And if we wonder in the future chapters of his life and this book what it was that made Luther more than anyone else persist and persist where others had failed, it is this despair that must be our answer. He had no patience for theological bromides and had no fear of being burned at the stake. That would have been less painful than the deep soul agony of his Anfechtungen, and the inescapable tortures of hell itself, so he rode on and on and would get where he meant to go or would die riding.
