assembly must have been overwhelming. There sat Charles, sovereign of half the world. And there on either side of him were ranged the peers and potentates of the German empire—bishops and archbishops, cardinals in their scarlet robes, papal nuncios in their official magnificence, ambassadors from the mightiest kingdoms of Christendom, to say nothing of deputies and officials. Such was the assembly of the States-General at Worms. And gathered, the reader may ask, for what? It was really to hear the trial and judge the son of a poor miner. Dressed in his monk's frock and hood, pale-faced and worn with the fatigues and hazards of his recent life, he stood silent and self-possessed in the midst of more than five thousand spectators. "Yet prophet-like that lone one stood, with dauntless words and high," answering all questions with force and modesty.
After a moment of intense stillness, the chancellor of Treves addressed him in a loud voice, first in Latin and then in German: "Martin Luther, You are called upon by his imperial Majesty to answer two questions: first, Do you admit that these books," pointing to about twenty volumes placed on a table, "were written by you? Secondly, Are you prepared to retract these books, and their contents, or do you persist in the opinions you have advanced there?" Then Luther replied: That, in respect to the first question, he did undoubtedly acknowledge these books, and would never disclaim any one of them. As to the second, he asked that some further space for consideration might be granted him, that he might so frame his answer as neither to offend the word of God nor endanger his own soul. One day was granted. Whatever may have been Luther's reason for this request we need not stay to inquire: one thing is certain, that it was overruled by God to discover and reveal the secret springs of Luther's strength and courage, and the strength and courage of faith in all ages. That wonderful prayer which was offered up shortly before his second appearing, is the most precious document in the whole history of the Reformation. We cannot characterize it; we give it from D'Aubigne's history.