"  Either  deny  God  or  the  world,"  said  he, — "  who  can  doubt  which  is
better  ?  God  has  made  me  an  elector  of  the  empire,  a  dignity  of  which  I
never  was  worthy  ;  let  Him  do  with  me  further  according  to  His  good
pleasure."

A  dream  which  he  had  about  this  time  affords  a  curious  proof  of  what
was  passing  in  his  mind.  He  was  seized  with  that  sort  of  stifling  oppres-
sion in  which  the  sleeper  feels  as  if  he  were  expiring  under  a  crushing
weight.  He  dreamt  that  he  lay  under  a  mountain,  on  the  summit  of
which  stood  his  cousin  George  ;  towards  morning  the  mountain  crumbled
away,  and  his  hostile  kinsman  fell  down  by  his  side.
In  short,  the  aged  prince  neither  quailed  nor  wavered.  Great  events
rarely  come  to  pass  without  those  great  moral  efforts  which  are  the  neces-
sary, though  hidden  germs  of  new  social  and  political  institutions.  Elector
John  continued  to  declare  that  the  emperor  should  find  him  a  loyal  and
peaceful  prince  in  every  respect  ;  but  that  he  would  never  be  able  to  induce
him  to  regard  the  eternal  truth  as  not  the  truth,  or  the  imperishable  word
of  God  as  not  God's  word.
The  man  who  had  the  greatest  influence  in  keeping  him  steady  to  this
determination,  was  unquestionably  Luther,  though  he  was  not  with  him.
Luther's  sentence  of  ban  was  not  yet  revoked,  and  though  he  had
remained  secure  in  spite  of  it,  the  elector  could  not  bring  him  to  the
diet.     He  left  him  at  Coburg,  on  the  frontier  of  his  territory.
