Excerpt from The Leipzig Debate in 1519: Leaves From the Story of Luther's Life October 31, 1517, or the Luther of Worms facing the' Emperor Charles V and the great lords from Rome in a solemn and gorgeous assembly. Both events lend them selves easily to dramatization. Let us not reduce the importance of either event. The former certainly did start the movement which we call the Reformation; the latter was the culminating confessional act, which fitly closed the action begun in 1517. However, on the former occasion Luther was to a large extent a searcher after truth, and there was in him the timidity of the inquirer. Forty months later he knew what he wanted to know, and he also knew what he must do because he knew what he knew. The internal or spiritual growth of Luther during those three years and a half is due to the Leipzig Debate and the preparation for it. It was on that occasion that Luther began to clearly understand the issue before him, and took up the gauntlet which Rome had thrown down to him. Therefore July 4, 1519, and the following days must be reckoned not 'only as an important day in the personal story of Luther, but also as a truly great day in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.