A weak, poor man, arraigned and alone before the assembled powers of
the earth, with only the grace of God and his cause on which to lean,
had demand made of him whether or not he would retract his books or
any part of them, _Yes_ or _No_. But he did not shrink, neither did he
falter. "Since Your Imperial Majesty and Your Excellencies require of
me a direct and simple answer, I will give it. To the pope or councils
I cannot submit my faith, for it is clear that they have erred and
contradicted one another. Therefore, unless I am convinced by proofs
from Holy Scripture or by sound reasons, and my judgment by this means
is commanded by God's Word, _I cannot and will not retract anything_:
for a Christian cannot safely go contrary to his conscience." And,
glancing over the august assembly, on whose will his life hung, he
added in deep solemnity, those immortal words: "HERE I STAND. I
CAN DO NO OTHERWISE. SO HELP ME GOD! AMEN."[14]
Simple were the facts. Luther afterward wrote to a friend: "I expected
His Majesty would bring fifty doctors to convict the monk outright;
but it was not so. The whole history is this: Are these your books?
_Yes._--Will you retract them? _No._--Well then, begone."
He said the truth, but he could not then know all that was involved in
what he reduced to such a simple colloquy. With that _Yes_ and _No_
the wheel of ages made another revolution. The breath which spoke them
turned the balances in which the whole subsequent history of
civilization hung. It was the _Yes_ and _No_ which applied the brakes
to the Juggernaut of usurpation, whose ponderous wheels had been
crushing through the centuries. It was the _Yes_ and _No_ which
evidenced the reality of a power above all popes and empires. It was
the _Yes_ and _No_ which spoke the supreme obligation of the human
soul to obey God and conscience, and started once more the pulsations
of liberty in the arteries of man. It was the _Yes_ and _No_ which
divided eras, and marked the summit whence the streams began to form
and flow to give back to this world a Church without a pope and a
State without an Inquisition.
Charles had the happiness at Worms to hear the tidings that Fernando
Cortes had added Mexico to his dominions. The emancipated peoples of
the earth in the generations since have had the happiness to know that
at Worms, through the inflexible steadfastness of Martin Luther, God
gave the inspirations of a new and better life for them!